E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Saudi Arabia hits back at Perle’s ‘irresponsible statement’
Saudi Arabia angrily rejected Monday a “tendentious” campaign led by US hawks after an advisor to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lumped the kingdom in the “axis of evil”. State-monitored media led the charge warning that Washington’s own interests were being damaged. Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence service chief and today ambassador in London, branded Richard Perle a “Zionist extremist”. The envoy told the Al-Hayat newspaper that Perle “has predicted the disintegration of Saudi Arabia and expressed his own point of view much more than that of Washington.” “People have been talking about the disintegration of Arabia and the overthrow of its regime since the kingdom was created in 1932,” said Prince Turki, a senior figure in the royal family. Saudi Arabia owed its existence to “God, followed by its faithful people,” he added.

The Okaz newspaper set the tone of the riposte in the media, which generally reflects official Saudi thinking. “The hawks stubbornly follow the same political line they laid out for this administration to impose their hegemony over the world and not to lead it,” it said. “While the whole world refuses war as a means of settling conflict ... Washington is alone against the tide, losing friends and making enemies,” the daily said. Okaz warned that “by tolerating campaigns directed against its strategic interest, the (Bush) administration is acting against American interests.” The United States imported 13.46 percent of its oil from Saudi Arabia in 2002, the paper noted.
... in a not so veiled threat.
Al-Watan hit out at such “irresponsible statements” which the daily charged were part of a “tendentious campaign”. “Richard Perle, one of the main planners of the war in Iraq, knows only the language of force, murder and destruction,” the paper said. “From his statements and those of his ilk, we do not believe that the United States wants to improve its image in the world. “This image will not change until it changes the policy based on the recourse or threat of recourse to force.”

The Mecca daily Al-Yaum branded Perle a “rotten fruit ... dishing out accusations left and right.” “Through its flagrant interference in the affairs of other states,” Washington was becoming “a tool destroying world peace,” added the Riyadh daily Al-Jazira.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2004-01-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=24263