U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon publicly acknowledged Thursday that he removed the Saudi Arabia-led coalition currently bombing Yemen from a blacklist of child killers — 72 hours after it was published — due to a financial threat to defund United Nations programs.
The secretary-general didn’t name the source of the threat, but news reports have indicated it came directly from the Saudi government.
The U.N.’s 2015 “Children and Armed Conflict” report originally listed the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen under “parties that kill or maim children,” and “parties that engage in attacks on schools and/or hospitals.” The report, which was based on the work of U.N. researchers in Yemen, attributed 60 percent of the 785 children killed and 1,168 injured to the bombing coalition.
After loud public objections from the Saudi government, Ban said on Monday that he was revising the report to “review jointly the cases and numbers cited in the text,” in order to “reflect the highest standards of accuracy possible.”
But on Thursday, he described his real motivation. “The report describes horrors no child should have to face,” Ban said at a press conference. “At the same time, I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many UN programs. Children already at risk in Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and so many other places would fall further into despair.”
Saudi Arabia is one of the U.N.’s largest donors in the Middle East, giving hundreds of millions of dollars a year to U.N. food programs in Syria and Iraq. In 2014, Saudi Arabia gave $500 million — the largest single humanitarian donation to the U.N. — to help Iraqis displaced by ISIS. Over the past three years, Saudi Arabia has also been become the third largest donor to the U.N.’s relief agency in Palestine, giving tens of millions of dollars to help rebuild Gaza and assist Palestinian refugees.
“It is unacceptable for member states to exert undue pressure,” the secretary-general said. “Scrutiny is a natural and necessary part of the work of the United Nations.” (...)
Saudi Arabia has stripped its religious forces of their powers to arrest, urging them to act "kindly and gently" in enforcing Islamic rules.Under changes approved by the Saudi cabinet on Wednesday, religious officers will no longer be allowed to detain people and instead must report violators to police or drug squad officers, the official Saudi Press Agency said.Officers of the Haia force, also known as the Mutawaa, must "carry out the duties of encouraging virtue and forbidding vice by advising kindly and gently" under the new rules, it reported. "Neither the heads nor members of the Haia are to stop or arrest or chase people or ask for their IDs or follow them - that is considered the jurisdiction of the police or the drug unit," the regulations say. (...)
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is adding more American lobbyists to its payroll by hiring BGR Government Affairs, a company founded by former Republican National Committee chair Haley Barbour, according to filings disclosed last week.
The contract provides BGR with $500,000 annually to assist with U.S. media outreach for the Center for Studies and Media Affairs at the Saudi Royal Court, a government entity. The retainer includes the services of Jeffrey Birnbaum, a former Washington Post reporter who once covered the lobbying industry and now works as a lobbyist, as well as Ed Rogers, a former Reagan administration official who now lobbies and writes a column for the Postcalled “PostPartisan.”
The contract is the latest in a buildup over the last two years.
As The Intercept has previously reported, the Saudi government has brought on a dizzying array of American public relations experts and lobbyists to help spin reporters and influence policymakers. Since 2014, the regime has paid the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm run by a top fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton campaign; Norm Coleman, the former GOP senator who leads a major Republican Super PAC; H.P. Goldfield, a lobbyist with the law firm Hogan Lovells and vice chair of Madeleine Albright’s Albright Stonebridge Group; the public relations powerhouse Edelman; Targeted Victory, a consulting firm founded by former aides to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign; as well as two major law firms with a lengthy roster of former government officials on its payroll, DLA Piper and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
Saudi fees to Qorvis, its longstanding lobbying firm, have increased dramatically. Last year, Qorvis billed the Saudi Embassy $7 million for its semi-annual filing, more than twice the amount charged the previous reporting cycle.
Just last week, Al Arabiya, an English-language news outlet financially supported by members of the Saudi royal family, announced the creation of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, yet another newly minted media and lobbying campaign on behalf of Saudi interests in the United States.
The money spent on lobbying has been used to counter growing controversies surrounding the kingdom. When Nimr al-Nimr, a peaceful government critic, was executed in January, the Podesta Group helped the regime shape media coverage, providing a quote to the New York Times to smear Nimr as a “terrorist.” Other American consultants working for the Saudi Embassy used social media and other efforts to attack Nimr and justify the execution.
The kingdom has relied on its media and lobbying apparatus to combat criticism of its human rights record, including the growing rate of executions and beheadings. The influence also extends to promotion of Saudi Arabia’s controversial role in the Middle East, including the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen and the country’s failure to address private financiers of radical Islamic groups such as ISIS.
The Saudi kingdom may be concerned with another round of potential controversies. This week, a new documentary, Saudi Arabia Uncovered, is set to air, revealing hidden camera footage of public beheadings, Saudi religious police beating women in the streets, the destruction of musical instruments (playing music in public is strictly prohibited), and children in Saudi schools being taught to hate Jews, Christians, and Shiite Muslims. In April, President Barack Obama is set to visit the country to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council summit.
What Accounts for the Saudi Regime’s Hysterical Belligerence? The Agony of Death The Saudi rulers find themselves in a losing race against time, or history. Although in denial, they cannot but realize the historical reality that the days of ruling by birthright are long past, and that the House of Saud as the ruler of the kingdom by inheritance is obsolete.
(...) A main reason for Saudi Arabia acting unilaterally is its disappointment that the US reached an agreement with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Again this looks naive: close alliance with the US is the prime reason why the Saudi monarchy has survived nationalist and socialist challengers since the 1930s. Aside from the Saudis’ money and close alliance with the US, leaders in the Middle East have always doubted that the Saudi state has much operational capacity. This is true of all the big oil producers, whatever their ideological make-up. Experience shows that vast oil wealth encourages autocracy, whether it is in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya or Kuwait, but it also produces states that are weaker than they look, with incapable administrations and dysfunctional armies. (...)
The U.S. Defense Department plans to sell Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates $10.8 billion in advanced weaponry, including air-launched cruise missiles and precision munitions.
Notice yesterday of the planned sales of advanced weapons made by Boeing Co. (BA) and Raytheon Co. (RTN) sends a message of support from the Obama administration to two close allies in the Middle East as the U.S. and five other nations are engaged in talks to curb Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
The Saudi regime has pressed the U.S. to maintain tough economic sanctions on Iran, both to discourage it from developing a nuclear arsenal and to limit Iran’s capacity to help its embattled ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity about diplomatic relations.
The proposal includes the first U.S. sales to Middle East allies of new Raytheon and Boeing weapons that can be launched at a distance from Saudi F-15 and U.A.E. F-16 fighters.
The Boeing Expanded-Response Standoff Land Attack Missile and Raytheon Joint Standoff Weapon give those nations new capabilities to strike at air defense sites and radar installations, such as those possessed by Iran, from beyond the range of enemy air-defense systems so pilots aren’t put at risk.
The Boeing missile, a derivative of the Harpoon anti-ship missile, can be launched more than 135 nautical miles from a target and be redirected in flight. The Navy says the Raytheon missile can fly 12 to 52 nautical miles and attack industrial facilities, logistics systems and “hardened tactical targets.”
The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement yesterday that it was seeking congressional approval to sell the Saudi kingdom $6.8 billion in munitions and equipment. Among the systems that would be provided are 650 of the missiles known as the SLAM-ER, 1,000 GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs and 400 Harpoon Block II anti-ship weapons, all made by Chicago-based Boeing; and 973 of the Joint Standoff Weapons made by Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon.
The U.A.E. would be able to buy $4 billion in weapons, including 5,000 of the GBU-39/B bombs, 1,200 Joint Standoff weapons and 300 of the SLAM-ER missiles, the Pentagon said in a separate statement.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in April outlined $10 billion in arms sales to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. The Pentagon proposal included an offer to sell Israel a fleet of V-22 tiltrotor aircraft.
Yesterday’s announcement by the Pentagon offers details of the munitions that the Saudis and Emiratis are seeking. (...)
Between the mid-1970s and 2002 Saudi Arabia expended over $70 billion in "overseas development aid". However, there is evidence that the vast majority was, in fact, spent on propagating and extending the influence of Wahhabism at the expense of other forms of Islam. There has been an intense debate over whether Saudi aid and Wahhabism has fomented extremism in recipient countries. The two main allegations are that, by its nature, Wahhabism encourages intolerance and promotes terrorism. Former CIA director James Woolsey described it as "the soil in which Al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing." However, the Saudi government strenuously denies these claims or that it exports religious or cultural extremism.
Saudi Arabia is one of the largest contributors of development aid, both in volume of aid and in the ratio of aid volume to GDP. As of 2006, the country has donated £49 billion in aid in the previous three decades, but exclusively to Muslims (except for one donation amounting to the equivalent of £250,000) This aid has contributed to the spreading of Islam of the sort found in Saudi Arabia (Wahhabism) rather than fostering the traditions of the receiving ethnic groups. The effect has been the erosion of regional Islamic cultures. Examples of the acculturizing effect of Saudi aid can be seen among the Minangkabau and the Acehnese in Indonesia, as well as among the people of the Maldives. The Wahhabi form of Islam is also perceived in the West as being a source of Islamist extremism
Following King Fahd's stroke in 1995, Abdullah, then Crown Prince, assumed responsibility for foreign policy. A marked change in U.S.-Saudi relations occurred, as Abdullah sought to put distance between his policies and the unpopular pro-Western policies of King Fahd. Abdullah took a more independent line from the US and concentrated on improving regional relations, particularly with Iran. Several long-standing border disputes were resolved, including significantly reshaping the border with Yemen. The new approach resulted in increasingly strained relations with the US. Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir secretly interviewing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Kabul, Afghanistan, on November 8, 2001, the day they escaped the city.
In 2003, Abdullah's new policy was reflected in the Saudi government's refusal to support or to participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Some US critics saw this as an attempt by the royal family to placate the kingdom’s Islamist radicals. That same year Saudi and U.S. government officials agreed to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Saudi soil. Since ascending to the throne in 2005, King Abdullah has followed a more activist foreign policy and has continued to push-back on US policies which are unpopular in Saudi Arabia (for example, refusing to provide material assistance to support the new Iraqi government). However, increasingly, in common with the US, fear and mistrust of Iran> is becoming a significant factor in Saudi policy. In 2010, the whistle blowing website Wikileaks disclosed various confidential documents revealing that King Abdullah urged the U.S. to attack Iran in order to "cut off the head of the snake".
Pecunia non olet... Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei
Last week’s announcement that Saudi Arabia – easily one of the world’s most brutally repressive regimes – was chosen to head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel provoked indignation around the world. That reaction was triggered for obvious reasons. Not only has Saudi Arabia executed more than 100 people already this year mostly by beheading (a rate of 1 execution every two days), and not only is it serially flogging dissidents, but it is reaching new levels of tyrannical depravity as it is about to behead and then crucify the 21-year-old son of a prominent regime critic, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was convicted at the age of 17 of engaging in demonstrations against the government. (...)
