Steven Emerson & Anthony Cordesman Debate Saudi Arabia's Cooperation at Senate Hearing (updated for CSPAN link)
By Andrew Cochran
Today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing evolved into a debate between Steven Emerson and Nina Shea on one side, and Anthony Cordesman on the other, over the extent of the Kingdom's counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S. (or lack thereof), and the extent of official Saudi complicity in the dissemination of hateful propaganda. You can see CSPAN's coverage of it here (RealPlayer needed). Steve's testimony includes a 1994 quote from then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah, following an Al Qaeda attack in the Saudi port city of Yanbu, in which he said, "It became clear to us now that Zionism is behind terrorist actions in the kingdom. I can say that I am 95% sure of that." The testimony also discusses an audiotape, obtained by NBC earlier this year, of the chief justice of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judicial Council heard exhorting young Muslims to go to Iraq to kill Americans. When NBC asked Saudi officials for their reaction, Saudi officials falsely claimed that the tape was a fabrication. NBC then contacted the Sheik directly in Saudi Arabia, who admitted that he made the recording. When asked about these and specific instances of propaganda cited by Shea, Cordesman replied that Saudi officials had never expressed warlike sentiments to him during his numerous visits there over 30 years, and that we are seeing real, though incomplete, progress by the Saudis in excising hateful propaganda from textbooks. See also Bill West's post with his angle on the hearing.
The Saudis refused to testify and have not assured committee chairman Sen. Specter that they have excised their textbooks, but they did mount a PR offensive today. They announced that they have a fugitive Al Qaeda suspect in custody; they used another Washington event to deny the committee's bipartisan criticism; and the new Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. "vowed" that his government would show terrorists "no mercy." His words are ironic considering that he personally assisted the Taliban after they took in UBL and also oversaw the spread of the hateful literature that was the subject of the hearing. But the Ambassaador couldn't stop the State Department today from releasing its report citing Saudi Arabia as one of 8 countries "of particular concern" for failing to safeguard religious freedom.
Full text of Steve's testimony below, with footnotes:
Download EmersonSenJudiciary110805Testimony.pdf
And see his comments on the issue before the hearing in a MSNBC interview.