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| Wolfie interviews al-Jubeir... |
| 2002-08-28 |
| CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer discussed the Saudi view of such a military action with Adel Al-Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. BLITZER: Why do the Saudis this time not see Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to Saudi Arabia because 11 years ago, as you of course remember, you did perceive Saddam Hussein as a major threat? "You remember, back when they were sitting on your doorstep and they were going to take everything you had and kick your asses out of the country? Then after they took all the money, they were going to give the empty husk to the King of Jordan to rule. You remember that?" AL-JUBEIR: Quite the contrary. We see Saddam Hussein as a threat. We see him as a menace to the region. We believe that he must be brought into compliance with the U.N. resolutions. He must give up his weapons of mass destruction program. He has signed agreements to that effect and he should be held accountable to do so. "Certainly he should not be allowed under any circumstances to kick the Sauds out of Arabia and replace them with some poor relation minor king. But other than that..." What we don't see is, we don't see a need at this time for use of force. We believe that there's a process. There are negotiations under way between the U.N. and the Iraqis on letting the inspectors back. Let's pursue that. If we can succeed in achieving the objective of having inspectors on the ground and dismantling his weapons of mass destruction program, we would have done so without firing a single bullet or losing one single life. "It doesn't matter to us if he's a danger to you. As long as we can keep up this Muslim unity stuff and push our wahhabi fanatics down the throats of everyone around us, that gives us a party in each country that could be our enemy, which is all of them, of course. So we think we've got enough of an infrastructure in place now to protect ourselves. Meanwhile, if you kick the traces over in Iraq, and do something drastic like introduce the concept of individual liberty or even — God forbid! — religious freedom, we stand a good chance of seeing our own collapse. Who the hell wants that?" BLITZER: But you heard Vice President [Dick] Cheney say that might be too late. Delay could cause enormous casualties, enormous death. "You're not getting his point, are you?" AL-JUBEIR: Well, we have, I believe and I can't speak for the vice president, but he was talking about the doctrine of pre-emption, whereas what we talk about in this case is that an issue of pre-empting an attack against Iraq. We still think that war at this time is not advisable. There is no country in the world that supports it. There is no legal basis for it. There's no international sanction for it. There is no coalition for it. "We're doing our best to make sure nobody supports it. We're the leader in the Leave-Iraq-Alone Movement, except maybe for Ramsey Clark and his bunch." There are two wars currently going on in the region, one in Afghanistan and one between Israel and Palestinians. There's a third war going on in terms of the war against terrorism. We really don't need a fourth war in the region at this time. "None of these are related in our minds, mind you, even though they may all be connected in yours. We see three wars and want to avoid a fourth. You see one war, with Sammy just a campaign in it. You say 'banana,' we say 'death to infidels.'" BLITZER: You heard the vice president, though, make the case that by removing Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad that would help the U.S. in the war on terrorism and potentially help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well. "It'd really unjam some logs, I'd think..." AL-JUBEIR: I think our view is that it's the other way around. You need to settle the Israeli-Palestinian problem. You need to tone down the anger that's directed at the U.S. in the region, and then you need to pursue a legal process to bring Saddam into compliance. And if that doesn't work, then you pursue other options, but you don't put the cart before the horse. "You're assuming breaking up a logjam is a good thing. Let's be realistic here. Logjams are what we do, you know? While everyone's busy talking, they're not paying attention to the jihadis while they're cutting the heads off infidels. And that's the important thing." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |