Saudi quietly helps, even as it complains

Saudi Arabia has been quietly helping the US set up for a war against Iraq, even as it spent months vocally opposing one.

Thousands of US troops have deployed near the Saudi border with Iraq and in a garrison town in the north. More have been deployed at an air base near the capital Riyadh.

And 3,300 Saudi soldiers are in Kuwait as part of the Peninsula Shield, a military operation ordered by the Gulf Cooperation Council to protect Kuwait from a possible Iraqi attack.

“They have given the Americans everything they have asked for,” one Gulf official said. “Saudi Arabia is not participating – it is facilitating.”

Thousands of US troops remained in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

That war and the presence of American forces in the cradle of Islam roused the anger of Muslim militants and gave a pretext for Saudi-born Osama bin Laden to go after the ruling Al Saud family and the US.

Fifteen of the hijackers on September 11, 2001, were Saudi nationals.

The Saudi royal family has had to walk a tightrope between domestic opposition to any attack on Iraq, and its desire to maintain good relations with Washington.

But behind the scenes it has quietly been helping the Americans, mindful that if it did not join in the effort, it would have no say in helping shape a post-Saddam Iraq.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia announced it was closing the northern Araar airport to civilian traffic, saying it would serve as a base to provide humanitarian assistance to Iraqi refugees.

But the Gulf official said thousands of US troops have poured into Araar town, 40 miles south of the Iraqi border, and the garrison town of Tabuk, 60 miles south of the Jordanian border.

The official said the US troops in Araar include forces who will carry out search-and-rescue operations – helping recover any downed pilots or planes across the border in Iraq .