The Inside Story of the Secret Saudi-U.S. Connection
By Gerald L. Posner
Random House, Incorporated, 272pp, May 2005
Reviewed by Mark Biskeborn
In Gerald Posner’s brilliant new book, Secrets of the Kingdom, he clearly states the main thesis: “The 9/11 Commission” he writes, “gave the Saudis a free pass. This book shows why.”
If you’re looking for a short history that covers the last few decades of U.S. relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you’ve come to one of the best sources. Posner weaves together rich, fascinating threads of details, anecdotes, and newly disclosed secrets that reveal how Saudi Arabia keeps the U.S. bent over an oil barrel. To readers knowledgeable about Saudi Arabia’s rise from a sandy desert backwater of nomadic tribes to a powerful political negotiator, Posner provides an excellent review of the key events that other writers have already covered on this topic. However, Posner’s insightful, brisk narrative weaves together so many compelling details that it delivers a view both insightful and fresh.
To readers new to this subject, this book delivers an in-depth analysis of how countries and other non-state factions gain and wield influence on the stage of world politics. Many of the main stakeholders in the Middle East come to life in Posner’s book: the U.S., Britain, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Muslim groups such as al-Qaeda.
Intriguing stories unfold about powerful kings and princes, successions of royal power, the extremist Wahhabi community and their connection with Saudi Royalty as well as to political factions like al-Qaeda. Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan comes to life as the charismatic wheeler-dealer whose mission focuses on Saudi interests through close friendships with the likes of both Bush administrations.
Arms merchant and financier Adnan Khashoggi takes the heat for involvement in Irangate through the scandalous BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International). Other stories explain the evolution of the Saudi royalty through generations of kings and princes. Stories also reveal the political power that Saudi Arabia creates by playing huge arms manufacturers – such as France, Britain, Russia, and the U.S. -- down the middle.
In a chapter entitled, “A Mad Spender,” Posner describes how some Saudi princes live in obscene opulence, such as Prince Mohammad bin Fahd bin Abdul Aziz. “Friends of his, as a London Sunday Times investigation discovered, estimated Mohammad had burned through a billion dollars on personal expenses in a little over a decade.”
In contrast to the decadent life-style of these petro-dollar princes, Posner discusses in a later chapter how the rest of the country is falling into poverty. This iniquitous distribution of wealth, Posner shows, is causing social tension, if not increased radicalism. “The country’s youth population has more than doubled in two decades, and the standard of living has dropped precipitously.”
In Chapter 10, Posner drops a highly explosive story on the reader. Drawing sources from Israeli intelligence as well as from a file that the National Security Agency (NSA) called the “Petroleum Scorched Earth,” Posner reports that Saudi officials have wired all their major oil facilities with a network of Semtex explosives that some Saudi king or designated prince can detonate from a single control point. As if this news does not shock us, Posner adds that this network of explosive charges includes several extremely toxic, radioactive materials. It’s a huge dirty bomb that would contaminate the world’s richest oil fields and thus prohibit oil extraction.
Posner explains that the Saudi Royalty installed these explosives in order to make certain that nobody could benefit from taking down the Saud regime. If internal or external forces bring down the House of Saud, Posner writes, the new world order, as we know it, goes with it because all the oil on which the Western military industrial complex depends disappears forever.
So, if you were still wondering about the initial purpose of Posner’s book -- to show why “the 9/11 Commission gave the Saudis a free pass” – the answer becomes clear. America depends on Middle East oil, and Posner shows how America’s addiction to oil motivates U.S. officials to tread lightly on Saudi issues. Moreover, if this oil dependency were not enough, add to it the possibility that the Saudi royal family can erase the largest source of energy from the face of the earth at the push of a button. You can understand that U.S. officials might have good reason to treat the Saudis like Royalty, even at the expense of national security and justice.
Therefore, as long as the Western military industrial complex remains dependent on petroleum, the sand-dunes in the Persian Gulf remain the sacred center of the world. This magnitude of geo-political power can transform projects like the 9/11 Commission into mere puppet shows.
Mark Biskeborn is a writer. You can email him mbiskeborn@hotmail.com
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