RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Nearly three months of U.S. bombings against Iraq are proving an irritant to ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia as senior Saudi officials acknowledge that the kingdom refuses to allow U.S. warplanes based here to take part in what it regards as punitive raids.
The kingdom is the main base for U.S. warplanes in the region, and its stand has forced the United States to tailor its tactics in what has become a low-level war against Iraq, by relying more heavily on Navy aircraft and on warplanes at other bases.While Saudi officials make clear privately that they, too, would like to see someone other than Saddam Hussein ruling Iraq, their position is a clear indication of the discomfort felt here over the American-led campaign. The strikes by British and U.S. jets have occurred on average once every other day since Dec. 28, hitting more than 110 targets, mostly air-defense sites.
"Whatever has to do with going out and hitting targets in Iraq will not have the support of the kingdom," a senior Saudi official said in an interview, spelling out for the first time in public a position that has frustrated U.S. military planners.
The Saudi position is not new, as the kingdom has distanced itself from overt military action against Iraq since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, but it is at odds with the more assertive U.S. military strategy toward Iraq.
Specifically, the Saudis have objected to the loosened rules of engagement for U.S. warplanes, which include an expanded definition of self defense that has allowed pilots to strike Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries, missile launchers, communications towers and other targets even when they present no direct threat.
The Saudi officials said their government was insisting that Saudi-based warplanes be kept under a tight leash, authorizing the use of force in Iraq only in response to a direct threat, such as signs that aircraft were being targeted in preparation for the firing of an anti-aircraft missile.
The defense secretary, William J. Cohen, and other U.S. officials have portrayed the shift in U.S. strategy as defensive, saying that it was prompted by aggression on the part of Iraq, which has vowed to shoot down U.S. warplanes patrolling the no-flight zones.
When Cohen visited Saudi Arabia and five other friendly Persian Gulf countries earlier this month to explain the policy, he won no public support.
Still, one senior Saudi security official said that his government had obtained information suggesting that the recent American-led attacks had "substantially weakened" the Iraqi leader, and made it "much more likely" that segments of the Iraqi military might attempt to topple him.
A U.S. military spokesman in Saudi Arabia said he could not discuss whether the U.S. aircraft in Saudi Arabia were operating under different constraints than those elsewhere in the region. He also would not say whether U.S. planes based in Saudi Arabia had taken part in any of the recent strikes on Iraq.