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Policy Brief #1 The Atlantic Council of the United States, The Middle East Institute, The Middle East Policy Council, and The Stanley Foundation

US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia This policy brief summarizes the discussion at the first in a jointly sponsored series of congressional staff briefings on "US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf." To receive information on future briefings, contact Elaine Schilling, program assistant, at e-mail eschillins&Manleyfoundation.ors. The September 11th terrorist attacks and their aftermath have not altered Saudi Arabia's fundamental importance in the international arena nor its importance to the United States. Saudi Arabia remains the source of much of the world's oil reserves, the site of the holiest places in Islam, and the crossroad of strategic lines of communication between Europe and Asia. Nonetheless, the September 11th terrorist attacks, unprecedented in myriad ways, have severely strained US-Saudi relations. The facts that Osama Bin Laden and 15 of the hijackers were of Saudi origin and that Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban government in Afghanistan have produced a climate of mistrust and misunderstanding and placed a chill on business activity. US-Saudi relations have witnessed past periods of friction, as during the 1973 Arab oil embargo, but communication and cooperation always resumed because of core common interests on both sidea The United States and Saudi Arabia are strategic partneqp with a record of close cooperation, especially with respect to ensuring the stable supply and price of oil on the world marketf During the Cold War, Saudi Arabia played a key role in meeting a number of US foreign policy objectives, including assistance in the effort to expel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. The September 11th atrocities have sparked a debate in the United States about Saudi Arabia and the future of US-Saudi relations that revolves around the following three questions: 1.

Is Saudi Arabia a Source or a Supporter of Terrorist Activity^

It is true that Wahhabisng practiced and promoted by Saudi Arabia, is a particularly intolerant form of Islam. It is equally true that Saudi Arabia is a very "closed" society. However, to hold the Saudi general education and cultural systems responsible for generating the terrorism that originates in predominantly Muslim countries grossly oversimplifies the phenomenon of terrorism, which is the product of a multitude of root causes. There is no credible evidence to support the allegations of some commentators that ther government of Saudi Arabia has directly funded terror organizations^ During the 1970s and 1980s, Saudi Arabia did provide financial assistance to a number of Arab Islamist groups. However, during the 19901991 Gulf crisis, Saudi authorities discovered that some of these groups had turned out to be a "bad investment" in that they opposed the coalition effort against Saddam Hussein. Saudi Arabia subsequently The Atlantic Council of the United States, www.acus.org • The Middle East Institute, www.TheMiddleEastlnstitute.org The Middle East Policy Council, www.mepc.org • The Stanley Foundation, www.emergingfromconflict.org/iran

Policy Brief #8 The Atlantic Council of the United States, The Middle East Institute, The Middle East Policy Council, and The Stanley Foundation

US Challenges and Choices Saudi Arabia: A View From the Inside Saudi Arabia has come under increasingly strong criticism in the United States in recent months. This report summarizes a briefing designed to provide Saudi perspectives on bilateral relations. It is based on the discussion at the tenth in a jointly sponsored series of congressional staff briefings on "US Challenges and Choices in the Gulf. " To receive information on future briefings, contact Jennifer Davies [email protected]. I. Overview Since September 11, 2001, US-Saudi relations have deteriorated, fulfilling a primary goal of Osama bin Laden: to drive a wedge between the two longstanding allies. Immediately after the attacks on New York and Washington, Saudis reacted in disbelief to the news of the hijackers' identities. And while Saudis struggled to accept the idea that their fellow countrymen would perpetrate such an atrocity, many in the United States reached the conclusion that some Saudis, including possibly Saudi leaders, had supported, or at least condoned, the terrorists. A year later, the stress on the relationship caused by this "contextchanging" event has been amplified by tension relating to fighting terrorism, a possible US-led war on Iraq, the deepening conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and the treatment of Saudi nationals in the United States. II. Terrorism Most Saudis remain shocked that 15 of the 19 September 11th terrorists were Saudis. The political elite tend to believe that this was by design, as one of Al-Qaeda's primary stated goals is to undermine the AlSaud regime and to damage its ties with the United States. Accordingly, the Saudi political elite are supportive of the US campaign against terrorism. The Saudi Crown Prince, Foreign Minister, and Defense Minister have been publicly supportive, and, among other cooperative efforts, have taken steps to curb Islamic charities on terrorism watch-lists. While these steps have been criticized by many in the United States as inadequate, the Saudis have had to deal with real institutional challenges in controlling illegal financial flows. Saudi officials have acknowledged that they need to do more. The Saudi public, however, remains skeptical towards the US policy of "zero tolerance" for terrorism. While September 11th was a context-changing event for US citizens, it has not changed the key role of the Palestinian issue in the thinking of many Saudis. Many of the actions of the Israeli occupation are considered terrorist in nature, and there is resentment that "zero tolerance" does not apply to Israel. The perceived contradictions in US policy on terrorism are underscored by a Saudi sense of an Israeli-US, Judeo-Christian alliance. Increasing numbers of Saudis subscribe to the view that US policy has underwritten that of Israel's Likud Party and that the war on terrorism is actually a war on Islam.

Saudi Foreign Policy Abdul Aziz al-Fayez

Panel Three Foreign Policy: Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the Muslim World

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audi Arabia is located in a region that has been characterized by long periods of political instability and occasional periods of military conflict. It has been fortunate not to be dragged into war except after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Other than that, Saudi Arabia has been careful and has been insistent on solving all problems and disputes through peaceful means. To understand Saudi foreign policy, we have to identify the principles on which it is based. Saudi Arabia is first of all an Arab and Muslim state. It is a member of the Arab League, and it is the birthplace of Islam. This gives the country great importance in the Islamic world. It is also a Gulf state and the biggest member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), hence its major role in maintaining peace and security in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia's commitment to having good relations with all other countries and to the peaceful settlement of disputes is based on two principles: the respect of sovereignty of each state, and the non-interference in the internal affairs of any state. Like any other state in any part of the world, Saudi Arabia's primary foreign policy objective is the preservation of the Kingdom's independence and its national security. Saudi Arabia is also committed to the preservation of peace and stability in the Gulf region; to the strengthening of Arab and Islamic solidarity through the Arab League and through the Organization of the Islamic Conference; and to the promotion of Islamic values and teaching all over the world. Finally, as a member of the international community, the Kingdom is committed to preserving international peace and security. To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, Saudi Arabia relies first of all on the diplomacy and political influence derived from its unique position in the Arab and Muslim world. It also relies on its economic power, derived from the fact that Saudi Arabia is the largest oil exporter in the world and the owner of the largest oil reserves in the world. Saudi Arabia also relies on its membership in a number of regional and international organizations such as the UN, the Arab League, the Islamic Conference, and the GCC. As the Kingdom is committed to the peaceful settlement of disputes, it has been willing to play a major role in the region and it has relied on its diplomacy to try to solve some of the crises that erupted in the region. For instance, it was instrumental in bringing peace to Lebanon through the Ta'if Agreement in 1989, which is the basis on which post-war Lebanon currently functions. The Kingdom was also instrumen-

Saudi Arabia: One Hundred Years Later

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CRS Report: IB93113 - Saudi Arabia: Post-War Issues and U.S. Relations - NLE

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CRS Issue Brief for Congress Redistributed as a Service of the National Library for the Environment*

IB93113: Saudi Arabia: Post-War Issues and U.S. Relations Alfred B. Prados Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division April 13, 2001 CONTENTS • • • •

SJJMMARY MOST RECENT DEyELQPMENTS BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS Current Issues o Security in the Gulf Region • Use of Force Against Iraq o Arab-Israeli Conflict o .AjTns_TjansIersJ... • U.S. Arms Sales • Third Country Sales o Trade Relationships

• Qil Prgductign • Foreign Inyestrnent o Human Rights, Democracy, and Other Issues • Background to U.S. -Saudi Relations o Political Development • Saudi Leadership • Royji^uccessiojn o Economy and Aid • Economic Conditions • Aid Relationships o Defense and Security • Congressional Interest in Saudi Arabia o Arrns Sales o Arab Boycott o Trade...Practices SUMMARY Saudi Arabia, a monarchy ruled by the Saudi dynasty, enjoys special importance in the international community because of its unique association with the Islamic religion and its oil wealth. Since the establishment of the modern Saudi kingdom in 1932, it has benefitted from a stable political system based on a smooth process of

http://www.ncseonline.org/NLE/CRSreports/international/inter-74.cfm?&CFID=8459083&C... 6/17/03

The New Yorker

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June 17,2003

THE NEW YORKER FROM THE ARCHIVE FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Royal Mess by Leslie and Andrew Cockburn

As the United States government weighs various responses to the September 11th attacks, the role of Saudi Arabia is crucial—both because it has history of hosting U.S. bases and because much of Osama bin Laden's animosity is directed against the Saudi royal family. (Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia but has been stripped of his citizenship.) This article, from 1994, looks at dissatisfaction with the House of Saud from within the kingdom.

/\.t two-thirty in the morning on May 15, 1993, Lujain al-Iman, a twenty-six-year-old native of Missouri, was awakened in the bedroom of her house in Riyadh by the sound of doors slamming downstairs. She lived, with her husband, Muhammad al-Masari, in a large villa with stuccoed walls, servants' quarters, and well-tended gardens on the King Saud University campus. Lujain (she changed her name from Cathy after marrying Masari) had left Denver, Colorado, to join her husband, a physics professor at the university, just eight months before. She had told her mother at the airport that she was looking forward to "a nice, quiet, uneventful life," which would be largely taken up with children—four stepchildren from Masari's first marriage, and her own son from her first marriage, Ali, who was five and was still adjusting to a mob of new brothers and sisters after his years as an only child in Denver. Lujain was seven months pregnant, and she had slept badly since just after midnight, when her husband arrived home and presented her with the phone numbers of two diplomats at the American Embassy. "If anything should ever happen," he said, "just remind them of their promise." Masari, forty-six, was one of Saudi Arabia's leading theoretical physicists; he had participated in top-secret government meetings to discuss whether Saudi Arabia should build a nuclear weapon. (His father had dined regularly with King Feisal.) He was also a scholar of the shariah, the Islamic code of civil and religious law. But now he was in very serious trouble. Crashing through the garage entrance to the house, a dozen or so heavily armed Mabaheth—secret police—had entered the servants' quarters, on the ground floor. They were Bedouin tribesmen from the Saudi interior; red-andwhite checked ghutrahs masked their faces, so that only their eyes showed. They held a maid at gunpoint until she waved them toward the study, where Masari's eldest son, eighteen-year-old Anmar, was sleeping. They woke him and smashed his head against the wall, shouting, "Where is your father?" Upstairs in the master-bedroom suite, Lujain, her husband fast asleep beside her, was straining to hear. "I saw the door handle was moving, so I called out, 'Who is it?'" she recalls. An unfamiliar voice answered, "I'm a friend of Muhammad's. Open the door!" "I told him, 'No! I'm not gonna open the door!'" Lujain finally shook her husband awake. "He got up and looked out the window, and there were all these Chevy Blazer trucks parked out there. He checked the phone, and it was dead." Masari, a devout Muslim, shouted through the door that he needed time to wash "for prayer" and dress. The voice on the other side threatened to shoot off the lock. Lujain said, "What is this? Did I wake up in Russia this morning?" Then seven masked Bedouin rushed through the door and dragged Masari away. Lujain had a severe asthma attack. "I was trying to get my passport out of my purse and hide it under my abaya"—her cloak. "At the same time, I was trying to use my inhaler," she recalls. "That guy from the Mabaheth just rushed at me, grabbed me around my arms, and took my medicine from my hand." The leader of the group confiscated her American passport. Ransacking the house, the intruders carted away seven trunkloads of books and papers. "Anything written in English—even cookbooks," Lujain says. Books on political theory and on Islam and dense works on physics in German and English were of particular interest. For good measure, the men ripped down curtains and slashed carpets. Masari was driven away in the back of a Blazer. There was nothing for Lujain to do but follow her husband's instructions. The following morning, she went to the American Embassy. IViasari had been participating in clandestine meetings to build an opposition movement to the Royal House of Saud, the dynasty that has held absolute power in Saudi Arabia since 1932, when King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud united

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6/17/03

Saudi Friends, Saudi Foes

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Saudi Friends, Saudi Foes Is our Arab ally part of the problem? by Stephen Schwartz 10/08/2001, Volume 007, Issue 04

THE EXTRAORDINARY ACT of destruction seen on September 11 had a noteworthy harbinger in Islamic history. In 1925, Ibn Saud, founder of the present Saudi Arabian dynasty, ordered the wholesale destruction of the sacred tombs, graveyards, and mosques in Mecca and Medina. These are, of course, the two holy cities of Islam, whose sanctity the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and other Islamist extremists ostensibly seek to protect from the defiling presence of U.S. troops on Saudi soil. Saud's armed supporters, in a frenzy of iconoclasm, first leveled Jannat al-Baqi, the "heavenly orchard" in Medina, where one of the original associates of Muhammad was buried under the prophet's supervision. Other relatives and thousands of early companions of the prophet were also interred at the site, as were the imams Hassan and Hussein, venerated by Sunni and Shia Muslims. All these graves were wrecked by Saud's minions, who then looted the treasure at the prophet's shrine.

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The Saud party went on to demolish the cemetery in Mecca where the prophet's mother, grandfather, and first wife, Khadijah, were buried; then to smash many more honored sites, devastating the architectural achievements of Arabia, including mosques and even Muhammad's house. Only the tomb of the prophet was spared, after an outcry from traditional Muslims. This spree of vandalism was accompanied by wholesale massacres of Muslims suspected of rejecting Wahhabism, a fanatical strain of Islam that emerged in Arabia in the eighteenth century and has periodically disturbed the Muslim world. In the nineteenth century, it fueled the Arab nationalist challenge to the tolerant and easygoing Ottoman Empire; and it became, and remains today, the state-sanctioned doctrine of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, founded in 1932. These events of 75 years ago aid in understanding the violence of bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists, who (since the waning of atheist leftism as a motivating ideology) are all Wahhabis. A direct line extends from the demolition of the holy places in Medina and Mecca through the slaughter of 58 tourists in Egypt in 1997, the orgy of killing in Algeria in this decade, and the bombardment of the Buddhist statues at Bamyan by the Taliban only months ago to the assault on the World Trade Center, symbol of Western wealth and power. In all these cases, unrestrained destruction and bloodshed were justified by Wahhabi doctrine. Wahhabis, who regard the veneration of the prophet and of saints as a polytheistic corruption of Islam, are offended by the honoring of tombs and shrines, along with many other traditional Muslim practices. Observance of the prophet's birthday, for example, is illegal in Saudi Arabia, although lately Prince Abdullah has introduced a novel concession: Observances in private homes will no longer be subject to suppression by the religious police. Wahhabism's bloodstained record explains why so many Muslims around the world fear and hate Islamic fundamentalism—and why certain marginal types are drawn to it. As an acquaintance of mine put it, in Muslim Morocco, the footloose young sons of the lower middle class and proletariat can take one of three paths. They may adopt Western ways, drink and acquire girlfriends, and be envied. They may take up the life of an ordinary observant Muslim and be respected. Or they may join the Wahhabis—funded by the Saudis and organized by such as bin Laden—and be feared. This is the most important point for Western leaders to understand right now: The West has multitudes of potential Muslim allies in the anti-terror war. They are the ordinary, sane inhabitants of every Muslim nation, who detest the fundamentalist violence from which they have suffered and which is symbolized, now and forever, by the mass murder in New York.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/277gkmhl.asp

6/17/03

Economist.com

Economtst.com

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GLOBAL AGENDA

Double-edged sword Sep 27th 2001 From The Economist Global Agenda

The Saudi royal family has long exploited religion to bolster its standing. That has helped breed the very sort of religious extremism that inspired the terrorist attacks on America and is now threatening the kingdom's own stability WHEN Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations with Afghanistan on September 25th, the decision was hailed as the final step in the international isolation of the Taliban regime. But the most remarkable feature of the action is how slow the Saudis were to take it. The Saudi government sees Osama bin Laden as a threat to its very existence. Yet Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries to recognise his hosts, the Taliban, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Even after Mr bin Laden took refuge with them in 1996, Saudi Arabia is said to have helped pay for their drive to take full control of the country. And, now that America is planning to hunt Mr bin Laden down, Saudi Arabia seems reluctant to join the chase. This reluctance stems in large part from Mr bin Laden's popularity among ordinary Saudis. The royal family's authoritarian rule makes public opinion hard to gauge, but stories abound of his admirers sending one another congratulatory text messages on their mobile telephones after the attacks of September llth. A more common reaction, according to one Saudi, was suspicion that America was trying to frame Mr bin Laden because of his opposition to American involvement in the Middle East. At any rate, many Saudis sympathise with his denunciation of America's "indifference" to the plight of Palestinians under Israeli occupation and Iraqis under United Nations sanctions. Saudi officials, conscious of the growing criticism of America, have long tried to play down the two countries' ties. They have pursued, for example, a rapprochement with Iran, in defiance of American pressure. In August, a Saudi diplomat published an article enumerating the many inadequacies of George Bush, America's president. Abdullah, the kingdom's crown prince and day-to-day ruler, has avoided meeting Mr Bush, in a deliberate snub. Earlier in the year, with the Palestinian uprising in full swing and popular consternation at its height, the Saudi regime began to put pressure on America to stop using aircraft based in its country for attacks on Iraq. The planes and their pilots had already been moved to a Just the foreign minister remote desert air base several years before to keep them out of sight. No wonder, then, that the Saudi government reacted with horror and confusion when American officials declared that they were using the same base as headquarters for any retaliation against Afghanistan. In the end, the Saudi regime probably will give American forces permission to

http://www.economist.com/agenda/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=796255

6/17/03

frontline: looking for answers: interviews: saad al-fagih

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You say that [U.S.] analysts and institutions aren't working? What's going on? The impression is that the whole thinking machine — strategy centers, think tanks — are paralyzed. The whole country, which is supposed to be the best element of the West with the ideology of democracy — where all the brains are melded in a proper decision for the sake of the future of the country — all this has vanished. ... To follow bin Laden, to put him under very close surveillance, they are ending up with this: that they don't know [anything] about him. He's attacking with four planes on their own land, the very symbols of America — a defense symbol, an economic symbol, and probably the third symbol would be the political symbol — and they are asleep. Why don't they ask themselves why? What went wrong? ...

A Saudi Arabian dissident living in exile in London, Dr. Saad al-Fagih heads the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. In this interview, he explains the factors fueling anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations, and explains the Saudi government's dilemma if it allies itself with the U.S. in the war on terrorism. This interview was conducted late September 200.1 by Martin Smith. In an earlier 1999 interview with FRONTLINE, Dr. al-Fagih described the loose organization of individuals that: make up Al Qaeda.

If they had been modest and humble enough and put arrogance aside and say, "Well, let's study the phenomenon, what is the case of bin Laden?" they would have reached a completely different conclusion and hence a completely different way of dealing with the problem.

What's the different conclusion? That depends on understanding the problem. The problem is a phenomenon consisting of at least four ingredients. The first ingredient is the huge hatred of the United States because of its polices in Palestine, its policies in Iraq, its policies in the Arabian Peninsula. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/terrorism/interviews/fagih.html

6/17/03

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frontline: looking for answers: interviews: prince bandar bin sultan

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Saudi dissidents say that there is growing antiAmericanism in Saudi Arabia, that bin Laden is in some ways becoming a folk hero, in part because the regime does not allow dissent, there is unemployment, etc. Is there growing anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia? It's almost as deja vu again. We heard the same stories, the same pontification from people who ... are against the kingdom, against its policies. In 1990, we were told ... that if the Americans come to help Saudi Arabia defend itself and liberate Kuwait, the Arab world will rise from the Atlantic to the Gulf. f

Because? Because the infidels have come, because Saudi Arabia is a holy land. Well, the truth of the matter, one, the premise was wrong. America has never been a colonizing power as far as we were concerned. Our relationship with America did not start in 1990. It started in the 1930s. And when the Americans came to Saudi Arabia, they didn't come as an invader. They came actually as a private sector, trying to help us find oil. They found the oil for us, and they've been our friends ever since....

Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Suitan has served as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States since 1983. In this interview with FRONTLINE correspondent: Lowell Bergman, Prince Bandar argues that while U.S. policy in the Middle East has its flaws, it cannot be blamed for the atrocities of Sept. 11 — Osama bin Laden and likeminded extremists must bear full responsibility. Prince Bandar also speaks candidly about dissidents within his own country, about relations between Saudi Arabia and other governments in the Middle East, and about the role that Saudi Arabia may take in the fight against terrorism, This interview was conducted late September 2001,

But bin Laden himself [went] to the royal family when the invasion of Kuwait took place, and said, "We will defend Saudi Arabia," as I understand it, meaning he

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/terrorism/interviews/bandar.html

6/17/03

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terrorist activities and cut off private funding for terrorist groups, even at the cost of jtoday'js cozy relationship; use visa and ^ transportation rules! to encourage release of captive American citizens by] for instance, denying U.S. visas to men who have abused their power under Saudi law to prevent wives and children from leaving the country; put greater official distance between itself and the Saudi Arabian regime, thereby reducing Washington's identification with a corrupt kleptocracy; lend training of the Saudi national guard, a force directed at suppressing domestic unrest rather than guarding against external enemies; withdraw U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia; and recognize that the feared Saudi "oil weapon" is a myth.

In early 2002 rumors circulated that Saudi Arabia was considering asking the United States to withdraw its troops from the gulf kingdom. Outraged denials arose in both Washington and Riyadh. But even before the September 11, 2001, terrorist assaults, Saudi Arabia was among Washington's more dubious allies. Washington should take the initiative in refashioning a relationship that has far more negatives than positives for the United States. The House of Saud has long leaned toward the West. King Abdul Al Aziz Al Saud, who fathered 44 sons, is the font of today's royal family, including King Fahd. The latter suffered a series of strokes beginning in 1995, however, and his half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah largely runs the government. Saudi Arabia would be unimportant but for the massive oil deposits sitting beneath its seemingly endless deserts. There have been tensions

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6 of 32 DOCUMENTS Copyright 1998 U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report

October 19, 1998

SECTION: WORLD REPORT; Pg. 37 LENGTH: 448 words HEADLINE: Saudi royalty gives money to bin Laden BYLINE: By Bruce B. Auster; David E. Kaplan HIGHLIGHT: Royal paradox BODY: Osama bin Laden, whose father built palaces and mosques for Saudi Arabia's royal family, has dedicated his life to overthrowing King Fahd's pro-Western government. Yet he receives millions of dollars to finance his terror campaign from Saudi royalty, according to U.S. intelligence specialists. "We've got information about who's backing bin Laden, and in a lot of cases it goes back to the royal family," says Dick Gannon, who retired July 31 as deputy director for operations of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. Suicidal. That makes no sense, say some. "There is no member of the royal family who would have anything to gain from supporting bin Laden unless they went absolutely berserk," says Mamoun Fandy, a scholar at Georgetown University. Still, Saudi Arabia has an enormous royal family with thousands of princes and princesses. "There are certain factions of the Saudi royal family who just don't like us," says Gannon. "They may have the same father or grandfather, but they can have very different agendas." A top U.S. intelligence official confirms that there are "certainly good odds that someone [in the extended royal family] is giving money." There is precedent for factions in the family turning against each other: In 1975, King Faisal was assassinated by a Saudi prince. And Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, an enemy of the Saudi monarchy, kept renegade Saudi princes on his payroll in the 1950s. Bin Laden's campaign to destabilize the kingdom highlights the tension between modernization and tradition. King Fahd and six of his brothers-known as the Sudayri Seven after their mother, the favorite wife of the kingdom's founder-have built up the state's economic and military infrastructure. But modernization offends some traditionalists who do not believe women should attend school and who resent Western influences. Religious leaders condemn the libertine lifestyle led by some princes, while fundamentalists such as bin Laden believe the presence of American troops defiles Muslim holy sites. U.S. officials stress that both King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah, who represents the traditionalists, support the fight against bin Laden's terror network. Last month, Saudi Arabia recalled its top envoy to Afghanistan, where bin Laden has been granted safe haven.

3 of 3 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2001 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. The New Yorker October 22, 2001

SECTION: ANNALS OF NATIONAL SECURITY; Pg. 35 LENGTH: 3552 words HEADLINE: KING'S RANSOM; How vulnerable are the Saudi royals? BYLINE: SEYMOUR M. HERSH BODY:, 1994 or earljefr, the National Security Agency has been collecting electronic intercepts of conversations between members of the Saudi Arabian royal family, which is headed by King Fahd. The intercepts depict a regime increasingly corrupt, alienated from the country's religious rank and file, and so weakened and frightened that it has brokered its future by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to fundamentalist groups that wish to overthrow it. The intercepts have demonstrated to analysts that.by 1996^Saudi money was supporting Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Central Asia, and throughout the Persian Gulf Tegion. "Ninety-six is the key year," one American intelligence official told me. "Bin Laden hooked up to all the bad guys-it's like the grand alliance- and had a capability for conducting large-scale operations." The Saudi regime, he said, had "gone to the dark side." In interviews last week, current and former intelligence and military officials portrayed the growing instability of Saudi regime-and the vulnerability of its oil reserves to terrorist attack-as the most immediate threat to American economic and political interests in the Middle East. The officials also said that the Bush Administration, like the Clinton ^ Administration, is refusing to confront this reality, even in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. TheSaudis and the Americans arranged a meeting between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and King Fahd duringa visit by Rumsfeld to Saudi Arabia shortly before the beginning of the air war in Afghanistan, and pictures of the meeting were transmitted around the world. The United States, however, has known that King Fahd has been incapacitated since suffering a severe stroke, in late 1995. A Saudi adviser told me last week that the King, with roundthe-clock medical treatment, is able to sit in a chair and open his eyes, but is usually unable to recognize even his oldest friends. Fahd is being kept on the throne, the N.S.A. intercepts indicate, because of a bitter family power struggle. (^ Fahd's nominal successor is Crown Prince Abdullah, his half brother, who is to some extent the de-facto ruler-he and Prince Sultan, the defense minister, were the people Rumsfeld really came to see. But there is infighting about money: Abdullah has been urging his fellow-princes to address the problem of corruption in the kingdom-unsuccessfully, according to the intercepts. "The only reason Fahd's being kept alive is so Abdullah can't become king," a former White House adviser told me. The American intelligence officials have been particularly angered by the refusal of the Saudis to help the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. run "traces"-that is, name checks and other background information-on the nineteen men, more than half of them believed to be from Saudi Arabia, who took part in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Ill "They knew that once we started asking for a few traces the list would grow," one former official said. "It's better to j| shut it down right away." He pointed out that thousands of disaffected Saudis have joined fundamentalist groups throughout the Middle East. Other officials said that there is a growing worry inside the F.B.I, and the C.I.A. that the

2 of 2 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2002 Newsweek Newsweek December 2, 2002, U.S. Edition

SECTION: NATIONAL AFFAIRS; Pg. 28 LENGTH: 1899 words HEADLINE: The Saudi Money Trail BYLINE: By Michael Isikoff And Evan Thomas; With Jamie Reno in San Diego, Dan Klaidman and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Christopher Dickey in Paris HIGHLIGHT: Rent payments for 9-11 hijackers and mysterious checks from a princess's account. Is there a Saudi tie to terror? Inside the probe the Bush administration doesn't want you to know about. BODY: When the two Qaeda operatives arrived at Los Angeles International Airport around New Year's 2000, they were warmly welcomed. Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar would help hijack American Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon a year and a half later, but that January in Los Angeles, they were just a couple of young Saudi men who barely spoke English and needed a place to stay. At the airport, they were swept up by a gregarious fellow Saudi, Omar al-Bayoumi, who had been living in the United States for several years. Al-Bayoumi drove the two men to San Diego, threw a welcoming party and arranged for the visitors to get an apartment next to his. He guaranteed the lease, and plunked down $1,550 in cash to cover the first two months'rent. His hospitality did not end there. Al-Bayoumi also aided Alhazmi and Almihdhar as they opened a bank account, and recruited a friend to help them obtain Social Security cards and call flight schools in Florida to arrange flying lessons, according to law-enforcement officials. Two months before 9-11, al-Bayoumi moved to England; several months later, he disappeared. He is believed to be somewhere in Saudi Arabia. Who is al-Bayoumi? At various times, the affable father of four told people that he was getting his doctorate at San Diego State, though the school has no record he ever attended. He told others that he was a pilot for the Saudi national airline. He apparently did work for Dalian Avco, an aviation-services company with extensive contracts with the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, headed by Prince Sultan, the father of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar. According to informed sources, some federal investigators suspect that al-Bayoumi could have been an advance man for the 9-11 hijackers, sent by Al Qaeda to assist the plot that ultimately claimed 3,000 lives. The Feds' interest in al-Bayoumi has been heightened by a money trail that could be perfectly innocent, but is nonetheless intriguing—and could ultimately expose the Saudi government to some of the blame for 9-11 and seriously strain U.S.-Saudi ties. It is too soon to say where the trail will wind up, but it begins with a very surprising name on a Washington bank account. About two months after al-Bayoumi began aiding Alhazmi and Almihdhar, NEWSWEEK has learned, alBayoumi's wife began receiving regular stipends, often monthly and usually around $2,000, totaling tens of thousands of dollars. The money came in the form of cashier's checks, purchased from Washington's Riggs Bank by Princess Haifa bint Faisal, the daughter of the late King Faisal and wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi envoy who is a prominent Washington figure and personal friend of the Bush family. The checks were sent to a woman named Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, who in turn signed over many of them to al-Bayoumi's wife (and her friend), Manal Ahmed Bagader. The

2 of 3 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2002 U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report January 14, 2002 January 14, 2002

SECTION: NATION & WORLD; INVESTIGATIVE REPORT; Vol. 132 , No. 1; Pg. 24 LENGTH: 2074 words HEADLINE: Princely payments BYLINE: By Linda Robinson; Peter Gary; Edward T. Pound; Megan Barnett; Lisa Griffin; Randy Dotinga HIGHLIGHT: Saudi royalty, it is claimed, make out like bandits on U.S. deals BODY: On an unseasonably warm December evening, Richard Newcombe stepped off a jumbo jet in Washington, jetlagged from a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia. The head of foreign assets control in the U.S. Treasury Department, Newcombe and his colleagues at the State Department and the National Security Council had made some progress getting the Saudis to help shut down global tenor networks. But it was like pulling teeth. First, the Saudis had balked at freezing bank accounts Washington said were linked to terrorists. Then they demanded proof that Saudi-funded charities were funneling money to terrorists. On December 8, the first day of the Newcombe delegation's visit, Prince Nayef, the interior minister, was telling reporters he still did not even believe that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis. "The truth is missing so far," he said. Now the Newcombe party was returning with only a promise that the Saudis would be helpful at the next meeting, in January. Protection money. Strained relations between Washington and Riyadh are nothing new. But since September 11, tensions have increased markedly. One reason, high-level intelligence sources tell U.S. News, is that at least two Saudi princes had been paying, on behalf of the kingdom, what amounts to protection money to Osama bin Laden since 1995. In November of that year, a bomb at the Saudi National Guard headquarters in Riyadh killed several American military advisers who worked closely with the force. One source, a former senior Clinton administration official, said that the two princes, whose names have not been disclosed, began making payments to bin Laden soon after the bombing. The official added that Washington did not learn of the payments until at least two years later. "There's no question they did buy protection from bin Laden," he says. "The deal was, they would turn a blind eye to what he was doing elsewhere. You don't conduct operations here, and we won't disrupt them elsewhere.'" Adel Al-Jubeir, a top Saudi official, denied the payments took place. "Where's the evidence? Nobody offers proof. There's no paper trail Why would they [princes] pay? These people threaten us more than they threaten you," he said. Meanwhile, the former Clinton official says the U.S. stance may be toughening. "I dont know if the Saudis have figured out that their strategy is a loser," he says. "But what's important going forward is to convince them now that this arrangement has to stop." Protection money to a major terrorist would be a big enough irritant. But the Washington-Riyadh relationship is marred by another problem, and this one is just as well kept a secret. Over the past decade, the United States has sold Riyadh $ 33.5 billion in military hardware. That's more than Israel and Egypt combined have received. U.S. companies have also done billions of dollars in commercial business with the kingdom. According to well-placed Saudi sources and a review of several little-known lawsuits, Saudi agents and royalty often demand enormous commissions to

2 of 19 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2002 Time Inc. Time Magazine August 5, 2002

SECTION: WORLD; Pg. 30 LENGTH: 3249 words HEADLINE: Do We Still Need the Saudis?; Oil has sustained the alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia for deca des. But extremism in the kingdom is putting those ties to the test BYLINE: Romesh Ratnesar/Riyadh, With reporting by Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson/Washington, Scott MacLeod/Riyadh and J.F.O. McAllister/London BODY: People in Saudi Arabia are sick of talking about Sept. 11. They have little interest in examining why 15 of their countrymen hijacked U.S. commercial planes and killed 3,000 civilians; many prefer to believe that the attacks were the work of the CIA or the Mossad, and that the 15 hijackers were unwitting players in someone else's plot. "They were just bodies," a senior government official says. Spend an evening in Jidda, the hometown of Osama bin Laden, where young Saudis today flock to American chain restaurants and shopping malls to loiter away the stifling summer nights, and you rarely hear bin Laden's name. "They find it silly when people talk about al-Qaeda," says journalist Mohammed alKheriji, 28, as he sips a latte at the city's newest Starbucks. "People are worried about their own problems." But while Saudis remain uninterested-or perhaps they're in a state of denial-in the level of Saudi participation in Sept. 11, the country seethes with open loathing for the U.S. and sympathy for bin Laden's cause. Signs of anti-Western militancy are rife throughout this vast kingdom, from the capital, Riyadh-where in June separate car bombs blew up a British banker outside his home and nearly killed an American expatriate—to Abha, a remote mountain city in the southern province of Asir, where four of the hijackers were raised and locals still celebrate all "the Fifteen," as the group is called. "Their friends are really proud of them," says Ghazi al Gamdhi, 22, a university student. "They think the Fifteen were protecting Islam. Most of the guys here want to become heroes protecting Islam." In recent weeks Saudi militants have resumed their campaign against one of the original sources of bin Laden's wrath: the 6,000 American troops stationed on Saudi soil. In June, after U.S. investigators discovered the spent casing of a Russian-made surface-to-air missile lying in the desert near the Prince Sultan air base, Saudi intelligence arrested 11 Saudi members of an al-Qaeda cell for plotting to shoot down U.S. jets that use the facility and for preparing attacks ' against other American targets in the kingdom. It was the first official acknowledgment since Sept. 11 that the I. organization is active in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's latent anti-Americanism has been stoked in recent months by fierce opposition to the Bush Administration's pro-Israel Middle East policies and the perceived harassment of Muslims in the U.S. The country's powerful fundamentalist clerics have used these issues to agitate the masses. Government officials are worried that the country's imams are slipping beyond their control. "Six months ago, you could call them in and say, XTut it out,"' says a senior Saudi official. "But now you have hundreds of imams condemning the U.S. at prayers every Friday. How can you stop that?" \/'

Given the stakes, both countries need to figure out a way. Hundreds of Saudis fought alongside the Taliban against the U.S. in Afghanistan last year. More than one-third of the 350 hard-core fighters being held by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are Saudi nationals. Billions of dollars from wealthy Saudis have funded anti-American and

1 of 4 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2003 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. The New Yorker March 24, 2003

SECTION: FACT; Content; Pg. 48 LENGTH: 12287 words HEADLINE: THE PRINCE; How the Saudi Ambassador became Washington's indispensable operator. BYLINE: ELSA WALSH BODY: During the first weeks of the second Bush Administration, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, met with the new President. Bandar, who is fifty-three and has been the Saudi Ambassador for twenty years, was accustomed to an unusually personal relationship with the White House; he was so close to the President's father, George H. W. Bush, that he was considered almost a member of the family. The Saudi Ambassador had been happy about the younger Bush's victory, but he was worn out by the unpublicized role he had played in the failed negotiations to resolve the Middle East crisis during the last weeks of the Clinton Presidency. President CUnton had been working on a compromise for years; after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he had called this effort part of his "personal journey of atonement." Bush had been briefed on the collapse of the talks and was baffled by Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Authority. "Explain one thing to me," he said to Bandar. "I cannot believe somebody will not strike a deal with two desperate people." When Bandar asked what Bush meant by "desperate," Bush explained: President Clinton had been eager to leave office with a settlement in the Middle East, and Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, needed a deal to survive the next election. Bush said that he didn't think Arafat really wanted to solve the problem. Bandar believed that Arafat's failure to accept the deal in January of 2001 was a tragic mistake-a crime, really. Yet to say so publicly would damage the Palestinian cause, which had been championed by the Saudis, who would then lose any leverage they still had. Bush told Bandar that, unlike Clinton, he did not intend to intervene aggressively. Bandar left the meeting even more distressed. At the end of the Clinton Presidency, Bandar had received confidential assurances from Colin Powell, the Secretary of State-designate, that he was to relay to Arafat: the Middle East deal made by Clinton that the new Administration endorsed would be enforced. Powell warned that the "peace process" would be different under Bush. Bush would not spend hours on the telephone, and Camp David was not going to become a motel. The message was clear, and until the end Bandar had continued to hope: it appeared that Arafat would get almost everything he wanted, and that Bush's Administration, which Bandar saw as more tough-minded than Clinton's, would stand behind the agreement. "I still have not recovered, to be honest with you, inside, from the magnitude of the missed opportunity that January," Bandar told me at his home in McLean, Virginia. "Sixteen hundred Palestinians dead so far. And seven hundred Israelis dead. In my judgment, not one life of those Israelis and Palestinians dead is justified." We met in late November, during Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, and Bandar had invited me to break the day's fast with him. Steel barriers block the way to the house, which overlooks the Potomac River, and I had passed through a security checkpoint, where commandos in khaki pants and vests inspected my car for explosives.

The Approaching Turning Point: The Future of U.S. Relations with the Gulf States By F. Gregory Gause, III Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World Analysis Paper Number Two, May 2003

F. Gregory Cause HI is an associate professor of political science at the University of Vermont, and the author of Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994).

Be Careful What You Wish For The Future of U.S.-Saudi Relations F. Gregory Cause III No country has more vexed Americans in mid-1990s, largely eliminated it domestithe crisis that began on September 1 1 than cally. Identification with the United States now, at a time of increasing anti-AmericanSaudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden was born ism in the Arab world, could excite more and raised there and is a product, albeit an domestic opposition to the Al Saud. With extreme and unique one, of the educational and cultural milieu of the country. He was the social and economic changes that the Saudi kingdom has experienced over the able to recruit 15 fellow Saudis, equally products of that milieu, to participate in the i past 20 years, there is a larger, more eduterrorist attacks. But America's vexation (as cated, and more attentive public with which opposed to its revulsion, which those who the Al Saudjiaye to deal. Rather than run the risk of alienating it through unstinting perpetrated the attacks of September 1 1 richly deserve) is less with our Saudi enesupport for the United States, the Al Saud mies than with our Saudi friends. have choserrtojiedge. Which raises another question:^ the No government in the Arab world is closer to Washington than that of Saudi Saudis have to be this attentivejo theirjrwn Arabia. Just over ten years ago the Saudis public opinion, arethey so weak and_unsta- < opened their country to half a million ble thattjiey have no value as a strategic American troops and cooperated openly partner? No) They are in command domeswith the American military effort against tically, with the institutions of religion Iraq. Yet now Saudi cooperation with the firmly under the state's control, the fiscal United States appears grudging and relucsituation much improved over the past few years, and the internal cohesion of the rultant, at least in public. Saudi leaders, at times, go out of their way to distance them- ing family relatively strong. They surf their selves from the United States, particularly public opinion more from the desire to when addressing domestic audiences. avoid creating unnecessary problems than Why the Saudi hesitancy to back Amer- out of fear that an unpopular decision could ica in its hour of need, particularly when mean their downfall. The Al Saud will be bin Laden is as much their enemy_as^he around for awhile, sitting on all that oil. isjours? Which leads to the two-part question: T h i n s w e r lies in how^rjjie, Aljjjaud. where are Saudi-American relations going, tcrisis differs and where should they be headed? We in from that of their rule was the United States need to distinguish bedirectly threatened by an Arab army that tween our understandable exasperation with had already swallowed up one monarchy. the Saudis' public stance in this crisis, and The threat presented by bin Laden and his the broader question of whether any altersympathizers is much less immediate.jn native government in Saudi Arabia would fact, the Saudis believed that theyjigd, JDC better for us. Is it our interests that through their own security measures in the have been hurt by Saud! policy since Be Careful What You Wish For

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