Word: saudi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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True enough, but the basis for the deployment of nearly 100,000 U.S. troops -- so far -- on Saudi territory is defined in a memorandum just three pages long. Not only is the document "extremely general," according to those who have read it, but it is being kept secret at the request of the Saudi government. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who negotiated it in Jidda last month, described it as a "sort of" status-of-forces agreement, something that usually takes the form of a treaty...
...Saudi draft, the memo named King Fahd overall commander, with Schwarzkopf and the Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Sultan, as his deputies. Schwarzkopf objected -- as did George Bush -- and it was rewritten to establish separate, parallel commands: U.S. troops in one, Saudi and allied Arab forces in the other...
...could not take command of Saudi forces and was unwilling to subordinate American troops to them, so Schwarzkopf was given a divided command. At a press conference later, Schwarzkopf explained, "This is not NATO, O.K.? There is not one supreme commander, and there doesn't need to be." Added White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater: "The chain of command has been working very well...
...military relationship with Saudi Arabia has indeed gone smoothly so far, but its vagueness is causing some uneasiness on Capitol Hill. "There are a number of loose ends to be tied up," says Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Senator Sam Nunn says flatly, "We cannot give the Saudis a veto on operations...
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Claiborne Pell has formally asked the Pentagon to send over copies of any exchanges of letters or oral agreements with gulf governments. That includes not only Saudi Arabia and Kuwait but also Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, all of which have agreed to base U.S. warplanes on their soil...