US revises plans as kingdom courts Iraq

SAUDI ARABIA is in the process of concluding a special trade deal with Baghdad and is likely to deny the United States access to its military bases for any attack on Iraq, according to diplomatic sources.
The Saudi Government, which was host to 500,000 American troops for Operation Desert Storm in 1991, has been engaged in talks with Iraq that could result in the establishment of a free-trade area between the two countries, the sources said.

The growing rapprochement between Riyadh and Baghdad, at a time when the Pentagon is weighing up the military options for toppling President Saddam Hussein, has underlined the huge changes in the region’s political environment since the previous US-led campaign against Iraq.

Intelligence sources said that the United States had “as good as eliminated Saudi Arabia” as a base for operations against Saddam. The al-Udeid base in Qatar, about 20 miles from the capital, Doha, is being expanded and is expected to be the control centre for US air operations.

The key Iraqi player in the trade talks with the Saudis has been Ezzat Ibrahim al-Douri, deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council in Baghdad. He visited Riyadh earlier this year and met Prince Nayef bin Abd al-Aziz, the Saudi Interior Minister, who, according to diplomatic sources, is in charge of communications between the countries.

The normalisation of relations between Riyadh and Baghdad was illustrated at the Arab League summit in Beirut in March when Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was seen on live television to embrace Ezzat Ibrahim, Saddam’s representative. Saudi Arabia also joined its Arab League partners in a unanimous vote against any US military attack on Iraq.