WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia’s crown prince says the anti-corruption drive launched late last year is the “shock therapy” his kingdom needs to root out widespread graft.
“You have a body that has cancer everywhere, the cancer of corruption. You need to have chemo, the shock of chemo, or the cancer will eat the body,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday night.
“The kingdom couldn’t meet budget targets without halting this looting,” he said.
In the latest move for change, a dramatic shake-up announced in royal decrees late Monday saw top brass, including the chief of staff and heads of the ground forces and air defence, replaced and a broad defence reform plan approved. The government bureaucracy is also to be overhauled.
The crown prince said the shake-up announced by his aging father, King Salman, was aimed at installing “high energy” people who could achieve modernization targets. “We want to work with believers,” the crown prince told the US paper.
The changing of the military guard came just a month shy of the third anniversary of the launch of a Saudi-led intervention to fight Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen. Prince Mohammed has been the main driver of the once-staid kingdom’s more aggressive regional push since he took over as defence minister in early 2015.
But despite a multi-billion dollar military campaign, the coalition has failed to defeat the Huthis in a conflict that the United Nations says has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The war’s failures have exposed the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s military might and accelerated the need to reform what is seen as a sclerotic military establishment.
Lebanon’s Hariri meets Saudi king
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri met Saudi King Salman on Wednesday, in his first visit back to the country since his resignation in the kingdom sparked a crisis between the longtime allies.
Hariri announced on November 4 that he was stepping down in a televised address from Riyadh, only to rescind it the following month after France intervened.
The shock resignation had stirred tensions between Riyadh and Beirut, amid suspicions he had been placed under house arrest. Saudi Arabia’s state news agency SPA said Hariri and King Salman discussed “bilateral relations and recent developments in Lebanon”.
It publishing pictures of the two leaders locked in a firm handshake.
He is also due to hold talks with powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose impact on the kingdom’s policies has steadily expanded since his appointment as heir to the throne in June.
His visit comes after a meeting Monday in Beirut with Saudi envoy Nizar al-Alula during which Hariri said he received and accepted an invitation to travel to Riyadh. Alula also met with President Michel Aoun, who told him of Lebanon’s desire to “maintain the best relations” with the oil-rich Gulf state.
Relations between the two countries have been strained by the competing influences in Lebanon of regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Lebanon will hold legislative elections on May 6, the country’s first since 2009.