September 28, 2002	Saturday	Rajab 20, 1423

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RIYADH, Sept 27: The Saudi Arabia had bankrolled the US-led 1991 Gulf war to the tune of $80 billion.

Riyadh contributed $80 billion towards the cost of the Gulf war, which led to the eviction of Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait by a US-led coalition in February 1991, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif told the Press here without giving any further details.

Prince Naif also accused the United States of applying double standards in the Middle East banning Iraq from acquiring lethal weapons, which Israel is allowed to keep. “They (the Americans) forbid Iraq and (other) Arab states from acquiring weapons of mass destruction which Israel is allowed to have, even though it threatens regional and world security,” he said.

He made it clear that Saudi Arabia did not want any country in the region to hold such weapons.

Rejecting terrorism, he said: “The most powerful nation in the world is hostile to Arabs and Muslims as a result of the influence the Zionist lobby wields in the United States.”

Prince Naif also defended the aid extended by Riyadh to families of Palestinians killed in the two-year-old uprising against Israeli occupation. “Saudi Arabia helps Palestinian families who lose their children or breadwinners” in the conflict with Israel, said the prince, who heads the Saudi committee for the support of the Al-Quds uprising (Intifada).

He dismissed what he said was a claim by the Israeli media that he and Prince Salman, Governor of Riyadh, who heads another committee for support of the Palestinians, backed terrorism.

“We have nothing to fear because Saudi Arabia provides aid to families of the Palestinian victims of Israeli repression, chiefly families who lost their breadwinners,” he said.