Prince Bandar, Saudi Amb. to U.S. Faces Fletcher Students and American Reporters at Tufts

Terrorism and Women's Issues Addressed
By Terry Ann Knopf

Stir in a well-known diplomat from a controversial country who rarely speaks to reporters and you have a formula for quite a media event. Indeed, for only the second time since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States, held a news conference for American reporters on Oct. 23, at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Later, he went before a packed house to answer questions from about 400 students, faculty and staff who jammed ASEAN Auditorium; others watched on a giant monitor in the Hall of Flags to accommodate the overflow audience. Tufts president Larry Bacow was among the university officials who came to the event

The news conference attracted a heavy media turnout. Reporters from The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, The Christian Science Monitor, Associated Press, Reuters, New England Cable News and two reporters from WBUR-FM, the NPR affiliate all came. Other reporters, from CNN and Bloomberg News, flew up from Washington for the event.

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The high degree of interest in Prince Bandar's appearance was obviously linked to 9/11. With the disclosure that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, relations between the United States and Saudi have remained delicate, often tense. Issues involving lawsuits pending in the American courts alleging Saudi complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks as well as questions about Saudi Arabia's commitment to a terrorist crackdown, democratic reforms and modernization, continue to surface.

No doubt mindful of the media aspects of the event, the Prince was accompanied to Boston by the president of a Washington, D.C. public relations firm that represents the Saudi government. A videotaping crew was also brought along to record the proceedings. And, about 20 copies of a 350-page report defending Saudi Arabia's "special role" in the war against terrorism were Fed-Exed to Fletcher several hours before the news conference for reporters.

During the two sessions, each lasting about an hour, the Prince touched on a number of areas, handling questions about the Saudi government's alleged involvement in terrorist activities, its treatment of women and its role in helping to rebuild Iraq.

There were no off-limit questions for either reporters or students. Indeed, the Prince proved a highly articulate, engaging, but elusive presence. He was unequivocal in his denunciation of the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. "Everyone agreed he was evil," he said. "I am more optimistic about the situation in Iraq than I see when I watch the media," he said. "What you see now as signs of discontent, that is music to the ears of people who have [suffered] 35 years of suppression."

When asked by an NPR reporter why he had consented to going before the American media, he replied jokingly, "to prove that I am not a smart man." At another point, he drew laughs when he said something was "not kosher." He also got some laughs when he sarcastically referred to The Washington Times, which has been highly critical of Saudi Arabia, as "one of my favorite papers."

Prince Bandar deflected mounting criticism by the American public over the chaos in Iraq and the wave of anti-American feeling abroad. "Sometimes you are a little bit too hard on yourselves," he said, praising the Bush Administration for taking action to rid the world of Saddam Hussein.

"If we, the Arab countries, could have done what America did to Saddam, I think that would be preferable, of course," he said. "If Saudi Arabia alone could have done it, that would have been even better. And, if the Iraqi people without anybody could have done it, that would have been the ideal. But the reality is, there's a cancer there and we didn't have either the tools or the doctor or the operating table for it until the United States came and helped us."

While the audience was unfailingly polite, there was some skepticism among the students -- as when one asked a pointed question about women's rights in Saudia Arabia "where women can't drive and have no rights to gather publicly."

The Prince countered that the United States, which he noted has had its own problems with women's equality, was not in a position to judge others. "The truth of the matter is, Saudi women today are much, much, much better [off] than they were 30 years ago. And next year, 10 years from now, they will be even more [sic] better. You don’t help the Saudi woman by making it sound like, 'this is the Western thing.'"

"Leave them alone," he advised, adding "[I]n 1964, zero women were in school, today, 51 percent of the population of all our schools are women," he said.

An experienced, highly regarded player in the corridors of Washington and in the intricacies of Mideast diplomacy, Prince Bandar was appointed Ambassador in 1983, and has held the post ever since. Calling him "the senior diplomat Washington," The New Yorker magazine [March 24, 2003] notes "he has served under four American presidents and has been the emissary to, among others Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Saddam Hussein, and the Chinese government."

The Bandar event ended with a private dinner with students, faculty and staff, with the Prince and his entourage returning to Washington, D.C. in a private jet later that night.