Posted on 08/28/2002 7:58:59 PM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — The Saudi government has spent millions of dollars on well-connected lobbyists and national television advertisements since Sept. 11 in a drive to improve its image among Americans and is poised to spend more as the anniversary of the events approaches.
Saudi officials said the publicity was intended to counter intensified anger or skepticism among Americans toward their country, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers and which has clashed publicly with the Bush administration over a possible attack against Iraq.
A striking sign of the Saudis' eagerness to reach out to the United States has been an 11th-hour scramble within the royal family to find a gesture of solidarity with the American people on the anniversary of the attacks.
The royal family has considered presenting the racehorse that won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes this year as a gift to the victims' families, according to one adviser to the family. The horse, War Emblem, which was owned by Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who died in July, would be part of the commemoration at Ground Zero.
In all, the Saudis have hired several public relations firms and have already spent more than $5 million, according to new Justice Department filings.
These firms include one of Washington's most prominent, Patton Boggs, which received $170,000 in the first six months of this year, according to the filings. Patton Boggs is especially known for its contacts among Democrats. It was founded by Thomas H. Boggs, Jr., a well-connected Democratic lobbyist, whose father, Representative Hale Boggs, was speaker of the House, and whose sister is the journalist Cokie Roberts.
The Saudi government has also hired Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a firm founded by Robert W. Strauss, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, paying out $161,799 in the first half of 2002, the filings show. Frederick Dutton, a former special assistant to President John F. Kennedy and a longtime adviser to the Saudis, received $536,000 to help manage the Saudis' handling of the aftermath of Sept. 11 — and he has a continuing contract with that government.
The Saudis have also turned to lobbyists with Republican credentials, hiring James P. Gallagher, a former staff member for Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, and the media-buying firm of Sandler-Innocenzi, which has strong Republican connections.
Adel al-Jubeir, an adviser to the Saudi government and a key figure in the new effort, said his government was appropriating the techniques of an American political campaign to overhaul its image in this country. The strategy involves hiring a new publicity team, being more accessible to the press, sending officials on speaking tours, cultivating research organizations inside and outside the Washington Beltway and polling Americans on their opinions.
Already, the Saudi government has run hundreds of television and radio commercials in virtually every major media market in the country, and placed advertisements in publications like People magazine and Stars & Stripes. From San Diego to Cleveland, the ads extol Saudi Arabia's decades-old alliance with the United States and affirm the Saudi's commitment to fight terrorism.
Now, with the anniversary of the attacks approaching, Saudi officials said they were considering another release of television ads in 26 cities.
In one ad produced by the public relations firm Qorvis Communications, the Saudi and American flags are hoisted together while a narrator intones over soothing piano music: "In the war on terrorism we all have a part to play. Our country has been an ally for over 60 years." A second ad shows Saudi leaders meeting with an unbroken string of American presidents since Roosevelt.
Qorvis Communications, which presented Saudi Arabia with a short-term and long-range media strategy, is paid $200,000 a month.
The company, whose other accounts include the campaign to allow for oil exploration in the Alaskan wildlife refuge, has distributed position papers featuring friendly remarks by Bush administration officials toward Saudi Arabia.
In addition, Saudi officials have sought to project a more open image, making themselves accessible to the news media, allowing more Americans to visit their country and occasionally even inviting journalists to palace banquets.
Lobbying is standard practice for many countries, though until last year, the Saudis had largely shunned the task, preferring to influence American policies through personal ties. In the first half of 2001, the kingdom spent only $256,770 on two lobbying firms. By contrast, during the same period, Israel spent $5.1 million on eight firms and Japan spent $24.6 million on 58 firms.
The Saudis have studied how much money other nations pay to lobby in the United States and, for the first time, have budgeted for a long-term strategy, Mr. Jubeir said.
"In the past, we never tried to explain ourselves to the American public," he said, declining to disclose the full budget. "We've not been very good at communicating because we're not a very communicative culture." After Sept. 11, Saudi Arabia went into "crisis mode," he said. "We asked: can you take the principles of a political campaign and apply it to a government?"
The stance is a stark departure for a government that for generations has appeared indifferent to American popular opinion — and even slighted the State Department as it cultivated relations with the White House directly.
"They generally prefer to keep things close to the vest," said James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation. "They have a very elitist style where they prefer to go to the top and do an end run around Washington bureaucracies."
Saudi officials said they wanted to quell any anti-Saudi sentiment that could worsen ties as President Bush ponders his options in Iraq. Mr. Bush's lunch in Texas this week for Prince Bandar, the longtime Saudi diplomat, was seen as a public endorsement eagerly sought by the Saudis.
"They are re-evaluating how to communicate with the American public in a very direct way," said Judith Kipper, a Middle East specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations. "This is something they've needed to do for a long, long time."
So far, the publicity effort has failed to improve Saudi standing among Americans. A poll by Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates, a predominantly Republican firm, last week found that Americans' negative opinion of Saudi Arabia had surged to 63 percent, from 50 percent in May.
"It definitely went the wrong way for the Saudis," said Michael D. Cohen, the polling firm's vice president. "If I were them, I would say this has been a complete failure."
Events in recent weeks have compounded the Saudis' worries.
An analyst with the RAND Corporation stirred an outcry by contending before a Pentagon advisory group that Saudi Arabia should be treated as an enemy. The analyst, Laurent Murawiec, argued that Saudi Arabia was a prime sponsor of terrorism, and he said it should crack down on extremists or risk seizure of its oil fields.
Then, a group of family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks filed a suit against Saudi Arabia. More than 300 relatives of the dead are seeking $300 billion in damages under a law that enables ordinary individuals to sue foreign governments involved in terrorism.
One of the government's American lobbyists, who spoke on condition that he not be named, said Saudi officials were deeply troubled by a perception in the United States that they were somehow complicit in the attacks.
"The fundamental problem the Saudis have in this country is the idea that they are not an ally," the lobbyist said. "For a country that has been an ally for 60 years, that's frustrating."
By not allowing us to use the airbase we built--strike one.
By funding bin Laden and Al Queda with 300 million dollars--strike two.
By supporting Radical Islam through their funding of hate-America Islamic schools--strike three.
1. End funding of the madrassas unless they stop preaching hatred of the U.S.
2. End funding of the Wahabbis unless they agree to stop preaching hatred through their madrassas.
3. End funding of political groups involved in violence.
4. Open their borders to the Palestinians.
5. Force funding spent on armaments in Palestine to be spent on food, clothing, shelter, and humanitarian supplies.
6. Accept what they have demanded publicly but really don't want: a withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia and an assumption of their own defenses.
I don't think a racehorse is going to cut it, however well-cooked. Osama's head in a pickling jar won't cut it. This is much bigger than that - for once it's bigger than they are and they don't know how to deal with that.
"The fundamental problem the Saudis have in this country is the idea that they are not an ally," the lobbyist said. "For a country that has been an ally for 60 years, that's frustrating."
No, the fundamental problem the Saudis have in this country is the fact that the American people have begun to accurately perceive that Saudi Arabia is not an ally, rather an enemy which has sponsored the spread of radical Islamist ideology and hatred of the West, and which discriminates against Christians, treats women like chattel and seeks to kill the Jews, and that the Saudis did constitute 3/4 of the 9/11 terrorists.
But I have moved from defender to someone who is starting to get really angry with these folks. I understand the delicate balance the rulers have to take with their clerics and the rest of the population. I understand how helpful they have been for the last 20 years in ensuring that energy prices were quite affordable.
I thank them for all that.
But let's be realistic. In terms of helping us fight the Terrorism War, which was declared by the terrorists, we can rank our allies in this fight on a scale of 1 to 100. Britain has been about a 90. Turkey has been about an 85. Iraq has been a 0 and Iran about a 4. Israel has been about a 99, and Egypt about a 20.
Saudi Arabia? Maybe a 10.
All the ad campaigns in the world aren't going to change that. Either they are helping us or they are not. Basically, they have decided that it is safer for them not to help us.
Fine, noted. We're not ready to put Saudi Arabia in the Axis of Evil yet, but if they want to apply for membership, they should continue their present approach to foreign affairs.
Does anyone know how bin Salman died? He was very young, if I remember correctly.
The day there is an Episcopal cathedral, in cruciform Gothic style, on a prominent lot in central Mecca, we will know something has changed.
So was I.
Now my biggest concern is getting the thousands of potential American hostages out of Saudi Arabia. I have known a number of Americans who worked there. They were all good people. I cannot see how any American with common sense would still be there.
Message to Saudi: GET BENT.
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