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Iraq
Soddies pledge $1 billion to Iraq
2005-11-13
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said he is less worried that U.S. policies in Iraq will bring on a civil war there, and pledged anew to contribute $1 billion for rebuilding that war-ravaged country's shattered Wahabbi mosques and madrassas infrastructure. "My fears are much more eased," Prince Saud al-Faisal said Sunday following meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Before Iraqi voters passed a new constitution last month, Saud had told U.S. reporters he worried that sectarian disputes financed by his country complicated by the U.S. presence in Iraq were pulling the country toward civil war.

He said Saudi Arabia is working to distribute the reconstruction money promised earlier this year, but gave no date for it. The United States has chided Arab states for not doing enough to support post-Saddam Iraq and for being reluctant to open embassies there.

Rice said Saudi Arabia can do more to root out the sources of terror financing, but said the two countries were working together well. "The reason that countries or leaders are fighting terrorism is not to please us, not to please the United States," Rice said. "It's because their own people are dying ... because their own region is suffering a sense of instability."

Saudi Arabia has been working to rebuild a network of agents political and economic contacts with the United States. President Bush has reached back, inviting Saudi King Abdullah to his Crawford, Texas, ranch for a chummy visit last spring.

The two leaders agreed then to set up a high-level committee, headed by Rice and Saud, to deal with strategic issues. The two inaugurated that initiative during Rice's visit.

Relations between Riyadh and Washington suffered after the Sept. 11, attacks masterminded by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and anyone with two eyes some U.S. officials blamed the kingdom's austere branch of Islam, known as Wahhabism, for encouraging hatred of the West, Christians and Jews.

Saudi Arabia believed it was being unjustly blamed for the actions of bin Laden, who seeks to topple the Al Saud monarchy. Last month, Abdullah called Islamic terrorism "the work of the devil," and said Saudi Arabia will fight it "until we eliminate this scourge."
Want your lips back?
Posted by:Jackal

#3  $1 billion will build a lot of Wahabist mosques.
Posted by: DMFD   2005-11-13 16:21  

#2  They probably imagine Iraq as a three-legged stool, with the Sunnis being the shortest leg of the three. And by pouring money into the Sunni areas, they will again ascend to lord it over the Kurds and Shiites.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-11-13 15:05  

#1  Let me guess; Their first billion accidentally fell into the "wrong hands", eh?
Posted by: Zenster   2005-11-13 14:58  

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