Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in his memoirs issued on Tuesday, strongly defended Saudi Arabia in the murder of the Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, considering that his diplomatic relationship with the Kingdom was tantamount to “giving the middle finger” to the American media.
Pompeo visited Riyadh in October 2018, days after the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and writer who lived in the United States and published opinion articles in the Washington Post criticizing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
“What made the media crazier than a vegetarian in a meat slaughterhouse is our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Pompeo said in his book, “Never Change Your Mind, Fighting for the America I Love,” about his tenure as Secretary of State of former President Donald Trump.
And about Trump assigning him to go to Saudi Arabia, he added, “In a way, I think the president felt envy because I was the one who gave the middle finger to the Washington Post and the New York Times and other cowards who had nothing to do with reality.”
Documents of the CIA, previously led by Pompeo and declassified by President Joe Biden, revealed that the Saudi crown prince ordered the disposal of Khashoggi, who was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and killed.
In his book, Pompeo did not dispute Saudi Arabia’s responsibility for the crime, writing, “This horrific massacre was outrageous, unacceptable, horrific, sad, despicable, vicious, brutal, and of course illegal.”
“But it wasn’t surprising — not to me anyway. I’ve seen enough in the Middle East to realize that this kind of cruelty was very routine in this part of the world.”
But he did not agree that Khashoggi was a “journalist”, mocking the media that had turned him into “a Saudi Bob Woodward cited for criticizing the bravery of the Saudi royal family”.
Pompeo’s remarks drew immediate condemnation, with Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, expressing on Twitter her “panic and anger”.
She wrote that Pompeo “talked without respect or humanity about someone who was brutally murdered.”
Hanan al-Eter, Khashoggi’s widow, accused former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of fabricating lies about her late husband, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Al-Eter considered, in her interview with Al-Hurra website, on Tuesday, that Pompeo is trading in the tragedy of her late husband, by talking about him in his book with “false information.”
Washington Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan called Pompeo’s “distortion” of the facts about Khashoggi “shocking and disappointing.”
“Jamal has dedicated himself to the values of freedom of expression and a free press, adhering to the highest professional standards. For this dedication, he paid the highest price,” he added in a statement.
Pompeo stressed that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a reformer who “will prove to be one of the most important leaders of his time, and a truly historical figure on the world stage.”
Instead, he said, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who criticized Saudi Arabia for the crime, should have been scrutinized more closely, saying that the Turkish leader had “turned into a fully Islamic tyrant.”
