Ex-Envoy Urges Long-Term Strategy to Refurbish Saudi Image in US

DAMMAM, 22 January 2004 — A former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and an expert on Middle East politics, Chas W. Freeman, Jr., has said that there are members of the Bush administration who are prejudiced against Saudi Arabia and are therefore detrimental to Saudi-US relations.

Freeman was ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War of 1990-91. He is currently president of the Middle East Policy Council and also heads Projects International which is a business group.

The former ambassador, who was in Saudi Arabia and who met Crown Prince Abdullah, Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal and Riyadh Governor Prince Salman, said Saudi Arabia should adopt a long-term strategy to end doubts about its credibility in the minds of the American public. “There is no short cut to this course,” he said.

In an interview with Arab News, the former ambassador discussed current US-Saudi relations, the war in Iraq, global terrorism, Saudi society and the reforms introduced by Prince Abdullah.

Concerning Saudi-US relations, Freeman said there were those in the Bush administration who were anti-Saudi Arabia. Without hesitation, he named US Attorney General John Ashcroft as one. “He is my friend and was my classmate but what I say is true and I am speaking on the record.” Such individuals with their prejudices, he said, were not serving the cause of the United States. At the same time, Freeman said President George W. Bush had no kind of “grudge against the Kingdom. In fact, Bush and the crown prince have an “excellent working relationship.”

The former ambassador said the vast majority of Americans have no understanding of Islam or Saudi Arabia. “They believe what they read and a section of the US media is anti-Islamic and anti-Saudi and this is reflected in the slant of their stories.”

Freeman said Sept. 11 had done very serious damage to Saudi Arabia’s image in the US. To the ordinary American what matters is that of the 19 Al-Qaeda members who attacked New York and the Pentagon, 15 were Saudi. “They ask one simple question: ‘What wrong did we do to Saudi Arabia that they should do such a thing to us?’”

He said it was up to Saudi Arabia to clarify its position in such a way that the message reached ordinary people in the US. “Someone has to tell Americans that Saudis are suffering as much at the hands of terrorists as Americans as the May and November bombings of compounds in Riyadh show.”

Freeman suggested that Saudi Arabia should also set up an endowment to finance image-improving campaigns. He said there should be more people-to-people contacts. “It is a long process but it will yield concrete results.”

He suggested a dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism so that the elements of misunderstanding and mistrust among them could be eliminated.

When asked about Iraq, Freeman said the situation there was very volatile and that allied forces must not stay in Iraq. He admitted, however, that withdrawing American troops from Iraq would not be easy. “The US could not leave the country without giving it some kind of political system.”

Well! Isn't that precious...

Our former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia - has gone native on us..
He sounds more like a representative of the House of Saud..

If Saudi Arabia wishes to change their filthy image - they need to change their filthy behavior..

STOP - funding the Wahabbi sect lunatics.
START - arresting and PROSECUTING the militant clerics.
STOP - financing Mosques around the world that teach hate and recruit terrorists.
START - pruning the family tree of all the militant lunatics.
Etc, etc, etc.....

Being a realistic man, I doubt any of this will happen.

It will not be long, before Saudi Arabia is recognized as a fully compliant and supportive partner of our enemy...Militant Islam and the lunatics attempting to implement their will on the world.

That makes Saudi Arabia our enemy, by President Bush's description of our enemy..

If this "former Ambassador" is any indication of the level of intellect in our Foreign Service, I can understand why our enemies have such contempt for the United States... This guy comes across as a real clymer...

Someone needs point out - that Militant Islam is the enemy.
Militant Islam springs from the Wahabbi sect of Islam.
Wahabbi sect is centered in Saudi Arabia and funded by the House of Saud...

It's really as simple as that..

Semper Fi

Their Men in Riyadh: Ex-U.S. ambassadors who stick with the Saudis.
National Review, June 17, 2002, by Rod Dreher
......................................................

It's good to be the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia -- or, more precisely, it's good to have been Washington's man in Riyadh. No other posting pays such rich dividends once one has left it, provided one is willing to become a public and private advocate of Saudi interests.

The number of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Riyadh who now push a pro-Saudi line is startling. Walter L. Cutler runs the Meridian International Center, which has been heavily supported by the Saudis. Richard Murphy wields influence as a pro-Saudi voice at the Council on Foreign Relations. Chas W. Freeman Jr. now runs the robustly pro-Arab Middle East Policy Council, and heads a firm that sets up joint international business ventures. And lower-level diplomats with Riyadh experience on their resumes can be found throughout U.S. foreign-policy circles.

Prince Bandar, the colorful Saudi ambassador to the United States, makes no bones about how it works. The Washington Post has quoted Bandar as observing, "If the reputation builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office."

Not everyone feels all warm and fuzzy about this. "I think it's a disgrace," says Richard Perle, the former Reagan administration official. "They're the people who appear on television, they write op-ed pieces. The Saudis are a major source of the problem we face with terrorism. That would be far more obvious to people if it weren't for this community of former diplomats effectively working for this foreign government."

Hume Horan is a retired career diplomat whose service includes two stints in Riyadh. He says, "There have been some people who really do go on the Saudi payroll, and they work as advisers and consultants. Prince Bandar is very good about massaging and promoting relationships like that. Money works wonders, and if you've got an awful lot of it, and a royal title -- well, it's amusing to see how some Americans liquefy in front of a foreign potentate, just because he's called a prince."

An academic passion for sunny Araby hardly accounts for someone like Wyche Fowler, a former Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia who was dispatched as ambassador to Riyadh in President Clinton's second term. Fowler, a wily country boy who used to campaign on his rural background, seems to have had a good ol' time in King Fahd's court. "[The Saudis] are intelligent and quick," Fowler said in a recent interview, "and I enjoyed spending many hours drinking tea in the desert with them late into the night. They want to tell you about their family, and want to hear about yours. They would tell me a story about their father raising camels, and I would tell them one about my father raising cows."

When Fowler returned from Saudi Arabia, he landed several consulting contracts with international firms doing business in the region, and accepted the chairmanship of the Middle East Institute. This is a think- tank funded chiefly by Arab corporations and American corporations with significant business dealings in Arab countries. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah is listed among a handful of "benefactors" on the institute's most recent donor list. And lately, Fowler has emerged as one of the most visible pro-Saudi spokesmen in the media. He has let fly with observations of the sort guaranteed to make Prince Bandar smile.

Etc, etc......

Balance of article at: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1282/11_54/86481294/p1/article.jhtml

Looks like the "Ambassador" is a whore..
Bought and paid for....

Semper Fi

"Looks like the "Ambassador" is a whore...Bought and paid for.... "

RR ck out this page from your link, a CHART of the dead citizens of Israel justified by "September 29, 2000 saw an explosion of Palestinian anger and has resulted in an Intifada, Arabic for 'a shaking off'. Every day, innocent Palestinian and Israeli people are being killed. These pages count, graph and give a context to these deaths.

From Sept. 29, 2000 to January 15, 2004: Israeli Dead: 840
Palestinian Dead: 2665

Below are links to pages that graph and detail, in half-month increments, the killings of Palestinians and Israelis. Each page includes a graph of Israeli and Palestinian deaths as well as other details."
http://www.mepc.org/public%5Fasp/resources/mrates.asp

MR.(SICK) Ambassador, get your money up front for this PR job, too...

"Saudi-American Forum: Can you talk about the comments you made on the lawsuit - the $1 trillion suit by 9/11 victims and families against top-ranking Saudis -- talking about how it would further unravel the Saudi-U.S. partnership?

Ambassador Chas Freeman: When I was asked by the lawyers for the National Commercial Bank whether I would be willing to write a statement in connection with the lawsuit, I immediately agreed in part because I believe in the importance in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. I believe this lawsuit is potentially, profoundly disruptive to that relationship. But, mainly, I believe the Constitution gives the executive branch responsibility for conducting U.S. foreign relations and that the United States can only have one government at a time. We may have a separation of powers domestically -- that may be how we reach decisions domestically -- but internationally we can only speak with one voice.

It seemed to me to be completely anomalous to have the executive branch praising Saudi cooperation with us in connection with our struggle against terrorism, obviously arguing with the Saudis for even greater efforts on their part on the one hand, while on the other the courts might accede the views of the plaintiffs that the Saudis are criminals who should be punished and they're incorrigible.

I think the action of a court would jeopardize not only the U.S.-Saudi relationship but more broadly our ability to conduct foreign relations and successfully to cooperate internationally against terrorism. So, I had two motives in joining this and in putting myself forward in public with the full expectation that I would receive the sort of slanderous ignorant attacks that I have received. I've always believed that if you consider yourself a friend of someone or the supporter of a cause, you should not duck that issue, even when standing up is going to cause people to take pot-shots at you."

CHAS. W. FREEMAN, JR.
President, Middle East Policy Council
1730 M Street, NW, Suite 512
Washington, DC 20036-4505
(t) 202-296-6767
(f) 202-296-5791
e-mail: freeman@mepc.org

Chairman, Projects International, Inc.
1800 K Street, NW, #1018
Washington, DC 20006
(t) 202-333-1277
(f) 202-333-3128
e-mail: cwfpii@cs.com

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