[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 89 (Friday, June 28, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1194-E1195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       AMERICAN CITIZENS TAKEN AGAINST THEIR WILL TO SAUDI ARABIA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 27, 2002

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I commend to our colleagues' attention an 
editorial from yesterday's Wall Street Journal that highlights the many 
cases of American women who have been forcibly taken to Saudi Arabia. 
Even though they are U.S. citizens, once taken to Saudi Arabia, they 
have not been allowed to leave.
  I hope the 107th Congress and this Administration will put a stop to 
this practice and receive assurances from the Saudi Government that it 
will not happen again.

             [The Wall Street Journal; Review and Outlook]

                       All the President's Women

       White House spokesman Ari Fleischer should stop referring 
     to grown women as children. The women in question are Amjad 
     Radwan and Alia and Aisha Gheshayan, three American citizens 
     in Saudi Arabia whose fate has finally become an issue for 
     Congress.
       When reporters at a White House press briefing recently 
     deluged Mr. Fleischer with questions about whether President 
     Bush had raised their plight during an Oval Office chat with 
     the visiting Saudi Foreign Minister, he repeatedly--eight 
     times by our count--invoked the word ``custody'' or ``custody 
     of a child'' to characterize how the ``President views 
     this.''
       It's true that a number of American mothers have had an 
     awful time getting children out of Saudi Arabia, though even 
     here it beggars belief to reduce these to custody disputes. 
     But two of the three cases that the House Government Reform 
     Committee aired during its hearings did not involve children.
       Amjad Radwan is 19 years old and, unlike her older brother, 
     cannot leave Saudi Arabia because she is a woman and must 
     have the permission of her Saudi father, who refuses to give 
     it. In highly charged testimony delivered via videotape, 
     Amjad's mom, Monica Stowers, told the House she remains in 
     Saudi Arabia because she fears for her daughter's life; Miss 
     Stowers further reported that both her son and daughter were 
     raped by members of her former husband's family. Alia and 
     Aisha Gheshayan are also adults.
       When pressed on this point, the State Department says it 
     has made every effort to ascertain the women's wishes about 
     returning to America. In the case of Miss Roush's daughters, 
     however, State concedes that it hasn't seen them since the 
     mid-1990s. Moreover, its own human-rights report on Saudi 
     Arabia declares that ``physical spousal abuse and violence 
     against women'' is ``common'' and that the Saudi government 
     tends to look the other way. Translation: The only way these 
     Americans are going to be able to speak freely, without fear 
     of returning home to a beating, is to insist that Riyadh give 
     them the exit visas that will allow them to come here.
       The truth is that there isn't soul at State or the Saudi 
     Foreign Ministry who doesn't understand that if President 
     Bush were to express his displeasure to Crown Prince 
     Abdullah, then Alia, Aisha and Amjad would be on the next 
     plane for New York. And things would never have reached this 
     dismal stage if the State Department hadn't signaled from the 
     start that it was willing to let all the ground rules be set 
     by Saudi law and custom--even in defiance of U.S. courts, 
     arrest warrants and rights.
       Last June, 23 Senators, including leaders Trent Lott and 
     Tom Daschle, signed a letter urging Secretary of State Colin 
     Powell ``in the strongest possible terms, to intervene 
     forcefully and in person with the Saudi authorities at the 
     highest levels to secure the prompt release and repatriation 
     of Alia and Aisha Gheshayan.'' The immeidiate answer was the 
     standard State kiss-off: a letter explaining that the women 
     were ``subject to Saudi law.''

[[Page E1195]]

       But it seems that Congressional interest can have a 
     catalyzing effect on Foggy Bottom. At hearings last Tuesday 
     before the House International Relations Committee, William 
     Burns, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, 
     disclosed that Mr. Powell has now raised the issue with the 
     Saudi Foreign Minister and that he himself brought it up with 
     Crown Prince Abdullah 10 days earlier, on the eve of the 
     Government Reform Committee's hearings.
       But Mr. Burns continued to define the issue as a custody 
     dispute. And his remarks suggest that State still refuses to 
     treat this as a state-to-state issue, in favor of a touchy-
     feely approach about ``keeping families connected.'' This is 
     a long way from ``Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead''--Teddy 
     Roosevelt's tart reaction when a Berber bandit chiefain took 
     an American hostage in Tangier.
       In a TV spot running under the title ``Allies Against 
     Terrorism,'' the Saudi government urges Americans to ``listen 
     to America's leaders'' when it comes to the ``facts'' about 
     the country that spawned 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers. 
     It features President Bush vouching for how the Saudis have 
     been ``nothing but cooperative.'' This is their chance to 
     prove it.

     

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