Posted on 12/13/2002 8:09:55 AM PST by joesnuffy
December 12, 2002, 10:40 a.m. The Saudis’ Best Friend State Department gives House of Saud free pass, again, on child abductions.
ongress made little progress Wednesday in its attempt to unravel a web of Saudi deceit on a number of child-abduction cases involving American women and children trapped in the desert prison. The three (American) spin doctors on the Saudi payroll who had ducked an earlier hearing were there, but were worse than unhelpful and unresponsive — they were complicit in the Saudi crimes. And refraining from putting any pressure on the House of Saud was the Saudi royal family's most loyal ally, the U.S. State Department.
For about the past six months, Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, has been working to ensure the release of American citizens — estimated to be anywhere from dozens to hundreds of women and children — who are not allowed to exit the kingdom. Chairman Burton is particularly interested, however, in learning about the one case where two American citizens did exit Saudi Arabia — on the very same weekend he led a congressional delegation to try and negotiate their release.
The highest-profile Saudi child-abduction case is that of Patricia Roush's two daughters, who were kidnapped from their suburban Chicago home in 1986 by their father, a Saudi national. Alia and Aisha had been unable to leave Saudi Arabia for 16 years — until the Burton-led delegation arrived in the kingdom. Shortly before the lawmakers landed, the House of Saud had the girls shuttled off to a London hotel — surrounded by Saudi men and government officials in order to create a mini-Saudi Arabia — to give a canned statement to both a producer for Fox News's O'Reilly Factor and a U.S. consular officer. The paid Saudi flacks framed and "sold" the fiasco as a "vacation," but Burton's committee wants to know what else was going on behind the scenes — and what other assistance the Saudi mouthpieces have been providing.
But the Saudi-employed lobbyists and PR flacks are not turning over any documents, citing a host of legal defenses that mostly relate to "lobbyist privilege" and "diplomatic immunity" for their files — arguments not taken seriously by just about anyone, except the State Department. Taking yet another pass on an opportunity to pressure the House of Saud to release American citizens held against their will in Saudi Arabia, State's official position was that the claims of privilege for spin doctors raised "novel and complex questions that concern both domestic and international law." In light of U.S. law and the opinion of the world's leading expert on the relevant international law, however, the legal theories aren't "novel" or "complex" at all — they're just plain wrong.
Citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects archives and documents of embassies, the Saudi representatives claim that their files are the Saudi embassy's files — and thus protected. But the world's leading scholar on the Vienna Convention (and who was actually in attendance there), Eileen Denza, disagrees: "It is my opinion that the records which are the subject of the subpoenas are not archives or documents of the Saudi mission and so not protected on the basis of inviolability from disclosure."
But a long-established and court-tested U.S. law provides an even firmer foundation for why the paid flacks need to turn over the subpoenaed documents. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which dates back to the pre-World War II era, requires all paid agents of foreign governments to register and disclose all "propaganda" used on behalf of the foreign sovereign; furthermore, it stipulates that the agent's files are subject to search at any time by the Department of Justice. FARA was passed to stop the secret spread of Nazi propaganda, which Congress believed posed a very real threat. Now, Burton's committee believes that the activities of the Saudi mouthpieces — who are paid upwards of $200,000 each per month — should see the light of day, allowing the American people to make fully informed decisions about what kind of "friend" Saudi Arabia really is.
But if the documents are eventually turned over — Burton's chairmanship expires early next month, meaning his successor will have to pick up the mantle — the American people may learn even more about the kind of "friend" they have in the State Department. Every time internal State documents are handed over to the committee, there are e-mails or memos disparaging the American parents or recommendations for Secretary of State Colin Powell not to press the issue of child abductions with the Saudi royal family. The sham "statement" given by Roush's two daughters in London, for example, never would have received the stamp of legitimacy that it did if not for the helping hand of State — the result of a decision made by top officials there.
In written testimony to the committee for Wednesday's hearing, Will Taft of State's legal office offered hollow praise for Chairman Burton's efforts: "Your attention to these cases and your visit to Saudi Arabia have been very useful in underscoring to the Government of Saudi Arabia the importance the Congress and the American people attach to resolution of these cases." If only State would do something to "underscore" to the House of Saud the importance it also supposedly attaches to the safe return of abducted American children.
— Joel Mowbray is an NRO contributor and a Townhal
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