Saudi Prince: Iraq is Falling Apart Fast

"Country is hurtling towards disintegration, Saudis warn" [excerpts; emphasis added]
Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor Saturday September 24, 2005 The Guardian

The Saudi government yesterday warned that Iraq is hurtling towards disintegration and that an election planned for December is unlikely to make any difference. The government said it was delivering this bleak assessment to both the US and British administrations as a matter of urgency.

Saudi fears of a break-up were voiced by Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, in an interview with Associated Press published yesterday, and at a meeting on Thursday night with the US media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. He said: "The impression is gradually going toward disintegration. There seems to be no dynamic now that is pulling the country together. All the dynamics there are pushing the people away from each other."

His comments are the most pessimistic about Iraq to be made in public by a Middle East leader in recent months.

Prince Saud, who is meeting Bush administration officials in Washington, said his government warned the US before the war of the consequences of the invasion but was ignored. "It is frustrating to see something that is clearly going to happen, and you are not listened to by a friend, and soon harm comes out of it. It hurts."

Saudi Arabia sits on a council with other Iraqi neighbours - Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey - and Prince Saud said the main worry is that the break-up of Iraq "will draw the countries of the region into conflict".

The US response to his warnings was to predict an improvement after the referendum and the election. Prince Saud said: "But what I am trying to do is say that unless something is done to bring Iraqis together, elections alone won't do it."

Prince Saud said a Saudi ambassador in Baghdad would become an immediate target for assassination. "I doubt that he'd last a day."

The prince blamed the unrest partly on a series of US decisions since the invasion. He claimed the US was guilty of alienating the Sunni population by designating "every Sunni as a Ba'athist criminal".