WASHINGTON, Aug 8: US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld has rejected reports that Washington considers Saudi Arabia a potential enemy.

At the daily Pentagon news conference on Wednesday, he assured the kingdom that the United States continued to respect it as a “reliable friend”.

The debate was kicked off on Tuesday by a report in The Washington Post that quoted a Rand Corp analyst, Laurent Murawiec, as telling the defence policy board that “Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies.” Later, the report said, a slide demonstration described Saudi Arabia as “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent in the Middle East”.

But Mr Rumsfeld dismissed the presentation as the personal views of an individual who is not even a US citizen but a “French national” invited to address a board made up of “private citizens who act as advisers to the Pentagon”.

Mr Rumsfeld said he brought up the briefer’s nationality to underscore that since he was a foreign national he had no security clearance and the briefing contained no classified information. Mr Rumsfeld said he misspoke himself on Tuesday when he told Pentagon employees that the briefing was classified.

“It was not the result of Rand analytical work or research. It was his personal views, which is fine. Everyone has personal views,” Mr Rumsfeld said.

“It does not represent the defence policy board’s views. It does not represent the department of defence’s views. And no senior member of the department of defence was there to hear it.”

The board had such prominent advisers as Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state; and Richard Perle, a former defence department official. No member of the board would comment publicly about the briefing. Mr Rumsfeld said two members of the board had heard Mr Murawiec’s briefing and brought him to address the group.

The story comes at a ticklish time for the Bush administration, which has been leaning heavily on Saudi Arabia to act as a peacemaker on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is a key player, if not an ally, in any US plans to invade Iraq.

Mr Rumsfeld at the same news conference Wednesday was asked about a statement by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud that the US military would not be able to use the Prince Sultan Air Base, a key launching site in the Persian Gulf War, to carry out an attack on Iraq.

In a testy tone, Mr Rumsfeld twice said he would not answer a “hypothetical” question. “We have had a long, close relationship with Saudi Arabia.

We have a good number of troops stationed there. We have an ongoing political and economic and military-to- military relationship which is constructive and helpful to both countries.”

But the report clearly touched a nerve in Washington if not the Bush administration. Last spring, as Saudi’s de facto chief of state, Prince Abdullah was visiting President George W. Bush at his Crawford, Texas ranch, Israeli forces were uncovering documents which they said directly linked the Saudi Arabians to financing Palestinian terrorism. In April, a telethon by Saudi Arabian national television raised $100 million for the families of Palestinian martyrs, which many viewed as a payment promised to suicide bombers to support their families.

One former foreign policy expert in the Clinton administration said the Saudis had been uncooperative and a subject of suspicion for the connections to anti-Israeli guerilla groups.

Repeatedly, articles in various publications have pointed out that 15 of the 19 hijackers that flew planes on Sept 11 carried Saudi passports and more than half of the prisoners at Guantanamo are Saudis or from the Gulf states.

In June, the Washington Times quoted Saudi Arabia’s top religious leader as giving an inflammatory television address that not only excoriated the Jews, but also made thinly veiled attacks on Western culture that seemed directed at Europe and the US.

US officials, like Mr Rumsfeld, have argued that Saudi Arabia is a developing society where the Bush administration is supporting reformists, like Prince Abdullah, in their internal struggle.

The Murawiec briefing reportedly followed a harder course, advocating that the only way to deal with Saudi Arabia was to warn it that continued support for terrorists would force the United States to take over the oil-fields to secure Western energy.

OSAMA RESPONSIBLE: Mr Rumsfeld has said that Osama bin Laden is responsible for the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.