Saudi King called Zardari greatest obstacle to Pak progress: report

Updated at: 0012 PST, Monday, November 29, 2010
Saudi King called Zardari greatest obstacle to Pak progress: report NEW YORK: Saudi King Abdullah called President Asif Ali Zardari the greatest obstacle to Pakistan’s progress, according to an online report of New York Times that quoted Wikileaks as saying.

The report further quoted King Abdullah as saying: “When the head is rotten, it affects the whole body.”

The cables released by Wikileaks, the whistle-blower, disclose that aging monarch of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, as speaking scathingly about the leaders of Iraq and Pakistan.

Speaking to another Iraqi official about Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, King Abdullah said, “You and Iraq are in my heart, but that man is not.” The king called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan the greatest obstacle to that country’s progress. “When the head is rotten,” he said, “it affects the whole body.”

AFP quoting US documents leaked by WikiLeaks and published by Britain's Guardian newspaper, said King Abdullah urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme.

Leaked memos from US embassies across the Middle East recorded the king's "frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program."

The memo showed that the king told the United States to "cut off the head of the snake," and said that working with Washington to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq was "a strategic priority for the king and his government."