[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15074-15075]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            FREE SARAH SAGA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, the Bible tells us that pure religion is 
this: ``To look after widows and orphans in their distress.'' And I 
rise tonight, preparing to catch up with my wife and our three small 
children for dinner, feeling compelled in my heart to stand up on 
behalf of a young American woman and her two small children who at this 
very hour are holed up in the U.S. consulate in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
  I rise to tell the story of Sarah Saga and her two little girls, this 
American woman, and to demand State Department action. As a member of 
the Committee on International Relations, I am obviously fascinated to 
see the House of Saud and the Government of Saudi Arabia engaging in a 
public relations campaign here in America. In markets across the 
country, our television screens are being flooded with a message that 
Saudi Arabia is a ``modern nation''; that America and Saudi Arabia have 
``shared values.''
  Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United 
States, is part of a public relations offensive to change the image of 
the Saudi Government. But I would offer today, as is documented in 
today's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, we do not need 
words, Mr. Speaker; we need actions by the House of Saud.
  Sarah Saga's story began long ago. She found herself trapped in Saudi 
Arabia at the age of 6 when her Saudi father defied a U.S. custody 
agreement by simply refusing to return her to America after she visited 
her father in 1985. There she has languished ever since. Yet she never 
gave up on America or her American mom. This 6-year-old, now grown into 
a 23-year-old mother of two, used a computer to track her long-lost 
mother via the Internet and to tell her of her hopes for escape. She 
has made her way to the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, and there she 
languishes. Absent aggressive State Department actions and 
negotiations, there she will languish still.
  Sadly, hers is just another story of another American woman who is 
trapped in Saudi Arabia, told that she is able to leave so long as she 
leaves her children behind. That is outrageous and utterly 
unacceptable. Prince Bandar told the Wall Street Journal back in 
September that it was ``absolutely not true'' that any American women 
were held against their will in Saudi Arabia. But the story of Sarah 
Saga tells otherwise.

[[Page 15075]]

  So I rise tonight not to speak to the House of Saud, but rather to 
speak to the State Department of the United States of America and to 
the Bush administration and to Secretary of State Powell. As we 
negotiate a road map for peace in the Middle East, let us speak plainly 
to our allies in Saudi Arabia about the minimal expectations we have 
about American citizens and their progeny in their midst.
  Sarah Saga and her two small children must be permitted to leave 
Saudi Arabia and make that long, at last, homecoming, delayed 17 years, 
to be in the home of her birth, the United States of America.

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