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	CIAO Focus, September 2002: The Troubled U.S. - Saudi Relationship
	U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia are seemingly at their worst since the oil crisis of 1973. Critics of the Saudi government range from human rights advocates to defense analysts. Newspaper accounts detail the difficulties encountered by counterterrorism and intelligence officials when dealing with their Saudi counterparts. Calls for greater transparency and societal freedoms are commonplace in the U.S and Europe. With a buildup to war with Iraq now likely, the U.S. administration is at pains to smooth over the current difficulties. Concern over using Saudi terrority has prompted its government to reject the possibility of a U.S. led attack from Saudi Arabia. In statements over the last month, the Saudi government has said it considers war with Iraq to be unacceptable. Meanwhile, a recent Rand study described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States. This month CIAO focuses on the troubled U.S. - Saudi Relationship. From CIAO's database: U.S.-Saudi Relations After the September 11 Debacle Democracy Assistance and NGO Strategies in Post-Communist Societies U.S.-Saudi Relations: Rebuilding the Strategic Consensus Outside Links*: Human Rights Watch — Saudi Arabia: Human Rights Developments http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/mideast/saudi.html Amnesty International http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/saudi_arabia/ Washington Post Report on Rand Briefing http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47913-2002Aug5.html Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on the Rand Briefing (video) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/apdaily/080602-6v.htm Map and U.S. State Dept Information on Saudi Arabia http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c2419.htm ArabNews http://www.arabnews.com/ Saudi Times http://www.sauditimes.com/ * Outside links are not maintained. For broken outside links, CIAO recommends the Way Back Machine [http://www.archive.org/].