In My Time - Dick Cheney [199]
In the Desert of Saudi Arabia for one of my many visits with King Abdullah. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
King Fahd was still alive, but infirm, and the crown prince was the de facto ruler of the country. I had first met Abdullah twelve years earlier when I had flown to Saudi Arabia the first weekend after Saddam invaded Kuwait to secure basing rights for American forces. Although I did not always agree with him on policy, I had come to trust and respect him over the years as a plainspoken, honest man of deep faith.
In a practice we would repeat numerous times over the next six years, we had dinner together with members of our staffs and then moved to another room to meet privately, with only my professional and trusted interpreter, Gamal Helal, in attendance.
In Ramallah preparing to meet with Palestinian leader Abu Mazen with two of my key foreign policy advisors, John Hannah and Gamal Helal. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
I laid out for Abdullah the enormous impact of the 9/11 attacks on America. With three thousand Americans dead, we could not wait for terrorists to attack again and then deal with them after the fact. As the president had said, waiting for threats to fully materialize was waiting too long. Saddam, his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and his ties to terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, were of great concern. We intended to pursue a diplomatic resolution, but if we couldn’t achieve one, we would be compelled to act. And if war did come, I assured the crown prince, we would prevail.
The crown prince was concerned about Saddam but skeptical about U.S. military action. He wanted more reassurance that we would, in fact, see it through. At the president’s request I conveyed an invitation for the crown prince to visit the president at his Texas ranch, and I offered to have Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers meet him in Texas to brief him about our planning prior to his meeting with the president. Abdullah accepted my offer.
The crown prince also wanted to talk about the initiative he had put forth to advance the peace process. I told the crown prince we welcomed his initiative, and we hoped it would give impetus to the peace process at the upcoming Arab summit in Beirut and beyond. But, I cautioned, we viewed Arafat as a serious problem. Abdullah was not naïve about Arafat, but he saw him as the leader of the Palestinians, someone who should be treated as a partner.
Following stops in Bahrain, Qatar, and finally Kuwait, I headed for Israel. On the way, I called a meeting in the plane’s conference room to discuss the Arab-Israeli situation.
In Tel Aviv with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)
The State Department representative on my trip, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns, lobbied for me to meet with Arafat. He argued that it would be wrong for such a senior U.S. official to travel to Jerusalem and meet only with the Israelis. Members of my staff—John Hannah, Eric Edelman, and Scooter Libby—objected to such a meeting. They argued that it would be seen as rewarding Arafat, who was still trafficking in terror. At a minimum, they suggested, if I agreed to meet, it would have to be in exchange for some positive action on Arafat’s part.
Tony Zinni, our envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was waiting for me on the tarmac in Tel Aviv, and we conferred in my limo about Arafat. Zinni had been working to get him to agree to key security steps on the path to a cease-fire. Would it be helpful, I asked, to offer up a meeting with me as an inducement for Arafat’s cooperation? Zinni said that it would, and so I offered to meet with Arafat provided he agreed to the conditions Zinni had set forth. Zinni was confident the meeting could take place before