U.S. HARDENS ON WRITER’S VANISHING
President Donald Trump said Thursday it “certainly looks” as though Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, and he threatened “very severe” consequences if the Saudis are found to have murdered him.
Meanwhile the New York Times reported Saudi rulers were going to pin blame for Khashoggi’s death on Gen. Ahmed al-Assiri, a high-ranking adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Blaming Assiri would provide an explanation for the killing and deflect blame from the crown prince, the paper said, citing three people with knowledge of the plan.
On Thursday, the U.S. appeared to toughen its response to Khashoggi’s disappearance with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pulling out of a major Saudi investment conference amid global pressure. However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said the kingdom should be given more time to investigate before the U.S. laid any blame or considered action.
Trump, who has insisted that more facts must be known before making assumptions about Khashoggi, did not say on what he based his statement on the writer’s demise two weeks ago. He commented as he left Joint Base Andrews for a political trip to Montana.
Asked if Khashoggi was dead, he said, “It certainly looks that way. … Very sad.”
While Turkish officials have accused Saudi Arabia of the murder in Istanbul of Khashoggi, a U.S.-based writer who has been critical of Saudi leaders, Trump has cautioned against a rush to judgment against an important Mideast ally. And Pompeo, just back from talks with Saudi and Turkish leaders, said earlier Thursday the U.S. needed more facts before deciding “how, or if ” to respond.
Turkish reports say Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate by members of an assassination squad with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed.
A member of the crown prince’s entourage during several trips abroad walked into the Saudi consulate just before Khashoggi vanished, a surveillance photo leaked Thursday shows. The man, identified by Turkish officials as Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, has been photographed in the background of Prince Mohammed’s trips to the U.S., France and Spain this year.
The Saudis have dismissed those reports as baseless but have yet to explain what happened to Khashoggi, who was seen on video entering the consulate but has not been seen since.
Trump has rejected talk that his reluctance to act is providing cover for the Saudis. And a senior U.S. official said Pompeo had warned the Saudi crown prince that his credibility as a future leader was at stake.
Pompeo, who returned late Wednesday from an emergency visit to Riyadh and Ankara to impress on senior officials in both nations the need for a credible investigation, said: “I told President Trump this morning that we ought to give them a few more days to complete that so that we, too, have a complete understanding of the facts surrounding that, at which point we can make decisions about how, or if, the United States should respond to the incident surrounding Mr. Khashoggi.”
Pompeo declined to comment on what the U.S. believes might have happened to Khashoggi but made clear Washington takes the situation “very seriously.” He said Saudi leaders, including the crown prince, “assured me that they will conduct a complete, thorough investigation of all of the facts surrounding Mr. Khashoggi, and that they will do so in a timely fashion, and that this report itself will be transparent for everyone to see, to ask questions about, and to inquire with respect to its thoroughness.”
He cautioned, however, that whatever response the administration might decide on would take into account the importance of the longstanding U.S.-Saudi partnership. “They’re an important strategic ally of the United States, and we need to be mindful of that,” he said.
Although Pompeo suggested the U.S. could wait another several days for results of the Saudi investigation, an official familiar with his meetings in Riyadh and Ankara said he had been blunt about the need to wrap the probe up quickly. U.S. lawmakers from both parties have expressed outrage over Khashoggi’s disappearance and reports of his murder and have been calling for consequences, including possible sanctions.
The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Pompeo had told the crown prince that “time is short.”
The official also said Pompeo had warned Prince Mohammed that it would be “very difficult for you to be a credible king” without a credible investigation into the case. The crown prince is next in line for the throne, which is held by his ailing, aged father King Salman.