Farrakhan Raps Bush on Oil Interests

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan equated President George Bush with a “warlord” Saturday, saying that the “vital interest” and reason for the U.S. presence in the Middle East was oil.

Farrakhan, speaking to reporters at a press conference in San Diego, said he hopes it is not “the intent of Mr. Bush and the warlords to destroy Saddam Hussein.”

The outspoken Chicago-based minister said the deployment of more than 50,000 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia could present that country with long-term social problems because Muslims worldwide are afraid that Western values could replace Saudi mores and laws, which are derived from the Koran.

“The Muslim worry is that the American lifestyle will change Saudi (Arabia) forever,” he said.

“I am a Muslim and I do not want to see Saudi Arabia turned into a bloody battleground,” he added.

He said he would withhold further comment on the U.S. deployment to the Middle East until after returning from a visit to Saudi Arabia, which begins in a few days.

Farrakhan, who preaches the teachings of the late Elijah Muhammad, began the press conference with remarks about the violence among blacks in America’s inner cities--”black on black” violence.

“Although black people account for 12% of the population,” he said, “they account for more than 50% of (murder victims).”

“Black leaders, black teachers, and black politicians have to be concerned about this,” he said.

He said he has figures that show more blacks will be killed in inner-city violence in the next two years than the entire number of blacks who died in Vietnam during a nine-year period there.

He also said that while a white man in America stands a 1 in 186 chance of being murdered in a lifetime, the corresponding figure for a black male is 1 in 21.

Calling it “fratricide,” he said the only end to the violence would come through economic and educational means.

“The vital interest of the United States in Saudi Arabia is in oil. Oil turns the wheels of industry and industry has turned its back on blacks,” he said, condemning the corporations that he says have pulled out of big cities into more suburban settings, taking black jobs with them.

Also, he said, “ignorance of the knowledge of self creates disrespect and disdain for self.”

Later, though, he ridiculed black studies programs in U.S. colleges, saying he was sad to see a “white institution trying to be like a black institution.”

During the meeting, he said 100,000 people had joined the Nation of Islam in the last year. Afterwards, when a member of his entourage was asked to confirm that figure, he said only “that’s what the man said, but I don’t speak for him.”

The formal press conference began before the meeting. Reporters were frisked and each item they carried was checked by one of Farrakhan’s 21-member entourage. One bodyguard demanded to examine the pens a reporter carried in his shirt pocket.

When Farrakhan finished speaking, the bodyguards insisted that the reporters remain seated until he walked out of the room.

Farrakhan, who in previous years has been quoted as calling Judaism a “dirty religion,” staunchly denied he bore any malevolence to Jewish people. Meanwhile, he maintained that the creation of the Israeli state was improper.