Word: jubeir
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...Adel al-Jubeir struck a slight, plaintive figure as he stood before a crowded Washington press conference this week to plead for understanding. "We believe that our country has been unfairly maligned," the balding, soft-spoken man told the assembled reporters. "We believe that we have been subjected to criticism that we do not deserve." For his role serving as chief spin-doctor for the Saudi government at a time when it's fighting a PR battle to convince America of its bona fides as an anti-terror ally amid a relentless torrent of skepticism, Adel al-Jubeir...
...With bin Laden still at large and al-Qaeda continuing to strike, al-Jubeir's PR campaign faces considerable odds. The history of Saudi support for bin Laden doesn't help. There was a time, in fact, when America's leaders thought it was an exceedingly good idea for wealthy Saudis to send their millions to Osama bin Laden to be used for purposes of jihad. That was back in the mid-1980s, when the target of Bin Laden's jihad was the Soviet army occupying Afghanistan. Bin Laden was a star fundraiser and organizer for a program organized...
...princess, had signed it over to a man who made brief loan to two of the hijackers without knowing their terrorist identities. Yet three substantial degrees of separation didn't stop Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman who referred to that incident following al-Jubeir's press conference to chide that ''the Bush Administration and the Saudis have done a masterful job of turning attention away from ... the trail that leads to the possibility that a foreign government provided support to some of the Sept. 11 hijackers...
...Princess Haifa story may be the least of Al-Jubeir's problems. The absence of democracy, freedom of speech, women's equality and religious diversity in the Kingdom don't endear it to Americans as a lovable ally. The fact that the Saudis, mindful of their own restive public opinion, can't simply be seen to be doing the U.S. bidding doesn't help either. And, of course, there are profoundly different views on how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which translate into sharp differences between Washington and Riyadh over whether to categorize groupings such as Hamas as terrorists...
...Jubeir came to Washington this week to tell of the Saudis freezing suspicious bank accounts, questioning more than 2,000 people and holding more than 100 in custody over possible al-Qaeda links. His mission wasn't helped by remarks that same week by Saudi interior minister Prince Nayef blaming the 9/11 attacks on Israeli intelligence. But al-Jubeir soldiers...