Saudi Arabia and Petraeus’s First Slide

At the outset I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by nor shared with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or the Congress until it was just handed out.

— General David Petraeus, 9/10/07

General Petraeus employed thirteen slides in his opening remarks to the joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, yesterday.  A PDF of them can be found here.

Many people have noted that the slides concerning the frequency of insurgent attacks and “ethno-sectarian violence” were misleading.  However, it seems to me that the very first slide, a map of the region labeled “Major Threats to Iraq”, is more revealing of the limits of General Petraeus’s independence, the decidely pragmatic nature of the hearings, and the meaning of the occupation of Iraq itself, than any other.

Here is the first slide General Petraeus showed to the committees:

Notice anything?

What I notice is the absence of “threat boxes” in, or arrows originating from, Saudi Arabia.  The stark emptiness of the lower left quadrant of this slide does more than anything else I’ve seen to reveal the underlying lack of seriousness on the part of America to help Iraq.

Raw Story:

Petraeus denies militants cross Saudi/Iraq border but officials admit infiltration

David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday July 31, 2007

— snip —

Sawyer asked Petraeus about recent reports that “about half of the 60 to 80 foreign fighters coming into Iraq [each month] are coming across Saudi borders,” including a large number of suicide bombers. “You have been very hard on the Syrians for letting foreign fighters come in through their borders,” she said. “Are the Saudis not doing enough to shut down their borders?”

“I’m not sure that they’re coming across the Saudi border,” replied Petraeus. “I think what we have found is that it is Saudi citizens and citizens from other countries in North Africa and in the region who are coming through Syria.”

When Sawyer asked again, “So you don’t see them coming across the Saudi border?” Petraeus responded, more emphatically, “We do not, actually. The Saudis have a reasonably tight grip on the Saudi border, and it is a substantial expanse of desert. You really have to want to be a suicide bomber if you want to come across that expanse of desert that defines the Saudi-Iraq border in western Anbar Province.”

Raw Story has the video at the link above.

Now, that fighters are indeed coming across the Saudi border into Iraq is not seriously in question.  And, that “lethal aid” and “funding” are coming across the border is not in question at all.  Since Iran gets a box slapped on it labeled “lethal aid, training, funding”, and since Syria gets box labeled “foreign fighter flow”, the lack of either — or, better, both — of those boxes in Saudi Arabia, is telling.

Saudis’ role in Iraq insurgency outlined

Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.
By Ned Parker, Times Staff Writer
July 15, 2007

BAGHDAD – Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

General Petraeus began his remarks to the joint hearing yesterday by affirming his own editorial freedom:

Mr. Chairman, ranking members, members of the committees, thank you for the opportunity to provide my assessment of the security situation in Iraq and to discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the way forward.

At the outset I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by nor shared with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or the Congress until it was just handed out.

But to say that the report was not “cleared by nor shared with” anyone in the White House is not to say that no one in the White House told Petraeus what to write and what not to write; what to include and not to include.

U.S. Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal To Saudi Arabia

By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: July 28, 2007

The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.

The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.

In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.

A search of General Petraeus’ prepared remarks here and Ambassador Crocker’s prepared remarks here finds, in total, one mention of Saudi Arabia.  Ambassador Crocker, about to criticize Iran and Syria for fueling the fire in Iraq, praises Saudi Arabia for planning to build an embassy in Baghdad. 

Ambassador Crocker, 9/10/07:

Iraq and Kuwait are nearing conclusion on a commercial deal for Kuwait to supply its northern neighbor with critically needed diesel. Jordan recently issued a statement welcoming the recent leaders communique and supporting Iraqi efforts at reconciliation. And Saudi Arabia is planning on opening an embassy in Baghdad, its first since the fall of Saddam.

Syria’s role has been more problematic. On one hand, Syria has hosted a meeting of the border security working group and interdicted some foreign terrorists in transit to Iraq. On the other hand, suicide bombers continue to cross the border from Syria to murder Iraqi civilians.

Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq.

While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state, as General Petraeus has noted.

Crocker notes that Syria’s border is not secure.  And, indeed, it is sometimes claimed that, although a plurality or majority of foreign insurgents or terrorists in Iraq are Saudi, they do not enter Iraq across the Saudi Border, but rather make a loop northwest and enter through Syria.  I have two points to make about that.

(1) Even if it’s true that no fighters actually cross the border, Saudi Arabia ought to be marked as Iran is on the map: “lethal aid, training, funding”.

(2) It’s almost certainly false that no fighters cross the border.

It’s probably the case that the “they all go to Syria first” idea, outlandish as it is, is meant as a kind of not-very-convincing deflection of scrutiny of the Saudis’ role in Iraq.

For one thing, no one seems to be doubting that people go south, from Iraq into Saudi Arabia, undetected.

Saudis Plan Long Fence for Iraq Border

By JIM KRANE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; 7:51 PM

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with plans to build a fence to block terrorists from crossing its 560-mile border with Iraq another sign of growing alarm that Sunni-Shiite strife could spill over and drag Iraq’s neighbors into its civil conflict.

The barrier, which hasn’t been started, is part of a $12 billion package of measures including electronic sensors, security bases and physical barriers to protect the oil-rich kingdom from external threats, said Nawaf Obaid, head of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an independent research institute that advises the Saudi government.

Thus, no one doubts that walking or driving south is a concern; they merely rely on a kind of imposed cognitive block to keep the idea from occurring that people could just as easily do the same thing in the opposite direction.  Petraeus on Good Morning America again:

When Sawyer asked again, “So you don’t see them coming across the Saudi border?” Petraeus responded, more emphatically, “We do not, actually. The Saudis have a reasonably tight grip on the Saudi border, and it is a substantial expanse of desert. You really have to want to be a suicide bomber if you want to come across that expanse of desert that defines the Saudi-Iraq border in western Anbar Province.”

The idea, then, is that “a substantial expanse of desert” is only a problem in one direction of travel.

But, in any case, the Bush Administration is not always good at keeping their cookies in a jar.  When upset with the Saudis for some other reason, for example when the Saudis voice displeasure with Prime Minister al-Maliki, the White House is happy to start leaking info about Saudi troublemaking in Iraq.

The New York Times:

U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis, Citing Role in Iraq

By HELENE COOPER; RICHARD A. OPPEL JR. CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FROM BAGHDAD.
Published: July 27, 2007
This article was reported by Helene Cooper, Mark Mazzetti and Jim Rutenberg, and written by Ms. Cooper.

WASHINGTON, July 26 — During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq’s prime minister could not be trusted.

— snip —

The American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, immediately protested to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, contending that the documents were forged. But, said administration officials who provided an account of the exchange, the Saudis remained skeptical, adding to the deep rift between America’s most powerful Sunni Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, and its Shiite-run neighbor, Iraq.

Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

— snip —

In agreeing to interviews in advance of the joint trip to Saudi Arabia, the officials were nevertheless clearly intent on sending a pointed signal to a top American ally. They expressed deep frustration that more private American appeals to the Saudis had failed to produce a change in course.

Notice that these White House interviews trashing Saudi Arabia were given for a news story that ran on July 26, 2007.  Notice also that Zalmay Khalizad was the recipient of the offending Saudi gifts.  No coincidence, then, that Khalizad wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times just a few days prior, also trashing regional “friends of the United States”.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR; Why the United Nations Belongs in Iraq

By ZALMAY KHALILZAD
Published: July 20, 2007

— snip —

Second, the United Nations is also uniquely suited to work out a regional framework to stabilize Iraq. Several of Iraq’s neighbors — not only Syria and Iran but also some friends of the United States — are pursuing destabilizing policies.

Khalizad later admitted that by “friends of the United States”, he meant “Saudi Arabia”.

But criticism of Saudi Arabia can’t be sustained for long.  The pending $20 Billion arms deal with the Saudis could still be shot down by Congress.  TPMCafe, Sept. 10, 2007:

The Arms Deals No One Is Talking About

By William Hartung | bio

Happy Petraeus Day! On the theory that plenty of my colleagues in the print media and blogosphere will be writing about Iraq today, I will address another Mideast security conundrum: the role of the United States as the region’s top arms supplier.

In late July the Bush administration proposed a ten-year, $63 billion arms package for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel (see my recent piece in The Nation). Billed as part of a new “Gulf Security Dialogue,” it provided yet another example of team Bush deciding to let the guns do the talking.

Thankfully, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) has raised the profile of the deal by recruiting 114 of his House colleagues to oppose it. This won’t be enough to stop it, but at least it will generate some serious debate.

So for right now, at least, Saudi Arabia must get a clean slate, and a clean map, from the general whose report “has not been cleared by nor shared with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or the Congress until it was just handed out.”