by Richard Cowan
REUTERS

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) — The U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives voted on Fri­day to pro­hibit any aid to Saudi Ara­bia as law­mak­ers accused the close ally of reli­gious intol­er­ance and bankrolling ter­ror­ist organizations.

The pro­hi­bi­tion, reflect­ing per­sis­tent ten­sions with the king­dom after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, was attached to a for­eign aid fund­ing bill for next year that has not yet been debated by the Senate.

It also faces a veto threat from the White House because of an unre­lated provision.

A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Wash­ing­ton declined to com­ment on the legislation.

In the past three years, Con­gress has passed bills to stop the rel­a­tively small amount of U.S. aid to Saudi Ara­bia, only to see the Bush admin­is­tra­tion cir­cum­vent the prohibitions.

Now, law­mak­ers are try­ing to close loop­holes so that no more U.S. aid can be sent to the world’s lead­ing petro­leum exporter.

“By cut­ting off aid and clos­ing the loop­hole we send a clear mes­sage to the Saudi Ara­bian gov­ern­ment that they must be a true ally in advanc­ing peace in the Mid­dle East,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat.

Accord­ing to sup­port­ers of the leg­is­la­tion, the United States pro­vided $2.5 mil­lion to Riyadh in 2005 and 2006.

The money has been used to train Saudis in counter-terrorism and bor­der secu­rity and to pay for Saudi mil­i­tary offi­cers to attend U.S. mil­i­tary school.

“Saudi Ara­bia prop­a­gates ter­ror­ism. We all know that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijack­ers were Saudi,” said Rep. Shel­ley Berkley, a Nevada Demo­c­rat. She added that Saudi youths had entered Iraq to “wage jihad” against U.S. forces fight­ing there.

Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born leader of the al Qaeda group that car­ried out the Sept. 11 attacks, was expelled from the king­dom in 1991 for anti-government activities.

OIL MONEY

Law­mak­ers also com­plained that with Saudi Arabia’s vast wealth from oil rev­enues, U.S. tax­pay­ers do not need to sub­si­dize train­ing Saudis.

“With poor coun­tries all over the globe beg­ging us for help, why are we giv­ing money to this oil-rich nation?” Berkley said.

The U.S. State Depart­ment has rou­tinely crit­i­cized Saudi Ara­bia for reli­gious intol­er­ance, dis­en­fran­chise­ment of women and arbi­trary justice.

U.N. com­mit­tees and groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Inter­na­tional also have been crit­i­cal of the Saudi legal sys­tem and its rights record, includ­ing pun­ish­ments such as flog­ging and amputation.

Riyadh tends to dis­miss the crit­i­cism by say­ing it fol­lows the tra­di­tions of Islamic law.

Saudi Ara­bia is home to the two holi­est sites in Islam — Mecca and Med­ina — and to a con­ser­v­a­tive Sunni Mus­lim ide­ol­ogy often called Wahhabism.

Despite the efforts by the law­mak­ers to cut off aid, the United States has had a strong rela­tion­ship with Saudi Ara­bia in terms of energy and security.

But recently Saudi King Abdul­lah has asserted a more robust lead­er­ship role in the Mid­dle East, putting him­self at odds with Wash­ing­ton over Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Accord­ing to the Energy Infor­ma­tion Admin­is­tra­tion, an agency of the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy, crude oil imports from Saudi Ara­bia are the third largest after Canada and Mexico.

Until 2003, the United States kept up to 10,000 sol­diers in Saudi Ara­bia to help enforce a no-fly zone over south­ern Iraq that was put in place after the first Gulf War in 1991. Most of those forces have been withdrawn.