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Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2003

Television ads on CNN, ESPN, MSNBC and Fox News since May 2002 have depicted the Saudis as a modern nation aligned with American interests. In a two-week period last October, 1,541 Saudi-sponsored ads ran on American television.

The Saudi strategy to win the hearts and minds of American citizens and lawmakers is clear: Spend large amounts on media advertising, book time with television's news shows, lobby congressional leaders, and monitor policies coming out of Washington.

The Saudis have hired three well-connected Washington lobbying and law firms to advance their case in the capital. One firm, paid $420,000 so far this year, is headed by former Rep. Thomas Loeffler, a top contributor to President Bush when Bush was governor of Texas and a major fund-raiser in Bush's presidential campaigns.

Foreign Agent Registration Act filings reviewed by The Associated Press show that Loeffler and his wife contributed $8,000 this year to the re-election campaign of Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a leading critic of Saudi Arabia's commitment to fight terrorism. The couple also sent $2,000 to the Bush campaign.

Lobbyists are required to report contributions they make while working for a foreign government, even when the contributions come from personal money. Saudi officials said Loeffler's contributions were not made on behalf of the kingdom.

The Saudis also paid $456,000 last year to one of Washington's best-known law firms, Patton Boggs, to lobby on Capitol Hill. They paid the law firm Dutton & Dutton $625,000 to monitor congressional and administration policies regarding their country and the Middle East.

Most of the Saudi money, about $16 million, went for television, radio and print ads in the top 20 markets across the country. The ads, according to Saudi officials, were designed to impress upon the American people that Saudis really are allies against terror.

"The main purpose of the campaign is to get our voice out to the American people" and counter voices critical of the Saudi government, religion and culture, said Nail al-Jubeir, spokesman for the Saudi Embassy.

An open letter to Bush from Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler because of the illness of his brother, King Fahd, expressed sympathy and solidarity to the United States in the newspaper USA Today on the first anniversary of the attacks. Subsequent ads ran in Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report.

Along with the ad campaign, al-Jubeir joined Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on a tour of the United States that hailed the Saudi commitment and contribution to the war against terror.

The Saudi campaign, however, hasn't quieted its critics.

'We Can't Get Over' Reality

"We can't get over the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia," said Shelby, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said the Saudis had a long way to go to prove their commitment to fighting terrorism.

Even the State Department gives pause when it comes to Saudi security. On Monday it renewed a warning to defer travel to the kingdom because of "indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests."

The Saudi ad campaign is being managed by Qorvis Communications, a Virginia public relations firm that was hired in November 2001. Qorvis has arranged media appearances by Saudi officials on several U.S. news programs and has prepared press releases and op-ed pieces to promote the Saudi perspective.

Oh, This Lobbying Isn't Lobbying

Al-Jubeir said the Saudi effort to convince skeptical members of Congress of his country's anti-terror commitment was not lobbying.

"We're simply trying to communicate: This is what we've done; this is what we're doing; and this where we're going in the future," he said.

Selling the Saudi commitment to the war against terrorism has been difficult in Congress, but al-Jubeir said he believed the campaign was slowly changing the minds of the critics.

'Facts Are a Very Stubborn Thing'

"The facts are a very stubborn thing," al-Jubeir said, citing improved intelligence cooperation with the United States and Britain and 500 arrests of suspected terrorists by the Saudis since Sept. 11. Many came in a crackdown that began last spring after a May 12 string of bombings against Western residential compounds in Riyadh killed 35 people, including nine bombers.

© 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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