Washington – Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he has been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq is hurtling toward disintegration, a development he said could drag the region into war.
“There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together,” he said in a meeting with reporters at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. “All the dynamics are pulling the country apart.”
He said he was so concerned that he was carrying this message “to everyone who will listen” in the Bush administration.
Saud’s statements, some of the most pessimistic public comments on Iraq by a Middle East leader in recent months, were in stark contrast to the generally upbeat assessments that the White House and the Pentagon have been offering.
But in an appearance at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Bush, while once again expressing long-term optimism, warned that the bloodshed in Iraq was likely to increase in the coming weeks.
U.S. commanders have repeatedly warned that insurgents would try to disrupt voting in October and December, as they did before legislative elections in January.
Saud, in Washington for meetings with administration officials, blamed several U.S. decisions for the slide toward disintegration, though he did not refer to the Bush administration directly.