By Howard Schneider Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, September 28, 2001; Page A01

CAIRO, Sept. 27 – Torn between the conservative religious leanings of its people and a desire to help in the war on terrorism, Saudi Arabia has signaled that it will permit U.S. troops and planes stationed on its soil to participate in military action against Osama bin Laden and his protectors in Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.

Saudi willingness to help would constitute a major gain for the Bush administration's political and military coalition against bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant blamed for the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington. Not only are the Saudi bases important militarily, but visible cooperation from the fervently Islamic Saudi monarchy would provide a welcome imprimatur in the Arab and Muslim world.

Earlier Saudi misgivings about use of the kingdom's facilities had raised questions about whether it would authorize use of a state-of-the-art command center – as planned by the Pentagon – to direct any military action in the region. The U.S.-built center is at Prince Sultan Air Base outside Al Kharj, 70 miles southeast of Riyadh, the capital. Because of new Saudi assurances, plans to organize an alternate command center elsewhere in the Persian Gulf have been dropped, U.S. officials said, and Washington believes the Saudi government "will allow us to do most things, but with a lot of winking."

Prince Saud Faisal, the foreign minister, strongly indicated Saudi willingness to cooperate after meeting Wednesday with European Union officials. He said the kingdom was committed to an aggressive international campaign "not just to track down the criminals of the Sept. 11 attacks, but to exterminate the infrastructure that helps the terrorists." Faisal said that if it comes to military action, Saudi Arabia "will not avoid its duty" as part of the coalition, according to an account of his remarks in the Saudi-based Arab News.

Prince Sultan Air Base already is home to about 5,000 U.S. servicemen and about 200 U.S., British and French planes, which have patrolled southern Iraq since the end of the Persian Gulf War and helped enforce economic sanctions over gulf shipping lanes. Under the Joint Task Force Southwest Asia, based on the sprawling and highly secure desert base, their mission would be expanded to participate in strikes against Afghanistan. U.S. officials said the details of such strikes remain to be decided, and thus to be worked out with Saudi Arabia, but that use of the base seems assured.

Saudi Arabia provided another important boost to the Bush administration's campaign on Tuesday. It not only severed diplomatic relations with the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan, but did so in harsh language that accused the ultra-orthodox movement of having become little more than a criminal gang that tarnished the image and interests of Muslims worldwide.

"The Taliban continues to use its lands to harbor, armor and encourage those criminals to go on with their terror operations, spreading fear and destruction over the world, causing harm to Islam and spoiling the name of Muslims," the Saudis said in an official statement.

The Saudi willingness to speak so forcefully about a movement that ostensibly shares conservative Muslim values – and Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi strain of Islam – coincides with reports from Washington that the United States does not intend to strike at Iraq. Talk in Washington that the U.S. war on terrorism might include an attack to unseat President Saddam Hussein had caused concern in several Arab governments, already upset at the effect of U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people.

Ethnically distinct, geographically removed and – by the standards of most Arabs – extreme in their interpretation of Islam, the Taliban have little support in the Middle East. Despite criticism of U.S. policy, particularly on Israel, many Arab officials have said that the massive loss of life on Sept. 11 makes a military response understandable.

The diplomacy of Arab involvement is nevertheless tricky in a region where large parts of public opinion embrace the idea that Israel is a terrorist state whose misdeeds are routinely excused by the United States. In that environment, aid for the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign must be carefully couched.

The existing U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia are an illustration. Since the end of the Persian Gulf War, U.S. warplanes have taken off daily from the isolated Prince Sultan base, treating Saudis on the ground to a parade of F-15s, AWACS radar planes and other aircraft soaring north to watch over Iraq's army, take pictures and eavesdrop on conversations.

When commanders order airstrikes, however, they often rely on squadrons based in Kuwait or on carriers in the Persian Gulf. This division of labor lets Saudi officials say their territory is not being used to attack a neighboring Arab and Muslim country. The United States cooperates by refusing to comment on the origin of aircraft that carry out the strikes.

Regional defense and political analysts say U.S. officials and officials of gulf countries will find similar compromises to allow the full use of U.S. personnel and hardware based throughout the peninsula, tailoring the language and the military mission to suit the needs of both sides.

Saudi politicians "don't act quickly. . . . They don't want to rock the boat. . . . Their whole legitimacy is religious, and they don't want to be seen as assisting the U.S. in attacking an Islamic country," said a military adviser in one gulf country. But "there is no question [the United States] will use the bases."

The runways at Prince Sultan Air Base are less important to the United States than the sophisticated operations center the U.S. Air Force just finished installing there, an Air Force officer said. He noted that strike aircraft – F-15s, F-16s and even heavy bombers such as the B-1 – can fly from elsewhere in the gulf.

The center enables commanders to track and control the movements of hundreds of aircraft over thousands of miles. The center also enables the military to collect all its information in one place. Those information streams include weather data, orders from Washington, reports from ground troops and intelligence material such as satellite imagery and real-time data from airborne reconnaissance planes.

That ability promises to be even more important in any military action in or around Afghanistan than it is for patrolling southern Iraq. Air commanders would need to coordinate with Special Forces troops on the ground to avoid "friendly fire" and provide air cover. That sort of coordination would be even more difficult in the event U.S. ground forces fly in by helicopter from Pakistan, while U.S. aircraft fly from bases in Uzbekistan, the gulf states and elsewhere.

U.S. forces based in the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain – offer a convenient foundation for military action against Afghanistan, which is about 600 miles away on the other side of Iran. Along with the Saudi base, fighter squadrons and army personnel are based in Kuwait; a forward deployed armored brigade is in Qatar; cargo and refueling units are in Oman and the United Arab Emirates; and the Navy's 5th Fleet is based in Bahrain.

As a matter of principle, leaders of these countries support the war against terrorism. As a matter of domestic politics, however, they are worried about repercussions. Even if the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims are repelled by bin Laden's methods, his complaints about U.S. policy in the Middle East and the presence of U.S. troops in the birthplace of Islam have wide appeal.

One Saudi executive said he has been holding talks almost nightly with different groups, and "you'd be surprised at the venom that comes out" toward the United States. "People all over the Muslim world are upset about this gung-ho attitude of Bush, and not focusing on other terrorism, the Irish Republican Army, the terrorism in Sri Lanka. . . . People are sympathetic to Robin Hood," he said, meaning bin Laden.

"More than ever this presents Arab regimes with a dilemma," said Nizar Hamzeh, a professor at the American University of Beirut and a specialist on militant movements. "Do you join the alliance and fight terrorism? That's a problem. Do you clean up the streets [with mass arrests]? That's a problem. Do you stay away? That's a problem."

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2001