Bush, Saudi Envoy Seek to Mend Rift

President Bush met with Saudi Arabia’s ambassador Tuesday to mend frayed relations between their two governments but failed to win Saudi support for the possible use of military force to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

A day after Vice President Dick Cheney laid out the administration’s case for “regime change” in Baghdad, the Saudis forcefully stated anew their opposition to achieving that aim through military action.

Even before Bush welcomed Prince Bandar ibn Sultan and six of the envoy’s eight children to his Texas ranch, a senior Saudi official in Washington declared that the Bush administration still had not made a cogent case for a preemptive strike against Hussein. Adel Jabeir, foreign policy advisor to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, called for a concerted diplomatic initiative instead.

“We don’t believe that people have thought through all of the consequences of” military action, Jubeir said on CNN.

He said the Saudis agree that Hussein is a threat, but he added: “What exactly will it take to deal with it? How many troops? Who’s going to pay for it? Where are they going to land? How many years will they have to occupy Iraq? How do you stabilize the country? Are the Kurds going to seek their own state? Is this going to make the Turks nervous? Is this going to destabilize Iran?”

Many U.S. lawmakers of both parties--and American allies around the world--are posing similar questions even as the administration this week escalated its saber-rattling.

Jubeir’s comments also stressed that the Saudis, who were key participants in the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Hussein, are unwilling to take part in any war now. Saudi officials have been “very clear on this with your government for a long time,” he said.

Bush, during his conversation with Bandar, insisted that he had made no decisions about how to proceed against Hussein, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

But, Fleischer added, “the president made very clear again that he believes that Saddam Hussein is a menace to world peace, a menace to regional peace.”

Cheney, in an address Monday to veterans in Nashville, said that only a preemptive strike against Iraq could prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons “fairly soon.” He also argued that ousting Hussein could bring more stability to the Middle East and enhance the chances of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Cheney’s comments were widely seen as an administration response to skepticism some lawmakers and former foreign policy officials have expressed about the wisdom of military action against Hussein. Also, some Bush supporters have complained that the administration needed to make a more forceful case for such a policy.

Differences over Iraq have underscored strained relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, prompting some U.S. experts to criticize the desert kingdom for not doing more to stem religious extremism.

Saudi officials bristle at such suggestions. And they were angered by a lawsuit filed by 700 relatives of Sept. 11 victims that alleges that the Saudi government was among those that helped finance Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.

In July, a private U.S. analyst told a Pentagon advisory panel that Saudi Arabia should be considered an enemy.

White House officials said Bush made a point of rejecting that suggestion during an 18-minute telephone call Monday with Crown Prince Abdullah in advance of his meeting with Bandar. Bush also assured the prince, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, that relations between the two nations remain strong.

In his meeting with Bandar, Bush promised to continue consulting with Saudi Arabia as well as other allies on Iraq, Fleischer said.

Bush also urged Saudi Arabia to make good on its pledge to give more than $100 million to help Afghanistan rebuild. Thus far, a senior administration official said, Riyadh has fallen “far short” of its commitment.

The president also brought up a custody dispute between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia involving Amjad Radwan, a woman born in 1983 in Houston to an American mother and Saudi father. The couple later moved to Saudi Arabia.

When Radwan’s mother, Monica Stowers, wanted to return to the United States, the father refused to let the child go, and a court in Saudi Arabia awarded him custody.

Bush expressed his hope that the dispute can be resolved so that Radwan “can be brought back to the United States,” Fleischer said, adding that there are other custody disputes between the two countries with similar circumstances.

Fleischer said Bandar vowed to relay the message to officials in Saudi Arabia.

Jubeir, in his comments, made clear that Saudi Arabia does not share Cheney’s dim view of the role U.N. weapons inspections might play in Iraq.

The vice president had suggested that Washington would not necessarily be deterred from its intentions even if Iraq were to readmit the inspectors, absent from the country since 1998, to monitor compliance with a program Baghdad agreed to at the end of the Gulf War.

“We believe [the inspection program] will succeed,” Jubeir said, “and if it does, the objective [of searching for weapons of mass destruction] will be achieved without firing a single bullet or losing a single life.”