US 'too close' to Saudis
2004-08-12 10:42
Albuquerque - Much the way their predecessors warred over Sino-United States ties in past elections, US President George W Bush and Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry are trading blows over Saudi Arabia.
Bush says he has led Riyadh to take a tougher stand on terrorism since the September 11 2001 attacks, while Kerry has insinuated that the incumbent is too close to the Saudi royal family to force necessary changes to US policy.
Part of Bush's election-year argument is that he has made the United States and the world more secure since the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001.
"They have leverage over us"
But Kerry said in the highest-profile speech of his political life on accepting his party's nomination for president,
"I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi royal family,"
The charge is part of a broader attack on Bush and especially vice-president Dick Cheney as back-room deal-cutters who put corporate profits ahead of public interest in making policy.
Both candidates say they want to wean the United States from its addiction to oil imports, which appeals both to environmental worries and to the US public's deep unease over dependence on the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia has become "a symbol" of crucial issues facing the United States, according to Allan Lichtman, a political scientist at American University in Washington.
It is shorthand "most of all for oil, which of course has a profound impact on the American economy; number two terrorism, and is it, was it, a base for terorrists and is it being cleaned up; number three women's rights and democratic rights," he said by telephone.
But even if Kerry wins, US policy towards Saudi Arabia is unlikely to change, he said.
"They have a heck of a lot more leverage over us that we have over them: They're a tiny country sitting on top of a whole lot of oil, and we're a large country that needs a whole lot of oil," said Lichtman.
The controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which has ridden fiercely anti-Bush accusations to blockbuster status, has also suggested that Bush has overly cosy ties to the Saudis and the bin Laden family.
Under pressure from Washington, Saudi Arabia - home to 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers, and long considered the primary source of Al-Qaeda funding - has stepped up its fight against terror financing and money laundering.
And in July, the national commission investigating the September 11 attacks said that charities with Saudi Arabian government links may have diverted funds to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network - but that it found no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials funded the group.