U.S. Seeks Access to Saudi Political Information

The Clinton administration is intensifying pressure on Saudi Arabia to provide fuller access to information about political tensions in the country in the wake of this week’s bombing of an American military housing complex near Dhahran.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry is expected to raise the issue during discussions with top Saudi officials today in hopes of enabling U.S. investigators to determine who set off the 5,000-pound bomb that killed 19 Americans--and to avert such attacks in the future, officials said.

U.S. officials have complained that Saudi Arabia’s refusal to permit FBI agents to interrogate four suspects in the bombing of a U.S. military facility in Riyadh in November denied them information that might have helped prevent Tuesday’s explosion. The four were executed after being found guilty of the November attack, which killed five Americans and two Indians.

At the same time, senior administration officials have begun reviewing security arrangements for American facilities in the Saudi kingdom amid indications that U.S. military commanders may not have moved forcefully enough to protect against terrorism.

Although U.S. commanders strengthened security protection after November’s bombing, they conceded that they did not anticipate an explosive as large as that set off Tuesday.

They also may not have taken seriously enough several hints this month that an attack might be imminent at the Dhahran base--including instances in which strangers fired pistol shots at the complex, tried to crash through the fence and took photographs of the base.

U.S. officials said Friday that there still is no clear evidence who was behind the Dhahran bombing.

Administration officials said Saudi Arabia’s cooperation with U.S. investigators this week has been excellent, with Riyadh permitting the FBI to take the lead in gathering and analyzing evidence collected at the site, albeit ostensibly under Saudi direction.

Sharing information about internal political dissension is difficult for the Saudis, even with close allies such as the United States, because it could be seen as a ceding of authority to a non-Muslim country. Some Saudis already view the U.S. presence as an evil.

However, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies told reporters at a briefing that Saudi King Fahd promised President Clinton “full cooperation” in the investigation and insisted that relations between U.S. and Saudi investigators have been “very good.”

The Pentagon said earlier this week that U.S. commanders had taken steps to beef up security at the Dhahran base after the November bombing, including installing concrete barriers around the area, increasing foot patrols and posting guards on rooftops.

Nevertheless, officials conceded that there are major shortcomings:

* Although officials fenced off a wide perimeter around the base, the truck carrying the explosives still was able to drive to within 35 yards of the building that housed U.S. troops--clearly too close, even if the bomb had been only half as large.

* While guards at the base noticed the strangers who took photographs and tried to drive through a fence, apparently no one was apprehended. Officials had no explanation for this on Friday.

* Despite Saudi claims that they had executed all those responsible for the November blast, U.S. intelligence agencies have warned military commanders that dissident groups in Saudi Arabia are “a force to be taking seriously,” a U.S. official confirmed Friday.

Nevertheless, some officials cautioned that warnings of that sort come frequently in an area such as the Middle East. “You rarely get the kind of information that is crucial, in terms of specific time and place,” one said.

There was no doubt that Tuesday’s blast has jarred the Clinton administration. The White House has established a high-level interagency group to review the situation, and the military has begun a major reassessment of its security plans.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism official who has been in contact with the Saudis, said he expects Saudi authorities to conduct a “massive roundup” over the next few days among dissidents who have a “strong, fanatical opposition to the monarchy.”

Even so, despite their pledge of cooperation, Cannistraro predicted that the Saudis will continue to withhold some information from U.S. investigators, if only to appear to preserve their sovereignty in the matter.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this article.