Saudis Say U.S. May Launch Attack Only to Defend Kingdom : Policy: Former hawks are now urging support for a diplomatic solution to the standoff.

Seeking to defuse speculation about war, Saudi Arabia’s defense minister said Saturday that U.S. forces would be allowed to launch an attack on Iraq from Saudi soil only if it were necessary for the defense of the kingdom.

“The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not a theater for any action that is not defensive for Saudi Arabia,” Prince Sultan ibn Abdulaziz told reporters.

“Saudi Arabia does not initiate hostilities against brother Arab states. Saudi Arabia is a defensive country. . . . It will do what is in the interest of the Arab world and what is in the interest of international peace and security,” the prince said.

Sultan’s remarks, made in Arabic through an interpreter, were in line with the tone that other Saudi officials have adopted in public in recent days. After sounding almost hawkish about the prospects for war in the early stages of the crisis, the officials are now emphasizing their support for diplomatic efforts that are under way to secure a peaceful Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait.

Privately, many of the same officials continue to voice deep pessimism about the success of these efforts. Arguing that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will remain an intolerable threat to the region even if he withdraws his forces from Kuwait, the officials continue to express the conviction in private conversations that the Iraqi leader must be removed from power.

However, the new, softer tone taken by Sultan and other senior officials seems to reflect three factors, diplomats and other Middle East analysts said.

One is the deference that Saudi Arabia clearly wants to show toward other Arab leaders who are engaged in mediation efforts. Saudi diplomacy has always been oriented towards consensus-building, and the Saudi leadership appears to be taking extreme care that its actions and statements do nothing at this point to undermine the various diplomatic initiatives undertaken by Egypt, Jordan and the United Nations.

Another concern, U.S. officials have said, is the fact that the U.S. military buildup in Saudi Arabia is not yet complete. Although U.S. forces are now here in sufficient numbers to halt an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia, they are believed to be at least several weeks away from the point where they could launch a successful counter-invasion of Kuwait.

“As the months go by, the options for military action increase,” one U.S. official noted.

But for the present, Saudi Arabia still “hopes for a peaceful solution,” Sultan said.

The third and perhaps most critical factor at the moment, another Saudi official said, has to do with the delicate situation of the several thousand foreigners being held hostage in Iraq and Kuwait.

According to some reports, Iraq has offered to free the foreigners in return for guarantees that it will not be attacked. The Saudi official said Sultan’s remarks were made in that context and were meant to assure the Iraqis that the buildup of U.S. and other foreign forces here is, at this stage, purely “defensive.”

Sultan himself urged the media not to “escalate the situation” by asking questions that do not “serve the cause of peace.”

“There exists,” he added, “a wide range of options with regard to the hostage situation” besides the use of force.

Sultan spoke with reporters as a group of 14 U.S. senators visited American troops deployed in the eastern Saudi desert south of Kuwait.

The senators brought the troops boxes of letters from home and took messages to deliver to relatives when they return.

Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) huddled next to an M-60 tank with a group of Marines based at Twentynine Palms, fielding questions about the news from back home and whether war would erupt.

“I saw Hitler on the march, and Mussolini,” Cranston told the soldiers. “I don’t want to see another Hitler get away with it.”

A leading opponent of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the past, Cranston said the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2 will oblige him and other pro-Israel senators to look more favorably on Saudi arms requests in the future.

“Given the present circumstances and their great cooperation, we should make available what they need,” Cranston said.

“I was a leader of the opposition, but not any more. Now they (Saudi Arabia) are allied with us. They are sitting on the front lines. They will take the first casualties,” he said.

“Obviously, we will be a lot more receptive” to Saudi arms sales, said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).

Col. Carl Fulford, commander of the Marine battalion visited by the senators, told the group that the Marines now hold a 15-mile-long front and would stop an Iraqi tank advance down the main highway from Kuwait.

Maj. Gen. John Hopkins, commander of the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, added that the Marines will triple in strength and be “at full combat power in two weeks.”

The senators told the soldiers they met that time has to be given to allow the economic embargo of Iraq to really bite.

“It is best that we not set a timetable” for the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said. “We have to get ready, psychologically and militarily, here at home, for our being here a long time.”

However, Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.) said “the betting is” that the current standoff will not continue indefinitely. “The longer he sits up there (in Kuwait), the tougher his decisions get,” Durenberger said of Saddam Hussein. “In another month or so, we’ll kick ass if it’s necessary,” he added.