Pentagon says Saudis will discreetly back war in Iraq

Saudi Arabia has privately told America it will be allowed to run support operations from air bases in the kingdom during any military operation against Iraq, the Pentagon claimed yesterday.

Officials said that over the past two months discussions with the Saudi government had led to assurances that cargo flights and refuelling planes could operate from Prince Sultan air base, south of the capital, Riyadh.

Whether Saudi Arabia will let US forces launch combat missions against Iraq from the base is not clear, though The New York Times said that in recent months American warplanes had been allowed to make bombing raids against targets in southern Iraq. Those strikes were in response to Iraq's alleged violations of the no-fly zones.

At the weekend, a Pentagon spokeswoman, Victoria Clarke, refused to comment on specific arrangements America had made with Saudi Arabia. She indicated that Washington believed the Saudi government would do as much as possible to help, given the sensitive nature of supporting a military operation against Iraq.

"We are confident they will be an important ally going forward," she said.

The Air Force Chief of Staff, General John Jumper, went further, saying: "I firmly believe the Saudis will give us all the cooperation we need and every indication I have is we're getting pretty much what we've asked for."

The Pentagon's claim of a Saudi promise of co-operation is just the latest stage in a game of will-they-or-won't-they that has been taking place between the Gulf nation and the US. Publicly, Saudi officials have been non-committal about allowing the kingdom to be used as a staging area for a war on Iraq.

Last week Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi Foreign Minister, said: "It depends on the war. If it is a war that is through the United Nations, with consensus on it, we will have to decide on that based on the national interests of Saudi Arabia."

To a large extent, the co- operation of the Saudis is less important than it was a year ago. Because of the country's unwillingness to allow Prince Sultan to be used, America has established a state-of-the-art command centre in Qatar that would be used to co-ordinate any operation.

In Iraq, meanwhile, UN weapons inspectors continued their work yesterday, spending three hours at the Iraqi customs department as well as visiting a state-owned electronics factory and an engineering firm.