Saudi Criticizes U.S. 'Prognosticators,' Saddam

March 31, 2003 -- Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, criticized President Bush's prognosticators in an interview with ABCNEWS' Barbara Walters, but also suggested that Saddam Hussein should step down to prevent more bloodshed in the war in Iraq. Here are excerpts from the interview:

BARBARA WALTERS: Your Highness, from your vantage point, how is this war going?

PRINCE SAUD AL-FAISAL: Every war is most certainly going to be worse than a peaceful solution. We had hoped for a peaceful solution. We still hope for a peaceful solution. And from the opening of the war, we can see that our conclusion was correct; that this war can only lead to strife, to bloodshed, and to increased hatred, and increased anxieties in the region.

WALTERS: How long do you think this war will go on?

PRINCE SAUD: God only knows, and that's a problem with wars. People can predict the beginning, but can never predict their end. It depends on many factors that are beyond the control of anybody, even military planners.

WALTERS: We learned over the weekend that some American missiles aimed at Iraq actually landed in Saudi Arabia. And the U.S. has temporarily suspended missile flights over your country. Can you tell us if anyone was hurt, and what the damage was?

PRINCE SAUD: Fortunately, no one was hurt, but this has happened not only in Saudi Arabia, but in other countries as well. In neighboring countries, countries like Iran and I don't know how many other countries… Turkey. And this is one of the dangers of war, is that civilians become more anxious about their safety and with these modern weapons, no matter how smart they are, there are always problems.

WALTERS: Did you say that this did not happen in your country?

PRINCE SAUD: It did happen more than four, I think, four or six missiles that have struck our country.

WALTERS: But no one was hurt?

PRINCE SAUD: No one was hurt, fortunately.

WALTERS: Fortunately. There were news reports last week that you had proposed a new peace plan to Washington and to Baghdad. Is that true?

PRINCE SAUD: Well, what we have said was that we have ideas that we want to propose to both sides. Now that the conflict has started, each side knows exactly what they are going to face. Perhaps this is a good time to stop, take a breath, and allow for diplomacy to work in order to avoid further conflict and further bloodshed and in the hope of reaching a peaceful settlement. But for this to take off, for this to become a real proposal, it would need the agreement of both countries, which unfortunately is not there.

WALTERS: You've had no encouragement for your peace plan from this country?

PRINCE SAUD: We have had neither from Iraq nor from United States.

WALTERS: Prior, to the war, your crown prince proposed a plan under which Saddam Hussein would go into exile. Did you ever get a response from Saddam Hussein?

PRINCE SAUD: Well, the plan was given to the Arab Summit by Sheik Zayid bin Sultan, the Head of State of the United Arab Emirates. And it was supported by the Gulf Cooperation Council. But that never took off, because it was refused immediately by Iraq.

Friends and Enemies

WALTERS: If Saddam Hussein sought refuge in Saudi Arabia, which seems unlikely, but if he did, now at the end of the war, would you grant him refuge?

PRINCE SAUD: Well, we have no plans for that. What we are facing, Barbara, is something more important than personality. There is war being waged. And if you don't mind me saying so, I am on a personal level, as somebody who been in, has been in the United States, lived during my education for at least 13 or 14 years, and gained from the benefits of what the American society had to offer in terms of education. I can't help but be moved to some frustration by the people who have advised and been backing and following through the effort toward conflict in the Middle East.

The president has shown that he was always always patient. And I say this publicly every time I met the president. He worked assiduously with the United Nations to evolve resolution 1441. But we have seen that at this moment of war, of crisis, people in United States, prognosticators, advisers, claiming that war would only bring benefit, that the soldiers would be met with roses on the roads, where are these prognosticators now? These prognosticators, when the United States needs friends everywhere, have gone so far as to try to convince the American public that their friends are enemies. This is a time for reckoning. This is a time to show who the real friend and who the real enemy is.

The real friend who counseled restraint was considered an enemy because he counseled restraint. And this is what makes a person like me … I can't say hopping mad, because that's not the diplomatic word. But I think the United States has to do some reckoning internally for the advice that it has had.

I am sorry to say so, but … I must say this.

WALTERS: Would you like to name names?

PRINCE SAUD: No, I think the people that are after this … this push toward war and conflict push toward convincing the United States it doesn't need friends, it doesn't need allies, it doesn't need anybody, it can do anything that it wants at any time … these are the people that must do the reckoning now.

WALTERS: Well, let me name names. Are you speaking of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld? Or our vice president, Dick Cheney?

PRINCE SAUD: No, no, I'm not going to answer as to names.

WALTERS: Do you feel the United States did not listen to you and your government, as friends? Did they disregard your views?

PRINCE SAUD: We have talked with the president. We have shown our opinion to the American government, we found that the president is somebody who is working patiently, who sees his role as a role in defending the international community. He gathered the world behind him to fight terrorism. Every country in the world joined with this war. He has led the international community to achieve through the United Nations resolution 141. And that is no small venture.

But since these voices that have arisen, that have shown to the world the different picture than what was intended by either the president or the government, must now come to an accounting for what they have done. I think the situation is not lost by any means. The objectives of the United States are clear. The objectives of the United States and the president and everybody knows that the United States is not an occupying power. It's not an imperial power. That it is trying to do its best to help the Iraqi people.

One can need only to look at the way the war is waged and the effort to avoid civilian casualties has happened that indicates the good intentions of the United States government.

Calling for a Cease-Fire

WALTERS: Your Highness, do you realistically think that now with our, with our … forces, uh, in Iraq and, and bombing of Baghdad, that the coalition is just going to … stop and change its mind?

PRINCE SAUD:What's wrong with that? Military commanders after they have achieved such a long intervention into a country, a long attack, have to regroup. Let's allow this period of regrouping between the two sides, to be open, to open the prospects of diplomacy. Let's have a cease-fire. Let's have a cease-fire that allows for diplomacy to work. If this is considered against the interests of the United States, I can assure you we have not suggested it because we think it is against the interest of the United States. We have suggested it because we are for peace, because we believe the interests of the United States will be served through peace, not war.

… Otherwise, this war is going to drag on. God knows what. Nobody can say when it is. And the president has been honest in his statement in saying that this is a war that will end when it ends.

But what we are worried about is not only the performance of the war, the act of the war, but what happens after the war in the Middle East and the relations of the United States with the people of the region? This is what we are worrying about. And only a friend of the United States can worry about that. Somebody who says just go ahead … don't care about what the region thinks, do what you need to do … is certainly no friend of the United States.

WALTERS: Let me ask you this: your government now is walking a tightrope. You are facilitating the U.S. war effort. The Saudi population is increasingly anti-American. The Iman of the grand mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, prayed publicly for Baghdad's victory over America. If we do continue this war, might it affect your policies? Saudi Arabia's policy towards the United States?

PRINCE SAUD: Everybody can always explain the statements that come from Saudi Arabia, that it is self-preserving. But what does it mean, self-preserving? When we advise the United States that war is not the machinery … to bring about peace and even democratization of the region. Are we being self-serving in this?

WALTERS: Will you change your policies towards the United States if this war continues?

PRINCE SAUD: This war is an incident in a long-term relationship between our two countries. A relation that has existed for two-thirds of the life of my country. And one-third … or thereabouts of the … life of the republic of the United States. It cannot be changed easily. Cannot be disregarded, just as if it is a turn of a page from a novel, written by some mad writer. It is a relationship that exists, it exists on sound basis, it exists because of mutual interests between the people, the two peoples of the two countries. And you will find the people who are the most angry in this area, seeing the situation develop as it is, are those who have always loved the United States. Always wanted the relations with the United States to be sound. Always wanted the human relations between them and their friends in the United States to be sound.

Regime Change — Necessary?

WALTERS: Do you believe that a regime change is necessary? Must Saddam Hussein be removed from power?

PRINCE SAUD: Well we have called on Mr. Hussein to — since he has … asked his people to sacrifice for the country — that he should be the first to sacrifice for his country. And his … if his staying in power the only thing that brings problems to his country, we expect that he would respond to a sacrifice for his country, as he requires any citizen there to … sacrifice for his country.

WALTERS: Could the fact that most of your people are against this war, and yet your government is a staunch ally of the United States affect the stability of your country?

PRINCE SAUD: Before this war, no. Let me be fair. Before the perceived unexplained position of the United States for indiscriminate acceptance of Israeli policy in the Middle East against the Palestinian, there has been a change. The friendship that exists between Saudi Arabia and the United States is not built on the government … It is not embassies here and there that have made this. It is the friendship of the people of Saudi Arabia with the people of America who came and worked here. It is a relationship built by private enterprise on a human-to-human level. I, with my own eyes, have seen, and I think I told you this before. An old, wonderful woman, during the visit of the crown prince to Texas, to meet with the president, who came to the prince, and told him, 'Listen, I'm more Saudi than perhaps 60 percent of the Saudis. I have five generations of children who worked in Saudi.'

Five generations. Is this built on a basis of enmity between the people? Is this built because we are producing terrorists who hate the West or the Christian world? This isn't a victory. It is, something to blind the eye of public opinion, and the United States against the Arab world. Who are the beneficiary of this? I don't know. Who is going to benefit from making America believe that friends are enemies and its enemies are friends?

WALTERS: May I just ask you — I'd like to talk about the Palestinian situation, but just before that, does your intelligence tell you that Saddam Hussein is still alive?

PRINCE SAUD: We cannot know. We know there was a strike … before the war, and … and we were told that this was a headquarters of the leadership and that Saddam Hussein was in it. The theory that increases the speculation of this issue is that he has not appeared in a public sense.

WALTERS: What do you think?

PRINCE SAUD: I don't know whether he is alive or whether he is not. The issues remain the same. Personalities don't matter. Countries do. Iraq is a most important country. Iraq is a country of civilization. It is the country that has established law before any other society. It is the country that has culture, that has spread throughout the region. For thousands of years its history goes back perhaps beyond 8,000 years. So it is a country that is worthy of becoming part of the international community. To contribute in the civilization of the international community. Whether it is headed by Saddam Hussein or somebody else, I don't think is relevant.

WALTERS: If Saddam Hussein is a man who tortures his people, if he has weapons of mass destruction, do you not feel that he should be removed from power, so that Iraq can take its place as the kind of nation you describe, the nature of dignity and pride, the nation of history and of respect?

PRINCE SAUD: In the same breath as we say that, this is a nation of history and dignity, can we really say that we think they should remove their president, and not give them the right to do so themselves?

WALTERS: They haven't wanted to. Or maybe they're afraid to.

PRINCE SAUD: Is he the only one that is torturing his citizens? There have been many people who tortured the citizens as badly. Ceausescu was not removed by a war. He was removed by his people. And if the people are against Saddam Hussein, they will be able to remove him. The people of Iraq may be patient, but certainly they know their interests and how to deal with their country.

Plan for Peace in Palestein

WALTERS: Let us talk about the Palestinian situation. Now there is a road map, although we don't know what the road map is. Do you know what the road map is?

PRINCE SAUD:We have been informed about the road map.

WALTERS: What can you tell us?

PRINCE SAUD: And we have made our comments on the road map. And the road map is for the establishment of a Palestinian state. We believe that the road map should be taken up in spite of the war. That this is an opportunity that, since everybody thinks the road map should be presented, let it be presented. That the Palestinians be invited to talk about this road map. That the Israelis should be convinced to accept the road map and work through it. The main problem with the Middle East is this conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. And therefore, solving that problem, is going to be the beginning of the road to peace in the Middle East.

WALTERS: Do you think now that there is a new prime minister, instead of, and that Yasser Arafat has, in effect, stepped down, do you expect that to make a significant difference in the peace process?

PRINCE SAUD: I'm sure that it's one that the Palestinians have undertaken, has united therefore the effort of the Palestinian people behind the national republic. And has created a responsible entity that will gain the recognition of the international community as it should do so. And therefore be worthy of carrying the name of a Palestinian state and to start negotiations.

Friends ‘Tell the Truth’

WALTERS: If you were to talk now, to the American people and to the American government, the president and his advisers, do you have a specific message that you would like to give?

PRINCE SAUD: Trust your friends. Advisers can only advance their theories. But friends can tell you the truth.

WALTERS: And friends are telling you to take a breath; to stop this war now; and to negotiate?

PRINCE SAUD: Well, uh, (LAUGHS) … Saudi Arabia has one friend that is doing that. But there are many friends of the United States. The United States is a global nation. It should listen to everybody. It should look at its policies from every angle. We can have only a prismic view of the situation. And we see it from only that prism, of our situation in our region. But we don't even claim to be the only people that should be listened to. They should listen to all their friends, who, they know they are … they are their friends. They have cooperated with them throughout these years.

WALTERS: Just one last question, because our time is almost up. Do you think that Osama bin Laden is alive?

PRINCE SAUD: Who knows? Maybe he's in the same place with Saddam Hussein, and maybe he's not.

WALTERS: Mr. Minister, your highness, I thank you for giving us the time. It's been a pleasure to talk with you again.

PRINCE SAUD:Thank you. And may I remind you again of the invitation.

WALTERS: It would be my pleasure. Thank you, sir.