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WASHINGTON SCENE:


         "This is a moral crusade.  Oh, I suppose
          we're not supposed to use that word..
          This is a moral campaign..."  
                         Sir David Frost - on CNN, 10/17
                     



              SAUDI AMBASSADOR' BANDAR'S STRATEGY FAILS

   Abdullah Will Not Really Be King As Long As Bandar Is On His Washington Throne

            "One sign of how things are really going in Arabia 
            will be just how much longer Bandar bin Sultan 
            remains on his own throne in the American capital.  
            For if Bandar is left to work his own will in modern-
            day Rome then Abdullah will not truly be King."

MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/19:   Prince Bandar 
bin Sultan's 20+ year strategy has now substantially failed.  Years ago, very much 
behind-the-scenes of course, the very controversial and in some circles much despised 
Saudi Ambassador in Washington began a relationship with the some of the most 
conservative and militant circles in Washington, very much including those associated 
with the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby.  His goal was quite simple -- by ingratiating 
himself within these circles; by spreading around much money, influence and favors; 
Bandar felt he could assure that those who run the big corporations and own the major 
media, along with those who dominate on Capitol Hill, as well as those in the 
Executive Branch of the U.S. Government, could be counted on to support, and if 
necessary defend, the Saudi Royal family come what may.
   It is Bandar who has personally acted as intermediary all these years as the U.S. 
has spent an estimated $300+ billion dollars to build up military infrastructure and 
stockpile vast quantities of military hardware in "the Kingdom".  But all that was 
before Osama bin Laden and 11 September 2001, before the Royal elders of "the Kingdom" 
decided that the just completed U.S.regional military command center at Prince Sultan 
Airbase could not in fact be used as the Americans at first demanded.  And from that 
disguised confrontation decision a counterflow of news leaks, pressures, and threats 
have started flowing -- including from many of those long courted and essentially paid 
by Bandar -- which is seriously undermining al-Saud/Wahabi control over Arabia in this 
new millenium.
   Bandar is now the "dean" of the Washington Ambassador corp -- simply meaning he's 
been representing Saudi Arabia in Washington longer than any other country's 
ambassador here.  Bandar has spent a great deal of money in the past two decades 
(multi-billions), hired a great many people, been a primary force in creating a 
network of influence-peddling centers, some of the  "client organizations"  we have 
spoken about that are creatures of the "client regimes" -- including the Arab American 
Institute (AAI - Zogby), ANA, American Muslim Council (ADC - Alamoudi), Washington 
Report, ADC and the list goes on.
   As for "the Kingdom" Bandar so ostentatiously represents, for more than 50 years 
now Saudi Arabia has served as a kind of oil cow for the U.S.; and for the fast few 
decades a petrodollar recycling and arms buying megacenter as well.  The real need for 
Saudi Arabia's Royal family has not been just oil supplies which are actually 
plentifully available in many places, but rather controlling OPEC on behalf of Western 
countries thus assuring plentiful amounts of very cheap Middle Eastern oil -- as well 
as a recycling of all those petrodollars into U.S. and Western banks and corporations. 
 Even today one can purchase a gallon of oil that started life in the deserts of 
Arabia, was transported halfway around the world, then refined, then shipped, then 
pumped, for about the same price as a gallon of locally bottled water at the 
neighborhood grocery store -- this while so many in the Middle East region itself 
remain destitute and impoverished.  The United States especially has floated its 
modern prosperous economy on very cheap very plentiful foreign oil, with the Saudis 
playing the central role in this whole historic arrangements.
   But in the process, the al-Saud's have wasted and squandered so many mega-billions, 
leaving not only the Arab world fractured and impoverished but creating a generation 
of resentment within their own midst -- religious "radicals" on the right and 
western-educated "modernists" on the left, but having in common their awareness of how 
miserably the Royal family has handled their history and their future.  
   It is for a combination of all of these reasons that there is such great tension in 
"the Kingdom" today, especially as the expanding young population realizes how badly 
the corrupt and profligate Royal family has been, not to mention the whispered 
awareness of how much "the Kingdom" has mortgaged both its policies and even its land 
area to the American military and CIA.  And of course the further awareness that the 
rather small and natural resourceless country of Israel continues to trample on the 
Palestinians and humble all of Arabdom and Islam tremendously exaccerbates this 
already volcanic situation.
   And thus September 11, 2001, may well have marked a turning point not only for the 
United States but also for Saudi Arabia and its now high-profile embarrassing 
Washington Ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.  
   At the moment an internal political existential royal battle is underway back in 
"the Kingdom" centered around long-time Crown Prince Abdullah and long-time Defense 
Minister Sultan (Bandar's father).  The former playboy, King Fahd, is largely 
disfunctional; a team of more than 20 foreign doctors doing all they can to simply 
keep him from expiring.  Of course it is this intra-Royal situation which further 
contributes to all the uncertainty and paralysis in "the Kingdom" today, with everyone 
aware that unless something happens to Abdullah he will finally become King and be in 
a position to much more forcefully assert his will, if he dares.  
   One sign of how things are really going in Arabia will be just how much longer 
Bandar bin Sultan remains on his own throne in the American capital.  For if Bandar is 
left to work his own will in modern-day Rome then Abdullah will not truly be King and 
maybe Sultan, with Bandar himself waiting in the wings, will still be somewhere in 
line, the Americans still hoping to more fully do their will with the Saudi Monarchy 
as they have done with what remains of the once mighty Hashemite Dynasty still 
lingering and still important in Amman.




       SAUDI ROYAL FAMILY SHOWS SIGNS OF PARALYSIS

[MiddleEast NewsLine - Washington - 17 October]:   The Saudi ruling family find 
themselves caught in a conflict of epic proportions between their traditional alliance 
with the United States and their multiple financial and cultural ties with the Taliban 
regime in Afghanistan.

Western diplomatic sources said members of the Saudi royal family have reduced their 
public  appearances, particularly to Westerners. The sources said this includes such 
figures as Saudi King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and Saudi Defense 
Minister Prince Sultan.

The royal family, the sources said, has not refused a U.S. request to participate in 
the war against terrorism. But they said Riyad has not taken any steps requested by 
the United States and agreed to by other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

This includes freezing assets of Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden.

"The Saudis have always been secretive," a Western diplomat said. "But now there isn't 
really anybody to talk to who can give a straight answer."

The sources said King Fahd has been incapacitated by ill health, which has led to 
dissension and uncertainty within the royal family. Abdullah has refused to agree to 
measures against Bin Laden.

"I don't have to please people [in] downtown Washington," Saudi ambassador to the 
United States Prince Bandar said. "But I must always take into account Saudi people."

U.S. officials said Bin Laden has received millions of dollars in aid from Saudi 
businessman connected to the royal family. Washington announced that is seizing the 
assets of Yasin Al Qadi, who heads the Saudi Arabia-based Muwafaq Foundation, which 
has funneled money to Bin Laden.

In addition, a leading Saudi cleric has refused to end his criticism of the U.S. 
attack on Afghanistan.

Western analysts said Riyad could remain in turmoil for some time to come. They urged 
Western allies of Saudi Arabia to closely monitor the kingdom.

"A great deal has been said since September 11 about the lack of human intelligence in 
the war against terror, and the West would be well served by the development of HUMINT 
in Saudi Arabia as well," Saudi expert Joshua Teitelbaum wrote in a report by the 
Washington Institute for Near East Policy.


          HOW THE SAUDI ROYALS CREATED A JIHAD MONSTER

     The Saudi royal family has been thrown into panic. It is facing the most serious 
threat to its rule
 since the 1990 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. The difference is that the Iraqi threat 
was external. This
 time, the House of Saud faces an internal threat.
     What happened? In short, the Saudis have created a monster. It began in 1979 when 
the Shah of
 Iran was overthrown by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Saudi kingdom was in panic. 
The
 kingdom had a large Shi'ite minority and the new Islamic regime in Iran was openly 
questioning the
 legitimacy of Saudi sovereignty over Mecca, the birthplace of the Muslim prophet 
Mohammed.
     From that moment, the Saudis decided to play tit for tat. Riyad would export 
fanatic Sunni
 zealotry to combat Iran's Shi'ite militancy. The first test was in Afghanistan, 
invaded by the
 Soviets months after the Iranian revolution. Riyad helped recruit thousands of Saudis 
and other
 nationals to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, Iran's neighbor.
     From the start, the Taliban movement supported by Riyad was anti-Iranian. For the
 practical-minded Saudi leadership, the fight in Afghanistan was a muted warning to 
Iran to stay
 out of Saudi affairs. A key player in the Saudi effort was Osama Bin Laden.
     The Saudis were ecstatic when the Taliban helped expel Soviet troops from 
Afghanistan. But by
 that time Bin Laden and thousands of Saudi and Egyptian nationals fighting in 
Afghanistan saw
 their mission as just beginning. Riyad was never the target. Instead, it would be 
Egypt, Algeria and
 Jordan — in other words secular Arab regimes.
     Today, the Saudi leadership has been torn by what to do with Bin Laden. The 
problem is not
 that of one man: It is that of thousands of Saudis sponsored by their families and 
leading princes
 in the kingdom as part of the Wahabi commitment to Islamic zealotry. The feeling is 
that any move
 to limit, let alone stop, the Sunni Islamic drive would break up the kingdom — 
whether from within
 or without. Wahabi tradition is the only glue that keeps the desert Bedouin loyal to 
the billionaires
 princes.
     The dispute has pitted Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz against Saudi Defense 
Minister
 Prince Sultan. Both are vying to be the next king of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah has 
staked out his
 claim as head of Saudi tradition. Sultan wants to pursue a modernist direction. The 
result could be
 chaos as militants in Saudi Arabia will use terrorism in an effort to decide the 
succession struggle.




            'SAUDI CONNECTION' PUTS NEW STRAIN ON ALLIANCE
                              By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

[The Independent - 18 October 2001]:   Investigators are concentrating on a "Saudi 
connection" to the 11 September terrorist attacks on America, suggesting that part of 
the conspiracy was hatched there - to the intense disquiet of Saudi Arabia's ruling 
monarchy.

Relations were already queasy between America and the world's largest oil exporter - 
which happens to be both Washington's most important ally in the Gulf and the 
birthplace of Osama bin Laden.

American investigators soon discovered that up to 12 of the 19 hijackers of the four 
aircraft used that day entered America with Saudi passports or with visas
issued by US consulates in that country. Since then more than 700 people have been 
questioned or detained by the authorities in America in connection with the attacks 
-among them an unspecified number of Saudi citizens.

Neither the Saudi embassy nor the Justice Department will say how many of the suspects 
are Saudi: indeed, so little has been divulged, and so minor are some of the charges 
on which the detainees are being held that American civil rights groups are asking 
whether their constitutional rights have been violated.

According to lawyers, two members of Saudi Arabia's ruling family were detained for 
more than 20 days after being picked up at Denver airport. They were
released last week, but will still have to answer for minor infringements of 
immigration laws.

The Saudi embassy has retained lawyers for all the suspects, The Wall Street Journal 
reported this week, after personal instructions to counsel from Prince
Bandar bin Sultan, the veteran Saudi ambassador in Washington, that "each and every 
one of them is to be helped as if you have no other cases and nothing else to do". 
This vigorous stance may be an admirable example of a country helping its citizens who 
find themselves in difficulty on foreign soil. But it is
bound to raise fears in America that, as with the investigation into the deadly 1996 
attack on US barracks at Khobar, Saudi Arabia, the kingdom might
prove less than fully co-operative with US investigators into a terrorist incident 
with which it is linked.

In the case of the 11 September attacks, pointers to such connections continue to grow.

American investigators believe that several of the hijackers were recruited by 
al-Qa'ida cells operating in Saudi Arabia itself. The inquiry is focusing on the
town of Abha in the south west of the country, where four hijackers are believed to 
have originated. People from this region have also been linked with the attack on the 
USS Cole in Aden last October, in which 17American sailors died.

These allegations, and others that Saudi-based charities and companies have channelled 
finance to Mr bin Laden and his network, have placed the kingdom on the defensive, and 
increased resentment of America in Saudi Arabia -the very outcome that the Bush 
administration is seeking to avoid.

In a television interview last month, Prince Bin Sultan, who has been ambassador since 
1983 and is very well connected to the White House, acknowledged that some people in 
Saudi Arabia supported Mr bin Laden, but said their numbers were few. "When you say 
'so many' you have to put it relatively," he told his questioner. "Relative to what? 
Are there sixteen, twenty, one hundred?

"Bin Laden - what he represents, and people who preach like him or support him - yes, 
they don't like my government. Yes, they don't like my political system.  But they 
don't like it for the wrong reasons, not for the right reasons you think of. They want 
us to go back 1,000 years. We want to move forward."

But these arguments have not stilled public criticism.  A recent editorial in The New 
York Times declared that the "deeply cynical and cold-blooded bargain" at the heart of 
the Saudi-US relationship - Saudi oil in exchange for American military protection 
-was in urgent need of updating. "Decades of equivocation and Hobbesian calculations 
have left US-Saudi relations in an untenable and unreliable state," the paper said. 
"These deformities must be addressed before they do further damage to both nations." 




               MUSLIM ALLIES BREAK RANKS WITH U.S.
                      By Matthew Engel in Washington

   [The Guardian - Tuesday October 16, 2001]: Relations between the US and two 
   of its core allies in the war against terrorism, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, 
   approached crisis point yesterday after the Saudi interior minister, Prince 
   Naif, attacked the assault on Afghanistan while Pakistan pressed Washington 
   to ensure that its bombing campaign would be short-lived.

             In the latest and most public of a series of disagreements that
   have evidently taken the US by surprise in the five weeks since the September
   11 attacks, Prince Naif told the official Saudi Press Agency that the kingdom
   wanted the US to flush out the terrorists without bombing. "This is killing
   innocent people. The situation does not please us at all."

             Officially, the state department in Washington remains "very
   satisfied" with the Saudi approach to the crisis, but this masks increasing
   alarm not merely about the governmental response but about potential
   insurrection that could endanger theSaudi regime.

             Prince Naif's comments add to the diplomatic pressure being felt by
   the US in its attempts to maintain support in the region for its policies.

             The secretary of state, Colin Powell, who holds talks with General
   Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad today, took further steps yesterday to bolster
   Pakistan's support for the war, promising military-to-military contacts.

             The sanctions imposed after Pakistan's nuclear test in 1998 still
   prevent the US selling the country any weaponry or equipment, but by moving
   towards direct military relations Mr Powell was clearly holding out the
   prospect of future rewards if the Musharraf regime continued to play ball.

             But with strikes ordered across the country by Islamist groups in
   protest at Mr Powell's visit, Mr Musharraf is aware that his support for the
   US action can go only so far. "The prolongation of the campaign will be a
   source of concern to us," the Pakistani foreign ministry said last night.

             Further underlining the tension that now racks the region, Indian
   troops broke a 10-month ceasefire with Pakistan last night when they fired
   shells into disputed territory in Kashmir, killing a woman and wounding 25.

             A clearly worried President George Bush upbraided the two nuclear
   powers when he said: "I think it is very important that India and Pakistan
   stand down during our activities in Afghanistan and, for that matter, for
   ever."

             In the most extreme language to emerge from Tehran since September
   11, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said that the US air
   strikes were "dragging the world into a war".

             The warning was in stark contrast to a New York Times report today
   which revealed that Iran sent a secret message to the Bush administration on
   October 8 agreeing to rescue any US military personnel in distress in its
   territory.

             At the top of Washington's in-tray of anxieties relating to its
   coalition partners, analysts now believe that Saudi Arabia - where few
   western journalists are allowed - may be turning into the gravest challenge.

             "It's unbelievable how the feeling here has changed from sympathy
   to anger in such a short time," a Riyadh-based westerner quoted by Reuters
   said yesterday. Another resident compared the mood there to that of Iran
   before the overthrow of the Shah.

             Since September 11, Riyadh has refused to allow attacks on
   Afghanistan from its bases; Prince Abdullah, the country's crown prince and
   day-to-day ruler, has avoided meeting President Bush; Muslim clerics within
   the once-monolithic country have issued fatwas against the Americans; and,
   beneath the bland assurances of amity, there has been growing US frustration
   about the extent of Saudi cooperation with this investigation too.

             US feeling was expressed in a powerful editorial in Sunday's New
   York Times, which described Saudi behaviour as "malignant" and said the
   "deeply cynical" bargain between the countries, which for decades had offered
   American protection for the regime in return for an uninterrupted flow of
   oil, was now "untenable".

             David Wurmser, director of Middle East studies at the American
   Enterprise Institute in Washington, said yesterday: "The US's entire foreign
   policy structure in the region has been anchored in the strategic
   relationship with Saudi Arabia. If everything we're hearing is true, then
   we're facing a total meltdown.

             "The whole war as currently conceived would have to be
   reconsidered, because Pakistan won't hold if Saudi support starts collapsing.

             "You can't really separate Bin Laden from the Saudi establishment,"
   Mr Wurmser said. "There are conflicting forces there, and part of the
   establishment has been working with the Bin Laden faction to embarrass the
   other half."

             However, the state department spokesman, Philip Reeker, yesterday
   repeated the "very satisfied" mantra that his colleagues have been using for
   some time. He noted that Prince Naif had said the situation did not please
   the Saudis.

             "I think that quite reflects the attitudes we've been expressing
   for five weeks now. This situation, clearly, doesn't please us. We would
   certainly rather be able to focus on other things in our foreign and defence
   policy."










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