It’s imperative that we win the war on terrorism. To do that, we have to have strong allies in that region. We need access to air fields and military bases there.

It’s also imperative that we preserve the flow of oil from the Middle East. Our economy depends on a stable supply of oil. That can’t be ignored.

Our commitment to Israel’s security is another important strategic interest. It’s a commitment that we have to keep.

Managing our relationships in the Middle East is one of the most difficult challenges faced by every administration. It’s been a problem for every President and every Secretary of State since World War II. With all of these massive strategic interests hanging in the balance, it’s no wonder that sometimes the problems of average, everyday people get swept aside. Humphrey Bogart once said, “The problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this world.” Sometimes that’s just the way it is, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But there are also times when we have to set aside all of those big, global issues and do the right thing by the people we’re elected to serve. There are times when someone has to say, “Time Out -- let’s stop and take a good hard look at what we’re doing.”

That’s the purpose of this hearing. We need to take a time out and take a good hard look at our relationship with Saudi Arabia.

The specific problem that I’m talking about is Saudi men who kidnap their American children and take them away to Saudi Arabia. We’ve seen cases where these men have violated court orders, taken their children away against their will, and kept them away from their mothers for years, if not decades. Despite the fact that arrest warrants have been issued for some kidnappings, the Saudi government has refused to lift a finger to resolve these cases. In fact, the Saudi government has created a safe haven for these child abductors in a country where women and children are treated like property.

Maybe the saddest thing of all is that our government -- our State Department -- has done very little to help bring these children home. In one of the cases we’re going to talk about today, a mother went to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh with her two children -- she was trying to rescue them from their abusive father -- and the Embassy kicked them out. After she was kicked out, she was arrested and put in prison. I don’t understand that.

One of the reasons I decided to hold this hearing is that I was so appalled at the lack of effort we’ve made to take the Saudis to task for letting these things happen. We have a lot at stake with Saudi Arabia. We need their cooperation. But at what price? If we’re not willing to stand up and fight for American citizens whose children have been kidnapped, what kind of priorities do we have?

Today, we’re going to hear the stories of three mothers who had their children snatched away from them. Three things stand out in each of these stories -- the brutal treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, the incredible courage of these women who did everything they could to rescue their children, and the total lack of effort by our State Department to challenge the Saudi government.

These stories are all so powerful that I’d like to talk about each one of them in detail. I’m not going to do that because I can’t tell their stories nearly as well as they can. But I do want to mention a few key facts.

Pat Roush has been living this nightmare for 16 years. In those 16 years, she has seen her two daughters once - for two hours. Her ex-husband came to the United States in 1986, kidnapped their two young daughters, in violation of a court’s custody order, and took them to Saudi Arabia. An arrest warrant was issued here in the U.S., but the Saudi government did nothing. The year before that, when Pat went to Saudi Arabia to try to salvage their marriage, her husband beat her so badly that two of her ribs were broken. The Saudi police didn’t do anything then either.

Over the last 16 years, U.S. Ambassadors have come and gone in Riyadh. Some have tried to help. Some have not. But it’s clear that the Saudis were never told by senior officials that this was a problem that was going to affect the relationship between our two countries.

In 1986, the U.S. Ambassador was told by his boss that he had to “maintain impartiality” in the Roush case. Why? Pat Roush’s husband broke the law. An arrest warrant was issued. Why should we maintain impartiality? To me, that attitude goes right to the heart of the problem.

Ambassador Ray Mabus deserves special credit in this case. In 1996, he started a new policy -- no one from this man’s family was allowed to get a visa to come to the United States. This was a big, influential family. When they couldn’t get visas to come to our country, it caused a big problem for them. Unfortunately, after a year, Ambassador Mabus returned to the United States, and his policy was discontinued. If this policy had been kept in place, it might very well have put the pressure on them to return these children. I’m very disappointed that didn’t happen.

We were just told this week that Pat’s youngest daughter, Aisha, who is now 19, was recently forced into a marriage with a Saudi man. Pat’s older daughter, Alia, was forced to marry one of her cousins a year ago.

Now let me say a few words about Monica Stowers. In 1985, she went to Saudi Arabia with her husband and two young children. When she arrived, she realized for the first time that her husband had a second wife and another child. Their marriage fell apart after six months. Her husband divorced her and had her deported without her children.

In 1990, Monica heard that her ex-husband was abusing her children. She went back to Saudi Arabia. She took her children, and went to the U.S. Embassy to ask for help. Did they put her on the next plane for America? No. At the end of the day, they told Monica that she had to leave the Embassy. She pleaded with them not to kick her out. She told them that she would be arrested for overstaying her visa. But the consul general had the Marine guards carry them out. Sure enough, she was arrested and put in jail, and her children were taken from her.

Can you imagine that -- and American citizen is in a crisis -- a mother and her young children -- and the Embassy staff tell the Marines to drag them out of the Embassy so they can be arrested?

Monica is not here today. For most of the last twelve years, she has stayed in Saudi Arabia to protect her children. She can leave any time she wants, but her husband refuses to allow their daughter to go. Her ex-husband tried to force her daughter into a marriage when she was only twelve years old, and Monica won’t abandon her. While Monica can’t be here today to testify, her mother Ethel Stowers is here to speak on her behalf, and we’re very glad to have her here.

The third story we’re going to hear today is about Miriam Hernandez-Davis and her daughter Dria. They are both here to testify today. The reason they can both be here today is not because anybody in the United States government came to their rescue. The reason that Miriam’s daughter is here today is that Miriam was able to scrape together $180,000 to pay two men to smuggle Dria out of Saudi Arabia. Even though Miriam’s husband kidnapped their daughter in 1997, and even though the FBI issued an international warrant for his arrest, she got almost no help from our State Department or our Embassy.

The courage of these women, Pat Roush and Monica Stowers and Miriam Hernandez, and their kids, is just incredible to me. You’ve all endured terrible pain as a result of what’s happened, and it’s a real honor to have each of you here today.

These are not isolated incidents. These are three examples of a bigger problem. The State Department has a list of 46 recent cases involving as many as 92 U.S. citizens who have been held against their will in Saudi Arabia. The root cause of this problem is the Saudi government. They have refused to respect U.S. law and U.S. arrest warrants. The law in Saudi Arabia lets Saudi men keep American women and children in Saudi Arabia, even when they’re in violation of court orders, even when arrest warrants have been issued, even when they’ve abused their wives and their children. That’s just wrong.

We can’t let this go on. Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is important, but this just can’t be allowed to continue. The only way we are going to resolve this problem and get these kids home again is by elevating this issue. This has to be raised with the Saudis at the highest levels. The Saudis have to be made to understand that if they let this go on, their relationship with us is going to suffer. I don’t think that’s happened yet.

I’m preparing a letter to the President. I’m going to ask all of my colleagues on the Committee to sign it. We’re going to ask the President to raise this issue with Crown Prince Abdullah to try to get it resolved. Just a couple of months ago, President Bush raised the case of Lori Berenson with the President of Peru. Lori Berenson was twice convicted of terrorist activi-ties in that country. Surely the Roush family and the Stowers family deserve at least as much.

We in Congress have to do our part as well. We’ve got to continue to hold hearings like this and write letters and do whatever we can to keep the pressure on. My colleague, Mr. Lantos held a hearing and had Pat Roush testify way back in 1987. He deserves a lot of credit for constantly pushing human rights issues, and we all need to keep doing it.

I want to thank Pat Roush and Ethel Stowers and Miriam and Dria Hernandez for being here today. I can’t tell you how much I admire each of you.

I also want to thank our witnesses on the second panel:

· Dianne Andruch and Ryan Crocker from the State Department;
· Former U.S. Ambassador Hume Horan;
· Daniel Pipes from the Middle East Forum; and
· Doug Bandow from the Cato Institute.

We look forward to hearing from all of you as well.

One final issue: More than two months ago, I wrote to the State Department and requested documents on all three of these cases. Getting those documents has been painfully slow. There is a stack of documents several feet high that are still at the Embassy in Riyadh. They haven’t even been sent to Washington yet. We’ve received some documents from the State Department here in Washington, but they still have documents here that they haven’t provided to us. The documents we have received have redactions that aren’t acceptable. I think that the legislative affairs office at State has been trying hard to get us these documents, and I appreciate that. But the bureaucracy at the State Department is so bad that two months have gone by and we only have a small fraction of the documents. I’m going to issue a subpoena today to make sure that all of those documents are produced to us, without redactions.

I now yield to Mr. Waxman for his opening statement.