January 23, 2002	Wednesday	Ziqa'ad 8, 1422

WASHINGTON: There are growing questions here about the state of the United States-Saudi Arabia relationship in the wake of the US-led “war against terrorism” and about the continued presence of American troops in the kingdom.

The questions have come to the fore because of a report in The Washington Post last week that Saudi officials have urged the US to withdraw troops from their country.

The US would obviously like to keep its troops in the Gulf, particularly if it contemplates extending its current campaign to Iraq, as is being advocated by hawks in Washington.

But such speculation appears only to have increased Saudi unease about the 5,000 or so American servicmen it has allowed to be stationed in the coutnry since the Gulf war.

Bush administration officials have denied over the past few days that there have been any approaches from Riyadh for a pullout of troops.

Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday said he had heard no suggestions of the kind reported in the press. However, he added: “As I have always said, though, we’re constantly reviewing our footprint. Secretary (of Defence Donald) Rumsfeld wants to make sure that our forces are distributed properly to serve our military interest in the region. But we have not been handed any eviction notice or given warning of an eviction notice coming from the Saudi government.”

Secretary Powell, who was answering questions on a television news show (partly reported in Dawn on Monday), stressed that the US had good relations with Saudi Arabia and the two countries were constantly in touch with each other on the military and diplomatic levels.

He was not aware of the basis for the news stories.

But the secretary made clear that the US had no interest in keeping forces there “beyond the need for those forces, and we shouldn’t impose ourselves on a government beyond the absolute minimum requirement that we have”.

In another TV interview on Sunday, Mr Powell said: “In my conversations with the Saudi leaders as recently as just about four or five days ago with Prince Saud, I’ve had no suggestion from them that they were about to ask us to leave.... We’ve always wanted to maintain a presence in that part of the world for a variety of reasons.”

He claimed that US forces in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf region provide a presence to deter Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and provide “a symbol of American presence, influence, and need”. Most of the hijackers involved in the Sept 11 attacks were Saudi nationals, and Osama bin Laden’s family itself has strong links with that country.

The New York Times reported last week that officials in Congress and at the Pentagon had called for a pullout of American forces because of what they see as Saudi Arabia’s “tepid support for the anti-terror war”and restrictions on US operations.

Last week, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush wanted to keep the US military presence in the kingdom and that he was not aware of any contact between Washington and Riyadh expressing a desire for the US military to leave.

But despite whatever official sources may say, there is no hiding Washington’s impatience with at least some Saudi attitudes and the recent show of independence by Riyadh, and the American policy of not questioning the Saudi leadership, for the sake of oil and strategic interests, may change.

This is reflected in an editorial in The Post on Sunday which, after discussing the political relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia and asserting that “the roots of Islamic extremism and terrorism lie in the intolerant ideology that (Crown) Prince Abdullah bows to”, concluded on this note: “The United States must now fashion a more complex policy toward Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries, balancing the need for some engagement with the necessity of countering that hostile ideology. In the end, the departure of US forces might just make that balance easier to strike.”

If asked to leave, observers point out, the United States would no longer have regular use of Prince Sultan Air Base, where American forces have maintained a presence for more than a decade.