Saudi Arabia Denies Plan to Seek U.S. Troop Pullout By REUTERS
Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's leaders will ask U.S. forces to leave the country after any war with Iraq, according to a New York Times report on Sunday that Saudi and U.S. officials called speculative and hypothetical.
``What some media agencies are circulating is mere speculation and has no truth to it,'' the Saudi official told Reuters when asked whether Riyadh would ask U.S. troops to leave.
The New York Times said Saudi Arabia's leaders had decided to prepare for an era of military disengagement from the United States, to enact democratic reforms and rein in the powerful conservative clergy.
U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice also denied the report. ``We've had no such indications from the Saudi government,'' she said in an interview on CNN, adding that the ``Saudis continue to be a very good friend and close ally.''
A White House spokesman contacted by Reuters called the report hypothetical and declined to comment further. A State Department spokesman also declined to comment.
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