Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Saudi Arabia Forced Into A Cautious Position By People
Aired October 26, 2001 - 05:34 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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: To another part of the Middle East now. It was 10 years ago when the U.S. and its allies overturned Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Back then Saudi Arabia was a strong supporter, but in America's new war Saudi leaders seem less than enthusiastic about getting locally involved.
Our Jonathan Mann now has some insights that may explain why Saudi Arabia seems to be so cautious.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The king of Saudi Arabia is old and sick. A stroke several years ago ended Fahd's ability to rule, but he still receives guests, a symbol of continuity in a society that does not welcome change.
The king and his extended family of five or 6,000 princes are custodians of the land where Islam was born, and of its two holiest cities Mecca and Medina.
They're also owners of the world's largest oil reserves, a quarter of all known petroleum. Those twin blessings have given the House of Saud enormous wealth and influence. But now they represent threats as well.
Oil wealth transformed Saudi Arabia lifting incomes and expectations. There is still a lot of oil, but there is a lot less money. Saudis on average have seen their incomes drop by more than two-thirds in a generation, from an average of $28,000 a year in the '80s to $8,000 last year. And Islam, which gave the royal family legitimacy, has turned faith into a force the Sauds can no longer be sure to control. Thousands of young Saudi men heard the call of Holy War in the '80s when Afghanistan fought the invasion by the USSR.
Many were radicalized by their experience. Many others were embittered by another invasion closer to home when they learned their own nearly undefended kingdom needed U.S. troops to face down the Iraqis who conquered neighboring Kuwait in 1990. Those men envisage a different kind of kingdom now -- former U.S. Ambassador Wyche Fowler.
WYCHE FOWLER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SAUDI ARABIA: Most of the people who study the region think that if you had a successor government to the regime in Saudi Arabia, it would be more like the Taliban than strong pro-Western people as the Saudis undoubtedly are. MANN: The radicals did not turn directly on the king, but on the infidels who came to defend him. Nineteen people were killed in the 19996 bomb attack on U.S. personnel at Khobar Towers in Dhahran. It's believed in the West to have been carried out by Saudi extremists, but outside the kingdom, very few people know. The Saudis are widely reported to have stymied a U.S. investigation even as they pursued their own.
And the U.S. forces have since retreated to the Prince Sultan base in a remote stretch of desert south of Riyadh. These are not recent pictures. The Saudi government doesn't want anyone to see the base on TV these days and although 6,000 Americans have been positioned there, it is inviting no others. Saudi Arabia won't let those U.S. troops or their airplanes take part in airstrikes on Afghanistan either.
Saudi Arabia's own armed forces total about 200,000 men to defend a vast area nearly the size of Germany and France combined with the most important industrial resource in the world.
Devout, disaffected and disgusted by their nation's military weakness, some Saudis are ready to follow Osama bin Laden. No one knows how many, but journalist Seymour Hersh says the number is high.
SEYMOUR HERSH, JOURNALIST: Osama bin Laden is probably the most popular person in that country outside the royal family because he represents something that the royal family does not. If he wants to torch those fields -- and this is the worry we have -- he could very easily and then what would we do then.
MANN: "The New York Times" reports that U.S. and Saudi officials now believe that 15 of the 19 men who carried out the September hijackings were from Saudi Arabia.
But the Saudis have said very little publicly about the attacks except to condemn them and condemn as well the airstrikes on Afghanistan that the U.S. is carrying out in response. And U.S. newspapers are full of stories leaked by frustrated officials about the lack of Saudi help in tracking down the hijackers. The stories are regularly denied higher up.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As far as the Saudi Arabians go and the secretary can comment on this, he's had more recent contact with them than I have. But they've been nothing but cooperative.
MANN: The royal family of Saudi Arabia never publicly says more than it has to. Right now it has good reason to be careful with its words.
Jonathan Mann, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
