Saudi-U.S. relations: Odd couple in a desert pact

By Charles J. Hanley

The economic relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States reaches back decades. But it entered a new stage in the 1990s. In this first in a two-part series, AP special correspondent Charles J. Hanley takes a look at Saudi-U.S. relations.

PRINCE SULTAN AIR BASE, Saudi Arabia (AP): Whenever she goes to town, Donna Caswell first straps on her body armor. Then the U.S. Air Force sergeant drapes herself from head to toe in a black robe.

The first protects her against America's Saudi enemies, the second against the ire of its Saudi friends.

"It's, well, interesting," Caswell says.

A half-century after they first joined forces, the "special relationship" between the United States and Saudi Arabia stands at the heart of global geopolitics -- and at the top of any list of "interesting" alliances.

One partner is dynamic and democratic, the other traditional. One is open, the other closed. One celebrates diversity, the other hides half its population in veiled anonymity.

A single shared interest binds superpower to desert kingdom: One needs to buy oil, the other needs to sell it.

"I don't know much about the Saudis," another Air Force sergeant, Sal Galaviz, admitted to a visitor to this remote base. "All I know is they're our allies -- 'good guys,' like us."

But the "good guy" marriage of convenience is proving, in some ways, an inconvenient one.

Irritations and disagreements trouble the military partnership. Two terror bombs have brutally announced grassroots Saudi opposition to the Americans. And Saudi infidelity to one of its vows -- to expand its defense forces -- may eventually take some charm out of the relationship.

About 20,000 U.S. servicemen and women are on duty in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf, keeping an eye on Iraq, Iran and the industrial world's oil supply.

From this tent city on the desert's edge, some 80 Air Force warplanes, ready to defend the kingdom, fly patrols over southern Iraq. Three hundred miles (480 kilometers) away, the Gulf's waters are crowded with up to 35 Navy warships. Scattered elsewhere, equipment is being "prepositioned" for thousands of Army soldiers to be flown in during a crisis.

The U.S. military commitment strengthened as America's dependence on imported oil grew through the 1990s. Few contrary voices were heard in Washington.

"There still seems to be a consensus that it is in our best interests to be there in the way we are," Ray Mabus, until recently American ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said in a telephone interview.

That "way" is expensive. Analysts estimate the Gulf commitment costs U.S. taxpayers at least $40 billion a year. In some Washington quarters, that looks excessive.

"How do we want to deal with our energy problems? By having a war every several years?" asked Joseph Romm, the Energy Department's conservation chief. "Clearly you need to have an approach that reduces American dependence on foreign oil."

Mounting costs are also now raising questions in Congress. Senior Republican senators say they want a review of what they call "serious policy issues" regarding the Gulf commitment.

Other U.S. officials have a more immediate concern: Local hostility to the American troops is inflaming the opposition to the Saudi monarchy. The "solution" -- the U.S. military shield -- is becoming part of the problem.

In Riyadh, the capital, Saudi officials sound reassuring. "I don't think there's a strong resentment of the Americans. They're not a colonial force," said royal adviser Abdel-Aziz Al- Fayez. But he conceded, "Not everybody has the same feeling."

Since the bombings, which together killed 24 Americans in November 1995 and last June, the U.S. profile has been lowered. American forces have been consolidated in two locations -- a high-security compound outside Riyadh and the Prince Sultan Air Base 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the capital.

The few who travel off-base follow strict security rules. And women, like postal specialist Caswell, must also don the full- length abaya, to avoid harassment by Muslim religious police enforcing "the veil" on females.

Everyday dealings are tense in other ways, too. The Air Force must disguise chapels as "morale centers," for example, because other religions are outlawed here. And a Saudi commander recently declared the U.S. side of this base off-limits to his troops because 400 Air Force women work there.

Larger handicaps also burden the U.S. mission:

-- The Saudis won't allow U.S. Navy vessels to make port visits.

-- They rebuffed an American proposal to stockpile military equipment on Saudi soil for a "crisis" brigade.

-- They refused to allow the Air Force to hit Iraqi targets from here last September during reprisal strikes for Iraqi military operations in northern Iraq.

-- Since bankrolling the Gulf War, the Saudis have declined to contribute to U.S. operations like a huge 1994 deployment of American troops in Kuwait.

Although little cash is forthcoming for operations, Pentagon officials are quick to point out the Saudis are writing big checks for other things -- $62 billion in U.S.-made armaments between 1990 and 1995.

Saudi Arabia's role as the U.S. defense industry's biggest foreign customer is a special link in the special relationship. It also points up a shortcoming: Too many ultramodern warships stay in port and too many missiles in boxes because the Saudis are undermanned and undertrained.

"Their ranks are too thin," a U.S. admiral in the region said privately. "After a week's operation, they're tired."

After the Gulf War, the Saudis said they would double their armed forces to 200,000 men by 1998. They would be a "pillar" of Gulf defense, the Pentagon said. Islamic clergy, ashamed the nation had been rescued by non-Moslems, petitioned the king for even more - a half-million-man army.

But international experts estimate Saudi strength at only 105,000 as of last year, when Saudi defense spending was actually reduced by 9 percent. The Defense Ministry declined requests to discuss such subjects.

"Saudi Arabia is pretending it is building a strong army," concluded Said Aburish, London-based author of a study of the ruling House of Saud.

He and other knowledgeable observers believe the Saud family faces a dilemma: The U.S. military presence is provocative to their people, but a powerful Saudi army might threaten family rule.

And so the odd couple continues to dig in -- side by side, but not too close -- in the desert. And what about when Saddam Hussein, the enemy, eventually falls from power in Iraq? Will the U.S. military leave?

The Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, says he sees no need for a "permanent structure." But one Gulf specialist, former Israeli government adviser Alexander Bligh, sees a different outcome.

"As long as there is oil in Saudi Arabia," he predicted, "the Americans will be there."