Cable 08RIYADH649: Saudi King Abdullah and senior princes on Saudi policy toward Iraq

Cable 08RIYADH649, classified Secret and sent by the US embassy in Riyadh on 20 April 2008 under the name of the chargé d'affaires, Michael Gfoeller, reports meetings between the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, General David Petraeus and King Abdullah and senior Saudi princes during a visit on 14–15 April 2008. Most of it concerns Saudi policy toward Iraq: the King's refusal to send an ambassador to Baghdad, his distrust of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and possible Saudi assistance and debt relief.

In a section headed 'The Need to Resist Iran', the cable records that the King and senior princes agreed on cooperation with the US against Iranian influence in Iraq, and continues: 'Al-Jubeir recalled the King's frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. "He told you to cut off the head of the snake," he recalled to the Charge'.' The words are thus those of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, recalling earlier remarks by the King, rather than a statement made at these meetings.

The cable records that the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, called instead for much more severe sanctions on Iran, while stating that the use of military pressure should not be ruled out.

I released the cable on 28 November 2010, the first day of Cablegate. The Guardian reported it that day in a story headlined 'Saudi Arabia urges US attack on Iran to stop nuclear programme', which drew on this and other cables recording Gulf leaders' views on Iran.

The cable belongs to the Cablegate archive for which Chelsea Manning was convicted in 2013; the US government has not individually authenticated it.