Magazine tags U.S. analyst as liar

The controversy generated by a Washington Post report in which the U.S. policy analyst, Laurent Murawiec, made derogatory remarks about the Saudis took another turn yesterday.

Dubai-based Arabian Business broadcast on its web site a taped telephonic interview with Murawiec in which he insulted the Saudis and Islam.

The controversy began when the magazine published an article entitled Potent words, softly spoken, rock Saudi-U.S. relations in which it claimed that it had spoken to Murawiec who stood by his insulting remarks which he made on The Post.

Murawiec denied on Tuesday that he neither gave any interview to Arabian Business nor to anybody about the Saudis. He told AFP that "the whole story is spurious and void."

The magazine challenged Murawiec's denial and broadcast the taped remarks on its web site.

In a statement issued in Dubai yesterday, the magazine said the taped interview exposes lies of the U.S. analyst.

It said the foreign affairs analyst to a U.S. government advisory group had lied when he denied making derogatory remarks about the Saudis.

It stated that Arabian Business which published the initial interview with Murawiec online on ITP.net, stands by its story, and is making a tape of the interview, plus a transcript, available to media and regional governments.

"Murawiec talked to the magazine after presenting a paper entitled Taking Saudi Out of Arabia to a Washington-based U.S. government police advisory Rand Group and the relevant parts of the interview can be heard on www.itp.net/news/103002133111638.htm.

Gulf News listened to what claimed to be the taped interview with Murawiec.

He told the reporter that he would not be able to discuss the matter (the policy advisory report) with the press.

"At present I am not at liberty to discuss with the press. So I might not be able to tell you presently," he said.

When the ITP reporter asked him whether the Washington Post's July 10th report was an accurate depiction of his briefing to the U.S. policy government advisory group, Murawiec replied: "Just put yourself in the other guy's shoes. You do a briefing or some sort of a report fairly substantial. Then it appears in a newspaper's article. And it is the headlines of the headlines. So I would not say that the piece in The Post betrayed. But I say there was much more grounding to it."

He went on saying: "My experience of your part of the world is that most people hate the guts of the Saudis, not to make too fine a point about it. Everybody knows they are a bunch of lazy a......s that are arrogant, too big for their shoes, which behave in a consistently disgusting manner.

"People in your region have told me that for twenty years. But I am not telling you anything new," he said.

Speaking on Islam, Murawiec said: "there is a fundamental difference between Islam as a privately-practised religion and Islam as a polity.

"Islam as a privately-practised religion is comparable to other religions. Islam as a polity is an adulterated disaster," he stressed.

"I speak very brutally because I think it is better to be direct about such things," he concluded.