WASHINGTON – Uncle Sam is expected to indict at least 13 suspects in the deadly 1996 bombing of U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, but some experts warned the real culprits may go free.
Although many suspect Iran is behind the bombing that killed 19 servicemen as they slept in their Khobar Towers barracks, both the United States and the Saudis appear reluctant to make waves with the terrorist nation.
“I think Iran will avoid [punishment],” said Patrick Clawson, research director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The indictments are pending on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack and just as the Bush administration is hoping to court Iran’s reformist President Mohammed Khatami, who was re-elected Friday.
“The State Department doesn’t want to say it’s Iran because he [Khatami] is a step in the right direction,” said Reagan-era foreign-policy adviser Lawrence Korb.
“My guess would be that for political reasons, we are not going to indict as high as we can,” agreed foreign-policy expert Dan Goure. The Saudis also have been reaching out to their moderate Iranian neighbor.
“Iran’s like a hornet’s nest [to the Saudis] – you smoke the hornets out or you leave the hornets alone, but you don’t go around stirring the hornet’s nest,” said Clawson.
Experts also predict the United States won’t want to expose their evidence-gathering techniques in open court – which decreases the likelihood that the mastermind, whomever it is, will be prosecuted.