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American Morning

Interview of Prince Turki al Faisal

Aired February 01, 2002 - 09:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, the war on terror and America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. The White House calls Saudi Arabia a wonderful ally, but there are concerns about whether the U.S. military is still welcome in their country.

There have been reports that the Saudis have asked for significant reduction in the number of U.S. troops now stationed there, and Prince Turki al Faisal is now the former Saudi Chief of Intelligence. He himself has been tracking Osama bin Laden over the years, and he joins us now.

You're highness, welcome.

PRINCE TURKI AL FAISAL, FORMER SAUDI CHIEF OF INTELLIGENCE: Thank you very much to be here.

ZAHN: Even the most impartial of observers seeing that Osama bin Laden tape said it was highly indicting. What did you think?

AL FAISAL: Bin Laden indicted himself even before the events of September 11th. If you follow his writings and his words, from 1997 until September 11th, he declared war on the United States and Saudi Arabia and other countries. So it is not strange that having committed these acts, someone like me is convinced that it is bin Laden who did that. I didn't need to see this tape or the other tapes to be convinced that he was behind it.

ZAHN: Why is it, then, that there were so many reports coming into the United States, that the Saudi Arabian government thought the U.S. had jumped to conclusions about Osama bin Laden's involvement with September 11th, and were actually upset that -- when the U.S. administration declared publicly that Osama bin Laden was responsible for September 11th?

AL FAISAL: I don't know where those reports came from, because, as I understand it, the exchange between the two governments was taking place at the time. Your government presented the evidence that it had to my government, and my government supported your actions. There was no complaints that I heard from any of this Saudi leaders about U.S. actions vis-a-vis declaring that bin Laden was behind it.

There may have been some question as to the participation of the Saudis in the -- in the hijacking itself, if you remember, in the first instances of that horrible act, your government made public some names which later proved to be not true about Saudis involved in the hijacking. So, our minister of interior merely said that definitive proof of these Saudis who were claimed to have undertaken the hijackings was not yet presented, but nobody denies that bin Laden was behind the attacks.

ZAHN: But as it turns out, 15 of the 19 hijackers where of Saudi Arabian descent, and on FBI's most-wanted list. You've got 50 Saudi residents, or at least people of Saudi descent. So how much support does Osama bin Laden actually have in Saudi Arabia?

AL FAISAL: Well, I can tell you now much less than it was before. Having seen these tapes, the Saudi people have jointly and commonly come to regard bin Laden not just as a killer, but as someone who wallows in his work, and who gloats over the death of innocent people, and this has completely undermined whatever support, however minimal or great, that he may have had. Not just in the kingdom, but throughout the Islamic world and other countries as well.

ZAHN: You say you believe there is less support for Osama bin Laden now in Saudi Arabia.

AL FAISAL: Absolutely.

ZAHN: Yet in "New York Times" piece, there was a suggestion that a classified American intelligence report taken from a Saudi intelligence survey in mid-October showed that of educated Saudis, between the ages of 25 and 41, there was a concussion that 95 percent of them supported bin Laden.

AL FAISAL: I have not seen that survey. Your intelligence service may have seen it, but I have not. What I have seen is Saudis whom I've talked to in Saudi Arabia, in Saudi Arabia and outside the kingdom, and the majority of them condemned the acts of bin Laden, and they're horrified by what he did, and they are willing and able and forcefully expressing their views on that.

And if you follow the Internet in Saudi Arabia, you will see how the graph -- at the initial stages of what happened, there was some kind of immediate response that something has happened, and some kind of rise in the graph of support or acceptance of what happened, but soon after that, it started declining and declining and declining. And now it is much less than it was before. This I did on my own, through my Internet connections, but have your people check it, and they can confirm to you.

ZAHN: There is a lot of speculation about what the Saudi -- Saudi Arabian government really wants from the United States, and Carl Levin, one of our senators, believes that Saudi Arabia does not want our troops there, and yet Prince Nawaf (ph) came out and said that's simply is not true, but in an interview he did with the "New York Times," he did not clarify whether he would want a reduction in the number of troops in Saudi Arabia. Lots of American presence.

AL FAISAL: Well, I can tell you what Prince Abdullah, the crown prince, said to the "New York Times" and the "Washington Post" a few days ago. He said that these troops are here to perform a job, and they will remain here until that job is performed. And, you know, these troops we have two kinds of American troops in the kindom.

One is the training missions that work on a regular basis, and have been working for more than 50 years in the kingdom, and the other is a presence of mostly Air Force people from your country who are performing on the agreement of Safwan that followed the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, and that is to overfly the Southern part of Iraq to protect the people of Iraq there.

ZAHN: We only have 15 seconds left. You, no doubt, have heard the Senate minority leader accuses the Saudi Arabian government of saying some things publicly, and meaning quite different things privately.

AL FAISAL: I might say if we do that, then we're following your example. Because we hear from President Bush that he's happy with Saudi Arabia, and yet there are leaks from the White House and the State Department to your press saying they're unhappy. So, we don't know what to believe, whether to believe the official statements that come out from your leaders, or these press leaks. So if the Senate minority leader is saying that, he should review with your president about that.

ZAHN: So what are we supposed to believe, what you say publicly or what you say privately, if you say it is the same thing that President Bush does?

AL FAISAL: We have a longstanding relationship with the United States that does not require any backstabbing or any leaks to the press, or so on. We can talk frankly with each other. It's a relationship that lasted more than 70 years with mutual benefit for the two peoples, so let us continue on that way.

ZAHN: Your highness, we were delighted to have you on "American Morning." Thank you for your time.

AL FAISAL: And I am delighted to have been here. Thank you very much.

ZAHN: Prince Turki al Faisal.

AL FAISAL: Thank you.

ZAHN: Thank you.

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