With Congress looking into the terrorist bombing that killed 19 American airmen in Saudi Arabia, that country's ambassador is insisting that his government cooperated fully with U.S. authorities before the disaster.
"We have been responsive, and we will continue to be responsive," Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, said Sunday, responding to criticism by a key lawmaker. "All security arrangements were done in a joint committee with joint consent."Appearing after two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley," Bandar termed "not accurate" charges that the Saudis did not fully cooperate.
The Armed Services panel planned to hold hearings this week on the June 25 bombing at a U.S. Air Force housing complex in Dhahran, which also injured hundreds.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Saudi Arabia must do more to support the U.S. military effort in that country to prevent another such tragedy.
"The Saudis cannot continue to do business as usual," Lieberman said. "They have to do everything possible to help us protect our troops."
Defense Secretary William J. Perry recently said the casualty toll in might have been lighter had Saudi authorities granted a U.S. request for a broader security zone around the housing area. And there have been reports that the Saudis had rejected FBI requests to interview four Saudis convicted of a November car bombing in Riyadh before they were beheaded on May 31.
The four were said to have had ideological ties to Islamic extremists outside Saudi Arabia.
Citing those occurrences as examples of the Saudis' failure to cooperate, Lieberman said, "There's no acceptable explanation of that behavior by the Saudis."
Unlike Lieberman, with whom he appeared, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was not directly critical of the Saudis. McCain did say, however, that U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia must be protected or they might have to be withdrawn, a move he said would be "a terrible mistake."