February 4, 2002	Monday	Ziqa’ad 20, 1422

RIYADH: Since the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, US-Saudi relations have been subject to greater scrutiny than perhaps at any time in nearly seven decades of cooperation. But more than four months later, while many people in both camps say they feel betrayed, their leaders - President Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah - insist that relations are just fine.

“Our relations with America and in particular with its government headed by President George W. Bush are excellent,” Abdullah, the de facto ruler of the world’s largest oil exporter, said in comments published recently in Saudi newspapers.

Both sides have grievances that have sparked a tit-for-tat row over the future of the Prince Sultan Air Base. Many people in this society are openly angry about US support for Israel.

The bruised feelings have focused on the air base, home to about 5,000 mostly US troops based there since the Iraqi invasion of neighbouring Kuwait in 1990. At least one Western diplomat acknowledged that the base has become an Achilles’ heel in relations between the two countries. “It is a military presence the Saudis see as inimical to their interests,” said the Riyadh-based diplomat who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

The conflict has heated up in recent days: Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that the US pull its troops out of Saudi Arabia. On the heels of Levin’s remarks, an anonymous Saudi official told The Washington Post that the US would be asked to leave because it has “overstayed its welcome.”

There is widespread hostility to the troops at all levels of Saudi society, although not necessarily on religious grounds. Some people said in interviews that they are angry that their government has spent so much money on its own military and still needs the US to protect it. Others argued that the US is using Saudi Arabia to promote its imperial interests in the region, and giving Saudi Arabia nothing but grief in return.

“What do we get from this?” asked a prominent businessman in Jeddah who, like many people in the kingdom, spoke on the condition that he not be identified for fear of angering authorities. “It is all about America’s interests.” In August, Abdullah - wrote to Bush saying that the kingdom might have to rethink its relationship with the US because of its support for Israel. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Los Angeles Times.