Thursday, August 28, 2003

A Modest Proposal


As we know from this and similar reports, the Saudi government is now challenging the Bush administration to prove Saudi citizens are fighting American troops in Iraq.

'We are very concerned about this issue because we would like to take action,' Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'But we have no evidence of Saudis crossing into Iraq and we have received no evidence from the U.S. government.'...Al-Jubeir said his government has offered to send its own team of investigators to help U.S. officials identify any possible Saudi expatriate who may have come through other countries, like Iran, or who made it through the porous, desert borders between Iraq and the Saudi kingdom...'We are willing to send a team to Iraq to look at any evidence they might have,' he said. 'Saudi Arabia is determined to fight terrorism and to prosecute terrorists regardless of where they are.'

Wouldn't it prove Saudi Arabia wasn't involved in terrorist sabotage of the Iraq-Turkey pipline if it immediately agreed to an increase in oil production equal to Iraq's normal capacity? Under such an agreement, Saudis would subsequently cut back their production as Iraq gradually increased its own output of crude. Regional crude production would no longer be affected by Iraq's recovery or by ongoing economic terrorism against pipelines or fields.

This, like nothing else, could prove to the world Saudi Arabia is not practicing economic terrorism as a means of limiting regional oil output. This is a useful way Saudis could contribute to and prove their support of Iraq's economic recovery.