Altruistic World Online Library

PART 1 OF 2

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: 9/11

Just before 6 a.m. on September 11, President Bush awoke at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort, an island enclave in the Gulf of Mexico, near Sarasota, Florida. He put on his running shorts and, accompanied by his Secret Service men, took a four-mile jog. [1]

Meanwhile, in Washington, the top brass of the Carlyle Group and scores of prospective investors began getting ready for an investors' conference at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington. It was their custom to serve coffee and breakfast pastries at about 7:30 and to start the presentations half an hour later. Among those attending were James Baker, Frank Carlucci, and, representing the bin Laden family, Shafig bin Laden, one of Osama's many brothers.

At 7:59 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 took off from Boston's Logan International Airport en route to Los Angeles. Five Al Qaeda operatives were seated aboard, one of whom, Abdulaziz Alomari, had gained entree to the United States without even having to go to the onsulate himself -- thanks to the Visa Express program recently instituted in Saudi Arabia.

At about the same time, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, the two Saudis who indirectly received money from Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, stood in Washington's Dulles International Airport, getting ready to board American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles scheduled to leave at 8:10. They were accompanied by three compatriots -- Salem Alhazmi, who was possibly Nawaf's brother, Majed Moqed, a twenty-four-year-old operative about whom little is known, and Hani Hanjour, the Saudi who took flying lessons in Phoenix and who, the FBI had noted, was so curious about airplane security. Two of the Saudi operatives on the plane, Khalid Almidhar and Salem Alhazmi, also had entered the United States using the Visa Express program.

At about 8:13, the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 began. [i] It soon veered dramatically off course from its scheduled destination, L.A., and went toward New York instead. At 8:46, the plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

The opening section of The 9/11 Commission Report is entitled "Inside the Four Flights." The information contained in this section is based almost entirely on the reported phone calls. But if the reported calls were faked, we have no idea what happened inside these planes. Insofar as the idea that the planes were taken over by hijackers who looked "Middle Eastern," even "Islamic," has been based on the reported calls, this idea is groundless.

-- Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?, by David Ray Griffin

At that moment, President Bush's motorcade was on its way to the Emma E. Booker elementary school in Sarasota. When he arrived just before 9:00, Karl Rove rushed up to the president, took him aside in a hallway, and told him about the plane crash. "What a horrible accident," Bush replied. According to White House communications director Dan Bartlett, who was also present, Bush, a former pilot, asked if the cause had been bad weather. [2] Accounts differ as to whether Bush was informed about the attack before this or not, but it is clear he had been told about the first crash by nine o'clock. [3]

At about 9:03 Bush entered the second-grade classroom. The occasion was an opportunity to promote his education policies. Altogether, with his staff, members of the media, and the students, there were about 150 people in the room. Bush was introduced to the students and posed for pictures with them. Then the teacher led the students in reading exercises. At this point there was no reason for Bush to think the crash was anything more than a tragic accident.

Just as Bush entered the classroom, however, United Airlines Flight 175, which had also been hijacked after its departure from Boston, crashed into the second World Trade Center tower.

One of the many ironies of the attack was that Marvin Bush, the president's brother, owned stock in and had served as a director of a company, Stratesec, that handled security for three clients that figured prominently in the attack -- United Airlines; Dulles Airport, from which American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked; and the World Trade Center itself. Conspiracy theorists have tried, with little success, to make something of the connection, even though Marvin Bush left the board of Stratesec prior to 9/11. [ii] Nonetheless, this connection between the House of Bush and the breakdown in airport security, potentially a political embarrassment, never gained prominence in the mainstream press.

At the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., those attending the Carlyle Group's investment conference were glued to TV monitors showing the attack in progress. According to one source, after the second plane hit, Shafig bin Laden removed his name tag. He and James Baker, the source added, left shortly thereafter in separate cars.

Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, who was traveling with Bush, also saw the second crash on television while she was at the elementary school in Sarasota. "It took me about thirty seconds to realize that this was terrorism," she said. [4]

She immediately told Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, who whispered to Bush, still in the classroom full of second-graders, "Captain Loewer says it's terrorism."

Then the classroom was silent for about thirty seconds. [5] In the back of the room, press secretary Ari Fleischer held up a pad of paper for Bush to see. "Don't Say Anything Yet" was written on it in big block letters. [6] Bush nodded his assent. Finally, he picked up the book to read a story called "The Pet Goat" with the children. In unison, the children read aloud, "The Pet Goat. A-girl-got-a-pet-goat. But-the-goat-did-some-things-that-made-the-girl's-dad-mad." As the reading continued, Bush said, "Really good readers, whew! ... These must be sixth-graders!" [7]

The reading continued for eight or nine minutes, and at 9:12, Bush left the room. [8]

By this time, the entire world was aware that a truly historic event was taking place. Thousands were dead or dying. Millions of people across the country, especially in New York and Washington, were in a state of panic.

At 9:30, Bush addressed the nation. "Today we had a national tragedy," he said. "Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country."

Then he vowed "to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act. Terrorism against our nation will not stand."

To the overwhelming majority of Americans the attacks had come completely out of the blue. Within the intelligence world, however, many knew who was behind them and Richard Clarke was one of those people. "This is Al Qaeda," he said as soon as a third hijacked jet crashed, this one into the Pentagon. [9]

CIA director George Tenet was eating breakfast with former senator David Boren at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington when he was told about the hijackings. He instantly came to the same assessment. "This has bin Laden's fingerprints all over it," he said. [10] At 10:06, a fourth hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, crashed about eighty miles southeast of Pittsburgh, its hijackers apparently having been overpowered by passengers.

It did not take long to confirm that bin Laden was the perpetrator. Almost immediately after the attacks, celebratory phone calls from bin Laden operatives were intercepted by the National Security Agency.

But over the next chaotic few hours, rather than move to strike just Al Qaeda, various high-ranking officials within the Bush administration saw the attack as an opportunity to pursue another agenda. At 2:40 p.m., Donald Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on retaliatory plans -- not just to take out Osama bin Laden, but also to go after Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

According to notes taken by a Rumsfeld aide that day and later obtained by CBS News's David Martin, Rumsfeld said he wanted "best info fast, judge whether good enough to hit SH" -- meaning Saddam Hussein -- "at the same time, not only UBL," the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying, "sweep it all up, things related and not." [11]

In 1998, Rumsfeld had been a signatory to the Project for a New American Century's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" letter, which had called for the removal of Saddam Hussein. Perhaps this was the "new Pearl Harbor" that had to take place if PNAC's policies were to be implemented.

Meanwhile, the president spent the day flying around the country in Air Force One from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska before returning to Washington. For much of the day, he was protected by U.S. Air Force servicemen in full combat gear. That night, before going to bed, President Bush dictated some observations into his diary. "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today." [12]

He added that because he was not a military tactician, he would have "to rely on the advice and counsel of Rumsfeld, [General Henry] Shelton [then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], [General Richard] Myers and Tenet." [13]

Several people were conspicuously absent from the list -- Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and others. But chief among them was Richard Clarke. The man who knew more about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda than anyone in the country and who had devoted his professional life to defeating them went unmentioned.

***

Prince Bandar did not go to the Saudi embassy in Washington on the day of the disaster, [14] but he was no doubt very busy. The relationship between the House of Bush and the House of Saud that he had so laboriously reassembled just before the attacks was now in tatters. It was as if in one horrifying moment all the extraordinary contradictions in that relationship -- one that married the guardians of Israel with the guardians of Wahhabi Islam, that joined a secular, consumerist democracy with a puritanical theocratic monarchy -- had suddenly been exposed. Thousands of innocent people had been killed in America and most of the killers were Saudi.

In good times, Bandar was known for his ingratiating charm and puckish bonhomie, for his dazzling parties "where there was more chilled vodka in little shot glasses than I've ever seen," as one guest remembered. [15] There was also the Bandar who delighted in weaving a web of intrigue and participating in covert operations. Now came the Bandar who could be a commanding presence in a time of international crisis.

A virtuoso at spinning the media, he quickly conjured up a reality that entirely dissociated his country from bin Laden and the terrorists and reaffirmed Saudi Arabia's solidarity with the United States -- as if the secret brinksmanship of two weeks earlier had never taken place. He swiftly launched an international media campaign with PR giant Burson Marsteller.

He went on every network news show imaginable, repeating the message that the alliance was still strong. Saudi Arabia was America's friend in a hostile Arab world. Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with terrorism. "We in the kingdom, the government and the people of Saudi Arabia, refuse to have any person affiliated with terrorism to be connected to our country," he told a press conference. [16]

In every venue, he told the world that the widespread reports that Osama bin Laden was a Saudi were wrong because "his citizenship was terminated a long time ago because of his terrorist activities." And when he was asked about the financing of terrorism, Bandar told a reporter that charity was required by Islam and that the Saudi government had no evidence that Saudi money was going to Al Qaeda. [17]

Even as Bandar emphasized his friendship with the United States, he had another pressing item on his agenda. For hundreds of wealthy Saudis, it was not unusual to spend most of the summer in the United States. Some stayed over for the racehorse sales in Lexington, Kentucky, in September and then returned home in the fall. But now Arabs were being arrested all over the United States. Hundreds of Saudis in the United States -- members of the royal family and relatives of Osama bin Laden among them -- feared reprisals if they stayed in the country. They needed to leave immediately. King Fahd himself had mandated that everything possible be done to protect them and return them to the kingdom. Fear was not the only motivation. "It's a perception issue for them back home," said a source who participated in the events that followed. "It looks really bad [to Wahhabi clerics] if the royal family is in the lap of luxury in the U.S. during a crisis." It was essential that the Saudis be granted special permission to return even while U.S. airspace was severely restricted.

At the time, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, key figures in the Bush administration who could facilitate such an operation were holed up in the Situation Room, a small underground suite with a plush eighteen-by-eighteen-foot conference room in the West Wing of the White House. Live links connected the room's occupants to the FBI, the State Department, and other relevant agencies. Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and other officials hunkered down and devoured intelligence, hoping to ascertain whether other terrorist attacks were imminent. The most powerful officials in the administration came and went, among them Colin Powell, George Tenet, and Donald Rumsfeld.

Within the cramped confines of that room, Richard Clarke chaired an ongoing crisis group making hundreds of decisions related to the attacks. Sometime shortly after 9/11 -- he doesn't remember exactly when -- Clarke was approached in the Situation Room about quickly repatriating the Saudis.

"Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an airplane filled with Saudis, including members of the bin Laden family, leave the country," Clarke says. "My role was to say that it can't happen until the FBI approves it. And so the FBI was asked -- we had a live connection to the FBI -- and we asked the FBI to make sure that they were satisfied that everybody getting on that plane was someone that it was O.K. to leave. And they came back and said yes, it was fine with them. So we said, 'Fine, let it happen.'" [18]

Clarke, who left the government in March 2003 to run a consulting firm in Virginia, adds that he does not recall who initiated the request, but that it was probably either the FBI or the State Department. Both agencies deny playing any role whatsoever in the episode. [iii] "It did not come out of this place," says one source at the State Department. "The likes of Prince Bandar does not need the State Department to get this done."

A White House official says that no such operation took place.

Richard Clarke's approval for evacuating the Saudis had been conditional upon the FBI's vetting them. "I asked [the FBI] to make sure that no one inappropriate was leaving," he says. "I asked them if they had any objection to Saudis leaving the country at a time when aircraft were banned from flying." Clarke adds that he assumed the FBI had vetted the bin Ladens prior to September 11. "I have no idea if they did a good job," he says. "I'm not in any position to second-guess the FBI."

But despite the evidence to the contrary, FBI officials assert that the Bureau had no part in the Saudi evacuation. The Bureau played no role in facilitating these flights, according to Special Agent John Iannarelli, the FBI's spokesman on counterterrorism activities. Bandar, however, went on CNN and said that the FBI played a critical role in the evacuation. [19]

On Thursday, September 13, Bandar had planned to meet Bush at the White House to discuss the Middle East peace process. The meeting went forward as scheduled, but in the aftermath of the attacks, even the urgent demands of the peace process had to take a backseat to the historic catastrophe two days earlier. Until this meeting, Bandar had seen Bush as someone who did not measure up to his father, but on this occasion he seemed to be truly his own man. [20] The two men went out on the Truman Balcony where they lit up cigars and discussed how they might best deal with captured Al Qaeda operatives.

It is not known whether the two men talked about the evacuation at that time. In any case, the operation to begin flying out approximately 140 Saudis had already been initiated by Bandar. According to Nail al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy, the flights received approval from "the highest level of the U.S. government." [21] Al-Jubeir added that he did not know if there were private conversations in which Prince Bandar and the president discussed letting the bin Ladens and other Saudis begin to travel even while U.S. airspace was shut down. The White House declined to comment on the issue.

Thus, there are many unanswered questions about who authorized the operation. Did the president know? Did the elder George Bush or James Baker intervene? Or did Bandar go through his old friend Colin Powell in the State Department? Both the elder George Bush and James Baker declined requests for interviews for this book.

Nevertheless, a massive and elaborate operation to fly the Saudis out of the United States was already under way. At about 4:30 that afternoon, Dan Grossi and Manuel Perez, the two private detectives in Tampa, had already departed for Lexington, Kentucky, in a Learjet, accompanying three young Saudi men even though private aircraft were still banned from U.S. skies. Sources familiar with the flight said that one of the men was a young Saudi royal. According to the Tampa Tribune, another was the son of a Saudi army commander. [22] The third Saudi passenger has not been identified.

According to Grossi, about one hour and forty-five minutes after takeoff they landed at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, a frequent destination for Saudi horse-racing enthusiasts, the most famous of whom was Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a nephew of King Fahd. The father of the forty-two-year-old Prince Ahmed, Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, was the powerful governor of Riyadh and one of the Sudairi Seven and had worked closely with Osama bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs during the Afghanistan War in the eighties. Ahmed had gone to college at the University of California at Irvine and eventually become chairman of Saudi Arabia's Research and Marketing Group, a publishing company with offices in Saudi Arabia and England. But in Kentucky and the world of horse racing, Ahmed was far better known as the owner of many of the top racehorses in the world. In 1994, he and a college friend launched the Thoroughbred Corporation, which bought and trained famous horses such as Sharp Cat, Lear Fan, Royal Anthem, and the greatest of all, the 2001 Horse of the Year, Point Given, which won two legs of racing's Triple Crown. [23]

Prince Ahmed had come to Lexington for the annual September yearling sales. The sale of young racehorses had been suspended on September 11 but resumed the very next day, during which Ahmed bought two horses. "America is home to me," he said. "I am a businessman. I have nothing to do with the other stuff. I feel as badly as any American and I am extremely astonished by [the terrorism]. We have had terrorism in Saudi Arabia and we know how painful it is." [24] Meanwhile, he made plans to leave the country as quickly as possible. According to the New York Times, sometime after the attacks but before September 14, members of the bin Laden family were driven or flown under FBI supervision first to a secret assembly point in Texas and later to Washington. [25] [iv]

On Friday, September 14, the nation's 200,000 private planes were cleared to fly. The paralyzed air transportation system slowly ramped up again with new security measures instituted all over the country to thwart hijackers. Initially, Bandar's operation had required, and obtained, White House approval. Now such permission was no longer necessary to fly. But the Bush administration had launched a global war against terror. Within days of the attacks, the FBI was circulating a list of more than one hundred suspects to airlines and more than eighteen thousand law-enforcement organizations. FBI director Robert Mueller said the investigation had generated more than thirty-six thousand leads. There were hundreds of search warrants and subpoenas, and seizures of computers and documents. Agents conducted hundreds of interviews around the country. [26] All over the United States, Arabs were being detained. Attorney General John Ashcroft asserted that the government had to take "people into custody who have violated the law and who may pose a threat to America." [27]

The central question now became whether Saudi royals and their friends would get special treatment from the Bush White House when a massive international crackdown was under way. In the context of the global manhunt and war on terror, didn't it make sense to at least interview Osama bin Laden's relatives and other Saudis who, inadvertently or not, may have funded him? Nevertheless, as Bandar's massive operation to get the Saudis out of the United States continued, the FBI repeatedly declined to interrogate or conduct extended interviews with the Saudis.

In addition to the Tampa-Lexington flight, at least seven other planes were made available for the operation. According to itineraries, passenger lists, and interviews with sources who had firsthand knowledge of the flights, members of the extended bin Laden family, the House of Saud, and their associates also assembled in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, Houston, Cleveland, Orlando, Washington, D.C, Boston, Newark, and New York.

Arrangements for the flights were made with lightning speed. One flight, a Boeing 727 that left Los Angeles late on the night of September 14 or early in the morning of the fifteenth, required FAA approval, which came through in less than half an hour. "By bureaucratic standards, that's a nanosecond," said a source close to the flight. [28]

Payments for the charter flights were made in advance through wire transfer from the Saudi embassy. A source close to the evacuation said such procedures were an indication that the entire operation had high-level approval from the U.S. government. "That's a totally traceable transaction," he said. "So I inferred that what they were doing had U.S. government approval. Otherwise, they would have done it in cash."

According to the source, a young female member of the bin Laden family was the sole passenger on the first leg of the flight, from Los Angeles to Orlando. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, boarding any airplane was cause for anxiety. But now that the name Osama bin Laden had become synonymous with mass murder, boarding a plane with his family members was another story entirely. To avoid unnecessary dramas, the flight's operators made certain that the cockpit crew was briefed about who the passengers were -- the bin Ladens -- and the highly sensitive nature of their mission.

However, they neglected to brief the flight attendants.

On the flight from Los Angeles, the bin Laden girl began talking to an attendant about the horrid events of 9/11. "I feel so bad about it," she said.

"Well, it's not your fault," replied the attendant, who had no idea who the passenger really was.

"Yeah," said the passenger. "But he was my brother."

"The flight attendant just lost it," the source said. [29]

***

When the 727 landed in Orlando, Khalil Binladin, whose estate in Winter Garden was nearby, boarded the plane. [30] After a delay of several hours, it continued to Washington.
Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, the Saudis had chartered a customized DC 8 that belonged to the president of Gabon and was equipped with two staterooms (bedrooms) and sixty-seven seats. According to a source who participated in the operation, the Saudis had hoped to leave Las Vegas on September 14, but were not able to get permission for two days. "This was a nightmare," said a source. "The manifest was submitted the day before. It was obvious that someone in Washington had said okay, but the FBI didn't want to say they could go, so it was really tense. In the end, nobody was interrogated." According to the passenger list, among the forty-six passengers were several high-level Saudi royals with diplomatic passports. On Sunday, September 16, the flight finally left for Geneva, Switzerland. The FBI did not even get the manifest until about two hours before departure. Even if it had wanted to interview the passengers -- and the Bureau had shown little inclination to do so -- there would not have been enough time. [31]

At the same time, an even more lavish Boeing 727 was being readied for Prince Ahmed bin Salman and about fourteen other passengers who were assembling in Lexington. If they felt they had to leave the country, at least it could be said that they were leaving in luxury. The plane, which was customized to hold just twenty-six passengers, had a master bedroom suite furnished with a large upholstered double bed, a couch, night stand, and credenza. Its master bathroom had a gold-plated sink, double illuminated mirrors, and a bidet. There were brass, gold, and crystal fixtures. The main lounge had a fifty-two-inch projection TV. The plane boasted a six-place conference room and dining room with a mahogany table that had controls for up and down movement. [32] The plane left Lexington at 4 p.m. on Sunday, September 16, and stopped in Gander, Newfoundland, en route to London.

And so they flew, one by one, mostly to Europe, where some of the passengers later returned home to Saudi Arabia. On September 17, a flight left Dallas for Newark at 10:30 p.m. [33] On September 18 and 19, two flights left Boston, including the 727 that had originated in Los Angeles. According to a person with firsthand knowledge of the flights, there is no question that they took place with the knowledge and approval of the State Department, the FBI, the FAA, and many other government agencies. "When we left Boston every governmental authority that could be there was there," says the source. "There were FBI agents at every departure point. In Boston alone, there was the FBI, the Department of Transportation, the FAA, Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Massachusetts state police, the Massachusetts Port Authority, and probably the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. There were more federal law-enforcement officials than passengers by far." [34]

In Boston, airport authorities were horrified that they were being told to let the bin Ladens go. On September 22, a flight went from New York to Paris, and on September 24, another flight from Las Vegas to Paris. According to passenger lists for many but not all of the flights, the vast majority of passengers were Saudis, but there were also passengers from Egypt, England, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Norway, the Philippines, Sudan, and Syria. "Not many Saudis like to do menial work," said a source, explaining the other nationalities.

Passengers ranged in age from seven years old to sixty-two. [35] The vast majority were adults. There were roughly two dozen bin Ladens.

"Here you have an attack with substantial links to Saudi Arabia," says John L. Martin, who as chief of internal security in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department supervised investigation and prosecution of national security offenses for eighteen years. [36] "You would want to talk to people in the Saudi royal family and the Saudi government; particularly since they have pledged cooperation. And you would want them to voluntarily submit to interviews that would not necessarily be hostile."

Martin further says that he was particularly surprised at the way the Saudis seemed to be making the rules. "It is an absolute rule of law enforcement that the agent or officers conducting the interviews control the interview, and that the persons of interest, suspects, or prospective defendants do not set the ground rules for the interview," he says. [37]

On September 20, while the Saudi evacuation was still quietly under way, President Bush formally declared a global war on terror in a dramatic speech before Congress. Fortress America, supposedly impregnable, was in a state of shock. The grisly totals were always changing, but at the time, the estimated number of the dead, missing, and injured people was more than thirteen thousand. [38] For security reasons, Vice President Cheney did not even attend the president's address in the capital.

America was united behind the president as never before. "Our war on terror ... will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated," President Bush vowed. [39]

"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest," he added. "And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you're with us, or you are with the terrorists.

"From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." [40]

Four days later, on September 24, President Bush held a press conference with Colin Powell and treasury secretary Paul O'Neill at which he announced the freezing of assets of twenty-seven individuals or entities that may have been funneling money to terrorists. Although the list looked substantial, in fact many of the named targets had been identified by Richard Clarke long before.

Both Bush and Powell made a point of praising the Saudis. "As far as the Saudi Arabians go ... they've been nothing but cooperative," Bush said. "Our dialogue has been one of -- as you would expect friends to be able to discuss issues. And my discussions with the foreign minister, as well as the ambassador, have been very positive." [41]

"That's exactly right, Mr. President," Powell added. "They have not turned down any requests that we have presented to them."

But in fact, the United States was not particularly demanding of Saudi Arabia. Even after the attacks, Visa Express, the program that allowed three of the 9/11 hijackers to enter the United States without even having to stop by the consulate, and which was described by a consular official as "an open-door policy for terrorists," was continued. [42] In the thirty days after 9/11, the U.S. consulate in Jeddah interviewed only 2 out of 104 applicants. No one was rejected. [43]

And when the United States did make demands of them, the Saudis were not particularly helpful. When U.S. troops attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11, the Saudis refused to allow the United States to use Saudi territory to stage military operations. All over Europe authorities rounded up suspected terrorists and froze bank accounts -- but Saudi officials did not follow suit. "Saudi Arabia is completely unsupportive as of today," Robert Baer, the former CIA officer and author of Sleeping with the Devil, said a month after 9/11. "The rank-and-file Saudi policeman is sympathetic to bin Laden. They're not telling us who these people were on the planes." [44]

PART 2 OF 2 (CH. 14 CONT'D.)

Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of counterterrorism operations for the CIA who worked in Saudi Arabia for that agency, added that even though tens of millions of dollars were flowing from Saudi Arabia to Al Qaeda, "We're getting zero cooperation now [from the Saudis]." [45]

William Hartung, a foreign policy and arms industry analyst at the World Policy Institute, attributed the Bush administration's softness on the Saudis to its vast shared economic interests. "If there weren't all these other arrangements -- arms deals and oil deals and consultancies -- I don't think the U.S. would stand for this lack of cooperation," Hartung said. "Because of those relationships, they have to tread lightly." [46]

Indeed, even as the fires at Ground Zero continued to burn, even as America measured its grief, new deals with the Saudis were in the works or already being signed. [47] Chief among them was a $25-billion gas-exploration project in Saudi Arabia involving eight huge oil companies, [48] [v] spearheaded by Crown Prince Abdullah and the minister for foreign affairs, Prince Saud al-Faisal, and with James Baker's firm, Baker Botts, playing a key advisory role. [49] [vi]

On September 14, Stephen Matthews, a partner at Baker Botts, lauded the Saudis for removing bureaucratic obstacles and for other developments "that have increased Saudi Arabia's attractiveness as an investment destination."

On Friday, September 21, Robert Jordan, the Baker Botts attorney who had been nominated earlier as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, finally testified in confirmation hearings before the Senate. Jordan, who had represented President Bush during the Harken insider trading fracas, appeared at the hearing accompanied by James Doty, a Baker Botts partner who had represented Bush when he bought into the Texas Rangers baseball team and who had been general counsel of the SEC during the Harken investigation, and by James A. Baker IV, a Baker Botts partner whose father was the former secretary of state. [50] Also accompanying him at the hearing was Steven Miles, another Baker Botts partner, who launched the firm's Riyadh office ten years earlier and who had played a key role in expanding its Middle East practice. [51]

Jordan testified that the day after the attacks of September 11, "Saudi Arabia released a statement in which it declared Saudi oil exports to the U.S. to be stable, adding that any export shortfalls on the international market will be filled by OPEC. These are welcome words, indeed." When it came to the Saudi role in 9/11, he said, "The tragedies of this magnitude show us who our real friends are. We call on the Saudis to fulfill their pledge of cooperation, and we seek with them to build an international coalition against terrorism. They have answered that call superbly." [52]

Jordan added that he was extremely interested in potential investments in the oil and gas sector in Saudi Arabia. "[I] have been really gratified, Senator, to note the gas concession that has been granted to three consortiums, two of which are led by Exxon-Mobil, into development of the gas fields in Saudi Arabia. ... I certainly will have this high on my agenda." [53]

Jordan was not asked about nor did he comment on the fact that many high-level Saudis refused to accept that Saudis were involved in he attacks, and instead blamed 9/11 on unnamed "Zionists." Even a year later, Prince Nayef Ibn Abd-Al-Aziz, the powerful minister of the interior, made such charges. "Who committed the events of September 11 and who benefited from them?" he asked. "... I think [the Zionists] are behind these events. ... It is impossible that nineteen youths, including fifteen Saudis, carried out the operation of September 11." [54]

Jordan's approach to Saudi Arabia was not out of sync with the policies that had linked the United States and the Saudis for several decades, policies that were deeply flawed because they were blind to the rise of Islamist terror, but that in many ways had been spectacularly fruitful for the United States, producing a stable, secure flow of oil that had lasted for decades. No two figures played a bigger role in those policies than George H. W. Bush and James Baker.

But at certain points in history, a policy outlives its utility. By the mid to late nineties, the Clinton administration had recognized that it was no longer advisable to craft Saudi-American policy solely with an eye toward the pursuit of oil as a strategic resource. Certainly by the time of the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, security officials had begun the delicate task of pressuring the Saudis to crack down on terrorism.

Now, however, even in the wake of one of the worst catastrophes in American history, the Bush administration continued to ignore the Saudi role in terrorism. It had approved the Saudi evacuation and it continued to act as if the House of Saud and the Saudi merchant elite could in no way be complicit with the act of terror that had just taken place.

***

Just how wrong this decision was became apparent several months later, when the war in Afghanistan was in full swing. On Thursday, March 28, 2002, acting on electronic intercepts of telephone calls, heavily armed Pakistani commando units, accompanied by American Special Forces and FBI SWAT teams, raided a two-story house in the suburbs of Faisalabad, in western Pakistan. [55] They had received tips that one of the people in the house was Abu Zubaydah, the thirty-year-old chief of operations for Al Qaeda who had been head of field operations for the USS Cole bombing and who was a close confidant of Osama bin Laden's.

Two days later, on March 30, news of Zubaydah's capture was spreading all over the world. At first, the administration refused to corroborate the reports; then it celebrated the capture of the highest-ranking Al Qaeda operative ever to be taken into custody. "This represents a very significant blow to Al Qaeda," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. He called Zubaydah "a key terrorist recruiter, an operational planner and a member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle."

Donald Rumsfeld told a news conference that Zubaydah was "being given exactly the excellent medical care one would want if they wanted to make sure he was around a good long time to visit with us." [56]

The international media speculated as to what Zubaydah might know, what he might say. On Sunday, March 31, three days after the raid, the interrogation began. For the particulars of this episode there is one definitive source, Gerald Posner's Why America Slept, and according to it, the CIA used two rather unusual methods for the interrogation. [vii] First, they administered thiopental sodium, better known under its trademarked name, Sodium Pentothal, through an IV drip, to make Zubaydah more talkative. Since the prisoner had been shot three times during the capture, he was already hooked up to a drip to treat his wounds and it was possible to administer the drug without his knowledge. Second, as a variation on the good cop- bad cop routine, the CIA used two teams of debriefers. One consisted of undisguised Americans who were at least willing to treat Zubaydah's injuries while they interrogated him. The other team consisted of Arab Americans posing as Saudi security agents, who were known for their brutal interrogation techniques. The thinking was that Zubaydah would be so scared of being turned over to the Saudis, ever infamous for their public executions in Riyadh's Chop-Chop Square, that he would try to win over the American interrogators by talking to them. [57]

In fact, exactly the opposite happened. "When Zubaydah was confronted with men passing themselves off as Saudi security officers, his reaction was not fear, but instead relief," Posner writes. "The prisoner, who had been reluctant even to confirm his identity to his American captors, suddenly started talking animatedly. He was happy to see them, he said, because he feared the Americans would torture and then kill him. Zubaydah asked his interrogators to call a senior member of the ruling Saudi family. He then provided a private home number and cell phone number from memory. 'He will tell you what to do,' Zubaydah promised them." [58]

The name Zubaydah gave came as a complete surprise to the CIA. It was Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the owner of many legendary racehorses and one of the most westernized members of the royal family. On September 16, 2001, Prince Ahmed, of course, had boarded the flight in Lexington as part of the evacuation plan approved by the Bush White House.

Prince Ahmed was well known not just in Saudi Arabia, but also in publishing circles in London and horse-racing circles in Kentucky. He was such an unlikely name that the interrogators immediately assumed that Zubaydah was lying to buy time. According to Posner, the interrogators then kept their prisoner on a "bare minimum" of pain medication and interrupted his sleep with bright lights for hour after hour before restarting the Sodium Pentothal drip. [59]

When they returned, Zubaydah spoke to his faux Saudi interrogators as if they, not he, were the ones in trouble. He said that several years earlier the royal family had made a deal with Al Qaeda in which the House of Saud would aid the Taliban so long as Al Qaeda kept terrorism out of Saudi Arabia. Zubaydah added that as part of this arrangement, he dealt with Prince Ahmed and two other members of the House of Saud as intermediaries, Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, a nephew of King Fahd's, and Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, a twenty-five-year-old distant relative of the king's. Again, he furnished phone numbers from memory. [60]

According to Posner, the interrogators responded by telling Zubaydah that 9/11 had changed everything. The House of Saud certainly would not stand behind him after that. It was then that Zubaydah dropped his real bombshell. "Zubaydah said that 9/11 changed nothing because Ahmed ... knew beforehand that an attack was scheduled for American soil that day," Posner writes. "They just didn't know what it would be, nor did they want to know more than that. The information had been passed to them, said Zubaydah, because bin Laden knew they could not stop it without knowing the specifics, but later they would be hard-pressed to turn on him if he could disclose their foreknowledge." [61]

Two weeks later, Zubaydah was moved to an undisclosed location. When he figured out that the interrogators were really Americans, not Saudis, Posner writes, he tried to strangle himself, and later recanted his entire tale. [62] As this book went to press, no one had convincingly refuted Posner's account.

***

Meanwhile, the subject of Zubaydah's story, Prince Ahmed, had very different concerns on his mind -- horse racing. The previous year Ahmed had experienced extraordinary success with his three-year-old colt, Point Given. Ahmed had been devastated when Point Given came in fifth in the Kentucky Derby.

In early April 2002, while Zubaydah was still being interrogated, Prince Ahmed, knowing he didn't have a horse for the Kentucky Derby, was watching satellite TV in Riyadh when he saw War Emblem win the Illinois Derby by six lengths. "I was very impressed, so we got the door open, got the horse for a reasonable price and we go for it," the prince told a New York Times sports reporter. "We were thinking Derby." [63]

And why wasn't the CIA thinking Prince Ahmed, who was due to return to the United States for the Derby? According to Posner, senior CIA officials had ordered a thorough investigation to see whether there was any truth to the assertions Zubaydah had made during his interrogation. About a month afterward, they issued a report that corroborated some statements he had made but that was largely inconclusive. Then they quietly approached Saudi intelligence to ask whether Prince Ahmed could have been an Al Qaeda contact. The Saudis assured them that that could not possibly be the case. That left the administration with nowhere to go -- unless it wanted to create an international incident.

And so, on May 7, 2002, Prince Ahmed's War Emblem entered the Kentucky Derby as a 20-1 shot. It was a gorgeous day at Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville. Eight months after 9/11, however, America was still in mourning, and at 5:15 p.m., about fifty minutes before the race, a trumpet played taps, and the crowd of 145,000 attending the country's premier horse racing event fell silent. Firefighters from New York City's Ladder Company 3 on East Twenty ninth Street were the guests of honor, standing at attention in front of the winners' circle. Twelve members of the company had lost their lives in the World Trade Center attack. [64]

Post time was 6:04. War Emblem had the number-five position in the wide-open, nineteen-horse field with no strong favorite. Before the gun, the trainer gave jockey Victor Espinoza his instructions: Sit still. The horse likes a quiet jockey. "I've never seen this horse before," Espinoza said. "Just don't move until the last minute, he told me probably a hundred times. Finally, I listened to him." [65]

War Emblem broke cleanly at the gate and took the lead in front of Proud Citizen. And that was it. He pulled away at midstretch, holding the lead wire to wire, winning by four lengths.

A few people jeered as Prince Ahmed made his way to the winners' circle, but that did not seem to bother him. "Everyone respects me here," he said. "Everybody actually makes me feel so good, sometimes I'm embarrassed. The American public treats me better than in Saudi Arabia." [66]

"It's a great achievement," he added. "This was important for me and it's an honor to be the first Arab to win the Kentucky Derby."

Columnist Jimmy Breslin, covering the Derby for Newsday, did not fail to notice Prince Ahmed's self-satisfaction. "Prince Ahmed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia held up the winner's cup and gloated with the thought of the million and more he made with the win, and did this in the presence of firefighters from Ladder 3," Breslin wrote. "... I wondered right away if Prince Ahmed had done anything to let us know he was sorry and could he do anything to assist after what bin Laden and other homegrown degenerates did to this city. ... But the guy did nothing. What are you bothering me for, the prince said in Louisville, I am in horse racing, not politics." [67]

Two weeks later, War Emblem won the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Prince Ahmed's colt now had a shot at being the first Triple Crown winner since Seattle Slew in 1977. After the win, a reporter asked Ahmed how much he wanted to win the triple. "As badly as I want my son and daughter to get married," he replied. "Really bad. To win the Triple Crown would really knock me out."

But on June 8, Prince Ahmed did not even show up at the Belmont Stakes, the third part of the Triple Crown. "I'm disappointed the prince wasn't here," said trainer Bob Baffert. [68] Ahmed was said to be tending to family obligations in Riyadh. An associate said that he did not know the nature of the obligations. In any case, War Emblem stumbled as he came out of the starting gate and came in eighth.

About six weeks later, on July 22, Prince Ahmed was dead. News reports said the forty-three-year-old nephew of King Fahd had died in his sleep due to a heart attack. [69]

As Gerald Posner has reported, Ahmed was not the only person lamed by Zubaydah to suffer ill. The next day, July 23, Ahmed's cousin, Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, was killed in a one-car crash while en route to Ahmed's funeral. A week later, on July 30, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir. a third member of the royal family who had been named by Zubaydah, was found in the desert, having apparently died of thirst. [70] [viii]

In and of themselves, the three mysterious deaths do not conclusively confirm Posner's assertion that Zubaydah was telling the truth about Osama bin Laden and his high-level links to the House of Saud.

Now, of course, the three men cannot be interviewed -- not that the FBI didn't have its chance at one of them. On September 16, 2001, after the Bush administration had approved the Saudi evacuation, Prince Ahmed boarded the 727 in Lexington, Kentucky. He had been identified by FBI officials, but not seriously interrogated. It was an inauspicious start to the just- declared war on terror. "What happened on September 11 was a horrific crime," says John Martin, a former Justice Department official. "It was an act of war. And the answer is no, this is not any way to go about investigating it."

As for the Saudis, they were not offering any answers. On September 4, 2003, roughly two years after 9/11, Saudi embassy spokesman Nail al-Jubeir appeared on CNN and was asked by newscaster Paula Zahn, "Can you tell us unequivocally tonight that no one on board [these planes] had anything to do with either the planning or the execution of the September 11 plot?"

"There are only two things that I'm sure about," al Jubeir replied. "That there is the existence of God and then we will die at the end of the world. Everything else, we don't know." [71]

_______________

[i] One tantalizing detail whose meaning has never been fully explained concerns an unpublished memo from the FAA based on a phone call from a flight attendant on board Flight 11 who asserted, contrary to subsequent reports that only box cutters and plastic utensils had been used as weapons, that a hijacker had shot and killed a passenger on board. The memo said, "The American Airlines FAA Principal Security Inspector (PFI) was notified by Suzanne Clark of American Airlines Corporate Headquarters that an on board flight attendant contacted American Airlines Operation Center and informed [sic] that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in 9B at 9:20 am. The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin shot by Satam al-Suqama. One bullet was reported to have been fired."
However, according to Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the FAA, "Events were unfolding minute by minute like they would in any crisis. People were reporting what they believed to be happening, but the preliminary information is frequently wrong. If you talk to the FBI about it, they have absolutely no information that there was a shot, and they have reviewed all the tapes."
Because the plane crashed into the World Trade Center, it is unlikely that a gun could have been found in the wreckage even if it had been on the plane. The memo can be found on the website of journalist Edward Jay Epstein at http://edwardjayepstein.com/nether_fictoid9popup.htm
[ii] It is worth noting, however, that one of Marvin Bush's coinvestors was Mishal al-Sabah, a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, which was rescued and restored to power by Marvin's father during the Gulf War of 1991. The al-Sabah family is the same ruling Kuwaiti family that helped the elder George Bush make his fortune through Zapata Off-Shore forty years earlier. And, of course, it is the family of Nayirah, the fifteen-year-old girl whose false congressional testimony helped launch the Gulf War.
[iii] After portions of this book were published in Vanity Fair, Colin Powell, in a September 7, 2003, appearance on Meet the Press, was asked about the repatriation. "I don't know the details of what happened," he said. "But my understanding is that there was no sneaking out of the country; that the flights were well-known, and it was coordinated within the government. But I don't have the details about what the FBI's role in it might or might not have been."
[iv] The FBI said the Times report was "erroneous."
[v] ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Philips Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum, Marathon Oil, Conoco, and France's TotalFinalElf.
[vi] In October 2001, George Goolsby, the head of the energy law practice at Baker Botts, said the firm was "excited" about the openings for international energy firms in Saudi Arabia's gas sector, and that its Riyadh office was involved with "two to three clients, particularly in the second phase" of the project. He added that the opportunities are "still at a very conceptual stage." A few weeks later, in November 2001, Dick Cheney's old firm, Halliburton, also a Baker Botts client, won a $140- million deal to develop Saudi oil fields.
In January 2002, Neil Bush, the president's brother, would travel to the Middle East to help line up investors for his educational software company, Ignite! Learning (Michael Isikoff, "Neil Bush Raising Money for Educational Software Firm," Newsweek, February 4, 2002). In a speech at the Jeddah Economic Forum at the Hilton Hotel, he advised Saudis that it was time for them to fight the U.S. media by engaging in a massive PR campaign: "The U.S. media campaign against the interests of Arabs and Muslims and the American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be influenced through a sustained lobbying and PR effort" (Khalil Hanware and K. S. Ramkumar, "Win American Hearts Through Sustained Lobbying: Neil Bush," Middle East Newsfile, January 22, 2002).
[vii] Posner's account is quite controversial, so it is worth noting that his reputation as an investigative reporter has been made largely from debunking conspiracies, as he did in Case Closed, his book on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As to his methodology in reporting this episode, he writes, "The information about those raids, the capture of top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, and his subsequent transfer, interrogation, and the results of those questioning sessions comes from two government sources, both in a position to know the details of Zubaydah's capture and interrogation, as well as his admissions. Both sources separately provided information. Their accounts often overlapped and confirmed each other in important aspects. Without any possibility of independently verifying much of the information, I have had to make a judgment about the sources themselves. In this instance, I believe them to be credible, knowledgeable, and truthful about what transpired. Additionally, an intelligence report on the dispersal and capture of al Qaeda operatives has confirmed some of the interrogation techniques discussed in this chapter. And finally, a Defense Intelligence Agency employee has independently also acknowledged the accuracy of some of the interrogation methods" (Why America Slept, p. 181).
[viii] Nor was that the end of it. During his interrogation, Zubaydah had also said that Osama bin Laden had struck a deal with Pakistani air force chief Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, and had told him that there would be unspecified attacks on American soil on 9/11. Seven months after the Saudi deaths, on February 20, 2003, Mir and sixteen others were killed when their plane crashed in a northwest province of Pakistan. Sabotage was widely speculated to be behind the crash but could not be proved.

NOTES:

1. "George and Laura," Early Show, November 1, 2002, www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/29/earl ... 7361.shtml .
2. Sharon Churcher, "The Day the President Went Missing," Daily Mail, September 8, 2002.
3. "Springfield Native Told President of Terrorist Attacks," Associated Press, November 26, 2001, www.directsourceradio.com/links/11262001120N.html.
4. Ibid.
5. Jennifer Barrs, "From a Whisper to a Tear," Tampa Tribune, September 1, 2002, www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/20 ... 90102.html .
6. Ari Fleischer, "Voices of 9-11: 'God Bless You, Mr. President,"' National Journal, August 31, 2002.
7. Nancy Gibbs, "Special Report: The Day of the Attack," Time, September 12, 2001, www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599 ... -3,00.html .
8. David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., "In Four Days, a National Crisis Changes Bush's Presidency," New York Times, September 16, 2001.
9. Judith Miller, Jeff Gerth, and Don Van Natta Jr., "Planning for Terror but Failing to Act," New York Times, December 30, 2001.
10. Charles Gibson, "Terror Hits the Towers," ABC News, September 14, 2001, http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/DailyNe ... nts_1.html .
11. David Martin, "Notes from an Aide to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Say Iraq Was Considered an Attack Target as far Back as 9/11 Despite No Evidence of Involvement," CBS News, September 4, 2002.
12. Bob Woodward, Bush at War, p. 37.
13. Ibid.
14. Interview with Nailal-Jubeir.
15. Maureen Dowd, "A Golden Couple Chasing Away a Black Cloud," New York Times, November 27, 2002.
16. "America Under Attack," ABC News Special Report, September 12, 2001.
17. Judith Miller with Kurt Eichenwald, "A Nation Challenged: The Investigation; U.S. Set to Widen financial Assault," New York Times, October 1, 2001.
18. Interview with Richard Clarke.
19. Carol Costello, David Ensor, and Rula Amin, "Bin Laden Family Believes Osama Is Alive," CNN Daybreak, March 19, 2002.
20. Elsa Walsh, "The Prince: How the Saudi Ambassador Became Washington's Indispensable Operator," New Yorker, March 24, 2003. p. 48.
21. Interview with Nail al Jubeir.
22. Kathy Steele, Brenna Kelly, and Elizabeth Lee Brown, "Phantom Flight from Florida," Tampa Tribune, October 5, 2001.
23. Cindy Pierson Dulay, Horse-races.net, www.horse-races.net/library/aa072202.htm .
24. Bill Christine, "Bomb Scare Interrupts Card," Los Angeles Times, September 13, 2001, pt. 4, p. 3.
25. Patrick E. Tyler, "Fearing Harm, Bin Laden Kin fled from U.S.," New York Times, September 30, 2001, p. A 1.
26. Jules Crittenden, "Attack on America: Feds Make First Arrest in Manhunt; U.S. Air Force Lost Frantic Race Against Time During Hijackings," Boston Herald, September 15, 2001.
27. Charles M. Madigan, "Bush Boosts Police Powers," Chicago Tribune, September 19, 2001, p. 1.
28. Interview with source with firsthand knowledge of the flight.
29. Ibid.
30. Kevin Cullen and Andrea Estes, "Bin Laden Kin, Family Weighed Staying in U.S.," Boston Globe, September 21, 2001.
31. Interview with source with firsthand knowledge of the flight.
32. Specification sheet for BOEING 727-100 EXEC.
33. Confirmation of flight/vendor agreement.
34. Interview with source with firsthand knowledge of the flights.
35. Passenger lists prepared by Saudi embassy.
36. Interview with John L. Martin.
37. Ibid.
38. Byron York, "The bin Ladens' Great Escape," National Review, September 11, 2002.
39. "President Bush Addresses Joint Session of Congress and the Nation Regarding Last Week's Terrorist Attacks," CBS News Special Report, September 20, 2001.
40. "'Our Resolve Must Not Pass'; Text of President Bush's Speech to Congress," Columbus Dispatch, September 20, 2001, p. A4.
41. "President Bush Addresses Joint Session of Congress and the Nation Regarding Last Week's Terrorist Attacks," CBS News Special Report, September 20, 2001.
42. "President freezes Terrorists' Assets," White House Press Releases, Office of the Press Secretary, September 24, 2001.
43. Joel Mowbray, "Open Door for Saudi Terrorists: The Visa Express Scandal," National Review Online, June 14, 2002, www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment_ ... 061402.asp .
44. Ibid.
45. David Willman and Greg Miller, "Saudi Aid to War on Terror Is Criticized," Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2001.
46. Ibid.
47. Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, and Maggie Mulvihill, "U.S. Ties to Saudi Elite May Be Hurting War on Terrorism; U.S. Businesses Weave Tangled Web with Saudis," Boston Herald, December 10, 2001.
48. Lisa Beyer, "Inside the Kingdom; Saudi Arabia," Time, September 15, 2003, p. 38.
49. Stephen Matthews, "Investing in Saudi Arabia," Middle Eastern Economic Digest, September 14, 2001.
50. "Analysis: Globalisation of Law Firms," Petroleum Economist, October 23, 2001.
51. Testimony of Robert Jordan, Ambassadorial Nominations, Chaired by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI), Federal News Service, September 21, 2001.
52. Lawyer, February 5, 2001.
53. Testimony of Robert Jordan.
54. Ibid.
55. Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, p. 181.
56. Bob Drogin, "U.S. Studies Loot Seized with Captured Al Qaeda Leader," Los Angeles Times, Apri1 3, 2002.
57. Posner, Why America Slept, pp. 187-88.
58. Ibid., p. 188.
59. Ibid., p. 189.
60. Ibid., p. 190.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., p.191.
63. William C. Rhoden, "Winning Formula? This Year It Was Money," New York Times, May 5, 2002.
64. Jimmy Breslin, "No Apology After Big Win," Newsday, May 7, 2002.
65. King Kaufman, "Still Life with Horse," Salon, May 5, 2002.
66. Rhoden, "Winning Formula? This Year It Was Money."
67. Breslin, "No Apology After Big Win."
68. Beth Harris, "War Emblem's Owner Skips Belmont Stakes," Associated Press, June 6, 2002.
69. "War Emblem Owner Dies," Sports Network, July 22, 2002.
70. Simon Wardell, "Three Royal Princes Die Within a Week," World Markets Analysis, July 30, 2002.
71. Paula Zahn, "Saudis Evacuated from United States After 9/11?" CNN, September 4, 2003, transcript # 090409CN.V94.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Print the Legend

In America, many forces battle to shape our collective narrative. Nowhere is this conflict addressed more elegantly than in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the epic Western movie directed in 1962 by the great John Ford. The story is told as a flashback, with the idealistic character played by Jimmy Stewart recounting to a newspaper reporter how he came to the small Western town of Shinbone many years earlier as a naive tenderfoot. Because he dared to challenge and duel a vicious bandit, Stewart has become mythologized as "the man who shot Liberty Valance." He has since gone on to become a U.S. senator and a national icon.

Jimmy Stewart's character, Ransom Stoddard, is unable to live with a lie, however, and he decides to tell the reporter the truth. The reporter, Maxwell Scott, listens intently as Stoddard demystifies himself with the startling revelation that he did not really shoot Liberty Valance. It was John Wayne, hiding in the shadows.

But as Stewart finishes, Scott dramatically rises to his feet and, with a flourish, starts tearing up his notes.

"You're not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?" Stewart asks.

"No, sir," Scott says. "This is the West, sir. And when the legend becomes fact, print the legend." [1]

***

When it comes to 9/11, for the most part, America has printed the legend. Because Al Qaeda's attacks seemingly came out of the blue, a simplistic narrative has emerged: America good, terrorists bad. Stand behind the president. It is a story line that holds some unassailable truths. Heroic firemen, police officers, and others gave their lives so that their fellow citizens might live. But, as put forth by the Bush administration, the official narrative allows little room for complexity and none for doubt.

Yet the real story is full of startling paradoxes and subtle nuances and they have started to come into view. In the wake of the attacks, reports on the Saudi role in fostering terrorism have gradually made their way into the American press. Allegations that specific members of the royal family, or members of the Saudi merchant elite, had prior knowledge of 9/11 or knowingly financed Al Qaeda are grave charges indeed, and should not be made unless they can be backed up by strong evidence. Some of these questions may be answered in the $1-trillion civil suit brought by families of the victims of 9/11 against hundreds of individuals and entities, many of whom are prominent Saudis. The case had not yet come to trial as this book went to press.

As to exactly how guilty the Saudis have been in aiding terror, Richard Clarke sees a spectrum of complicity. "Some of them were clearly sympathetic to Al Qaeda," he says. "Some of them thought that if they allowed a certain degree of cooperation with Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda would leave them alone. And some of them were merely reacting in a knee-jerk, instinctive way to what they believed was interference in their internal affairs." [2]

But there is also the sin of omission -- the failure to crack down on terrorists -- and on that score there is no ambiguity about the role played by America's great ally in the Middle East. The evidence is overwhelming that the House of Saud did little to stem the rise of Islamist terror that started in the mid-nineties, that it continued to finance terrorists, inadvertently or otherwise, and that it refused to cooperate with the United States again and again -- even after the events of 9/11.

In his address to the nation just after the catastrophe, Bush promised, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

How does the president reconcile this solemn vow with his alliance with a state that bears more responsibility for 9/11 than does any other nation? He does not. The most cogent explanation for the Bush administration's soft line toward the Saudis is best expressed by Richard Clarke. "There's a realization that we have to work with the government we've got in Saudi Arabia," Clarke says. "The alternatives could be far worse. The most likely replacement to the House of Saud is likely to be more hostile -- in fact, extremely hostile to the U.S." [3]

Clarke is right, of course. Nevertheless, if the House of Saud were a genuine ally, the Bush administration could have pressured it about the Saudi role in terrorism, aggressively gone after Al Qaeda after the USS Cole bombing, and still maintained a productive alliance. But that didn't happen, and other explanations for Bush's pro-Saudi policies are less benign. "It's always been very clear that there are deep ties between the Bush family and the Saudis," says Charles Lewis, head of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C., foundation that examines issues of ethics in government. "It creates a credibility problem. When it comes to the war on terror, a lot of people have to be wondering why we are concerned about some countries and not others. Why does Saudi Arabia get a pass?" [4]

Is it a factor that more than $1.4 billion has made its way from the House of Saud to individuals and entities tied to the House of Bush? "You would be less inclined to do anything forceful or dynamic if you are tied in with them financially," says Lewis, addressing the particular issue of Bush-Saudi ties within the Carlyle Group. "That's common sense."

Even if the president were somehow immune to the fact that in large measure he owed both his personal and political fortunes to the Saudis, it would be astonishing if he did not fall prey to a kind of groupthink as to who they really were. How could George W. Bush possibly perceive that policies hailed as great successes in the short run were actually so deeply flawed that in the long run they could lead to a catastrophe such as 9/11? To do so would require breaking a taboo. After all, the men he had grown up with -- his father, James Baker -- were giants. They were not only his elders, they were the most powerful men on earth. Surely, it was not possible for him to imagine that Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, such longtime friends of the family, could have been connected to the disaster. After Newsweek reported that Princess Haifa's donations had ended up in the bank account of a Saudi who helped two of the 9/11 hijackers, the Bush family reaction was revealing. Not only did the White House fail to call for an investigation, but the Bushes rallied to her side. First Lady Laura Bush called Princess Haifa to express her sympathies. Bush senior and his wife, Barbara, did so as well. "I felt horribly about the attacks on her," the elder Bush told the New Yorker. [5]

Nor did the news hurt Prince Bandar's relationship with the president himself. When Bandar arrived at the West Wing of the White House on December 3, 2002, just after the revelations, to meet with Condoleezza Rice, President Bush dropped by and insisted that Bandar join the family for dinner. [6]

***

In one respect, however, President Bush has not followed so resolutely in the footsteps of his father. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Bush temporarily resisted the urge to attack Saddam Hussein. But by early 2002, the White House had begun rattling sabers at Iraq. To the hard-line, militaristic, neocon faction in the administration, 9/11 presented an opening to execute their grandiose plan for overhauling the entire Middle East. The ascendancy of the neocons also meant that for the first time a militantly anti-Saudi bloc had a voice in the Bush administration -- a stance that would have appalled Bush senior and James Baker. On July 10, 2002, an incendiary Pentagon briefing, by Rand Corporation analyst Laurent Murawiec, even characterized Saudi Arabia as "a kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" of the United States.

Murawiec, who was invited to give the briefing to the Defense Policy Board by Richard Perle, asserted that "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader. ... Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies." [7]

Much of this was old news to Saudi critics. But then Murawiec went too far. One of the last slides of his presentation argued for a takeover of Saudi Arabia's most precious resources: "What the House of Saud holds dear can be targeted: Oil: the oil fields are defended by U.S. forces, and located in a mostly Shiite area." [8]

In the widely reported furor that followed, the White House frantically assured the Saudis that the briefing in no way represented administration policy and was not to be taken seriously.

While the rogue briefing created friction, the Bush-Saudi relationship was under greater strain for another reason. Bush's campaign against Iraq was in full swing. On August 26, 2002, Dick Cheney addressed the issue at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention. "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," he said. [9] An American invasion, however, would create real problems for the Saudis. How could the House of Saud support "infidel" U.S. troops in a neighboring Arab country?

Yet two weeks later, on September 12, President Bush himself took the issue to the United Nations. "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons," he declared in a speech before the General Assembly. [10]

As 2002 drew to an end, the noose drew tighter around Iraq. "If he declares he has [no weapons of mass destruction], then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world," said presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer at a December 2 press briefing. [11]

That same day, the administration announced the appointment of Elliott Abrams as special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and North African affairs, with responsibilities in the National Security Council that included overseeing Arab-Israeli relations. A controversial figure in the Reagan Bush era who pleaded guilty in 1987 to withholding information from Congress during the Iran-contra hearings, Abrams was later pardoned by George H. W. Bush in 1992. His appointment was widely seen as a victory for the hard-line neocon camp that was opposed to pursuing the "road map" to peace in the Middle East -- the same road map that President Bush had agreed to follow after his rapprochement with the Saudis mere days before 9/11.

In February 2003, as American troops massed in Qatar for an Iraqi invasion, Abrams cleaned house at the NSC. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terror and Unconventional Warfare, Abrams called over Ben Miller, a highly regarded analyst who had the Iraqi file at the NSC, and "led Miller to an open window and told him to jump."

"That's his [Abrams's] management style," Bodansky told UPI. [12] Miller, of course, did not jump. But he was fired by Abrams, and two other officials, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann, were fired at about the same time. Miller's departure was especially significant in that he was sympathetic to CIA analysts who were less intent on war with Iraq. According to Tony Cordesman, Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Miller, Mann, and Leverett "were among the saner minds discussing the Arab-Israeli issue."

Even before Abrams installed hard-liners at the NSC, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had set up a new agency called the Office of Special Plans to make sure intelligence that supported the imminent invasion of Iraq made its way to the highest levels of the administration. What was taking place was the creation of what the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh dubbed "the stovepipe" -- an institutionalized means for funneling upward selectively chosen intelligence to serve ideological ends. According to Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council specialist on Iraq, who supported military action to oust Saddam, Bush officials dismantled "the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policy makers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them. [13]

"They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information," Pollack continued. "They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn't have the time or the energy to go after the bad information."

As all these events were taking place, the man who was best qualified to lead a real war on terror decided he had had enough. On February 21, 2003, Richard Clarke resigned from the Bush administration. Three weeks later, he was asked how he was adjusting to leaving government. "I already don't miss it," he said. Then he elaborated. "You know that great feeling you get when you stop banging your head against a wall?" [14]

Having excluded from the decision-making process the government officials who knew the most about Iraq -- certain CIA analysts and State Department officials who had studied it for years -- the United States went to war against Iraq on March 19, 2003, based on a wide variety of startlingly false assumptions. Allegations that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was alive and well turned out to be based on forged documents from Niger. Charges about Iraq's role in 9/11 or its links to Al Qaeda turned out to be wildly exaggerated or baseless. The premise for the preemptive strike -- that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction posed an immediate threat to the United States -- appears to have been completely false.

The policy makers in the Bush administration also grandly assumed and asserted that U.S. soldiers would be greeted by the Iraqi masses with flowers as conquering heroes; that after a short, low-intensity occupation of three months or so, democracy would flourish; that the deep-seated historical antagonisms among Shiites, Baathists, and Kurds would not create postwar conflict; that Iraqi oil production could be dramatically boosted from 3 million barrels a day to 6 million; that the invasion would create a reverse domino effect in which one autocratic regime after another in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Iran would fall, paving the way for a new democratic Middle East.

Even though fighting continued after the U.S. military victory, many Americans, temporarily at least, saw the war as a qualified success. When the war on terror began, President Bush had framed the hunt for bin Laden in the terms of the old American West: Bin Laden, Wanted Dead or Alive. Now, by constantly harping on Saddam's links to terrorism, the Bush administration had succeeded in switching villains to the extent that 70 percent of Americans ultimately believed Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11.

At the same time that the White House put forth this misleading impression, it made sure that other pieces of the terrorism puzzle were suppressed. In July 2003, Congress released a nine-hundred-page report on 9/11. But the Bush administration refused to declassify important passages, including a twenty-eight-page section dealing with the Saudis, and as a result those pages were deleted. According to Senator Bob Graham, the reason was simple. "They are protecting a foreign government," he said. Time reported that blacked-out pages produced "the smell of a cover-up of complicity in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history." [15]

Soon, however, the White House regained control of the narrative, thanks to another spectacle, the capture of Saddam on December 13, 2003, which appeared to have satisfied America's desire for revenge. Yet as 2003 drew to a close, American soldiers continued to die -- in bombings, shootings, and missile attacks on helicopters. Far from coming to fruition, the neocons' rosy scenario of a newly democratic Iraq had inarguably devolved into a bloody, ongoing, and costly adventure that widened the potential for historically disastrous American involvement in the region. After the capture of Saddam Hussein, violence in Iraq continued. Thousands of Islamist militants kept flooding through Iraq's porous borders. "Iranians have some fifteen thousand, perhaps twenty thousand armed, trained, and intelligence-equipped Hezbollah-style [militants] inside Iraq," says Youssef Ibrahim, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the managing director of the Dubai-based Strategic Energy Investment Group. "They are successfully infiltrating the Iraqi intelligence and the U.S. intelligence system, gathering information and preparing." [16]

Few in the United States liked to admit it, but by switching the venue of America's response to 9/11 to Iraq, the United States may have inadvertently played directly into Al Qaeda's and Osama bin Laden's hands. More than twenty years earlier, bin Laden had gone to Afghanistan to lure another superpower into a land war inside a Muslim country. America's Cold Warriors had cackled with glee when the Soviets took the bait, and the long and brutal war that ensued helped lead to the demise of the Soviet empire. In the mountains of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden had learned that he and his band of impassioned warriors could defeat a superpower in a guerilla war. And for George H. W. Bush, it had been his finest hour.

Is it possible that the United States has stepped into the same trap, that this time around we are the Soviets? Is it possible that in terms of the geopolitical chessboard, putting 135,000 American troops in a land war in a Muslim country was not a smart move? According to Ibrahim, far from being in control of Iraq, the American troops may actually be closer to being hostages. "The Iranians think they've got American forces 'surrounded' inside Iraq -- not the other way around," he says. [17]

In fact, more than two years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden has fared far better than the Bush administration likes to admit. Bin Laden's jihad against the United States includes two specific two goals: the complete removal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of the House of Saud. In May 2003, after the Iraq War started, Osama's first wish came true, as the small number of U.S. soldiers left the Arabian peninsula, in part to ease pressure on the Saudi regime from militants. On December 17, the State Department warned American families to leave Saudi Arabia because it was no longer safe for them to live there. Then, two weeks later, Osama bin Laden issued an audiotape, broadcast on Aljazeera TV, referring to the recent capture of Saddam Hussein and calling on Muslims to "continue the jihad to check the conspiracies that are hatched against the Islamic nation."

As for bin Laden's second wish, for decades, observers have prematurely predicted the demise of the House of Saud. At this writing, the House of Saud may or may not be experiencing its last days, but at the very least, the kingdom has entered a historic new era. In the past, Al Qaeda's attacks in Saudi Arabia have been aimed at foreigners rather than the House of Saud itself. But beginning with a bombing in Riyadh on May 12, 2003, a low-intensity civil war had begun. "There is now an openly declared war by Al Qaeda within the kingdom," says Ibrahim, who was the Middle East correspondent for the New York Times for many years. "Stability and security have gone by the wayside. You have a regime that is manifestly unable to deliver on its promises, and even unable to defend the expatriates living there."

And with the advent of Aljazeera's Qatar-based satellite TV news, non-state-controlled, non-Saudi voices are fanning the flames. Caught between its exposure to the West and the puritanical strain of Islam that controls its most powerful political institutions, a division embodied by Crown Prince Abdullah, who still believes the country has to crack down on terrorists and accommodate the West, and Interior Minister Prince Nayef, who leans toward the militant clerics, the House of Saud is in a state of paralysis. Initiating timid reforms while fearful of plunging the country into strife, the kingdom has no clear path to follow. As 2004 began, Saudi Arabia was being torn apart from the inside. "Not to be too melodramatic about it, but it is High Noon," says Ibrahim.

And for the moment, if the House of Saud were to be toppled, there is no alternative political force except militant clerics who are sympathetic to Osama bin Laden -- not exactly a pleasant prospect.

In American policy circles, wild scenarios abound for dealing with such a crisis, including the seizure of Saudi oil fields by the American military. Perhaps not coincidentally, a 1973 U.S. plan to do exactly that surfaced on January 1, 2004. It should be noted, however, that such a course of action is far easier to talk about than to execute. "You cannot take over oil fields," explains Ibrahim, noting continuing attacks on the fields in Iraq during the current American occupation. "They are too vast and too vulnerable, both under the ground and over the ground. All it takes is a match."

If the past is any guide, if a militant Islamic fundamentalist regime were to take over Saudi Arabia, the prognosis is not pretty. In 1979, in Iran, when fundamentalists overturned the pro Western shah and ended up with control of the oil fields, the price of oil skyrocketed. The same outcome could occur again, and this time the whole picture would be complicated by the fact that the Saudis control one-fourth of the known oil reserves in the world. In addition, rapidly escalating oil consumption in China and the rest of Asia will only increase competition among America's rivals for those resources. Thus, the relationship between the House of Bush and the House of Saud appears to be coming to a difficult end -- at a time when the steady supply of oil for America is more vulnerable than ever to the highly volatile forces of Islamic fundamentalism.

How the United States will deal with these twin threats -- Islamist terror and the potential loss of its most important source of energy -- is one of the great issues the country will confront in the immediate future. As for terrorism, it may be that even if President Bush had implemented Richard Clarke's proposals to take on Al Qaeda, such measures would not have stopped 9/11. We will never know. But switching the villain from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein and Iraq appears to have been a dangerous and costly diversion at best.

And it is undeniable that a new American vision is needed. But it is unlikely to come from an administration that in December 2003 appointed James Baker to oversee the "restructuring" of Iraq's $100-billion-plus debt, which includes $25 billion owed to Iraq's biggest creditor, none other than the House of Saud. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that the answers can come from a man in the White House whose personal and political fortunes, from Harken Energy to the Carlyle Group, are so deeply entwined with the House of Saud, whose extended political family has taken in more than $1.4 billion from the Saudis, whose relationship with them goes back more than two decades, and who apparently feels so indebted to the House of Saud that he has censored twenty-eight pages in Congress's 9/11 report as if the billionaire Saudi royals are somehow more worthy of the government's concern than are the victims of 9/11.

Meanwhile, as the 2004 presidential campaign gets under way, President Bush has assiduously cultivated an image as an indomitable commander-in-chief who remains unassailable on the issue of national security -- an image that is belied by one incontrovertible fact: Never before has an American president been so closely tied to a foreign power that harbors and supports our country's mortal enemies.

NOTES:

1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck, story by Dorothy M. Johnson, directed by John Ford.
2. Interview with Richard Clarke.
3. Ibid.
4. Interview with Charles Lewis.
5. Elsa Walsh, "The Prince: How the Saudi Ambassador Became Washington's Indispensable Operator," New Yorker, March 24, 2003.
6. Romesh Ratnesar, "A Twist of the Arm; Pushing Saudi Arabia to Up Its Antiterrorism Efforts, the U.S. Is Telling Riyadh It's Next on al-Qaeda's List," Time, December 9, 2002, p. 45.
7. Jack Shafer, "The PowerPoint That Rocked the Pentagon," Slate, August 7, 2002.
8. Ibid.
9. Dick Cheney, speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, August 26, 2002, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html .
10. President George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly, September 12, 2002, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/0 ... 912-1.html .
11. Ari Fleischer, press briefing, December 2,2002, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases1200211 ... 202-6.html .
12. Richard Sale, "Staff Change Means Mideast Policy Shift," United Press International, February 26, 2003.
13. Ibid.
14. Seymour Hersh, "The Stovepipe," New Yorker, October 27, 2003, www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact .
15. Lisa Beyer et al., "Inside the Kingdom," Time, September 15, 2003, p. 38.
16. Interview with Youssef Ibrahim.
17. Ibid.

APPENDIX A: CAST OF CHARACTERS

House of Bush

James A. Baker III -- Former presidential chief of staff, secretary of state, and secretary of the treasury, James Baker is a senior counselor and partner at the Carlyle Group, which had many Saudi investors, including members of the bin Laden family and, according to his attorney, Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz as well. Baker is also a partner at Baker Botts, the powerful energy-industry law firm whose clients include members of the Saudi royal family, Exxon-Mobil, ARCO, Schlumberger, BP Amoco, Halliburton, and other major energy companies. The firm defended Saudi royals, including Prince Bandar's father, Prince Sultan, in a $1-trillion lawsuit brought by families of the 9/11 victims. Baker's business links to the Saudis date back to 1981, when Khalid bin Mahfouz helped develop a seventy-five-story office building for the Texas Commerce Bank, in which Baker owned more than $7 million in stock. In late 2003, George W. Bush assigned Baker the task of reconciling the massive debt compiled by Iraq, whose biggest creditor was Saudi Arabia.

George H. W. Bush -- The forty-first president of the United States, Bush has been close friends with Prince Bandar for more than twenty years. Both were key figures in the Iran-contra scandal in the eighties and, along with James Baker, they waged the Gulf War together in 1991. An independent Texas oilman before he entered politics, after his presidency Bush served as senior adviser to the Carlyle Group until October 2003, and spoke before potential investors in Carlyle, including prominent Saudis. After his son became president, he attempted to mollify Crown Prince Abdullah to heal a rift between the Saudis and the White House in the summer of 2001.

George W. Bush -- The forty-third president of the United States, Bush also started out as an independent oilman in Texas. When he was director of Harken Energy, the company was bailed out by Saudis and other investors with links to BCCI, the corrupt, Saudi-dominated bank in which Khalid bin Mahfouz was the largest shareholder. During his presidency, approximately 140 Saudis, including Prince Ahmed and about two dozen members of the bin Laden family, were evacuated immediately after the events of 9/11 with White House approval -- without having been seriously questioned.

Frank Carlucci -- Former secretary of defense and managing director and chairman emeritus at the Carlyle Group, Carlucci helped build Carlyle into a defense-industry powerhouse by buying defense companies whose prices were depressed after the end of the Cold War. "I've made it clear that I don't lobby the defense industry," Carlucci said after a meeting with his old Princeton wrestling teammate Donald Rumsfeld, who had just become the newly appointed secretary of defense.

The Carlyle Group -- The giant private equity firm that became a home to James Baker, George H. W. Bush, Frank Carlucci, Richard Darman, John Major, and other powerful figures from the Reagan-Bush era, Carlyle now owns companies with assets of more than $16 billion. An element in its ascendancy has been its lucrative relationships with the Saudis, including Saudi royals, the bin Ladens, and the bin Mahfouz family, both as investors and as clients for defense contractors owned by Carlyle.

Dick Cheney -- Vice president of the United States under George W. Bush, Cheney had been a prominent Republican congressman and served as secretary of defense under Bush senior during the Gulf War. As CEO of Halliburton between 1995 and 2000, Cheney received $34 million in compensation during his last year at the company and became vice president without relinquishing more than 400,000 stock options in it.

Donald Rumsfeld -- In 1983 and 1984, as a presidential envoy for the Reagan-Bush administration, Rumsfeld met Saddam Hussein and assured Iraqi leaders that even though the United States would publicly denounce Iraq for using chemical weapons, the issue should not interfere with developing a warm relationship between the two countries. In 2002, however, he turned against Saddam and led the war against Iraq the following year.

House of Saud

Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz -- The de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia and heir to the throne now held by King Fahd, Prince Abdullah threatened the Bush administration with ending the special Saudi-U.S. relationship just before 9/11.

Prince Ahmed bin Salman -- A nephew of King Fahd's who is best known as the owner of 2002 Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem and other great racehorses, Prince Ahmed was named by Al Qaeda boss Abu Zubaydah as the terror group's contact within the House of Saud. Zubaydah also said that Ahmed had foreknowledge that Al Qaeda would attack inside the United States on 9/11. Shortly after 9/11, Ahmed left the United States as part of the White House-approved evacuation of Saudis. He died of a heart attack at age forty-three not long after the Saudis were informed of Zubaydah's allegations. He was a son of Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the governor of Riyadh, who is one of the relatively pro West Sudairi Seven, but who had a close working relationship with Osama bin Laden back in the eighties.

Abdullah Taha Bakhsh -- A major investor in Harken Energy, the struggling oil company of which George W. Bush was a director, Bakhsh was one of several people who had ties to BCCI and came to Harken's rescue when Bush's father was president. His representative on Harken's board, Talat Othman, later gained President George H. W. Bush's ear in the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm in 1990, and ten years later addressed the GOP convention at which George W. Bush was nominated. Bakhsh is a Saudi real estate magnate ith ties to Khalid bin Mahfouz.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan -- The longtime ambassador to the United States and close friend of George H. W. Bush and his family, Prince Bandar went on vacations and hunting trips with the elder Bush and also waged war with him and participated in covert operations. He oversaw the evacuation of approximately 140 Saudis, including members of the royal family, just after 9/11. He once remarked, "If the reputation ... builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you'd be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office." Bandar has reportedly been an investor in the Carlyle Group with the elder George Bush. He gave $1 million to the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and a $1- million painting to President George W Bush. He is a nephew of King Fahd.

King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz -- nominal ruler of Saudi Arabia, incapacitated by a 1995 stroke. Half brother of Crown Prince Abdullah and uncle of Prince Bandar.

Princess Haifa bint Faisal -- Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa indirectly and seemingly unwittingly may have provided funds to two of the 9/11 hijackers. After Newsweek's revelations about her role in the funding, both Laura Bush and former president Bush called to console her.

Khalid bin Mahfouz -- A billionaire Saudi banker, bin Mahfouz joined Salem bin Laden in creating the Houston-Jeddah connection through James Bath. A major shareholder in BCCI and longtime owner of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, bin Mahfouz was for many years the most powerful banker in the kingdom. He helped develop a seventy-five-story skyscraper in Houston for the Texas Commerce Bank, in which James Baker was a major shareholder. When he was the biggest shareholder at BCCI, various individuals and entities linked to BCCI helped bailout Harken Energy, where George W. Bush was a director. According to the family attorney, two of his sons invested $30 million in the Carlyle Group. Khalid was also on the Golden Chain, the list of wealthy Arabs who helped fund Al Qaeda at its inception. He founded Muwafaq (Blessed Relief), which the U.S. Treasury Department called "an al Qaeda front that transfers millions from wealthy Saudis to Bin Laden."

Salem bin Laden -- Osama's half brother and longtime manager of the Saudi Binladin Group, Salem was a contemporary and friend of Khalid bin Mahfouz, the billionaire Saudi banker. The two men began establishing contacts in the United States through James R. Bath, a Texas Air National Guard buddy of George W. Bush. Salem died in a 1988 plane crash.

The Sudairi Seven -- King Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, had forty-three sons and the Sudairi Seven refers to the seven sons by his favored wife. They include King Fahd; Defense Minister Prince Sultan, who is Prince Bandar's father; Riyadh governor Prince Salman, who is the father of the late Prince Ahmed; Interior Minister Prince Nayef; business leader Prince Abdul Rahman; Prince Ahmad; and Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz, who is not to be confused with Prince Turki bin Faisal, the longtime minister of intelligence. This powerful faction within the ruling family is considered pro-West, save for Prince Nayef, who maintains close relations with militant clergy and has blamed the events of 9/11 on Zionists.

Other Key Players

Sami Al-Arian -- A professor at the University of South Florida who campaigned for George Bush and later visited him in the White House, Al-Arian was allegedly a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In 2003, he was arrested on dozens of charges, among them conspiracy to finance terrorist attacks that killed more than a hundred people, including two Americans.

James Bath -- Beginning in the mid-seventies, the Houston-based Bath served as business representative for Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother and the head of the Saudi Binladin Group, and billionaire banker Khalid bin Mahfouz. Bath also served in the Texas Air National Guard with George W. Bush and knew the elder George Bush, James Baker, and John Connally. A key figure in introducing the Saudis to the United States, he was also an investor in Arbusto, George W. Bush's first oil company.

Richard Clarke -- The nation's first counterterrorism czar as head of the National Security Council's Coordinating Subgroup. Appointed initially to the NSC by George H. W. Bush, Clarke rose to power under Clinton. He devised an early and forceful strategy to confront Al Qaeda but his plans were largely ignored by the administration of George W. Bush.

Grover Norquist -- A powerful conservative strategist, Norquist invented the Muslim Strategy to win the votes of millions of Muslim Americans through alliances between George W. Bush and Islamic extremists such as Sami Al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi. "George W. Bush was elected President of the United States of America because of the Muslim vote," he wrote in the right-wing publication American Spectator. "... That's right," he added, "the Muslim vote."

Osama bin Laden -- Scion to the multibillion-dollar bin Laden construction fortune and archterrorist of the early twenty-first century, Osama bin Laden rose to prominence in the 1980s as a leader of the "Afghan Arabs" fighting the Soviets in the Afghanistan War. Originally backed by the House of Saud, the Saudi merchant elite including the bin Mahfouz and bin Laden families, and the United States, he launched a jihad against the United States after American troops went to Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War of 1991. As the leader of Al Qaeda, he has been charged with orchestrating attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania, bombing the USS Cole, and perpetrating the 9/11 attacks among many other terrorist acts.

Abu Zubaydah -- High-ranking Al Qaeda leader who was captured in March 2002 and who, while being interrogated, asserted that Prince Ahmed bin Salman, the wealthy racehorse owner and nephew of King Fahd, was an intermediary between Al Qaeda and the royal family. Zubaydah tried to strangle himself when he realized that he had been tricked by the agents who were interrogating him.

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY

1924 -- George H. W. Bush is born on June 12.
1938 -- The first oil deposits are discovered in Saudi Arabia.
1945 -- President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal on Valentine's Day, initiating the modern U.S.-Saudi relationship based on oil for security.
1946 -- George W. Bush is born on July 6.
1957 -- Osama bin Laden is born on March 10.
1966 -- George H. W. Bush sells his shares in Zapata, his oil company, for $1 million and embarks on a career in politics.
1968 -- Billionaire Saudi construction mogul Mohammed bin Laden dies in a plane crash, leaving his son Osama a large inheritance.
1970 -- U.S. oil production peaks and begins a decades-long decline, while American oil consumption continues to grow, beginning a trend that leads to the nation becoming dependent on foreign oil.
1973 -- OPEC's oil embargo begins in the wake of the Arab-Israeli war.
1976 -- George W. Bush founds Arbusto, a small independent Texas oil company
1979 -- On November 4, fifty-two Americans are taken hostage when Iranian militants seize the American embassy in Tehran a few months after the shah is ousted and replaced with a fundamentalist regime.

On November 20, more than a thousand members of the Muslim Brotherhood invade Mecca and seize control of the Grand Mosque. Mahrous bin Laden is later accused of playing a role.

On December 26, the USSR invades Afghanistan. Zbigniew Brzezinski writes, "We now have the opportunity to give Russia its own Vietnam War." U.S. support for the Afghan Arabs had begun earlier that summer and would later grow to more than $700 million a year. Within days, Osama bin Laden decides to join the battle against the Soviet "infidels."

1980 -- On September 22, Iraq invades Iran, launching the Iran-Iraq War. On November 4, Ronald Reagan is elected president. George H.W. Bush becomes vice president and James Baker becomes chief of staff to the president.

1981 -- Thanks to the lobbying of Prince Bandar and the support of Vice President George H. W. Bush, the U.S. Senate narrowly approves the $5.5-billion sale of AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia on October 28. It is the birth of a policy that eventually sends approximately $200 billion in U.S. weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Khalid bin Mahfouz develops the seventy-five-story Texas Commerce Bank building in Houston in partnership with the bank itself, which was founded by James Baker's family. At the time Baker owns approximately $7 million of the bank's stock.

1982 -- In January, George W. Bush sells 10 percent of Arbusto, his tiny, struggling oil company to New York investor Philip Uzielli, a longtime friend of James Baker, at a grossly inflated price.

On June 13, Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdul Aziz becomes king of Saudi Arabia.

1983 -- Prince Bandar is appointed ambassador to the United States by King Fahd in October.

On December 20, Donald Rumsfeld travels to Baghdad as a presidential special envoy to meet Saddam Hussein. Although Iraq is using chemical weapons almost daily, Rumsfeld does not raise the issue with Saddam. He returns in March 1984 to assure Iraq that U.S. protests against the use of chemical weapons should not interfere with a warm relationship between the two countries.

1984 -- With the approval of Vice President George H. W. Bush, Prince Bandar begins funding the right-wing contra rebels' attempts to topple the Sandinista government in Nicaragua on June 22 even though James Baker has warned that such an arrangement may constitute an impeachable offense.

1987 -- The Carlyle Group is founded by David Rubenstein and three other partners. It will become a private-sector home to some of the great icons of the Reagan-Bush era -- George H. W. Bush, James Baker, Frank Carlucci, Richard Darman, and John Major.

1990 -- Having been bailed out by a number of people and institutions linked to BCCI, Harken Energy, the small oil company of which George W. Bush is a director, astonishes oil-industry analysts by winning a lucrative exploration contract in January to drill offshore of Bahrain.

On June 20, despite warnings from Harken's general counsel against insider trading, George W. Bush unloads 212,140 shares of Harken stock for $848,560 just before the company announces major losses.

On August 2, Iraq invades Kuwait. "This will not stand," says President George H. W. Bush. As the United States and Saudi Arabia prepare for war against Iraq, Osama bin Laden warns the House of Saud not to invite American troops into Saudi Arabia and offers his Afghan Arab warriors instead. He is rebuffed.

On September 18, the Carlyle Group buys BDM International and its subsidiary Vinnell, companies that service the Saudi Air Force and train the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

On November 5, Rabbi Meir Kahane of the right-wing Jewish Defense League is shot and killed by a militant Islamist. He is the first casualty of Al Qaeda on American soil.

1991 -- The Gulf War begins on January 16.

In June, Khalid bin Mahfouz creates the Muwafaq (Blessed Relief) organization, which is later denounced by the U.S. Treasury for allegedly funding terrorists.

1992 -- Khalid bin Mahfouz is indicted in New York on July 2, for allegedly having fraudulently obtained $300 million from BCCI depositors.

1993 -- On February 26, the World Trade Center is bombed by militants including El Sayed Nosair, the man who killed Meir Kahane.

On March 11, James A. Baker joins the Carlyle Group as one of its first seven partners.

1995 -- On November 13, a car bomb in Riyadh, widely attributed to followers of Osama bin Laden, kills seven people, including five Americans, and wounds several American advisers with Vinnell, the Carlyle-owned firm that trains the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

1996 -- On August 23, Osama bin Laden signs a declaration of jihad against the United States.

1997 -- The Carlyle Group buys United Defense, makers of the Crusader gun and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

1998 -- On August 7, the seventh anniversary of the arrival of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the Gulf War, Al Qaeda operatives bomb U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing about 260 and wounding 5,000. America responds less than two weeks later with cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan.

2000 -- While campaigning for the presidency, George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, meet Sami Al-Arian and other Muslim leaders at a mosque in Tampa, Florida, on March 12. Al-Arian is later arrested and accused of being the U.S. head of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In September, the neoconservative Project for a New American Century releases an influential paper, "Rebuilding America's Defenses," a blueprint for U.S. global hegemony that urges, among other things, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Those affiliated with PNAC include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, all of whom will become key members of George W. Bush's administration.

On October 11, at the second presidential debate of the 2000 election, Bush wins over Arab Americans by saying he is against the use of secret evidence to prosecute alleged terrorists and that he is against racial profiling of Arab Americans.

On election day, November 7, Bush's courtship of Arab Americans pays off, particularly in Florida, where exit polls by the American Muslim Alliance say that more than 90 percent voted for Bush.

On December 12, the U.S. Supreme Court stops the recount of disputed votes in Florida, effectively awarding the presidency to George W. Bush.

On December 20, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke presents National Security Adviser Sandy Berger with a plan to "roll back" Al Qaeda. The plan is postponed pending the arrival of the new administration, presented to the new national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and then ignored.

2001 -- On January 25, Richard Clarke follows up his briefing with Condoleezza Rice with a memo saying U.S. intelligence believes that there are now Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States.

On July 5, Clarke assembles officials from a dozen federal agencies in the White House Situation Room and tells them, "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon. "

On August 4, Bush sets out for Crawford, Texas, on the longest presidential vacation in thirty-two years. He does not return to the White House until September 3.

On August 6, Bush, still in Crawford, is given a briefing saying that bin Laden and Al Qaeda are planning an attack on American soil.

On September 4, Richard Clarke finally meets with the Principals Committee and presents his plan to attack Al Qaeda. No action is taken.

On September 11, Al Qaeda hijacks four airplanes. Two hit the World Trade Center towers, one hits the Pentagon, and one crashes near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost three thousand people are killed.

At about 2 p.m., Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld orders up plans to take out Saddam Hussein, not just Osama bin Laden. "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying, "sweep it all up, things related and not."

Two days later, on September 13, Prince Bandar meets President Bush for a private conversation on the Truman balcony in the White House. At the same time, a massive operation to evacuate 140 Saudis, including about two dozen members of the bin Laden family, has begun. The first flight leaves Tampa, Florida, for Lexington, Kentucky, that day.

On September 16, as part, of the White House-approved evacuation, Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a nephew of King Fahd's who is best known as the owner of famous racehorses, boards a flight in Lexington, Kentucky, to leave the United States. FBI officials meet and identify him, but he is not interrogated. Later, Al Qaeda boss Abu Zubaydah names Prince Ahmed as a liaison between Al Qaeda and the House of Saud and says that Prince Ahmed knew in advance that there would be attacks by Al Qaeda in the United States on September 11.

On September 19, Bush declares war: "Our war on terror ... will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." However, the Visa Express program, through which Saudis are allowed to get a visa without even appearing at a consulate, is allowed to continue.

On October 7, U.S. and British forces begin air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

2002 -- On March 31, Abu Zubaydah, a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative, is captured by Pakistani commandos, U.S. Special Forces, and FBI SWAT teams in the suburbs of Faisalabad, Pakistan.

On May 7, Prince Ahmed appears at the Kentucky Derby to see his horse War Emblem, a 20-1 shot, win.

On July 22, Prince Ahmed dies of an apparent heart attack in Riyadh at the age of forty-three. He is the first of three prominent Saudis named by Zubaydah as links between the royal family and Al Qaeda to die that week.

2003 -- On March 20, U.S forces begin bombing Baghdad.

On May 12, a suicide bomb set off by Al Qaeda kills at least 11 people in Riyadh and injures more than 120. The explosion takes place in a compound that houses mainly Arab families and is seen as a direct attack on the House of Saud rather than Westerners.

On July 25, the White House deletes twenty-eight pages in a nine-hundred-page congressional report on 9/11. According to Senator Bob Graham, the reason for the censorship was simple. "They are protecting a foreign government," he said. The government in question was clearly Saudi Arabia.

On December 13, U .S. forces capture Saddam Hussein.

On December 17, the State Department warns American families to leave Saudi Arabia. The decision has come after suicide bombings by Al Qaeda in May and November and is based on a review of the threat level to American interests in Saudi Arabia.

2004 -- On January 4, Aljazeera TV airs an audiotape purported to be from Osama bin Laden that refers to the recent capture of Saddam Hussein and calls on Muslims to "continue the jihad to check the conspiracies that are hatched against the Islamic nation." Bin Laden says the U.S. war against Iraq was the beginning of the "occupation" of Gulf states for their oil.

On January 14, the Senate Finance Committee asked the IRS for secret tax and financial records of Muslim charities and foundations, as part of a congressional probe into terrorist funding. Muslim-American leaders assailed the investigation as a "fishing expedition." "Are they now going to start a witch hunt of all the donors ... so that Muslims feel they're going to be targeted?" asked Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). (Dan Eggen and John Mintz, "Muslim Groups' IRS Files Sought," Washington Post, January 14, 2004.) CAIR is a member of the American Muslim Political Coordination Council, which endorsed George W. Bush in 2000.

According to the Wall Street Journal, federal banking regulators began examining tens of millions of dollars in transactions in Saudi Arabian embassy accounts at Riggs National Corp. that were not properly reported. The investigation began after reports showed that money from Princess Haifa's account at Riggs ended up with two 9/11 hijackers. Initially, the irregularities were thought to involve only a few thousand dollars. But the U.S. Treasury Department charged the bank with failing to observe money-laundering regulations that require analysis of transactions for suspicious characteristics. The Journal said that Riggs repeatedly failed "to file suspicious-activity reports" regarding tens of millions of dollars in Saudi accounts. (Glenn R. Simpson, "Probe of Saudi Embassy Widens," Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2004.) The bank is known for serving foreign embassies located in Washington. The president's uncle Jonathan Bush is the CEO of Riggs Investment, a subsidiary of the bank.

In February, the 9/11 commission continued its investigation. A source close to the commission said that it was being "stonewalled" by the Bush administration in terms of getting crucial information about the tragedy.

APPENDIX C : THE NUMBER-$1,477,100,000

What follows is a compilation of financial transactions through which individuals and entities connected with the House of Saud transferred money to individuals and entities closely tied to the House of Bush. The House of Bush is defined here as George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, James A. Baker III, Dick Cheney, and the major institutions that they are tied to, including the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library, the Carlyle Group, and Halliburton. The House of Saud includes members of the Saudi royal family, companies controlled by them, and members of the Saudi merchant elite such as the bin Laden and bin Mahfouz families, whose fortunes are closely tied to the royal family.

The list that follows is by no means complete. It was not possible to obtain the particulars of many business dealings between the House of Bush and the House of Saud, and as a result, those figures are not included. For example, the client list of the Houston law firm of Baker Botts includes Saudi insurance companies, the Saudi American Bank, and members of the House of Saud itself, which Baker Botts is defending in the $1-trillion lawsuit filed by the families of the victims of 9/11. Because the payments made to Baker Botts are not publicly disclosed, they are not included. Likewise, Khalid bin Mahfouz was a partner in developing the Texas Commerce Bank skyscraper at a time when Baker was a major stockholder in the bank. Because the exact size of bin Mahfouz's investment could not be determined, it is not included.

It is worth adding that many other figures in the administration have close ties to Saudi Arabia through various other corporations that are not included in this list. Condoleezza Rice served on the board of directors of Chevron from 1991 to 2001. Among Chevron's business links to Saudi Arabia -- which date back to the 1930s -- are a 50 percent stake in Chevron Phillips Saudi Arabia to build a $650-million benzene and cyclohexane plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, and a joint venture with Nimir Petroleum, a Saudi company in which Khalid bin Mahfouz is a principal. These figures are not included. Finally, the Carlyle Group has owned a number of other major defense firms such as United Defense and Vought Aircraft that have had major contracts with Saudi Arabia, but their contracts are not included either. As a result, what follows is likely a conservative figure that may significantly understate the total sum involved.

The Carlyle Group: $1,268,600,000

Saudi Investors in Carlyle: $80 million

Former president George H. W. Bush, James Baker, and former prime minister John Major of Great Britain all visited Saudi Arabia on behalf of Carlyle, and according to founding partner David Rubenstein, the Saudis invested at least $80 million in the Carlyle Group. [1] With the exception of the bin Laden family, who extricated themselves from Carlyle not long after 9/11, Carlyle declined to disclose who the investors were. But other sources say that Prince Bandar, several other Saudi royals, and Abdulrahman and Sultan bin Mahfouz were prominent investors and that it was an explicit policy of the House of Saud to encourage Saudi investment in Carlyle.

Contracts between Carlyle-owned corporations Carlyle and Saudi Arabia-BDM (including its subsidiary Vinnell): $1,188,600,000

The Carlyle Group owned defense contractor BDM from September 1990 until early 1998. [2] One BDM subsidiary, Vinnell, has trained the Saudi National Guard since 1975 thanks to a controversial contract that allowed it to be the first U.S. private firm to train foreign forces. [3] While under Carlyle ownership, BDM's and Vinnell's contracts with Saudi Arabia included the following:

In 1994, BDM received a $46-million contract to "provide technical assistance and logistical support to the Royal Saudi Air Force." [4]

Between 1994 and 1998, Vinnell serviced a $819-million contract to provide training and support for the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG). [5]

In 1995, Vinnell signed a $163-million contract to modernize SANG. [6]

In 1995, BDM signed a $32.5-million contract to "augment Royal Saudi Air Force staff in developing, implementing, and maintaining logistics and engineering plans and programs." [7]

In 1996, BDM got a $44.4-million contract from the Saudis to build housing at Khamis Mshayt military base. [8]

In 1997, BDM received $18.7 million to support the Royal Saudi Air Force. [9]

In 1997, just before BDM was sold to defense giant TRW, the company signed a $65-million contract to "provide for CY 1998 Direct Manning Personnel in support of maintenance of the F-15 aircraft." [10]

Halliburton: $180 million

Vice President Dick Cheney served as CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. At press time, he continued to hold 433,333 shares of Halliburton in a charitable trust. [11] Among Halliburton's dealings with the Saudis, those whose details have been made public include:

In November 2000, Halliburton received $140 million to develop Saudi oil fields with Saudi Aramco.

In 2000, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root was hired, along with two Japanese firms, to build a $40-million ethylene plant. [12]

Harken Energy: $25 million

After George W. Bush became a director of Harken Energy, several entities and individuals connected to BCCI, the scandal- ridden bank in which Khalid bin Mahfouz was the largest stockholder, suddenly came to Harken's rescue. Among them, the Union Bank of Switzerland agreed to put up $25 million. When that financing fell through, Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, who was also close to bin Mahfouz, stepped in to help. [13]

Charitable Donations: $3.5 million

It is worth pointing out that in terms of charitable donations, the House of Saud has been truly bipartisan and has contributed to every presidential library over the last thirty years. Many members of the House of Saud have directed their largesse to charities important to powerful Americans, including a $23-million donation to the University of Arkansas soon after Bill Clinton became president. The donations below represent those from the House of Saud to charities of personal importance to the Bush family:

1989: King Fahd gave $1 million to Barbara Bush's campaign against illiteracy. [14]

1997: Prince Bandar gave $1 million to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas. [15]

2002: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal gave $500,000 to Andover to fund a George Herbert Walker Bush scholarship. [16]

2003: Prince Bandar gave a $1-million oil painting of an American Buffalo hunt to President Bush for use in his presidential library after he leaves the White House. [17]

_______________

NOTES:

Appendix C

1. Interview with David Rubenstein.
2. New Republic, October 18, 1993; and Washington Post, November 22, 1997.
3. Washington Times, May 14, 2003.
4, PR Newswire, October 27, 1994.
5. Associated Press, November 14, 1995.
6. http://www.icij.org/dtaweb/icij_bow.asp ... on&01D=230 .
7. Defense Daily, June 23, 1995.
8. Boston Herald, December 10; and Pentagon press release, April 1, 1996, Contract Number 175-96.
9. Defense Daily, February 4, 1997.
10. Pentagon press release, December 24, 1997.
11. CNN.com, October 25, 2003; FDCH Political Transcripts, September 25, 2003; and New York Times, October 1, 2003.
12. Boston Herald, December 10, 2001.
13. Platt's Oilgram News, January 29, 2003; and Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1991.
14. Time, September 15, 2003.
15. Ibid.
16. http://www.andover.edu/news/bush_scholars.htm .
17. Associated Press, July 18, 2003, Friday Final Edition.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the help of many people who assisted me every step of the way. At Scribner, I was fortunate to have an extraordinary editor, Colin Harrison, who was attentive to every aspect of the book from the breadth of its narrative scope to its finest details. His editorial judgment is superb and it has been a privilege to work with him. I am also grateful to Susan Moldow and Nan Graham, who were wonderfully supportive throughout the writing of this book and who oversaw a terrific team of people who treated the book with the highest level of professionalism. They include John Fulbrook, Erich Hobbing, Sarah Knight, Roz Lippel, Cynthia Mann, John McGhee, and Allison Murray. My thanks also go to Elisa Rivlin, for her comprehensive legal review, and to Pat Eisemann, who devoted herself to the book's publicity.

My agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman of the Elaine Markson Agency, was one of the first people to recognize the possibilities of this book. She was always there with wise advice.

Daniel Benaim, my research assistant, and Cynthia Carris, my photo edtor, both performed with grace and professionalism under deadline pressure. I am especially grateful to Daniel for his help in compiling the amount of money transferred from the House of Saud to the House of Bush. My thanks also go to James Hamilton for the author's photo.

This book was backed by a grant from the Florence and John Schumann Foundation. I am grateful to Bill Moyers, the president of the foundation, and Lynn Welhorsky, its vice president, for their generous support and encouragement. The grant was administered by the Nation Institute. My thanks there go to Victor Navasky, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, and Taya Grobow.

"The Schumann Foundation gets the money for its environmental grants in large part from investments in oil and gas companies, according to its most recent available tax returns: 2000 shares of British Petroleum; 5,000 shares Columbia Gas Systems; 4,200 shares Conoco, Inc.; 3,900 shares Keyspan Energy (natural gas distribution); 10,000 shares Noble Affiliates (oil & gas exploration and development); 10,200 shares Pioneer Natural Resource Company (oil & gas exploration and development); 10,000 shares Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (Royal Dutch / Shell Oil holding company); 10,000 shares Shell Transportation and Trading Company (another Royal Dutch / Shell Oil holding company); plus 12,500 shares of Ford Motor Company .... W. Ford Schumann, Robert Schumann: Heirs of the IBM and General Motors Acceptance Corporation money

-- Bill Moyer's Hypocrisy -- A Crushing Disappointment, by Dick Eastman

In the past, I have written about George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush for the New Yorker, Esquire, and Vanity Fair magazines. The New Yorker article, "In the Loop," was an investigative piece on George H. W. Bush's role in Iran-contra and Iraqgate that I co-wrote with investigative reporter Murray Waas in 1992. Murray did an excellent job of reporting for the piece and I thank him for his permission to adapt parts of it for this book.

In addition, part of the book appeared in Vanity Fair in October 2003. I am indebted to Graydon Carter and Michael Hogan there for publishing the piece.

In the course of my earlier work on the Bushes and additional reporting for this book I interviewed, by phone or in person, three directors of the Central Intelligence Agency: Stansfield Turner, the late William Colby, and James Woolsey; and Saudi Arabia's minister of intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal. I would also like to thank Michael Anton at the White House for his time and for showing me exactly how the Bush administration deals with the press. In addition, there are many people in and out of government who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, including several members of the National Security Council staff in the administration of George W. Bush and high-level officials at the FBI. I am particularly indebted to them.

Others I'd like to acknowledge are Nail Al-Jubeir at the Saudi embassy, Don Albosta, Frank Anderson, David Armstrong, Gerry Auerbach, Robert Baer, James Bath, Dan Benjamin, Terry Bennett, Tom Blanton at the National Security Archive, Jack Blum, Richard Clarke, Casey Cooper, Dan D' Aniello, Alan Gerson, Dan Grossi, Armond Habiby, Dee Howard, Youssef Ibrahim, John Iannarelli, Thomas Kinton, Don Leavitt, Terry Lenzner, Charles Lewis, John Loftus, John L. Martin, Adil Najam, Nawaf Obaid, Bob Parry, Manuel Perez, Gerald Posner, Richard Rechter, Oliver "Buck" Revell, David Rubenstein, Cherif Sedky, Joe Trento, Dale Watson, Will Wechsler, Jonathan Winer, and James Zogby. Chris Ullman at the Carlyle Group was always gracious and responsive, belying the reputation for secrecy that the firm has acquired.

Helpful as such sources have been, this book relies extensively on declassified government documents, congressional investigations, and news accounts from thousands of newspapers and journals from all over the world. It would have been impossible to research this book without the Internet and I am especially grateful to people and institutions who have built the Internet research tools that enabled me to search through such vast amounts of material so quickly.

Specifically, my thanks go to Gary Sick and Columbia University's Gulf/2000, an Internet group that afforded me e-mail and telephone access to hundreds of scholars, diplomats, and policy makers who specialize in the Middle East. Gulf/2000's vast Internet archives of clippings were of great value and the thousands of e-mails they sent out enabled me to be privy to a dialog with hundreds of specialists in the field.

The Center for Cooperative Research (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/) is another valuable Internet tool. Because I made a practice of citing original sources, it does not appear in my notes nearly as often as it might. However, its timelines about 9/11 and related issues often helped me find exactly what I was looking for. I highly recommend it to anyone doing research on 9/11 and I encourage its support.

The National Security Archives (http://www.gwu.edul-nsarchiv) has also performed a valuable public service through years of filing Freedom of Information Act requests to declassify secret documents, many of which it has posted on the Internet. These documents were useful to me again and again and are often cited in my notes. I also recommend the web site of the Federation of American Scientists (http://www.fas.org), which makes many government documents readily accessible, including the 1992 Senate investigation into the BCCI scandal. Understanding that Byzantine affair was vital to putting together a template for the events in this book.

E-mail groups I joined that I found useful include Truthout (http://www.truthout.org) and the Weekly Spin (http://www.prwatch.org).

I should add that the notes offer a far more complete list of people and published sources that have contributed to the book. Wherever possible I have tried to include web addresses for those interested in further information.

Many friends and colleagues helped either by contributing in one way or another to the book itself or through much-needed moral support. They include John Anderson, Sidney Blumenthal, Peter Carey, Joe Conason, Martin Kilian, Don Leavitt, Robin and Susan Madden, Pazit Ravina, John "Print the Legend" Strahinich, and Lynne Faljian Taylor. My friends Len Belzer and Emily Squires generously provided their friendship and a house in the country for weekend R and R. And finally, my gratitude goes to my family my mother, Barbara; my father, Roger; Chris, Shanti, and Thomas; and Jimmy, Marie-Claude, Adam, and Matthew.

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Robin Wright, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam. New York: Touchstone,
1985.
Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power: New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1991.

INDEX

Abdel Rahman, Sheikh Omar, 57n, 102,
105, 147-48, 150
Abdul Aziz, king of Saudi Arabia, 3,
21-22, 26n, 31, 59, 83, 89, 100
Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, Crown
Prince, 87, 158, 176, 189, 219,
235-36, 241-45, 261, 279
Abdulrahman bin Abdul Aziz, Prince,
89n
Abedi, Agha Hasan, 30-32, 77-78, 120
Abouhalima, Mahmoud, 150
Abrams, Elliott, 211n, 275-76
Abramson, Jill, 120-21
Abu-Hamad, Aziz, 137-38
Aburish, Said K., 83n, 86, 166n
Adham, Sheikh Kamal, 52, 78, 101,
125
Afghanistan War, 97-112
Arab fighters in, 16, 99-105, 143-44,
147, 149, 177, 181, 255
arms sales in, 64-65, 104, 105, 107,
109, 112
bin Laden's role in, 100, 101-6, 110,
143-44, 255, 278
Carter's policy in, 97-98
CIA operations in, 97, 98, 103-4,
105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 147
Cold War and, 97-98, 99, 104, 110,
278
drug trade and, 107-8
mujahideen in, 97-112, 147
Reagan-Bush policy in, 97, 98-99,
101-2, 104, 110-11
Saudi Arabian involvement in,
98-100
Soviet forces in, 95, 97-98, 100, 102,
103-4, 106-7, 110, 143-44, 149,
278
U.S. covert aid in, 15, 58, 77, 83,
97-112
Vietnam War compared with, 98,
108, 109
Age of Sacred Terror; The (Benjamin
and Simon), 174-75, 185, 219,
239
Aguirre, Michael, 124
Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz,
Prince, 7, 10, 255-56, 258, 265-68
Aimone, Eugene, 218
Alamoudi, Abdurahman, 205-6
Al-Arian, Abdullah, 206
Al-Arian, Nahla, 206
Al-Arian, Sami, 206-8, 210, 214, 216, 232
Albosta Report, 50
Alexiev, Alex, 204
Al Gama'a al-Islamiya, 104
Alhazmi, Nawaf, 180, 233, 239, 247
Alhazmi, Salem, 231, 248
Alhaznawi, Ahmed, 230
Aljazeera Television, 91, 230, 234, 279
AlJihad movement, 57, 104
Al-Kifah Refugee Center, 147, 150, 204
Allison, Lew, 136
Almidhar, Khalid, 180, 231, 233, 239,
247, 248
Al-Nahyan family, 30n-31n
Al-Najjar, Mazen, 210, 215
Alomari, Abdulaziz, 230, 231, 247
Al Qaeda:
bin Laden as head of, 13, 103, 111,
148-51, 173-74, 178-79, 229-30,
264, 278
Al Qaeda (cont.)
cells operated by, 220, 227, 236
chemical weapons of, 185-87, 210
formation of, 58, 110-11, 205-6
funding of, 13, 111-12, 149, 175,
177-83, 204, 220, 260, 261,
272-74
international network of, 149,
173-74, 221, 227-28
investigation of, 15, 263-69
Saudi connections of, 111, 178-79,
181-82, 200, 233, 247, 263-69,
272-74
September 11 attacks executed by,
227-41, 247-51
terrorist program of, 148-51,
183-86, 207, 213-14, 278-79
training camps of, 16, 150, 171, 173,
219-22, 228, 229, 240-41
U .S. countermeasures against,
219-22, 244
U.S. embassies bombed by ( 1998),
183-86, 188, 198, 201, 228, 239n,
263
Al-Waleed bin Talal, Prince, 166, 200
America I Have Seen, The (Qutb), 93
American Jihad (Emerson), 207
American Muslim Alliance (AMA),
209, 213n, 215
American Muslim Council (AMC),
202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 213n, 214
American Muslim Political Coordina
tion Council (AMPCC), 213,
214-15, 216
Anderson, Frank, 108, 110
Alldreotti, Giulio, 83
Arab American Institute, 202
Arab Americans, 202-3, 209, 252-53
Arabia, the Gulf and the West (Kelly),
90
Arabian American Oil Company
(Aramco), 25-26, 90
Arab-Israeli War (1973), 26, 59
Arafat, Yasir, 234, 242, 244
Arbusto Energy, 70, 101, 115-18, 222
Armey, Dick, 193n, 202
Armstrong, Scott, 60, 61
Ashcroft,John, 13, 233, 240n-41n,
256
Atwan, Abd-al-Bari, 105
Auerbach, Gerry, 55
Aziz, Tariq, 68, 81, 132n
Azzam, Sheikh Abdullah, 93, 94, 102,
103, 105, 106, 147

Ba'arma, Sami, 168
Baer, Robert, 112, 182, 261
Baffert, Bob, 268
Baker, James A., 1, 44-45
Baker, James A., II, 45, 53n
Baker, James A., III:
background of, 33, 44-45, 53
as Carlyle partner, 156, 157, 158n,
161, 162, 163-64, 166, 167, 172,
189, 224
as G. H. W. Bush's campaign man
ager, 46-47, 164, 217
G. H. W. Bush's relationship with,
33, 43, 48, 117, 130, 163, 188, 217
Gulf War strategy and, 133, 135,
141, 145, 163
G. W. Bush's relationship with,
42-47, 77n, 117, 191, 217, 219, 273
Iran-contra affair and, 64
Iraqi restructuring overseen by, 280
Kuwait visited by (1993 ), 163-64
law firm of, 25, 43, 124, 164, 179n,
188, 191n, 199, 200n, 224, 261-62
political tactics of, 45-46, 51, 116
Saddam Hussein as viewed by, 66,
67, 81, 129, 130, 131, 274
Saudi connections of, 5-6, 15,
53-54, 101, 165, 172, 188, 189,
199, 217, 255, 262-63
September 11 attacks and, 247, 249,
255
Texas attorney general race lost by
(1978), 45-46
as White House chief of staff, 51, 57,
99
Baker, James A., IV, 262
Baker Botts, 25, 43, 124, 164, 179n, 188,
191n, 199, 200n, 224, 261-62
Bakhsh, Abdullah Taha, 121, 122, 125,
209
Baldrige, Malcolm, 51
Ball, George, 116
Balz, Dan, 52-53
Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz,
Prince;
Afghanistan War and, 98-99
AWACS sale arranged by, 59-61
background of, 3, 4, 59-60, 87
as Carlyle investor, 168
charitable donations by, 178-79,
200, 233, 247, 273-74
Clinton's relationship with,
175n-76n, 219
Freeh's meetings with, 176-77
G. H. W. Bush's relationship with,
7-8, 9, 130-31, 145, 152-53, 188,
217-19, 224, 274
Gulf War and, 133, 134, 139
G. W. Bush's relationship with, 8,
14-17, 234, 241-45, 254-55
high-level contacts of, 7-8, 24,
130-31, 134, 139, 218, 219, 234,
244, 255
hunting trip hosted by, 217-19, 242
intelligence information of, 7, 75-76
Iran-contra affair and, 63-65
Iran-Iraq War and, 71, 75-76
as political strategist, 61-62, 76
Saudi evacuation and, 10-11, 14-16,
256-57
September 11 attacks and, 4-5, 245,
251-55
Westernized lifestyle of, 2-3, 4, 87,
89-90, 152n-53n
Bani-Sadr, Abolhassan, 65n
Bank of Credit and Commerce Inter
national (BCCI), 30-32, 33, 34,
77-79, 80, 108, 109, 118-28, 187,
200
Barak, Ehud, 234
Barnes, Ben, 114-15
Barr, William P., 126
Bartlett, Dan, 248
Basnan, Osama, 179-80, 233
Bath, James R., 19-20, 23-24, 32-34,
65, 101, 114, 116, 118, 198
Bayoumi, Omar al-, 179-80, 233
Baz, Abdul-Aziz bin, 85n
BDM, 162, 168, 172, 200
Bechtel Corp., 22, 166, 167
Becker, Jean, 189
Benevolence International Foundation,
111, 204n
Benjamin, Daniel, 174-75, 176, 185,
186, 219, 239
Bennett, Terry, 23
Bentsen, Lan, 32-33
Bentsen, Lloyd, 32-33, 41
Bergen, Peter, 147-48
Berger, Sandy, 176, 183, 220, 221, 239,
240
Beshi, Muhammad Sa ad al-, 86n
Bhutto, Benazir, 111, 173
bin Laden, Abdullah, 6, 94, 105, 178-79
bin Laden, Bakr, 150
bin Laden, Carmen, 178
bin Laden, Kameron, 6
bin Laden, Mahrous, 14, 94-96
bin Laden, Mohammed, 6, 90-91, 100,
101, 229-30
bin Laden, Mohammed Awad, 20,
21-22
bin Laden, Nawaf, 6
bin Laden, Omar, 178-79
bin Laden, Osama;
in Afghanistan, 92n, 100, 101-6, 110,
143-44, 175, 183, 185, 188, 207,
219-22, 228, 229-30, 240-41,
255, 278
assassination attempt against, 151
education of, 91-93
family connections of, 2, 5, 13-14,
20n, 90-93, 178-79, 188-89,
229-30, 253-59, 260
intelligence on, 237-41
as Islamic militant, 55, 77, 88,
90-93, 94, 100, 110, 143-46,
149, 184-85
personality of, 91-92, 105-6,
148n, 149
Saddam Hussein compared with,
251, 277, 280
as Saudi national, 5, 143-44, 149,
150-51, 174-75, 180-83, 188,
252, 279
September 11 attacks planned by, 5,
13-14, 227-41
in Sudan, 149, 174-75, 207
terrorist activities of, 13, 103, 111,
148-51, 171-75, 178-79, 183-86,
189, 229-30, 264, 278
U.S. countermeasures against,
185-86, 214, 219-22, 239-41,
251, 277, 280
wealth of, 13, 103, 149, 151, 173-74
bin Laden, Salem, 20-21, 23-24, 26,
32-34, 52n, 55, 65n, 92, 101, 122
bin Laden, Sana, 6
bin Laden, Shafig, 247, 249
bin Laden, Wafah, 6
bin Laden family;
airline interests of, 23, 34, 52n,
54-55, 61
bin Laden family (cont.)
Bush family and, 5-6, 101-2
charitable organizations of, 178-79
construction business of, 2, 5,
21-22, 96, 173n
House of Saud's relationship with,
2, 5, 6, 21-22, 94-96, 100-101,
171-72, 175
Islamic fundamentalists in, 94-96
rise to power of, 21-24
U.S. evacuation of, 2, 8-16, 253-59,
260, 269
wealth of, 5-6, 96, 167, 178-79
Bin Laden (Robinson), 92
Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared
War on America (Bodansky), 182
Binladin, Khalil, 6, 10, 14, 258
bin Mahfouz, Abdulrahman, 168, 178
bin Mahfouz, Khalid, 20-21, 23-24,
26, 31, 32-35, 53-54, 78, 101,
112, 118, 119-22, 126-27, 128,
168, 177-78, 183, 187, 189,
198-99
bin Mahfouz, Salem, 21, 22-23
bin Mahfouz, Sultan, 168
Bodansky, Yossef, 182, 275
Bond, Rich, 46
Boren, David, 250
Breeden, Richard, 124
Brender, Mark, 140
Breslin, Jimmy, 268
Brown, Elizabeth Lee, 9
Brown, Laura, 248n
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 97-98, 110
Buckingham, Virginia, 12
Bucklev, WilJiam, 71
Burkett, Bi1l, 115n
Burson-Marsteller, 4-5, 252
Bush, Barbara, 37, 40n, 43, 145, 188,
200, 274
Bush, Dorothy, 145
Bush, Dorothy Walker, 40n, 11, 39-40
Bush, George H. W., 39-40
Afghanistan War and, 101-2, 106,
110-11, 278
ambition of, 42, 45, 47-48, 69-70,
72-73, 76-77
anticommunism of, 106-7
campaign finances of, 42, 43n, 120,
123n
as Carlyle senior adviser, 156, 157,
158n, 164-65, 166, 167, 189
charities supported by, 199-200
as China chief liaison officer, 33, 41,
49
as CIA director, 33, 41, 42, 43, 49,
50, 64, 74, 235
as congressman, 40-41, 45
as conservative, 69, 113, 192-93
Gulf War strategy of, 16, 132-42,
212, 217
G. W. Bush compared with, 113-14,
254
G. W. Bush's presidential election
and, 217-19, 223
G. W. Bush's relationship with, 116,
117-18, 122, 124-25, 128, 191,
242, 273, 274
high-level contacts of, 33, 35-36,
42-43, 47-50, 52, 69-70, 71,
72-75
on hunting trip, 217-19, 242
Iran-contra affair and, 64, 72-76
Israel as viewed by, 202
Kuwait visited by, 163-64
media coverage of, 40, 41n, 42n, 44,
45, 46-48, 74, 76, 130, 145,
209-10, 236
Middle East visited by, 74-76
Muslim-American support for, 202,
206n
as Nixon loyalist, 33, 35, 36, 40-41,
160
as oil executive, 16, 35-40, 42-43,
48, 132-33, 139, 222
Pakistan visited by, 106
patrician background of, 35-38, 48,
73, 113
political career of, 40-51, 69-70,
72-73, 76-77
in presidential campaign of 1980,
46-47, 123n, 164
in presidential campaign of 1988,
76-77, 106-7, 120, 123n, 160,
192-93, 210
in presidential campaign of 1992,
125, 151-52, 175n-76n, 217
Prince Bandar's relationship with,
7-8, 9, 130-31, 145, 152-53, 188,
217-19, 224, 274
Reagan's relationship with, 46-47,
69, 76-77, 120
as RNC chairman, 33, 41, 42, 49,
160
Saddam Hussein as viewed by,
15-16, 66, 67, 69, 70, 74, 81-82,
129-35, 140-42, 194, 195, 274
Saudi connections of, 5-8, 9, 16, 53,
59, 101-2, 130-31, 145, 152-53,
165, 167, 172, 175, 176-77,
188-89, 198, 217-19, 224,
235-36, 255, 274
as UN ambassador, 33, 41, 49, 70
as vice president, 15, 51, 57, 69-70,
101-2, 116, 117, 120, 130
in vice presidential campaign of
1980, 47-51, 58
in vice presidential campaign of
1984, 70, 210
wealth of, 39, 40
Yeltsin meeting of, 14
Bush, George W., 113-15, 192-98,
209
as Baker Botts employee, 43
BCCI scandal and, 118-28
bin Laden as viewed by, 277
as born-again Christian, 113,
192-94, 198, 237
campaign finances of, 188, 191, 210,
218, 222-23
on Carlyle board of directors, 156,
157, 160
congressional race lost by, 45, 116
as conservative, 113-14, 115,
192-95, 198, 237
counterterrorism measures of,
227-41
Crawford, Tex., ranch of, 113-14,
236-37
diary of, 251
education of, 113, 114, 115
energy policy of, 218, 222-23,
225-26, 237, 280-81
foreign policy of, 211-12, 235,
237-39
G. H. w. Bush compared with,
113-14, 254
G. H. W. Bush's relationship with,
116, 117-18, 122, 124-25, 128,
191, 242, 273, 274
as governor of Texas, 165n, 188, 197
gubernatorial campaign of, 127,
161n
insider trading charge against,
123-24, 225, 262
Iraq War strategy of, 79, 274-77
media coverage of, 120-21, 127-28,
196-98, 205, 236-37, 260
Middle East policy of, 223, 234-36,
237, 241-45
Muslim-American support for,
201-16, 223, 233
as oil executive, 16, 36, 70, 112,
115-28, 160, 198, 199, 200, 202,
222, 225, 262
as president, 211n, 218, 221-22,
234-38, 273-77
in presidential campaign of 2000,
188, 191-98, 201-19, 220, 222-23
in presidential campaign of 2004,
281
Prince Bandar's relationship with, 8,
14-17, 234, 241-45, 254-55,
273-74
Saddam Hussein as viewed by, 212,
226, 274-77
Saudi connections of, 8, 14-17, 101,
112, 118-28, 198-201, 241-45,
254-55, 263, 273-74, 279-81
September 11 attacks and, 247-51,
254-55
in Texas Air National Guard, 33,
114-15, 198
transition team of, 218, 221-22
in war on terrorism, 11, 214, 219-22,
256, 260, 262, 277
Bush, Jeb, 165n, 194
Bush, Jonathan, 116
Bush, Laura, 206, 273-74
Bush, Marvin, 163-64, 249
Bush, Neil Mallon, 38, 163-64, 262n
Bush, Prescott, Sr., 37, 38, 39-40, 42, 45
Bush family, 15, 165n
bin Laden family and, 5-6, 101-2
charities supported by, 199-200
House of Saud's relationship with,
15-17, 19, 35-36, 53, 118-28,
165-66, 188-89, 198-201, 209,
222-23, 234-36, 247-51, 261-63,
272-73, 280-81
oil interests of, 115-28

Callaghan, James, 32
Cannistraro, Vincent, 14, 177-78, 261
Card, Andrew, 249
Carey, Caroline, 92
Carlucci, Frank, 156, 161-62, 163, 166,
168, 169, 224, 247
Carlyle Group, 6, 15, 16, 153, 155-69,
171, 189, 198, 199, 200, 224, 225,
247, 249, 273, 281
Carter, Billy, 50
Carter, Jimmy, 29, 32, 46, 47, 50-52, 58,
65n, 77, 83, 97-98, 120, 155, 157
Casey, William J.;
Afghanistan War and, 98, 104, 107,
108
BCCI connections of, 77-78
as CIA director, 7, 50, 51, 61, 64, 67,
69, 71, 98, 104, 107, 108
G. H. W. Bush's relationship with,
67, 69, 72-73, 74, 75
Caulkins, John E., 42
Cell, The (Miller, Stone and Mitchell),
148
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 34,
61, 95n, 185
Bush as director of, 33, 41, 42, 43,
49, 50, 64, 74, 235
Casey as director of, 7, 50, 51, 61,
64, 67, 69, 71, 98, 104, 107, 108
counterterrorism measures of, 173,
174, 229, 239, 240-41
inte1ligence assessments by, 132,
235, 237-38
Iraqi intelligence of, 65-66, 71,
75-76, 81, 275-77
Saudi cooperation with, 61, 71,
75-76
September 11 attacks and, 16, 227 ,
228-29, 239
Zubaydah interrogated by, 264-66
Chambers, John, 223n
Chancellor, Steven, 218, 222-23
Charen, Mona, 205
Charlie Wilson's War (Crile), 99
Cheney, Dick:
as Ha1Jiburton CEO, 38n, 191, 199,
200, 225-26
as PNAC member, 194, 211n
Prince Bandar's relationship with,
130, 134, 139, 218
Saddam Hussein as viewed by,
79-80, 212n
as secretary of defense, 132, 134,
139, 141
as vice president, 217, 218, 222,
225-26, 244, 251, 253, 260, 275
Cheney, Lynn, 217
Chevrette, Peggy, 229
China, 33, 41, 106, 221, 280
Churchill, Winston S., 106, 152
Citigroup, 5, 23, 166
Clark, Suzanne, 248n
Clarke, Richard, 174, 181, 183, 214,
219-22, 227, 228-29, 236, 238,
239-41, 244, 250, 251, 253-54,
260, 272-73, 276, 280
Clifford, Clark, 29, 32, 36, 52, 112, 120,
125
Clinton, Bill:
bin Laden's facilities attacked by,
185-86, 214
counterterrorism measures of,
172-77, 182-88, 189, 214,
219-22, 228, 229, 239
cruise missile attacks authorized by,
185-87
in Lewinsky affair, 186-88, 192
media coverage of, 186-88, 236
Middle East policy of, 234
Muslim-American support for, 202,
206n
as president, 4, 14-15, 120, 141,
151-52, 192
in presidential campaign of 1992,
151-52, 175n-76n
in presidential campaign of 1996,
202
Saddam Hussein as viewed by, 194,
195, 212, 227n
Saudi relationships of, 175n-76n,
219, 263
Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 14-15, 209
Clough, Susan, 50
Coats, Dan, 186
Cold War, 14, 57, 58-59, 97-98, 99, 104,
110, 204, 278
Cole, USS, attack on, 14, 213-14, 219,
220, 227 , 228, 229, 238, 239, 264,
273
Commanders, The (Woodward), 131
Conason, Joe, 198
Connally, John, 19, 33-35, 36, 53
Conway, William, 162-63
Cooper, Casey, 179n
Coordinating Subgroup (CSG), 174,
228-29
Cordesman, Tony, 276
Cortez, Brian, 1-2
Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), 201n, 203, 204, 213n
Cressey, Roger, 220, 227
Crile, George, 99
Custer, George, 41

D'Aneillo, Dan, 162-63
Dar es Salaam embassy bombing
(1998), 183-86, 188, 198, 201,
228, 239n, 263
Darman, Richard, 156, 162, 164, 166,
224
Davis, Tom, 216
Defense Department, U.S., 81, 131
defense industry, 15, 161-65, 223, 224
Defense Intelligence Agency, 66-67, 81,
265n
"Defense Planning Guidance" (Wol
fowitz and Libby), 141-42, 194
DeLay, Tom, 193n, 202
Democratic Party, 50-51, 114, 192,
209-13, 218
Diaz Serrano, Jorge, 48n
Didion,Joan, 193
Dolan, Charles, 223n
Doniger, David, 222n
Doty, James, 124, 262
Draper, William, 70, 115
Dukakis, Michael, 76-77, 106, 107
Dulles, Allen, 50

Eagleburger, Lawrence, 165n
Egan, Richard, 223n
Egypt, 58, 65, 74, 75, 173, 181
Egyptian embassy bombing (1995), 173
Ehrlichman, John, 41
Eldred, Ken, 223n
elections, U.S.:
of 1964, 45, 69n
of 1968, 40-41
of 1970, 41, 42, 45
of 1972, 41
of 1976, 46
of 1978, 45
of 1980, 35, 46-51, 58, 123n, 164
of 1984, 70, 210
of 1988, 32n, 76-77, 106-7 , 120,
123n, 160, 192-93, 210
of 1992, 125, 151-52, 175n-76n, 217
of 1996, 202
of 2000, 188, 191-98, 201-19, 220,
222-23
of 2004, 281
Elhussein, Mustafa, 205
El-Shifa pharmaceutical factory,
185-87, 210
Emerson, Steven, 207
Englehardt, Irl, 218, 222-23
Enroll Corp., 163-64, 188, 191n, 222
Esplnoza, Victor, 267
Export/Import Bank, 36, 70, 81-82, 116
ExxollMobil, 25, 43, 225, 261n, 263

Fadl, Jamal Ahmed al-, 185-86
Fadlallah, Sheikh, 71
Fahd, king of Saudi Arabia, 3, 7, 23, 24,
61, 64, 65n, 87, 89n, 98, 117,
130-31, 133-34, 144, 146, 152,
168, 176n, 182, 200, 219, 253,
255, 268
Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir,
Prince, 266, 268-69
Faisal, king of Saudi Arabia, 89-90,
100, 101
Farish, Sarah, 43n
Farish, William, Jr., 43
Farmer, Dick, 223n
Fassi, Mohammed al-, 24
Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA), 8-9, 12, 229, 230, 248n,
257, 259
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI):
counterterrorism measures of, 12,
13, 147, 173, 176-77, 179,
232-33, 238-39, 240, 247-48,
253, 256
Muslim Americans investigated by,
205, 206
Saudi evacuation and, 8, 10-11, 12,
253-54, 256-57, 258, 259, 269
September 11 attacks and, 227-28,
238-39
First Son (Mi11utaglio), 40n, 41n
Fitzwater, Marlin, 125
Fleischer, Ari, 237-38, 249-50, 264, 275
Foley, Tom, 164-65
Ford, Gerald R., 33, 41, 45, 46, 47, 67
Freeh, Louis, 176-77
Freeman, Charles, 6
Friedman, Alan, 67
Friedman, Robert I., 146-47
Frum, David, 208
Fulbright & Jaworski, 25, 42n, 43
Fuller, Craig, 136
Fuller, Graham, 71-72
Fyfield-Shayler, Brian, 92n

Gaffney, Frank, 162, 205, 206
Galbraith, Peter W., 79-80
Galster, Steve, 108
Gause, F. Gregory, III, 88
George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star
Yankee (Parmet), 40
George H. W. Bush Presidential
Library and Museum, 199n, 200
Gingrich, Newt, 202
Girardet, Edward, 92n, 108
Giuliani, Rudy, 166n
Glaspie, April, 132
Gleason, Jack A., 42
Global Relief Foundation, 204n
Golden Chain, 111-12
Goldman Sachs, 5, 159, 163
Goldwater, Barry, 69n
Goolsby, George, 261n
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 106, 107, 157
Gore, Al, 2, 191 n, 192, 202, 209-13, 217
Graham, Bob, 277
Graham, Phil, 39
Gramm, Phil, 175
Gray, Robert, 136
Grossi, Dan, 8-10, 255
Gulf War, 16, 73n, 129-46, 169, 183,
212, 217
bin Laden's views on, 143-46
CIA assessments of, 132
Iraqi forces in, 139-40
Iraq War compared with, 140
Islamic fundamentalism and, 133-34
media coverage of, 135-40
oil as issue in, 132-33, 135
propaganda in, 137-39
satellite intelligence in, 134, 139-40
Saudi role in, 16, 89n, 132, 133-34,
139, 143-46, 167, 183, 200-201
UN role in, 133, 141
U.S. public opinion on, 135-39, 148

Haass, Richard, 134
Habiby, Armond, 99-100
Hadley, Stephen J ., 220, 228
Haifa bint Faisal, Princess, 145, 179-80,
233, 247, 273-74
Haig, Alexander, 63, 65n, 67
hajj, 21-22, 85, 92, 95, 145
Halabja chemical attack (1988), 79,
80n-81n
Halliburton Corp., 38n, 43, 191, 199,
200, 222, 225-26
Hamas, 58, 104, 183, 205-6
Hamdi, Tarik, 307
Hanjour, Hani, 229, 247-48
Harken Energy, 16, 112, 117-28, 160,
199, 200, 209, 222, 225, 262,
280
Hart, Gary, 227-28
Hart, Steve, 48n-49n
Hartung, William, 261
Hathout, Maher, 209
He1ler, Jean, 140
Hermann, Daniel, 218
Hersh, Seymour, 63, 87, 163, 276
Hezbollah, 14, 58, 71, 72, 205-6, 278
Hi1l, Charles, 70
Hill & Knowlton, 135-36, 157
Hiltermann, Joost R., 79n
Hines, Gerald, 27, 53
Hitchens, Christopher, 186
Holy Land Foundation for Relief and
Development, 183, 187n, 204n,
210n, 214
Holy War, Inc. (Berger), 147-48
House of Saud, The (Aburish), 83n,
166n
Howard, Dee, 23
Hughes, Karen, 127
Hunt, Nelson Bunker, 35
Hunt, Wi1liam Herbert, 35
Hussein, Saddam, 65-66, 77, 78-79,
129-42, 143, 211, 212
arms deals of, 65, 73-82
bin Laden compared with, 251 , 277 ,
280
biological weapons of, 15-16, 68-69,
81, 131, 143-44
capture of, 277, 278, 279
chemical weapons of, 15-16, 66-68,
70, 72, 79-81, 130-31, 134, 140,
143-44
genocide committed by, 79,
80n-81n, 129, 134, 136-39
Islamic fundamentalism and, 129,
132
Kuwait invaded by, 132-42
military intelligence provided to,
75-76, 131
nuclear weapons program of, 15-16,
67, 80, 81-82, 131, 276-77
September 11 attacks and, 251,
277
U.S. support for, 62, 65-70, 73-82,
83, 116n, 129-33, 134, 140-41,
226
Hussein I, king of Jordan, 43, 75, 100

Iannarelli, John, 10, 254
Ibrahim, Youssef, 278, 279, 280
Idriss, Saleh, 186-87, 210
Immigration and Naturalization Ser
vice (INS), 239, 259
"incubator story," 137-39
Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sci
ences, 205, 206n
International Derrick and Equipment
Company (IDECO), 38
International Islamic Relief Organiza
tion, 177-78, 179, 206n
Illvestcorp, 28, 121
Iran:
arms-for-hostages deal with, 72-76
Islamic revolution in, 49, 50-52, 58,
89-90, 280
oil industry of, 75, 225
Shiite fundamentalism in, 66, 71
trade sanctions against, 223, 225
U.S. relations with, 4, 58-59, 72, 76,
78-79, 223, 225
Iran-contra affair, 15, 34, 62-65, 72-76,
78-79, 161, 275
Iranian hostage crisis, 49, 50-52, 58,
65n
Iran-Iraq War, 58, 62-63, 65-82, 112
Iraq:
agricultural subsidies for, 129, 131
air force of, 73-74, 75
army of, 82, 134, 139-40
CIA intelligence on, 65-66, 71,
75-76, 81, 275-77
foreign debt of, 280
Kurdish population of, 79-80, 134
oil industry of, 66, 70, 132-33, 225,
277
trade sanctions against, 223, 225,
226
U.S. relations with, 4, 58, 65-82,
129-31, 223, 225, 226
weapons of mass destruction in,
15-16, 275, 276-77
Iraq War, 16, 79, 80n, 140, 251, 274-79
Isikoff, Michael, 179
Islam;
anti-Americanism in, 83, 93-94,
133-34, 135, 143-46, 205
anti-Semitism in, 151, 204, 209, 216,
263
basic tenets of, 4, 13, 21-22, 84-86,
88, 92, 95, 111, 145
clerics of, 85-86, 88, 90, 98, 134, 144,
253, 279
fundamentalism in, 2-3, 14, 24, 54,
57-58, 62, 66, 71, 72, 77, 82, 88,
94-96, 129, 132, 133-34, 143-46,
201-16
holy sites of, 3, 21-22, 91, 95, 96, 184
laws of, 85-86, 89
Shiite, 57, 58, 66, 71, 72, 82, 274
Sunni, 83, 84
U.S. followers of, 201-16
Wahhabi, 3, 54, 83-86, 88, 89, 90,
109, 152n, 171, 172, 203, 220,
252, 253
Westernization and, 88-90, 93
women in, 28, 85-86, 89, 93, 135
Islamic al-Shamal Bank, 149
Islamic Group, 148
Islamic Institute, 206, 209
Islamic Jihad, 206, 208, 21 On-11 n
Islamic Salvation Front, 104
Israel;
arms sales by, 62, 63, 65n, 72
Lebanon invaded by, 57-58
Muslim-American opposition to,
204, 206, 207, 209
Saddam Hussein as threat to, 67,
130-31
Saudi opposition to, 54, 59, 71,
183n, 241-45
U.S. support for, 3, 27, 54, 59, 62,
74, 129, 134, 146, 194, 202, 209,
234-36, 241-45, 252
Ivins, Molly, 48

Jackson, Jesse, 32
Jaworski, Leon, 42n
Jerusalem, 91, 146, 184, 234
jihad, 3, 88, 90, 94, 100, 104-5, 111,
143, 147, 149, 183, 207, 221,
278-79
Johnson, Lyndon B., 44
Johnson, Richard, 224
Jones, Jerry, 3, 152n-53n
Jordan, 27-28, 66, 74, 75
Jordan, Robert, 124, 224-25, 262-63
Journeys with George, 196
Jubeir, Nail al-, 180, 254-55, 269
Justice Department, U.S., 50-51, 126,
173, 233, 240n-41n, 259

Kahane, Meir, 146-48, 150
Kahn, Marty, 115
Kaiser, Robert G., 243
Kalmbach, Herbert W., 42
Kamel, Saleh, 112
Keel, Alton, 165n
Kelly, Brenna, 9
Kelly, J. B., 90
Kendrick, Phil, 118
Kennedy, John F., 32n, 35, 59n, 264n
Kerrick, Donald, 228
Khalid bin Sultan, Prince, 172
Khalifa, Mohammed Jamal, 14, 178
Khalifa, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-,
122
Khalilzad, Zalmay, 211n
Khani, Abbas, 80n
Khashoggi, Adnan, 24, 31, 100-101
Khobar Towers bombing (1996),
173-74, 176-77, 182, 201
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruholla, 57, 62,
66, 135
Kinton, Tom, 12
Kissinger, Henry, 70, 99, 125n, 163,
164
Knight, Bobby, 217-18
Koran, 4, 22, 85, 88, 111
Krugman, Paul, 118
Kurtz, Bill, 233
Kuwait, 62, 65, 66, 81, 132-42, 143,
146, 163-64, 168

LaHaye, Tim, 193-94
Lake, Anthony, 239
Lake, James A., 125
Lance, Bert, 29-32, 36, 112, 120
Lantos, Tom, 134, 137
Lay, Kenneth, 223n
Lebanon, 57-58, 72
Lehrer, Jim, 212
Lehrman, Lewis, 116
Leverett, Flynt, 275, 276
Levitt, Arthur, 164-65
Lewin, Daniel, 248n
Lewillsky, Monica, 186-88, 192
Lewis, Charles, 273
Lewis, Michael, 157n
Libby, I. Lewis, 141-42, 194, 222
Lieberman, Joe, 202
Liedtke, Hugh, 38, 40, 42, 43
Liedtke, William, 42
Limbaugh, Rush, 186
Loewer, Deborah, 249
Loftus, John, 102
Looking Forward (G. H. W. Bush), 38
Lugar, Richard, 75

MacArthur, John R., 136, 138-39
Macomber, John, 116
Mahfouz, Naguib, 93
Main Bank of Houston, 34-35, 53
Major, John, 156, 157, 164, 167
Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), 102, 105,
106
Malek, Fred, 160, 161, 165n, 166
Mallon, Neil, 38
Mankiewicz, Frank, 136
Mann, Hillary, 275, 276
Man to See, The (Thomas), 29
Marenches, Alexandre de, 49n, 73
Martin, David, 251
Martin, John, 138
Martin, John L., 259, 269
Massoud, Rihab, 10
Matar, Mohammed, 138
McCain, John, 195-96
McFarlane, Robert "Bud," 62, 63-64,
76
McHugh, R. Kevin, 210n-11n
McHugh, Suzanne, 49n
McMahon, John N., 104, 109
Mecca, 3, 14, 21-22, 85-86, 91, 95-96,
144, 146, 184
Mecca Affair, 95-96, 99, 162n, 171
Medina, 3, 21-22, 91, 144, 146, 184
Megally, Hanny, 86
Meyer, Eugene, 39
Middle East:
Cold War and, 14, 57, 58-59, 97-98,
99, 104, 110, 204, 278
peace process in, 129, 241-45, 254,
274-75
Soviet influence in, 65-66
U.S. policies on, 3-4, 7-8, 57-59, 61,
62-63, 70, 74, 76, 77, 125, 129,
193-95, 211-12, 223, 234-36,
241-45, 274
see also specific countries
Miles, Steven, 262
Miller, Ben, 275-76
Miller, John, 148
Minutaglio, Bill, 40n, 41n
Mir, Mushaf Ali, 269n
Mitchell, Chris, 148
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, shah of Iran,
89-90
Mondale, Walter, 47, 51
Moqed, Majed, 247
Morgenthau, Robert, 126-27
Moro Liberation Front, 104-5
Mosbacher, Robert, 42, 43, 131
Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 135
Mubarak, Hosni, 75, 150, 178
Mueller, Robert, 126, 256
Murawiec, Laurent, 274
Murchinson, Clint, 35
Muslim Americans, 201-16
Muslim Brotherhood, 14, 58, 88, 94-96,
149, 183
Muslim Public Affairs Council
(MPAC), 203, 209, 213n
Muwafaq (Blessed Relief) Foundation,
178, 183
Myers, Richard, 240, 241, 251

Nader, Ralph, 215
Nahayan, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-,
34
Nairobi embassy bombing (1998),
183-86, 188, 198, 201, 228, 239n,
263
Najam, Adil, 22
Najim, Ismail, 150
Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 59n
National Bank of Georgia (NBG),
29-32
National Commercial Bank of Saudi
Arabia (NCB ), 20, 22-23, 112,
120, 127, 177-78, 181, 183, 187,
188
National Security Agency (NSA), 230,
250
National Security Council (NSC), 51,
62, 63-64, 72, 173, 174, 219-22,
226, 227, 228-29, 275-76
Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Prince, 87, 89n,
182-83, 263, 279
Nayirah (Kuwaiti witness), 137-39
neoconservatives, 194-95, 198, 242, 275
Newsweek, 4, 95n, 139, 179, 207, 233,
273, 274
New Yorker, 59-60, 62n, 87, 145, 163,
177, 186, 230, 234, 274, 276
New York Times, 44, 45, 53, 63, 74, 89,
118, 137, 166, 186, 235, 256, 267,
279
Nir, Amiram, 74
Nixon, Richard M., 33, 34, 35, 36,
40-42, 160
Noonan, Peggy, 44
Noriega, Manuel, 49
Norquist, Grover, 201-2, 204, 205, 206,
208, 215
Norris, Edward, 148
Norris, Stephen, 165n
North, Oliver, 34, 62, 76, 193n
Northern Alliance, 221, 240
Nosair, El Sayed, 147, 148, 150
Numeiry, Jaafar, 71

Obaid, Nawaf, 28, 121, 180
oil industry, 11, 15, 25-27, 38-39,
122-23, 132-33, 202, 225-26
government regulation and, 39, 43,
121-22
price of, 3-4, 11, 27-28, 59, 66, 77 ,
79, 116-19
U.S.-Saudi relations and, 3-4, 26, 59,
62, 83, 242-45, 262-64
O'Neill, Paul, 125n, 226, 240, 260
Operation Townhouse, 42, 49
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC), 26, 59, 262
Othman, Talat, 125, 208-9
Ottaway, David B., 243

Pakistan, 30n-31n, 100, 106, 149, 171,
173, 263-64, 269n
Palestinians, 91, 94, 146, 166n, 183n,
208, 209, 210n-11n, 234-36,
241-45
Parmet, Herbert S., 40
Parry, Robert, 65n
Pelosi, Alexandra, 196, 197
Percy, Charles, 51-52
Perez, Manuel, 8, 9, 255
Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo (Per
margo), 48n-49n
Perle, Richard, 129-30, 194-95, 274
Petzinger, Thomas, 120-21
Pharaon, Ghaith, 31, 34, 35, 53, 78
Philby, Jack, 26n
Philippines, 14, 104-5, 220
Politics of Diplomacy, The (Baker), 47n,
129
Pollack, Kenneth, 276
Popular Committee for Assisting the
Palestinian Mujahideen, 183n
Posner, Gerald, 264-69
Powell, Colin:
Prince Bandar's relationship with, 7,
130, 134, 218, 234, 244, 255
Saddam Hussein as viewed by,
79-80, 226
as secretary of state, 231, 234, 244,
251, 253, 254n, 255, 260
Predator aerial vehicle, 229, 240, 241
Project for a New American Century
(PNAC), 194-95, 211, 212, 226,
251

Qaddafi, Muammar, 206n
Qalamnevis, Hadi, 80n
Qasim, Abd al-Karim, 65
Quasha, Alan, 118
Quayle, Dan, 32n, 137, 210
Qutb, Sayyid, 93-94, 179

racial profiling, 210, 212-13, 214, 233
Rafiqdust, Mohsen, 80n
Rather, Dan, 186
Reagan, Nancy, 51
Reagan, Ronald, 4, 7, 16, 52, 57, 98
anticommunism of, 107
counterterrorism policy of, 72, 76
G. H. W. Bush's relationship with,
46-47, 69, 76-77, 120
in Iran-contra affair, 64, 161
Middle East policies of, 62-63, 70
in presidential campaign of 1980,
46-47, 48, 51, 58
in presidential campaign of 1984, 70,
210
Saddam Hussein and, 80, 82, 133, 134
Saudi connections of, 59
Reno, Janet, 211n
Republican National Committee
(RNC), 33, 41, 42, 46, 49, 160
Republican Party, 15, 33, 36, 39, 41, 42,
43n, 46, 47, 49, 50-51, 113, 160,
175, 191, 201-2, 208-13, 215-16,
217, 218, 221, 223
Revell, Oliver "Buck," 207
Reynolds, Russe1l, 116
Rice, Condoleezza, 7, 191, 199, 220-22,
227, 228, 238, 240-41, 242, 243,
244, 251, 253, 274
Rice, Wi1liam Marsh, 45
Richards, Ann, 114, 127
Richardson, Sid, 35
Rintawi, Ureib Al-, 80n-81n
Rise, Corruption and Coming Fall of
the House ofSaud, The (Abur-
ish), 86
Riyadh, 25, 86, 168, 171-73, 175-76,
181, 182, 228, 279
bombings of, 171-73, 175-76, 181,
182, 228, 279
Robertson, James, 180
Robinson, Adam (pseud.), 92-93
Rockefeller, Nelson, 43, 69n
Rogers, Ed, 125
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 3
Rove, Karl, 41n, 188, 192, 197-98, 209,
222, 248
Rubenstein, David, 155-60, 161,
162-63, 165, 167
Rubin, Robert, 239
Rudman, Warren, 227-28
Rumsfeld, Donald, 161, 218, 253
Iraq War and, 251, 276
as PNAC member, 194, 211n
Saddam Hussein's meeting with,
67-68, 226
as secretary of defense, 67-68, 191,
194, 222, 240, 251, 264, 276
Rupp, Heinrich, 52n

Sabah, Mishal al-, 249n
Sabah, Saud Nasir al-, 138-39
Sabah family, al-, 135, 164, 249n
Sadat, Allwar, 57, 147
Saeed, Agha, 214-15, 216
Saffuri, Khaled, 202, 209
Saghiya, Hazem, 81n
Salameh, Mohammed, 150
Salem, George, 187n, 210, 213
Salman bin Abdul Aziz, Prince, 103,
1 S2, 1 S3n, 255
Salter, Wayne, 197
Saud, House of, 83-96, 144
Afghanistan War and, 98-100
Al Qaeda connections of, 111,
17S-79, 181-S2, 200, 233, 247,
263-69, 272-74
BCCI scandal and, 78-79
bin Laden family's relationship
with, 2, 5, 6, 21-22, 94-96,
100-101, 171-72, 175
Bush family's relationship with,
15-17, 19, 35-36, 53, 118-28,
165-66, 188-89, 198-201, 209,
222-23, 234-36, 247-51, 261-63,
272-73, 280-81
Carlyle Fund used by, 166-69, 171,
200
charitable donations by, 102, 105,
111-12, 125n, 177-81, 183,
187, 198n, 200, 204n, 214, 233,
247
civil lawsuit against, 177-78, 180-81,
272
corruption in, 78-79, 86-88, 95-96
descendants of, 83n, 87, 89n
fundamentalist threat to, 14, 66, 82,
88, 89, 94-96, 99, 133-34,
143-46, 150-51, 171-72, 180-83,
184, 201, 266, 272, 278-80
Gulf War and, 133-34, 139, 143-46,
167
horse racing as pastime of, 7, 10,
252, 255-56, 265, 266-68
Iran-contra affair and, 73-76, 78-79
Iran-Iraq War and, 71, 77-79
military programs of, 27-28, 66,
166-69
oil interests of, 26-27, 42-43, 54, 61,
86-87, 120
Palestinian cause supported by,
234-36
political influence of, 29-36, 52-55,
59, 61-62, 84-87, 122
religious legitimacy of, 3, 24, 27-28,
54, 83, 84-87, 89-90, 95-96,
133-34, 171, 201, 251-52
Saddam Hussein and, 15-16, 77-78,
80, 82, 133-34
September 11 attacks and, 2, 26-27 ,
54, 61, 86-88, 120, 151, 166n,
177-78, 180-81, 263-69, 272-74,
277, 280-81
tribal origins of, 84-87
U.S. evacuation of, 2, 8-16, 253-59,
260, 269
wealth of, 2, 26-29, 54, 61, 86-88,
120, 151, 166-69, 171, 200,
280-81
Western culture and, 2-3, 4, 7, 10,
87, 88-90, 95, 152n-53n, 252,
255-56, 265, 266-68
see also specific family members
Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 59n, 86,
100n
Saud al-Faisal, Prince, 261
Saudi Arabia:
arms deals of, 4, 24n, 27-28, 59-61,
64-65, 73-74, 166-69
banking interests of, 20, 22-23,
29-32, 34, 52, 119-20
covert operations of, 61, 63-64, 71,
75-76
economy of, 90, 151
holy sites in, 3, 21-22, 91, 95, 96,
184
as Islamic theocracy, 3, 24, 27-28,
54, 84-87, 89, 134, 201, 252
modernization of, 89-90
Muslim-American communities
supported by, 203-4, 216
oil industry of, 2, 3, 11, 15, 25-27,
42-43, 54, 61, 86-87, 90, 120,
225, 226, 242-45, 262-64, 274,
279-80
public beheadings in, 28, 86, 96, 265
terrorist attacks in, 11, 171-73,
175-76, 181, 182, 228, 261,
279-80
tribal allegiances in, 22, 274
U.S. relations with, see U.S.-Saudi
relations
U.S. troops stationed in, 133-34,
143-46, 183, 274, 279-80
Saudi Arabian National Guard
(SANG), 95-96, 162, 168, 171,
181-82 .
Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), 5-6, 20,
21, 61, 91, 96, 101, 103, 112, 149,
150, 173n, 188
Scheer, Robert, 231
Schlesinger, Alvin, 147n
Schwartz, Stephen, 84, 203-4
Schwarzkopf, Norman, 164n, 217, 218
Scowcroft, Brent, 130, 140-41, 217,
218, 219, 235
Second Front (MacArthur), 136
Secord, Richard, 60n
Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), 36, 49n, 124, 225, 262
Sedky, Cherif, 53, 121, 168, 178n, 187n,
198n
September 11 attacks, 247-51
aircraft grounded after, 1-2, 8-14,
253-55, 256, 257
September 11 attacks (cont.)
Bush-Saudi connection in, 16-17,
19, 247-51
casualties from, 177-78, 180-81,
250, 252, 272
execution of, 227-41247-251
funding of, 180-81
G. W. Bush's response to, 247-51,
254-55
hijacked planes used in, 1-2, 11-12,
180, 206n, 229, 233, 238, 239
intelligence on, 179, 219-22, 227-41,
247-48, 253
media coverage of, 4-5, 9, 12
official narrative of, 271-81
preparations for, 229-33, 237-39
Saudi evacuation after, 2, 8-16,
253-59, 260, 269
Saudi nationals as terrorists in, 4-5,
7, 12, 15, 180, 231, 247-48, 2, 52,
263
security failures in, 11-12, 22?-41
warnings of, 227-41
Shallah, Ramadan Abdullah, 206-7
Sharon, Ariel, 234, 235, 242, 243
Shelton, Henry, 251
Shultz, George, 62, 64, 68, 70, 72, 76
Siblani, Usama, 213
Signposts Along the Road (Qutb), 94
Simon, Steven, 173, 174-75, 176, 185,
186, 219, 239
Sleeping with the Devil (Baer), 112,
182, 261
Soghanalian, Sarkis, 80
Solarz, Stephen J., 134
Somalia, 149, 150
Soros, George, 117
Soviet Union, 57, 58, 65-66, 139-40, 204
Spectrum 7, 117
Spider's Web (Friedman), 67
Springman, Michael, 109-10
Stanford, Jason, 127
State Department, U.S., 12, 41n, 67,
79n, 81, 109-10, 130, 131, 173,
253-54, 255, 259, 276, 279
Steele, Kathy, 9
Stephens, Jackson, 120
Stockman, David, 164
Stone, Michael, 148
Stone, Robert, Jr., 123n
Strain, Charles, 122
Sudairi, Hassa bint Ahmed al-, 59, 89n
Sudan, 27, 71, 149, 171, 174-75, 185-87,
207
Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud,
Prince, 266, 268
Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz al
Saud, Prince, 3, 59-60, 85n, 89,
143-44, 146, 179, 180-81, 182
Supreme Court, U.S., 215, 217, 220
Suqama, Satam al-, 248n
Sutherland, Thomas, 72

Taliban, 110, 175, 183, 188, 220-21, 228,
231, 240, 261, 266
Teicher, Howard, 62, 67, 69
Tenet, George, 4, 227-28, 236, 240, 241,
250, 251, 253
terrorists, Islamic:
as Afghanistan War combatants,
99-102, 147
charities linked to, 102, 105, 111-12,
125n, 177-81, 183, 187, 198n,
204n, 214, 233
finances of, 78, 128, 173, 188, 201,
220
international networks of, 3,
146-50, 173-74
Muslim-American links to, 201-16
origins of, 57-58, 108-11
Saudi Arabia as target of, 11 ,
171-73, 175-76, 181, 182, 228,
261, 279-80
U.S. as target of, 3, 184-89, 201,
210, 212-13, 219-22, 227-41,
278-81
visas for, 109-10, 231, 247, 248,
260-61
war on, 11, 214, 219-22, 256, 260,
262, 277
see also specific terrorist groups
Texas Commerce Bank, 27, 53
Thomas, Evan, 29
Timmerman, Kenneth, 205, 207
Torricelli, Robert G., 134
Treasury Department, U.S., 173, 178,
204n
Truell, Peter, 120-21
Truman, Harry S., 59n
Tuite, James, 69
Turabi, Hassan al-, 149, 207
Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, Prince, 28-29,
78, 89n, 98, 100, 101, 103, 175n,
180-81, 182
Turner, Stansfield, 50
Turnipseed, William, 115
Two Faces of Islam, The (Schwartz), 84

Ullman, Chris, 162n-63n
Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS),
120-21
United Defense, 159, 162, 169, 224
United Nations, 33, 41, 49, 66, 70, 79n,
106, 133, 149, 189, 227n, 275
United States:
Arab investment in, 28-29, 166-69,
!71, 200
civil liberties in, 13, 210, 212-13,
214, 233
democratic ideals of, 3, 85, 252
economy of, 4, 77, 88, 132-33,
192
as "Great Satan," 83, 93-94, 133-34,
135, 143-46, 205
intelligence assets of, 7, 65-66, 71,
75-76, 81, 104, 131, 132, 134,
139-40, 179, 219-22, 227-41,
247-48, 253, 275-77
Muslim-American population of,
201-16
national security of, 13-14, 109-10,
179, 187, 201, 219-22
oil consumption of, 4, 25, 26-27,
38-39, 90, 132-33, 242-45, 262,
280
oil production of, 25-26, 225-26
in post-Cold War era, 141-42, 161,
224
secular culture of, 93-94
terrorist threat to, 3, 184-89, 201,
210, 212-13, 219-22, 227-41,
278-81
U.S.-Saudi relations;
Cold War and, 58-59, 97-98, 99
economic aspect of, 88, 90, 198-200,
261-63
Gulf War and, 133-34, 143-46,
200-201
Houston-Jeddah connection in,
19-27, 52-53
Iran-contra affair and, 62-65
Iran-Iraq War and, 66
Iraq War and, 274-75, 278-79
Islamic fundamentalism as threat to,
94-96, 143-46, 20!
lobbying in, 52, 59-60, 261-63
Middle East situation and, 129,
241-45, 254, 274-75
military aspect of, 4, 24n, 27-28,
58-62, 64-65, 66, 73-74, 133-34,
166-69
Muslim-American community and,
201-16
oil interests and, 3-4, 26, 59, 62, 83,
242-45, 262-64
political aspect of, 52, 59-60,
130-31, 200-201, 222-23, 261-63
terrorism and, 2, 4-5, 8-17,
171-77, 182-88, 251-69
see also Bush family; Saud,
House of
Uzielli, Philip, 116, 117

Vaughan, Jessica, 231
Veil (Woodward), 71, 108-9
Vickers, Eric, 205
Vietnam War, 33, 41, 63, 77, 95n, 98,
108, 109, 114, 115 .
Vinnell Corporation, 95, 162, 168, 171,
172, 200
Vinson, Elkins and Connolly, 25, 36,
191n
Visa Express, 231, 247, 248, 260-61
Vought Aircraft, 159, 162, 169

Wag the Dog, 186
Wahhab, Ibn Abd al-, 84, 85
Walker, Herbert, 39
Walker, Ray, 45
Wall Street Journal, 6, 33, 42, 120-21,
123n, 127--28, 205, 206n, 225
Walsh, Elsa, 177
Washington Post, 39, 41n, 49n, 52-53,
60, 76, 114, 116, 126, 156-57,
168, 186-87, 224, 228, 236, 237,
238, 243, 244
Watergate scandal, 33, 41-42, 49, 160
Wead, Doug, 192-93
Webster, Wi1liam, 107
Wechsler, Wi1l, 174, 180-81
Weinberger, Caspar, 62, 64, 71, 72, 76,
130
Weir, Benjamin, 72
Weymouth, Lally, 49n
White, Chris, 9
White, Mark, 45-46
White, Thomas, 222
Why America Slept (Posner), 264-69
Wihbey, Paul Michael, 13-14
Williams, Earle, 162
Williams, Edward Bennett, 29, 32
Williams, Kenneth, 232-33
Wilson, Charlie, 98-99
Wolffe, Richard, 196
Wolfowitz, Paul, 129, 134, 141-42,
194-95, 211n, 240
Woodward, Bob, 71, 108-9, 131
Woolsey, James, 20n
World and Islam Enterprise (WISE),
206-7, 210n-21In
World Assembly of Muslim Youth
(WAMY), 94, 178-79
World Trade Center attacks (2001), see
September 11 attacks
World Trade Center bombing (1993),
14, 57n, 102, 148, 149-50, 173,
204, 207
World Transformed, A (G. H. W. Bush
and Scowcroft), 140-41

Yarborough, Ralph, 33
Yeltsin, Boris, 14
Yemen, 21, 22, 27-28, 149, 150, 220
Yeutter, Clayton, 81
Yousef, Ramzi Ahmed, 149-50, 173
Youssef, Fayeza, 138

Zahn, Paula, 172, 269
Zapata Off-Shore Company, 39, 40, 43,
48, 133, 139, 249n
Zapata Petroleum, 38-39, 40, 43
Zawahiri, Ayman al-, 57n, 94, 173
Zia, Mukahil ul-Islam, 103
Zimmerman, Peter, 139, 140
Zoellick, Robert, 222
Zogby, James, 202
Zubaydah, Abu, 238-39, 263-69

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Craig Unger served as the deputy editor of the New York Observer and the editor of Boston Magazine. He has written about the two George Bushes for the New Yorker, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. He lives in New York City.