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American Morning

Sound Off: Discussion of U.S. Relationship With Saudi Arabia

Aired August 26, 2002 - 09:30   ET

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

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Ever since the start of the war on terror, there have been a load of questions about how much Saudi Arabia was committed to helping the U.S. What was the relationship like? And now the Saudis they have in custody, a man wanted for investigation in connection with 9-11. The president, meanwhile, has a major meeting tomorrow at his ranch in Texas with the U.S. ambassador from Saudi Arabia. What should he be saying in that meeting? Let's "Sound Off" now with Bob Beckel, Democratic political strategist in Boise, Idaho.
A great place to spend the summer, Bob.

BOB BECKEL, DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL STRATEGIST: It sure is.

HEMMER: I am a jealous man for that.

Cliff May, former communications director of the RNC is in Washington.

Cliff, nice to see you as well, my friend.

CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Thank you.

HEMMER: What does the president say, Cliff? The Saudi ambassador goes to Crawford, Texas, they sit down, and then what?

MAY: I think he says, look, we've got a problem in this relationship, we want to make it better, let's attempt to. But there are a lot of people in the U.S. who are very upset with Saudi Arabia -- for a long time, you have been spending a lot of money to spread ideology of hatred toward Americans, toward Christians, toward Jews, toward Israel. This has got to stop. We need you to be on our side, and we need you to begin to reform your system -- a little bit of freedom, a little bit of democracy, a little bit of religious tolerance in a country that doesn't allow a single Christian church anywhere in the country, that doesn't allow people to pray.

It would be great, for example, if the Saudis were to invite religious leaders, moderate Muslims, Christians, Jews, all to come to Saudi Arabia for the first time in history to show that this is a new era of religious tolerance.

HEMMER: I think it all sounds great, Bob. What do the Saudis say, or more importantly, do in return if that indeed is part of the pitch?

BECKEL: Well, if Cliff's believes they will do all of that, he believes he will be there tonight to leave $1,000 under his pillow.

Look, we've been talking to Saudis about human rights for years and years. They don't pay any attention to us. The fact of the matter is, this gets down to one thing, it gets down to oil. You know it, I know it, and Cliff knows it. The fact is that the Saudi Arabian government is the largest money contributors to terrorism in the world and, frankly, if it were up to me, I would have the Saudi ambassador not come to Crawford, Texas, I would withdraw our ambassador, and I would withdraw one more country to the "axis of evil."

HEMMER: Wow. What that is going to do, Bob?

BECKEL: Well, the question is: what is it going to do? Well, it may interrupt oil flow, at some point, at some point, there is a lot of oil in the world, but we simply cannot turn our back on the blatant human rights violations. Clearly, you know, they export terrorists out of their country -- 14 of the 19 people involved in 9-11 were Saudi citizens. They won't let us use the airbases. If these are friends, man, I don't know what your enemies look like.

HEMMER: What about that, Cliff? Do you throw Saudi Arabia in the lump with North Korea and the others?

MAY: I think you don't at this point, and you tell the Saudi ambassador, we hope that doesn't happen in the future. I understand what Bob is saying, but I think to break relations would be an act of frustration, an expression of anger that wouldn't do a lot of good.

I am going to tell you something that Bob is going to agree with. We have to understand what Saudi Arabia is. It is not some ancient romantic kingdom. It was created only in the 1930s. And the very name of it is a strange thing. It's as though George Washington had named the United States Washington's America, and said that only my relatives, only my grandchildren and children can rule in this country forevermore. That's what it is. The Saudi family owns that country.

What's more, the Saudis subscribe to a brand of Islam that is very intolerant, Wohabism (ph), that is very hateful and is a problem, so imagine that Washington had named the country after him, said only his offspring can rule, and if he had belonged to some strange fundamentalist religion that was intolerant of all others.

HEMMER: He has been writing about in "The New York Times" For two weeks now, why the U.S. has not adapted a much tougher policy -- and, Bob, jump i on this -- about pushing democracy on countries like Saudi Arabia. Why has not been that aspect of a relationship pushed more publicly, or even behind closed doors?

BECKEL: Because this administration, and the Clinton administration and the administration before them have been scared to death about turning the spickets off on oil.

Cliff, I learned a lesson about Wohabies (ph), or whatever you call them. I don't care if they are charismatic snake holders. The fact of the matter is, these people are brutal, and they treat people brutally. They allow children, girl to get killed in a fire. It's like China, at some point, the United States has got to stand on principle, and yet we sell out, sell out, sell out. The time to get off our knees and stop, frankly, Kissing Saudi's body parts and stand up and say, the time has come, we are not going to buy your oil until you stop underwriting terrorism.

HEMMER: Go ahead, Cliff. Got about a minute left here. I want to get to another topic if we can.

MAY: Very quickly, over the next 10 or 20 years, this is what we've got to do. We've got to secure a regime change in Iraq somehow. We've got to have democracies in the Arab world -- there isn't any. It would be great if in 10 years, we had Saudi Arabia Democratic, Iraq Democratic, and finally a Palestinian entity of some kind that was also Democratic. That is what we got to shoot for.

HEMMER: That may take decades.

Listen, what about the investigation? Apparently, the FBI is looking for some sort of phone records, Palm Pilot records, from a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to find out where the leak was, or maybe there is more than one leak. Who knows right now. Bob, your take on that? A good idea for the strategy in the investigation?

BECKEL: No, but it's a good movie plot for something like "Five Days in May," or "The Manchurian Candidate." I mean, the fact of the matter is, this is getting too far, too fast, and it is becoming increasingly on the edge of the Bill of Rights. The fact is, this Patriots Act that we passed in the aftermath of 9-11 is going to come back to haunt us. It gives the government, and John Ashcroft and the FBI more rights to invade our rights. And the fact of the matter is, they've never been able to stop leaks before, they are not going to be able to do it now, but in the process, don't trample the Constitution when you do it, which I would recommend to General Ashcroft that he read once in a while.

HEMMER: Cliff, the final comment. We are almost out of time.

MAY: The final comment is that if Congress wants classified information, they have to treat it as classified information. You can't just investigate the staffers. Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of course we welcome this kind of investigation. I am not confident comfortable seeing the FBI demanding Palm Pilots, but it has to be clear that members of Congress are not above the law. They cannot be leaking classified information.

BECKEL: How about the Defense Department who's been leaking. -- how about the Defense Department, who's been leaking the attacks on Iraq and the plans? How about the administration doing that, Cliff?

HEMMER: There is two sides to the street.

MAY: Fire those in the Pentagon who leaked that stuff, and let's get to the bottom it. We are in the midst of a war on terrorism. We can't have anybody leaking information.

BECKEL: All right, Cliff. Good for you. HEMMER: Thank you, man. Thank you, Bob. Enjoy Boise, OK, Bob?

BECKEL: I will.

HEMMER: All right, pal. See you soon, guys.

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