By Dana Milbank and Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, August 28, 2002; Page A01
CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 27 -- One day after Vice President Cheney made an impassioned case for ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, President Bush moved today to shore up badly frayed relations with Saudi Arabia, whose opposition to military action would make waging war much more difficult.
Bush telephoned Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, Crown Prince Abdullah, on Monday evening to emphasize that he wants strong ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Today, he hosted Saudi Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan and his family for lunch at the Bush ranch, an honor that Saudi officials viewed as a public relations coup.
The diplomatic outreach came as Cheney essentially ruled out all options but a military strike against Hussein, a stance that was met with consternation in the Arab world and fueled new questions from European allies. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he fears "chaos happening in the region" if war erupts. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw took issue with Cheney's argument that it would be useless for U.N. weapons inspectors to return to Iraq. And German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer called Cheney's ideas "highly risky and wrong."
Administration officials acknowledged that they have little hope of winning Saudi support for military action against Iraq. The goal, sources close to the administration said, is to get the kingdom to tone down its opposition, agree to hold oil prices stable and allow Persian Gulf neighbors such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar to admit U.S. troops. The Pentagon is still seeking Saudi agreement for the use of an advanced U.S.-built air operations center in the Saudi desert and permission for U.S. planes to use Saudi airspace.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made it clear today that broad international support is not a prerequisite for U.S. action. "It is less important to have unanimity than it is to be making the right decisions and doing the right thing," he said at Camp Pendleton, near San Diego.
Adel Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to Abdullah, hailed Bush's meeting with Bandar as "a very powerful signal to anyone who thinks there is enmity between the two countries." He noted that Bush has had only four visits to his ranch by foreign guests, and two were by Saudis.
But he reiterated Saudi Arabia's opposition to a war against Iraq. "There is no country in the world that supports it," he said. "There is no international sanction for it. There is no coalition for it."
Jubeir said the Bush administration has not asked for permission to use Saudi bases, for flyover rights or for other steps that would ease a U.S. campaign against Iraq. "They are not there yet," he said. "You have a situation where the rhetoric about using force is way ahead of where policy is."
The meeting with Bandar came after an unusually tense period in U.S.-Saudi relations, fueled most recently by the disclosure that a Pentagon advisory panel had received a briefing describing Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States. Administration officials went to great lengths to control the image of today's meeting, keeping Bush's ranch, the president and the Saudi ambassador off limits to reporters and cameras.
An earlier visit to the ranch by Abdullah, in April, was a near disaster, sources said. Bush appeared poorly briefed about Abdullah's peace proposal for the Middle East, they said, adding that Abdullah told others afterward he was insulted that Bush could speak only in generalities about the plan. Abdullah reportedly felt he had invested a great deal of personal prestige in getting Arab nations to support the proposal, which would have led to the recognition of Israel.
Even before that meeting, Abdullah had a tense conversation with Cheney over Iraq. Abdullah confronted Cheney over his concern that officials in Cheney's office had been spreading the word that the Saudis would privately back a war with Iraq despite its public protestations. "No, the answer is no. I said 'No' in Saudi Arabia, I say 'No' now and I will say 'No' tomorrow," Abdullah told Cheney, one source privy to the conversation said.
The two countries have been at odds since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Saudi Arabia has opposed action against Iraq and has objected to the United States's use of Saudi air bases. U.S. officials have grumbled that the kingdom has not been cooperative in counterterrorism efforts. The repressive nature of the Saudi government has galvanized conservatives in the Republican Party, which Bush touched on today when he urged Bandar to resolve the custody disputes involving American children who are barred from leaving Saudi Arabia.
After last fall's attacks, Saudi Arabia hired political consultants to improve its public image in the United States. But Americans continue to take a skeptical view of the country. A poll released last week by GOP pollster Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates found that 63 percent of Americans had a negative opinion of Saudi Arabia, compared with 50 percent in May.
"They understand public and government opinion has shifted against them," said Eliot Cohen of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. "They really don't want a big split with us."
In April, Abdullah upbraided Cheney over the administration's failure to engage in the Middle East peace process, saying the administration's credibility in the region was being destroyed, sources said. He also scorned the idea that a war with Iraq would open up avenues of peace in the Middle East, they said.
On the eve of Bandar's visit, however, Cheney again made the case that the ouster of Hussein would lead to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
In the United States, Cheney's speech on Monday was interpreted as evidence that the administration has begun to move toward a war with Iraq.
"The vice president would not be laying out the case so clearly without some kind of action to follow," said Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Pentagon advisory board who is close to Cheney. Adelman said he expects a "ramp-up" to military action that will include speeches, papers, congressional debates and military preparations. "It could all be done in a few months," he said.
Analysts said Cheney's speech -- which came as a surprise to U.S. lawmakers -- reflected a concern that the administration was losing the debate on Iraq to opponents of an attack, including some former top advisers to Bush's father.
"They realized they had to weigh in," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The surge of criticism from GOP stalwarts "may be keeping Saddam off balance, but they thought, 'we're losing it, we've got to do something here.' "