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Thursday, July 19th, 2007
Despite Reports Showing Nearly Half of Foreign Militants in Iraq Are
Saudi, White House and Lawmakers Keeping Sights on Iran
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The Los Angeles Times is reporting nearly half of all foreign
militants targeting U.S. troops in Iraq have come from Saudi Arabia -
one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East. U.S. officials
have so far refused to publicly criticize Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq,
focusing instead on Iran. We go to Baghdad to speak to L.A. Times
correspondent Ned Parker. We're also joined by Toby Jones, a former
Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group and history
professor at Rutgers University. [includes rush transcript]
Ned Parker. Staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, reporting
from Baghdad.
Toby Jones. Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis
Group from 2004-2006. He is completing a fellowship at Swarthmore
College and will be teaching history at Rutgers University this fall.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Iraq to speak with Ned Parker, staff
reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He joins us from Baghdad. Ned
Parker recently wrote a widely read article on how Sunni militants
from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq. Welcome
to Democracy Now!, Ned Parker.
NED PARKER: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. We saw over and over again
on the Senate floor, as ultimately the attempt to pass the resolution
that would begin withdrawal of troops from Iraq was defeated, we saw
Iran raised and the idea that in Iraq US soldiers were fighting off
Iranian insurgents, and that was part of what the battle in Iraq was
all about, taking on Iran. You found that, in fact, there are more
Saudi than Iranian foreign fighters in Iraq. How do you know this?
NED PARKER: Well, I mean, the Iranian issue is complicated, to say the
least. And I don't -- it's from America's, US military's own numbers
about foreign fighters in Iraq, that there are more Saudis fighting in
Iraq than Iranians. I mean, that said, the Iranian element, there's no
doubt that the Iranians are involved in Iraq, and if they are backing
Shia militias, the military believes that this is with full government
backing.
The Saudi issue is more complicated, because it's not really clear
what the Saudi government is really doing. Are they actively involved
in sending these Saudi fighters to Iraq, or are they just sort of
letting it happen as a way to pressure the Shia government there? So,
and then, Saudis are the United States's allies [inaudible], so
there's all that at play.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And your report also gives some indication of the total
number of foreign fighters, which I found -- or at least the ones that
are in custody, which I found to be somewhat low, in terms of what we
might imagine. Could you talk about the actual numbers?
NED PARKER: Right. I mean, their numbers -- I mean, it's still -- I
think the Americans would even say that their numbers aren't precise.
It's based upon detainees arrested over the years, detainees currently
in prison. Right now there's, I think, 130 foreign fighters in US
custody. Of those, 45% are Saudi. The United States guesses that there
are between sixty and eighty foreign fighters who cross into Iraq each
month through Syria, so almost half of those, according to the United
States, have been Saudi. So it is actually -- it's a fairly low number
in the scheme of things, and the United States, even in releasing
these numbers, were saying that the Saudi foot soldiers are being used
as suicide bombers, for the most part, or fighters on the ground,
people with, you know, a very quick shelf life, that are probably
going to die. But they're quite open about the fact that the majority
of al-Qaeda in Iraq, even if it has a foreign leadership, is Iraqi,
and, I mean, that shouldn't be lost sight of. The vast majority of al-
Qaeda in Iraq is Iraqi.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what did the military brass in Iraq tell you about
their efforts to try to get Saudi Arabia to somehow or other control
the Jihadist fighters that are leaving their country?
NED PARKER: Well, we -- the officers I've spoken with, they believe
that the Saudi government should be doing a tougher job on its border
with Jordan, because that's the flow of Saudi fighters to Iraq, often
by bus or plane, be it Jordan to Syria or by plane perhaps direct to
Syria. So their objection is that there's no sense of real vigorous
screening of the males crossing the border, meaning that if they fit a
certain profile, there's no questioning of them. They just let people
go. It's not suspicious if they have very little money, you know,
narrow possessions, think they're going for a very short trip. There's
no effort to stop them, according to the US military officers I've
spoken with -- or the Iraqis, for that matter.
AMY GOODMAN: And what are the military brass saying about the fact
that they are Saudi? I mean, I think most people in this country, they
now believe there are a number of Iranians fighting in Iraq, not
Saudis, in the same way that probably many people in the United States
don't realize the vast majority of those who flew the planes on 9/11
were Saudi and not Iraqi.
NED PARKER: [inaudible] frustration [inaudible] more needs to be done
and a sense of, I think, frustration, that the issue isn't dealt with
publicly, that because Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States, a
decision has been made for diplomatic reasons to not publicize this
number, but the numbers are right. And even after the article came
out, the State Department officials, you know, grudgingly admitted
that it was correct here in Iraq.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Ned, how is it for you to report in Iraq right now?
NED PARKER: How easy is it? It is a very difficult place to report
right now. We still do get out and go around Baghdad, whether on
embeds or just going solo on our own. But, you know, everything has to
be done very carefully, because it definitely is a dangerous place to
work for everyone.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And could you tell us also -- you interviewed some
Saudi officials -- their reaction to the criticisms that they're
getting about not controlling the people leaving their country? What
was the Saudi official reaction to your story?
NED PARKER: Well, you know, I think there's a wide variety of opinions
among Saudi officials. When I was writing the article, I spoke with a
spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, and he was quite blunt
about the fact that it is a huge problem that Saudis are going to
fight in Iraq, and -- but, you know, I asked about their ability to do
more to stop the flow, the spokesman said, you know, "It's not our
fault. We're not going to screen our citizens who are traveling
abroad. The Iraqi government doesn't talk to us." The other hand, the
Iraqis will say that "We constantly try to engage the Saudis about
this issue, and there has not been any strong interest by the Saudis
to help."
Now, depending on how you want to view the situation, it very much
plays into probably this antagonism between Saudi Arabia, which is a
very Sunni country, fundamentalist, conservative, that sees Iraq with
a Shiite-led majority as a potential threat as a possible, you know,
proxy for Iran. So all of that comes into play. Saudi officials have
been critical of al-Qaeda. They had certainly fought their own war
with al-Qaeda inside Saudi Arabia. But then, if you're a fighter going
to Iraq, it's just another, you know, side to it, another dimension to
the problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Ned Parker, last week in President Bush's news
conference, he didn't mention Saudi foreign fighters, but he blamed
Syria for not stopping suicide bombers from going into Iraq through
Syria.
NED PARKER: Mm-hmm. Sure. And, I mean, there's probably -- media
probably has a legitimate, I suppose, grievance that I'm saying that.
I mean, there are Syrian intel officers on the borders, and there
isn't real, from what I'm told, effort to stop the flow. But could he
say the same thing about Saudi Arabia? It sounds like he could.
Certainly US military officials believe so, and Iraqi officials. And
the proof is in the pudding. I mean, the most foreign fighters in Iraq
are Saudi, but Saudi Arabia is the United States's ally. In Saudi
Arabia it seems that certainly the Saudis are involved in trying break
whatever quote/unquote Islamist extremist al-Qaeda cells. So how do
you deal with an ally who might be trying it both ways? It's a tough
one. And so, Syria is considered an enemy by the United States. Saudi
Arabia is not, so it does not get singled out in the same way.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Ned Parker, what President Bush calls the surge,
the increased number of US soldiers in Iraq, what effect has this had?
NED PARKER: I'm sorry. Can you repeat that? I couldn't quite hear you.
AMY GOODMAN: What effect has the surge had, the increased number of US
soldiers in Iraq?
NED PARKER: I mean, I think it has had an effect. I mean, it's -- the
problem is that the surge is taking place within a politically charged
debate in the United States between Democrats and Republicans, and
perhaps a lot of the feelings about Iraq reflect disillusionment or
disenchantment with the President's leadership. But the surge itself,
I mean, it definitely has in some areas stabilized the situation. It
doesn't mean that things are safe. It just means that the killing has
gone down a bit. Now, if you care about Iraqis, and you live with
Iraqis, and you witness what they're going through every day, that's a
good thing. Certainly, though, people are still dying. I think the
surge will take time, and probably the expectations with a timeline in
the United States for how long it should take are unrealistic. It will
probably take much longer.
AMY GOODMAN: Ned Parker, I want to thank you very much for being with
us. Ned Parker, speaking to us from Baghdad, staff writer with the Los
Angeles Times. Be safe.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: In recent weeks, lawmakers have repeatedly warned about
the role played by foreign militants in Iraq, but the focus has not
been Saudi Arabia, but Iran. This is what Independent Senator Joseph
Lieberman of Connecticut said on ABC's This Week with George
Stephanopoulos.
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: I had an Arab diplomat say to me two
weeks ago that what is happening in the Middle East today reminds him
of what happened in Europe during the 1930s, when Nazi Germany began
to make moves and the rest of Europe and the United States did not act
quick enough to stop the Second World War. He was talking about Iran.
Iran is on the move in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan. And
if we pull out of Iraq, Iran and al-Qaeda are the victors. And so, my
answer is, as long as we have a reasonable chance of success in Iraq,
then I am going to say it's worth it for us to stay, because if Iran
and al-Qaeda take over Iraq, they will destabilize the entire Middle
East, and they will strike at us here at home --
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me, let me turn --
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: -- with more frequency and ferocity.
AMY GOODMAN: I also want to bring into this conversation Toby Jones,
former Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group,
completing a fellowship at Swarthmore College, teaching history at
Rutgers University this fall.
Can you elaborate on what the reporter in Baghdad was talking to us
about?
TOBY JONES: It's certainly not breaking news that Saudis have been
involved in Iraq since early in 2003. As early as 2004 and 2005, when
I was last in the Gulf for an extended period of time, there were
figures tossed about by both Saudi officials and citizens alike that
there were upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 Saudis to that point who had
traveled from the kingdom to Iraq to participate in the insurgency. I
think the kingdom has done a better job in recent years trying to
crack down on the flow of militants back and forth between the two
countries, but it's certainly unable to control or stem the tide
completely.
And that's compounded by an additional problem that Saudi security and
police officials are unable to or have proven unwilling to crack down
on the ideologues within the kingdom who foment both anti-American
sentiment and a growing anti-Shiism, which simply supports or provides
secour to Saudis who desire to go and fight in the jihad.
JUAN GONZALEZ: But then the press attention and the emphasis of our
political leaders in this country don't deal with the fact either that
so many of the foreign fighters are coming from Saudi Arabia or that
they are retraining and regrouping in Pakistan, in terms of the
continuing war of al-Qaeda. These are, of course, two American allies
in the Middle East.
TOBY JONES: It's symptomatic of the war more generally, in that the
United States has proven mostly incapable of managing the political
forces that are driving violence in both of those two places. It's
unwilling to sacrifice its alliances for whatever -- however it
defines its interests in the region. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it's
both because the US considers Saudi Arabia to be a stabilizing ally,
perhaps ironically, given its role in destabilizing Iraq, and Pakistan
similarly in Central Asia. So the inability of the United States to
manage its political affairs at this point shouldn't come as much of a
surprise, but I think that's the lesson, also, about the question of
addressing Saudi fighters in Iraq, is that the US has been
disinterested, more inclined to talk about Iran and the regional
threat that Iran allegedly represents than the details on the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: Toby Jones, can you talk about the prisoners who have
just been released from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, like Dossary and
then the Lackawanna Six, the people Upstate New York in Buffalo, the
Yemenis who were arrested?
TOBY JONES: Well, I mean, the number of Saudis in detention in
Guantanamo is decreasing steadily over time. They're being
repatriated, released back into Saudi custody. So that number is
diminishing. What's happening to those former detainees in Saudi
Arabia is unclear. Some of them are being tried, others are being
released into the care of their families. Their fates after that is
unknown. That reflects more generally Saudi Arabia's handling of the
militant question more generally, in which it attempts to sort of
regenerate or rescue militants from their radical ways.
With respect to Dossary's trip to Upstate New York, you know, my
understanding is that he, according to the Washington Post, gave some
rousing talks to audiences in Lackawanna, and, of course, we have six
alleged members of al-Qaeda from New York who have been arrested and
gained quite some notoreity. I can't speak specifically to Dossary's
role in any of that. I'm not familiar with his personal experiences in
the region, but I think that it shouldn't be surprising that the
detainees and others have traveled back and forth and globally to
preach radical messages. That doesn't necessarily indict him or any of
the other detainees with specific acts of militancy or terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: And Vice President Cheney going to Saudi Arabia, what is
his connection with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia's concerns in Iraq
right now not wanting troops to be pulled out?
TOBY JONES: Well, Cheney, along with Bush -- and, really, it must be
said that the United States has maintained a close relationship with
Saudi Arabia since the mid-1940s, so arguments that the Bush family
represents some parallel to the House of Saud as a kind of a dynastic
American political family are really wide of the mark. The United
States has made very clear that it's willing to protect its interests
in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, including with military
force.
Cheney's interest in pushing Saudi Arabia quietly -- I mean, the fact
that Cheney gets sent, as opposed to more high -- somebody who's
willing to take a high-profile media position, indicates that the US
wants to push quietly behind the scenes, but is interested in
pressuring the Saudis to deal seriously with both the question of the
insurgency and how Saudi Arabia might be involved more productively in
Iraq.
As for Saudi Arabia's perspective, I think it understands that it
faces a paradoxical dilemma in Iraq. On the one hand, it fear the rise
and perhaps a rise to hegemonic power of a Shia-dominated Iraq.
Whether Shia Iraq acts as a proxy for Iran or not, it threatens Saudi
Arabia's sense of hegemony in the Gulf. Secondarily, and
contradictorily, it also fears instability in Iraq. So it would like
to see the United States stay in Iraq in order to contain the
insurgency as best as possible so that it doesn't spill over Iraq's
borders and into the Gulf, but at the same time it sees the US is
strengthening Shia power in Iraq. So Saudi Arabia is struggling much
like other powers are in figuring out how best to determine its policy
there.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And how stable is the Saudi government itself, vis-
Despite Reports Showing Nearly Half of Foreign Militants in Iraq Are
Saudi, White House and Lawmakers Keeping Sights on Iran
Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream Read Transcript
Help Printer-friendly version Email to a friend
Purchase Video/CD
The Los Angeles Times is reporting nearly half of all foreign
militants targeting U.S. troops in Iraq have come from Saudi Arabia -
one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East. U.S. officials
have so far refused to publicly criticize Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq,
focusing instead on Iran. We go to Baghdad to speak to L.A. Times
correspondent Ned Parker. We're also joined by Toby Jones, a former
Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group and history
professor at Rutgers University. [includes rush transcript]
Ned Parker. Staff writer with the Los Angeles Times, reporting
from Baghdad.
Toby Jones. Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis
Group from 2004-2006. He is completing a fellowship at Swarthmore
College and will be teaching history at Rutgers University this fall.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Iraq to speak with Ned Parker, staff
reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He joins us from Baghdad. Ned
Parker recently wrote a widely read article on how Sunni militants
from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq. Welcome
to Democracy Now!, Ned Parker.
NED PARKER: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. We saw over and over again
on the Senate floor, as ultimately the attempt to pass the resolution
that would begin withdrawal of troops from Iraq was defeated, we saw
Iran raised and the idea that in Iraq US soldiers were fighting off
Iranian insurgents, and that was part of what the battle in Iraq was
all about, taking on Iran. You found that, in fact, there are more
Saudi than Iranian foreign fighters in Iraq. How do you know this?
NED PARKER: Well, I mean, the Iranian issue is complicated, to say the
least. And I don't -- it's from America's, US military's own numbers
about foreign fighters in Iraq, that there are more Saudis fighting in
Iraq than Iranians. I mean, that said, the Iranian element, there's no
doubt that the Iranians are involved in Iraq, and if they are backing
Shia militias, the military believes that this is with full government
backing.
The Saudi issue is more complicated, because it's not really clear
what the Saudi government is really doing. Are they actively involved
in sending these Saudi fighters to Iraq, or are they just sort of
letting it happen as a way to pressure the Shia government there? So,
and then, Saudis are the United States's allies [inaudible], so
there's all that at play.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And your report also gives some indication of the total
number of foreign fighters, which I found -- or at least the ones that
are in custody, which I found to be somewhat low, in terms of what we
might imagine. Could you talk about the actual numbers?
NED PARKER: Right. I mean, their numbers -- I mean, it's still -- I
think the Americans would even say that their numbers aren't precise.
It's based upon detainees arrested over the years, detainees currently
in prison. Right now there's, I think, 130 foreign fighters in US
custody. Of those, 45% are Saudi. The United States guesses that there
are between sixty and eighty foreign fighters who cross into Iraq each
month through Syria, so almost half of those, according to the United
States, have been Saudi. So it is actually -- it's a fairly low number
in the scheme of things, and the United States, even in releasing
these numbers, were saying that the Saudi foot soldiers are being used
as suicide bombers, for the most part, or fighters on the ground,
people with, you know, a very quick shelf life, that are probably
going to die. But they're quite open about the fact that the majority
of al-Qaeda in Iraq, even if it has a foreign leadership, is Iraqi,
and, I mean, that shouldn't be lost sight of. The vast majority of al-
Qaeda in Iraq is Iraqi.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what did the military brass in Iraq tell you about
their efforts to try to get Saudi Arabia to somehow or other control
the Jihadist fighters that are leaving their country?
NED PARKER: Well, we -- the officers I've spoken with, they believe
that the Saudi government should be doing a tougher job on its border
with Jordan, because that's the flow of Saudi fighters to Iraq, often
by bus or plane, be it Jordan to Syria or by plane perhaps direct to
Syria. So their objection is that there's no sense of real vigorous
screening of the males crossing the border, meaning that if they fit a
certain profile, there's no questioning of them. They just let people
go. It's not suspicious if they have very little money, you know,
narrow possessions, think they're going for a very short trip. There's
no effort to stop them, according to the US military officers I've
spoken with -- or the Iraqis, for that matter.
AMY GOODMAN: And what are the military brass saying about the fact
that they are Saudi? I mean, I think most people in this country, they
now believe there are a number of Iranians fighting in Iraq, not
Saudis, in the same way that probably many people in the United States
don't realize the vast majority of those who flew the planes on 9/11
were Saudi and not Iraqi.
NED PARKER: [inaudible] frustration [inaudible] more needs to be done
and a sense of, I think, frustration, that the issue isn't dealt with
publicly, that because Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States, a
decision has been made for diplomatic reasons to not publicize this
number, but the numbers are right. And even after the article came
out, the State Department officials, you know, grudgingly admitted
that it was correct here in Iraq.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Ned, how is it for you to report in Iraq right now?
NED PARKER: How easy is it? It is a very difficult place to report
right now. We still do get out and go around Baghdad, whether on
embeds or just going solo on our own. But, you know, everything has to
be done very carefully, because it definitely is a dangerous place to
work for everyone.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And could you tell us also -- you interviewed some
Saudi officials -- their reaction to the criticisms that they're
getting about not controlling the people leaving their country? What
was the Saudi official reaction to your story?
NED PARKER: Well, you know, I think there's a wide variety of opinions
among Saudi officials. When I was writing the article, I spoke with a
spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, and he was quite blunt
about the fact that it is a huge problem that Saudis are going to
fight in Iraq, and -- but, you know, I asked about their ability to do
more to stop the flow, the spokesman said, you know, "It's not our
fault. We're not going to screen our citizens who are traveling
abroad. The Iraqi government doesn't talk to us." The other hand, the
Iraqis will say that "We constantly try to engage the Saudis about
this issue, and there has not been any strong interest by the Saudis
to help."
Now, depending on how you want to view the situation, it very much
plays into probably this antagonism between Saudi Arabia, which is a
very Sunni country, fundamentalist, conservative, that sees Iraq with
a Shiite-led majority as a potential threat as a possible, you know,
proxy for Iran. So all of that comes into play. Saudi officials have
been critical of al-Qaeda. They had certainly fought their own war
with al-Qaeda inside Saudi Arabia. But then, if you're a fighter going
to Iraq, it's just another, you know, side to it, another dimension to
the problem.
AMY GOODMAN: Ned Parker, last week in President Bush's news
conference, he didn't mention Saudi foreign fighters, but he blamed
Syria for not stopping suicide bombers from going into Iraq through
Syria.
NED PARKER: Mm-hmm. Sure. And, I mean, there's probably -- media
probably has a legitimate, I suppose, grievance that I'm saying that.
I mean, there are Syrian intel officers on the borders, and there
isn't real, from what I'm told, effort to stop the flow. But could he
say the same thing about Saudi Arabia? It sounds like he could.
Certainly US military officials believe so, and Iraqi officials. And
the proof is in the pudding. I mean, the most foreign fighters in Iraq
are Saudi, but Saudi Arabia is the United States's ally. In Saudi
Arabia it seems that certainly the Saudis are involved in trying break
whatever quote/unquote Islamist extremist al-Qaeda cells. So how do
you deal with an ally who might be trying it both ways? It's a tough
one. And so, Syria is considered an enemy by the United States. Saudi
Arabia is not, so it does not get singled out in the same way.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Ned Parker, what President Bush calls the surge,
the increased number of US soldiers in Iraq, what effect has this had?
NED PARKER: I'm sorry. Can you repeat that? I couldn't quite hear you.
AMY GOODMAN: What effect has the surge had, the increased number of US
soldiers in Iraq?
NED PARKER: I mean, I think it has had an effect. I mean, it's -- the
problem is that the surge is taking place within a politically charged
debate in the United States between Democrats and Republicans, and
perhaps a lot of the feelings about Iraq reflect disillusionment or
disenchantment with the President's leadership. But the surge itself,
I mean, it definitely has in some areas stabilized the situation. It
doesn't mean that things are safe. It just means that the killing has
gone down a bit. Now, if you care about Iraqis, and you live with
Iraqis, and you witness what they're going through every day, that's a
good thing. Certainly, though, people are still dying. I think the
surge will take time, and probably the expectations with a timeline in
the United States for how long it should take are unrealistic. It will
probably take much longer.
AMY GOODMAN: Ned Parker, I want to thank you very much for being with
us. Ned Parker, speaking to us from Baghdad, staff writer with the Los
Angeles Times. Be safe.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: In recent weeks, lawmakers have repeatedly warned about
the role played by foreign militants in Iraq, but the focus has not
been Saudi Arabia, but Iran. This is what Independent Senator Joseph
Lieberman of Connecticut said on ABC's This Week with George
Stephanopoulos.
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: I had an Arab diplomat say to me two
weeks ago that what is happening in the Middle East today reminds him
of what happened in Europe during the 1930s, when Nazi Germany began
to make moves and the rest of Europe and the United States did not act
quick enough to stop the Second World War. He was talking about Iran.
Iran is on the move in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan. And
if we pull out of Iraq, Iran and al-Qaeda are the victors. And so, my
answer is, as long as we have a reasonable chance of success in Iraq,
then I am going to say it's worth it for us to stay, because if Iran
and al-Qaeda take over Iraq, they will destabilize the entire Middle
East, and they will strike at us here at home --
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me, let me turn --
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: -- with more frequency and ferocity.
AMY GOODMAN: I also want to bring into this conversation Toby Jones,
former Persian Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group,
completing a fellowship at Swarthmore College, teaching history at
Rutgers University this fall.
Can you elaborate on what the reporter in Baghdad was talking to us
about?
TOBY JONES: It's certainly not breaking news that Saudis have been
involved in Iraq since early in 2003. As early as 2004 and 2005, when
I was last in the Gulf for an extended period of time, there were
figures tossed about by both Saudi officials and citizens alike that
there were upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 Saudis to that point who had
traveled from the kingdom to Iraq to participate in the insurgency. I
think the kingdom has done a better job in recent years trying to
crack down on the flow of militants back and forth between the two
countries, but it's certainly unable to control or stem the tide
completely.
And that's compounded by an additional problem that Saudi security and
police officials are unable to or have proven unwilling to crack down
on the ideologues within the kingdom who foment both anti-American
sentiment and a growing anti-Shiism, which simply supports or provides
secour to Saudis who desire to go and fight in the jihad.
JUAN GONZALEZ: But then the press attention and the emphasis of our
political leaders in this country don't deal with the fact either that
so many of the foreign fighters are coming from Saudi Arabia or that
they are retraining and regrouping in Pakistan, in terms of the
continuing war of al-Qaeda. These are, of course, two American allies
in the Middle East.
TOBY JONES: It's symptomatic of the war more generally, in that the
United States has proven mostly incapable of managing the political
forces that are driving violence in both of those two places. It's
unwilling to sacrifice its alliances for whatever -- however it
defines its interests in the region. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it's
both because the US considers Saudi Arabia to be a stabilizing ally,
perhaps ironically, given its role in destabilizing Iraq, and Pakistan
similarly in Central Asia. So the inability of the United States to
manage its political affairs at this point shouldn't come as much of a
surprise, but I think that's the lesson, also, about the question of
addressing Saudi fighters in Iraq, is that the US has been
disinterested, more inclined to talk about Iran and the regional
threat that Iran allegedly represents than the details on the ground.
AMY GOODMAN: Toby Jones, can you talk about the prisoners who have
just been released from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, like Dossary and
then the Lackawanna Six, the people Upstate New York in Buffalo, the
Yemenis who were arrested?
TOBY JONES: Well, I mean, the number of Saudis in detention in
Guantanamo is decreasing steadily over time. They're being
repatriated, released back into Saudi custody. So that number is
diminishing. What's happening to those former detainees in Saudi
Arabia is unclear. Some of them are being tried, others are being
released into the care of their families. Their fates after that is
unknown. That reflects more generally Saudi Arabia's handling of the
militant question more generally, in which it attempts to sort of
regenerate or rescue militants from their radical ways.
With respect to Dossary's trip to Upstate New York, you know, my
understanding is that he, according to the Washington Post, gave some
rousing talks to audiences in Lackawanna, and, of course, we have six
alleged members of al-Qaeda from New York who have been arrested and
gained quite some notoreity. I can't speak specifically to Dossary's
role in any of that. I'm not familiar with his personal experiences in
the region, but I think that it shouldn't be surprising that the
detainees and others have traveled back and forth and globally to
preach radical messages. That doesn't necessarily indict him or any of
the other detainees with specific acts of militancy or terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: And Vice President Cheney going to Saudi Arabia, what is
his connection with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia's concerns in Iraq
right now not wanting troops to be pulled out?
TOBY JONES: Well, Cheney, along with Bush -- and, really, it must be
said that the United States has maintained a close relationship with
Saudi Arabia since the mid-1940s, so arguments that the Bush family
represents some parallel to the House of Saud as a kind of a dynastic
American political family are really wide of the mark. The United
States has made very clear that it's willing to protect its interests
in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, including with military
force.
Cheney's interest in pushing Saudi Arabia quietly -- I mean, the fact
that Cheney gets sent, as opposed to more high -- somebody who's
willing to take a high-profile media position, indicates that the US
wants to push quietly behind the scenes, but is interested in
pressuring the Saudis to deal seriously with both the question of the
insurgency and how Saudi Arabia might be involved more productively in
Iraq.
As for Saudi Arabia's perspective, I think it understands that it
faces a paradoxical dilemma in Iraq. On the one hand, it fear the rise
and perhaps a rise to hegemonic power of a Shia-dominated Iraq.
Whether Shia Iraq acts as a proxy for Iran or not, it threatens Saudi
Arabia's sense of hegemony in the Gulf. Secondarily, and
contradictorily, it also fears instability in Iraq. So it would like
to see the United States stay in Iraq in order to contain the
insurgency as best as possible so that it doesn't spill over Iraq's
borders and into the Gulf, but at the same time it sees the US is
strengthening Shia power in Iraq. So Saudi Arabia is struggling much
like other powers are in figuring out how best to determine its policy
there.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And how stable is the Saudi government itself, vis-