Posted on 04/24/2004 11:40:10 AM PDT by happygrl
WASHINGTON - During the Iraq (news - web sites) war, Saudi Arabia secretly helped the United States far more than has been acknowledged, allowing operations from at least three air bases, permitting special forces to stage attacks from Saudi soil and providing cheap fuel, U.S. and Saudi officials say.
The American air campaign against Iraq was essentially managed from inside Saudi borders, where military commanders operated an air command center and launched refueling tankers, F-16 fighter jets, and sophisticated intelligence gathering flights, according to the officials.
Much of the assistance has been kept quiet for more than a year by both countries for fear it would add to instability inside the kingdom. Many Saudis oppose the war and U.S. presence on Saudi soil has been used by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) to build his terror movement.
But senior political and military officials from both countries told The Associated Press the Saudi royal family permitted widespread military operations to be staged from inside the kingdom during the coalition force's invasion of Iraq.
These officials would only talk on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity and the fact that some operational details remain classified.
While the heart of the ground attack came from Kuwait, thousands of special forces soldiers were permitted to stage their operations into Iraq from inside Saudi Arabia, the officials said. These staging areas became essential once Turkey declined to allow U.S. forces to operate from its soil.
In addition, U.S. and coalition aircraft launched attacks, reconnaissance flights and intelligence missions from three Saudi air bases, not just the Prince Sultan Air Base where U.S. officials have acknowledged activity.
Between 250 and 300 Air Force planes staged from Saudi Arabia, including AWACS, C-130s, refueling tankers and F-16 fighter jets during the height of the war, the officials said. Air and military operations during the war were permitted at the Tabuk air base and Arar regional airport near the Iraq border, the officials said.
Saudis also agreed to permit search and rescue missions to stage and take off from their soil, the officials said.
Gen. T. Michael Moseley, a top Air Force general who was a key architect of the air campaign in Iraq, called the Saudis "wonderful partners" although he agreed to discuss their help only in general terms.
"We operated the command center at Saudi Arabia. We operated airplanes out of Saudi Arabia, as well as sensors, and tankers," said Moseley in an interview with the AP. He said he treasured "their counsel, their mentoring, their leadership and their support."
Publicly, American and Saudi officials have portrayed the U.S. military presence during the war as minimal and limited to Prince Sultan Air Base, where Americans have operated on and off over the last decade. Any other American presence during the war was generally described as humanitarian, such as food drops, or as protection against Scud missile attacks.
During the war, U.S. officials held media briefing about the air war from Qatar, although the air command center was in Saudi Arabia — a move designed to keep from inflaming the Saudi public.
U.S.-Saudi cooperation raised eyebrows last week after it was disclosed that President Bush (news - web sites) shared his Iraq war plans with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan before the start of the war.
Some lawmakers have demanded to know why a foreigner was brought in on private war planning.
When asked about the briefing, Bandar played down the extent of Saudi help. "We were allies. And we helped our American friends in the way that was necessary for them. And that was the reality," he said.
U.S. and Saudi officials said Bandar was briefed several times before the war as part of securing Saudi assistance, and received regular updates as U.S. needs changed.
Preparations for U.S. operations inside Saudi Arabia started in 2002 when the Air Force awarded a contract to a Saudi company to provide jet fuel at four airfields or bases inside the kingdom, documents show.
When the war started, the Saudis allowed cruise missiles to be fired from Navy ships across their air space into Iraq. A few times missiles went off course and landed inside the kingdom, officials said.
The Saudis provided tens of millions of dollars in discounted oil, gas and fuel for American forces. During the war, a stream of oil delivery trucks at times stretched for miles outside the Prince Sultan air base, said a senior U.S. military planner.
The Saudis also were influential in keeping down world oil prices amid concern over what might happen to Iraqi oil fields. They increased production by 1.5 million barrels a day during the run-up to war and helped keep Jordan — which had relied on Iraqi oil — supplied.
Saudi officials said they also provided significant military and intelligence help on everything from issues of Muslim culture to securing the Saudi-Iraqi border from fleeing Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) supporters
Perhaps a strategy to tease out terror cells within the country.
You may be right.
Or, it may not be a case of the P.W. faction overtly choosing sides. Instead, it may be a case of AP's unnamed source trying to "out" the P.W. faction before they are ready to take sides overtly.
The unnamed source may be trying to incite the Whab hordes.
I think they can, and we have the needed forces just a Sunday drive away.
So why mention it now?
No More Groupement Mobile 100s
The sole obstacles to the wave of darkness are the Anglosphere -- and ironically for the Europeans -- Israel.
It is probably more important to watch the House of Alshaikh. Have they mistakenly allowed a modern version of the Ikhwan to emerge from their ranks so that they can no longer bring into linetheir own forces to keep the age old alliance in place?
As the modern age extension of the line of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who originally, in 1744, found and empowered Muhammad ibn Saud, a minor, ambitious chief in the village of Diriyah, the Alshaikh are the problem now.
When the original Ikhwan rebellion almost toppled the House of Saud in 1929, they fell into step with the reactionary push of the revolt. In this case, the clerical side of the old alliance has failed to keep reactionary experimentalism in line and the result is bin Laden and other forces like him. The House of Saud has made the nation as prosperous, ordered, conservative and settled as the flip side of the alliance could have asked of them. It is the clerical side that has failed and allowed fitna to emerge. That Islamic form of public disorder was one of the main strains fought by the Wahhabs against the pagan disorder of the peninsula two centuries ago and they have fallen down and, in fact, provided parentage to the fitna.
My thoughts exactly.
That's the $64,000 question.
This means something.
Freepers will figure it out.
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