[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 90 (Friday, June 25, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H5135-H5136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             SAUDI ARABIA: THE NEED FOR AMERICAN ENGAGEMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H5136]]

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the NBC Nightly News broadcast a segment in 
which the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah was quoted as telling Saudi 
television that ``Zionists'' were behind May 1 attack on contractors at 
the Saudi oil facility in Yanbu. That attack killed five westerners, 
including two Americans.
  The Crown Prince's remarks were echoed by Saudi Interior Minister 
Prince Nayef, who said that, ``al Qaeda is backed by Israel and 
Zionism.'' Prince Abdullah's comments were scurrilous and inflammatory; 
unfortunately, they are part of a persistent pattern by the Saudi 
government of saying one thing to the United States and the west and 
another thing altogether to its own citizens, 15 of whom participated 
in the September 11 attacks against our Nation.
  Indeed, the fact that three-quarters of the 9-11 terrorists were 
Saudis and that their leader, Osama bin Laden, was a member of a family 
that long enjoyed close ties to the Saudi royal family, should have 
spurred the Saudi government to immediate action. Instead, Saudi 
officials engaged in a protracted effort to deny that any of their 
citizens had been involved in the 9-11 attacks and instead blamed 
Israel for terrorism.
  Saudi double-talk has had the effect of undermining the efforts that 
Kingdom has belatedly made in combating terrorism. In the wake of the 
May 2003 bombing of the housing compounds in Riyadh, the Saudi 
government began to take steps to cut off sources of terrorism funding, 
but much more needs to be done. A new report from the Council on 
Foreign Relations notes that while Riyadh has enacted new laws, 
regulations, and institutions dealing with money laundering, charitable 
donations, and financial operations, those new measures have not been 
fully implemented and there have been no arrests of prominent Saudis 
who have supported al Qaeda financially.
  While we must work with the Saudis to ensure they are continuing to 
move forward in their efforts in counterterrorism, the war against 
Islamic terrorism requires the United States to engage Saudi Arabia on 
a broad range of issues. As the Council on Foreign Relations noted, our 
relationship with Saudi Arabia over the past 7 decades was built on a 
bargain in which the Kingdom would ensure stability in the world's oil 
markets and would play a constructive role in regional security. In 
exchange, the United States would guarantee Saudi security and would 
not interfere or raise questions about Saudi domestic issues.
  The events of September 11 compel us to challenge the Saudis to 
change the conditions in the Kingdom that have made it a breeding 
ground for extremism. We must do this for our own security, but also to 
help ensure the stability of Saudi Arabia and of the entire Arab world. 
A stable, moderate and reforming Saudi government is in America's 
national interest, and we must push for reform in Saudi Arabia without 
destabilizing the country further and throwing it into chaos.
  Saudi Arabia's problems did not arise overnight. They are the product 
of decades of tension between the Saudi royal family and the Wahhabi 
clerics, whose ultra-conservative brand of Islam predominates in the 
Kingdom. When the House of Saud came to power, it sought to bring 
electricity, modern communications, and infrastructure to a traditional 
nomadic desert society.
  In November 1979, these contradictions exploded when a group of 
Islamic militants invaded Mecca's Grand Mosque and took hundreds of 
pilgrims hostage. Government forces retook the Mosque and executed 
dozens of Islamic extremists. Instead of working to root out extremism 
throughout the country, the government sought accommodation with the 
extremists and handed over control of many aspects of Saudi life, 
including education, the Judiciary, and cultural affairs to the 
clerics. As a Saudi businessman tellingly told Newsweek's Fareed 
Zakaria recently, ``Having killed the extremists, the regime 
implemented their entire agenda.''
  Thus, at the height of the Saudi oil boom of the 1970s and 1980s, 
Saudi Arabia took a sharp conservative turn. Even as thousands of young 
Saudis were being educated in the west, the majority of their 
countrymen were being fed a diet of religious and cultural bigotry. The 
rights of women, already almost nonexistent, were even more 
circumscribed.
  By September 2001, the Saudi economy had faltered, its cities were 
filled with large numbers of undereducated, underemployed, and 
unmotivated young people who had both tasted modernity and were steeped 
in an ideology that preached hatred toward the west.
  While the Saudis have begun to address the terrorist financing issue, 
Riyadh has yet to begin the more difficult task of recapturing the 
country from the extremists. This battle will be long, it will be 
difficult, and it will be bloody, but we must keep the pressure on the 
government of Saudi Arabia to do this. Our security and their future 
depends upon it.

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