Obama Visits Saudi King Before Key Speech

President Meets With King Abdullah On Eve Of High-Stakes Address To Muslim World

(CBS/AP)  Last updated 6:36 p.m. EDT

Opening a mission to write a new chapter on Islam and the West, President Barack Obama consulted Wednesday with the Saudi king "in the place where Islam began," prelude to a high-stakes speech in Egypt meant to ease long-held Muslim grievances against the United States.

The son of a Kenyan Muslim who lived part of his childhood in Muslim-majority Indonesia, Mr. Obama planned what aides called a "truth-telling" address on Thursday, aimed directly at the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. Many harbor animosity toward the U.S. over its staunch support for Israel, its terrorist-fighting policies and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Americans, likewise, formed negative perceptions of the Muslim world after the 9/11 attacks.

White House advisors said that some parts of Mr. Obama's speech are still in flux and that the president was still furiously writing on the plane on the way to Saudi Arabia, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Chip Reid. And they say he'll probably keep making changes right up until the wire.

In advance, Saudi King Abdullah staged a lavish welcome after Mr. Obama's all-night flight to Riyadh.

"I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty's counsel," Mr. Obama said. The president and the king talked in the splendor of Abdullah's sprawling retreat, a lush patch of searing desert.

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Photos: Obama in Saudi Arabia

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The king, who was hosting Mr. Obama for an overnight stay, called his guest "a distinguished man who deserves to be in this position."

Birthplace of Islam, Saudi Arabia is still considered guardian of the faith as home to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. The Sunni Arab powerhouse also sits on the world's largest oil reserves, buys billions in U.S. military equipment and has cooperated extensively with the U.S. on anti-terrorist operations.

As such, Mr. Obama's goals of opening what speechwriter Ben Rhodes called "a new chapter between the United States and the Muslim world" could hardly proceed without Saudi support. Mr. Obama also came asking for specific requests of help from Abdullah on a range of related issues, such as peace between the long-feuding Israelis and Palestinians, Iran's suspected efforts to build a nuclear bomb, rising Taliban extremism in Pakistan and a destination for some 100 Yemeni detainees now in the U.S. at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp.

Denis McDonough, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, could not immediately say whether the president's requests were successful after meetings between the two leaders and their delegations that stretched over nearly four hours.

Abdullah showered Mr. Obama with compliments in the welcoming ceremonies and presented him with the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, a large medallion with a thick gold chain that is the kingdom's highest honor. "Those are only given to the very few friends of the king, and you are certainly one of those," Abdullah said.

"Goodness gracious," Mr. Obama said as an aide approached with the striking necklace. "That's something there." He said: "I consider the king's friendship a great blessing, and I am very appreciative that he would bestow this honor on me during this visit."

Mr. Obama had pledged during his presidential campaign to deliver a major address from an Islamic capital within 100 days of becoming president. He did so with a speech to the parliament in Turkey, a secular but overwhelmingly Muslim nation. The White House says his speech in Cairo, a center of Islamic thought and culture, is the one he had in mind in making that promise, and set high expectations for it.

His speech, Egypt's prime minister told CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan in an exclusive interview, could not come at a more critical moment.

"Time is of the essence," Ahmed Nazif said. "We need to work fast and this is the message we've been getting from the administration. They're hopeful to see something - see something before the end of this year and I think it's very important that it would happen in the first year of this administration."

Al Qaeda countered Mr. Obama's outreach. Osama bin Laden released an audio tape accusing Mr. Obama of inflaming hatred toward the U.S. by ordering Pakistan to crack down on militants in Swat Valley and block Islamic law there. His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, said "farcical visits or elegant words" in Cairo can't disguise "bloody messages" the U.S. sends to Muslims with its prosecution of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The message from bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind-in-hiding who was born in Saudi Arabia and directed the 2001 attacks that involved 15 hijackers from the desert monarchy, was broadcast by Al-Jazeera Television almost exactly as Mr. Obama's plane touched down in Riyadh.

White House officials today downplayed the tape, arguing that bin Laden himself is feeling threatened by the president's Muslim outreach, which they insist will make it harder for al Qaeda to find new recruits, reports Reid.

"I don't think it's surprising that al Qaeda would want to shift attention away from the president's historic efforts," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. "Americans have seen these types of threats before. This is much more an effort to try to upstage."

CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate says al Qaeda is losing support.

"This is an opportunity for the president with his star power, with his Muslim family roots, with his embodiment of the American dream, to really chip away at that narrative," Zarate said.

Aides spared no effort to ensure Mr. Obama's speech Thursday reaches a vast Muslim audience.

A special State Department Web site lets people everywhere register to receive and reply to speech highlights; Mr. Obama's remarks were to be played live on the White House Web site and translated into 13 languages; and excerpts were being distributed not only on the White House's dedicated YouTube page but also on special-event links on social networking sites such as MySpace, Twitter and Facebook, complete with live chatting opportunities.

In his speech, Mr. Obama does not intend to make new policy - but to frame it differently. By stressing both U.S. respect for Muslims and the need for all sides, including Washington, to make changes, the president hopes to start setting relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world down a more constructive path even while some disagreements persist.

"There's been a breach, an undeniable breach, between America and the Islamic world," senior adviser David Axelrod said.

"That breach has been years in the making. It's not going to be reversed with one speech - it's not going to be reversed, perhaps, in one administration. But the president is a strong believer in open, honest dialogue."

CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder says that the White House's level of consultation with Arab countries about the timing, location (a modern college - in Egypt) and content of Mr. Obama's speech has been unprecedented.

"That's because a successful speech will be as useful for the interests of many parts of the Arab world as it will be for the national security of the United States," says Ambinder. (Click here to read more on "Obama's Challenge In Egypt" from Ambinder.)

The centerpiece of the speech is the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, a driving force behind Muslim anger worldwide. Mr. Obama was prepared to discuss in some detail what needs to be done to resolve it," though by urging all sides to meet obligations already agreed upon, Rhodes said.

That includes calling for a full halt to all growth in Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank, the subject of a striking rift between the U.S. and Israel in recent days. It also includes telling Palestinians that anti-Israel rhetoric, and the violence it spawns, does not benefit their daily lives. Mr. Obama also was to call on his hosts, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as other Arab nations, to put actual money behind their rhetorical support for the struggling Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Obama also wants to persuade Arab allies, particularly Saudi Arabia, to make conciliatory diplomatic moves toward Israel.

The president also was to explain the U.S. goals in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

And he wasn't going to shy away from a hot topic - the fact that he was to speak from Egypt, which has been under the iron rule of President Hosni Mubarak for nearly 30 years.

Mr. Obama planned to salute Egypt's historically positive role in Mideast peacemaking, while also talking about the need for a better democratic and human rights model. In one gesture, organizers made sure that members of Egypt's main opposition movement, the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, would be in the audience at Cairo University.

The president also planned to talk "with a sense of candor" about U.S. policy that has largely shunned armed militias that have won elections in the Arab world, such as Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Rhodes said.

[impeachbhb]

Obama spent a lot of time gaining insignt from the King of Saudi Arabia that will help him immensely once he ascends the throne in the US. Not only will he go down in history as the first black President, he will be the first king of the US. This will take a lot of preparation as he only has a short period of time before he puts on the crown.
Hail to Obama - Prince of Peace- A god walking amongst us- Surely a direct descendent of Mohammed. Praise to Allah- The devil will soon fall.

[the74blaster]

After the liberal insanity of the past week, why do you want to be accused of being a Democrat?
Posted by bothR2blame31 at 8:01 PM : Jun 3, 2009

I guess the assumption that you are one of the 20% or so that beleive the GOP has done nothing wrong in the last 8 years is valid.

[rednomo]

These far right wing-nuts refuse to acknowledge any other religion or culture, all others are corrupt. That makes them totally ignorant of the culture and dynamics of the region and that, my narrow minded friends, is how you end up invading the wrong country.
Posted by rednomo at 6:44 PM : Jun 3, 2009

I really don't understand why anybody wants to be accused of being a Democrat after what just happened.
Posted by bothR2blame31


I know you don't understand, that's my point...

[rednomo]

When Will Dick Cheney's Tower of Lies Finally Come Tumbling Down on Him?

Dick Cheney's statement to Greta van Susteren that "On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that" is being widely portrayed as an admission.

But it's less an admission than a PR move. Cheney has spent the better part of the last seven years doing everything in his power to convince the American people of the very connection he now says there was "never any evidence" of.

In 2004, even after the 9/11 commission found "no credible evidence" of Iraqi involvement in 9/11, Cheney was still claiming the evidence that al Qaeda had a relationship with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was "overwhelming."

When he was asked in '04 if Iraq was involved in 9/11, he said, "We don't know." Three years after the attack -- and he still didn't know? Even after they had tried every trick in the black book -- including torture -- to find a link?

And while Cheney's gotten more careful with his words over the years, he's never really stopped insinuating that there was a connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.

Indeed, as recently as two weeks ago in his big speech at the America Enterprise Institute, Cheney was still banging the drum about Saddam's "known ties to Mideast terrorists" as part of his rationale for invading Iraq and using torture.

Cheney's ongoing Forget Everything I Ever Told You Tour is historical revisionism at its most despicable.

And we are clearly watching a master manipulator at work. I've always felt that his best -- and by that I mean worst -- work was going on "Meet the Press" in 2002 to tell us about those ominous aluminum tubes and the "number of contacts over the years" between Al Qaeda and Iraq... or his repeated designed-to-terrify-voters warnings about nuclear attacks on US soil. But this ranks right up there.

In his interview with van Susteren, Cheney also backed away from his claim that the documents he wants the CIA to declassify would prove that torture was effective -- saying instead that they would offer a good summary of "what we learned" not just from waterboarding but the detainee interrogation program as a whole.

So, he gets all the media value and spin by originally making the claim that the intel documents would prove the value of torture - if only Obama would let the truth come out. Then he backs away from the claim, using weasel-words to give him sufficient wiggle room to say that what he really meant was that the overall interrogation program provided useful information -- not that waterboarding or other enhanced interrogation techniques did.

Perhaps it suddenly dawned on the former VP that he doesn't have the power to keep those documents classified any more -- and that he could be proven to be a liar (yet again) with the stroke of President Obama's pen. Hence the verbal tap-dancing.

But eventually the pile of lies may get so high that it will tumble down on him. For instance, it's not a very smart idea to go around saying that Richard Clarke missed the warning signs on bin Laden and 9/11 when there is email after email after email from the spring and summer of 2001 showing that it was actually Cheney and Bush who ignored the warning signs on bin Laden.

You know what they say about people living in glass houses? Well, people with a paper trail that proves they ignored the looming threat of al-Qaeda, sanctioned torture, and used lies and manipulated intelligence to get us into a war, shouldn't be so fast to throw stones either.

The Huffington Post

[LawyersGuns-n-Money_]

O.K. I want to read how much the necklace cost that the Saudi King put around Obama's neck today.

Posted by cattiej at 7:00 PM : Jun 3, 2009

Was it a pearl necklace? I hear they don't cost anything but a little bit of friction.

[cattiej]

O.K. I want to read how much the necklace cost that the Saudi King put around Obama's neck today. I also want to know if Obama is going to ask the King why the price of gasoline here in the U.S. is going thru the roof again..We think gasoline will be $4 per gallon by the 4th of July...Is Obama going to imbrace the Muslim faith again while he is President? Take note, by the end of summer we are going to be in a Depression. All these auto workers who are losing their jobs, will lose their homes, their health insurance their sanity...Who you gonna call..?....Call Obama, he has all the answers.

[rednomo]

The problem with the manure spreaders is they cannot tell a Muslim for a radical Islamist, to them they are all the same. Here is the issue with that:

They want to take on all the worlds 1.2 billion Muslims (that?s about a million less people than there are in China) I would prefer to deal with bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Look at where their strategy has gotten us today. Bogged down in Iraq at $177 million a day, threatening Iran with bin Laden safe in Pakistan running his mouth. He is using our invasion of Iraq as a recruiting tool. People do not blow themselves up because they hate our freedom, they do it because they have become radicalized and want us out of Islams second most sacred country.

If you say leaving Iraq is ''cutting and running.'' Just remember this, bin Ladens rational for 911 was our bases in Saudi Arabia, Islam''s most sacred country, we no longer have bases in Saudi Arabia.

Also cutting and running from who in Iraq? The Defense Departments own study says that Al Qaeda''s pre-Surge presence in Iraq represented less than 2% of the total insurgency!

Again, Obama is for going after Al Qaeda is Afghanistan and yes Pakistan; cut the head off the snake. Something Bush and McCain ridiculed him for, however, they are now going into Pakistan, leadership?

These far right wing-nuts refuse to acknowledge any other religion or culture, all others are corrupt. That makes them totally ignorant of the culture and dynamics of the region and that, my narrow minded friends, is how you end up invading the wrong country.

[rednomo]

Google "the carlyle group and the saudis" and who owned the majority of Countrywide??

[rednomo]

does anyone know if he bowed this time?
Posted by dwilson59

Or did he hold hands like Gilligan did?

[dwilson59]

When did he say the US was a," muslim nation"?

The rest of your post is just talking points, you're a good little ditto head.
Posted by gravyboat3000 at 4:02 PM : Jun 3, 2009

I think he said we would be one of the largest Muslim Nations

[dwilson59]

With all the problems we have here why the hell is Obama over there sucking up to the frickin Muslims?Why did Obama suspend off shore drilling if he wants off foreign oil? why is that not being reported? How come Obama thinks its OK for Iran to have Nuclear energy but not America? why is that not being reported? How come Obama's administration is holding up E-Verify when its 99.6% effictive? why is that not being reported?.How stupid is Obama thinking a speech will make friends with people who look at us as Infidels?
Posted by sirmarion-2009 at 5:44 PM : Jun 3, 2009

Please refeer to Obama as Your King from now on.

[dwilson59]

does anyone know if he bowed this time?

[iam4honesty]

Posted by Christ_Is_Still_Lord

he was raised in a Muslim country and is still praising Islam to this day
(THAT'S A LIE)

he continues to bully around Nethanyahu and Israel
(THAT'S A LIE)

he's stated that Iran "has a right" to go nuclear
(YOU PROBABLY MEANT NEWCULAR, BUT THAT'S STILL A LIE)

he's doing nothing to stop North Korea from their threats
(THAT'S A LIE)



I DON'T THINK YOU'RE A CHRISTIAN.

[gravyboat3000]

Today the fraud in chief lied when he said the U.S was one of the largest muslim nations but the arab world who probably wanted to laugh now think this man is crazy and a joke to make such a statement. No wonder no one takes us seriously as a nation it's because we are perceived as a weak due to no leadership at the top and unqualified greedy politicians at the lower levels of this government. In the next election let's make sure we get it right this time and vote for a president not a pantywaist....
Posted by wdh3007

When did he say the US was a," muslim nation"?

The rest of your post is just talking points, you're a good little ditto head.

[wdh3007]

Today the fraud in chief lied when he said the U.S was one of the largest muslim nations but the arab world who probably wanted to laugh now think this man is crazy and a joke to make such a statement. No wonder no one takes us seriously as a nation it's because we are perceived as a weak due to no leadership at the top and unqualified greedy politicians at the lower levels of this government. In the next election let's make sure we get it right this time and vote for a president not a pantywaist....

[tmittelstaed]

If all you a-holes who don't like Obama visiting Saudia Arabia and making nice with King Abdullah really want to do something I suggest you get your fat a s s es out of your SUV's and Ford F150s and on your bicycles. Until you start driving electric cars and stop pigging out on gasoline like it's going out of style, every President we have, whether Democrat or Republican is going to have to kiss the Saudi's *****. That is just a fact of life.

Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves and the US imports an order of magnitude more oil from overseas than it could ever get from it's own lands, even if every single potential drill site was pumping full-bore. And, Iraq has the second largest reserves, that's why we are in there. Saudi Arabia is a lot more scared of the Taliban than we are.

[katzmyth1313]

The staggering incompetence of the Obama administration is overwhelming. I am shocked he thinks there can be an open dialogue with the muslim world. The muslim world can't even sit down with each other to keep the peace. Also, what a hypocrite, he is following Busch foreign diplomacy to the letter, with the exception of his "rock star" approach to everything. His entire administration makes me want to vomit.

[grabandgo]

So he packs his teleprompter for trips?

[revlin1]

With all due respect. I CATEGORICALLY DENY this man (Mr. Soetoro) as my president. It isn't possible to have such an idiot say things like this when we have men and women deployed to war zones.....I believe we have entered the "twilight zone" of America's demise. God help us all

[veils-2009]

gag me with a spoon