Kernel of Evil

The Scotsman
August 12, 2002



It is only two months since relations between President George W Bush and Saudi Arabia reached a high watermark. During a visit to Washington by Crown Prince Abdullah the two men agreed on a "job share" strategy to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. The Americans would squeeze the Israelis while the Saudis would be responsible for bringing the Arabs to the peace table.

It seemed a neat approach. For six decades successive American administrations have regarded Saudi Arabia as their most reliable Arab ally, a bastion of conservatism in America's struggle against the radical and nationalist Arab movements threatening to tear the Middle East apart.

So it is not surprising there was consternation in the White House last week when a leaked report in the Washington Post revealed one of America's leading think-tanks had concluded the Saudi regime was "the kernel of evil" and America's "most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East.

"The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain. Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies," Laurent Murawiec, an international security analyst with the Rand Corporation, told the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board. He even went on to suggest in a briefing to the Pentagon experts that the US should give Saudi Arabia an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oilfields and financial assets, though he stopped short of saying precisely how this should be done.

Think-tanks are paid to think the unthinkable. But this was a message that the administration definitely did not want to hear. Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld rushed to distance the administration from it and Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned the Saudi government to underline that it was diametrically opposed to the views of President Bush. With war against Iraq seemingly inevitable and possibly imminent the last thing the administration wants is to upset Saudi Arabia.

The chairman of the Rand Corporation is Richard Perle, former defence secretary and guru of the far right, whose extreme views, sometimes bordering on the sinister, have led to him being known as the Prince of Darkness. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defence secretary, formerly worked at Rand.

Both have an agenda which goes beyond overthrowing Saddam Hussein. They believe a friendly post-Saddam regime would reduce US dependence on Saudi oil, permitting the government finally to confront the House of Saud for supporting terrorism. But could it be that they are right in arguing that Saudi Arabia is at the heart of the terrorist threat, and is therefore part of the problem just as much as is Iraq?

If, as Murawiec told the briefing "the Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader" then should they not take their place alongside Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of Bush's "axis of evil"?

Such a notion would have been anathema to the administration before September 11. As host to some of the most sophisticated military bases available to the US in the Middle East, and America's biggest trading partner, especially in military hardware, Saudi Arabia was beyond criticism.

But that has been gradually changing since it emerged that 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11 were Saudi nationals. After decades of turning a blind eye to the blatant human rights abuses of America's key strategic Arab ally, the American media has developed a thirst for in-depth reporting on the Saudi government and society, focusing on the 5,000 royal family members that form Saudi Arabia's aloof, spendthrift and corrupt elite.

An exasperated Prince Abdullah has said: "The vicious Western media attack against the kingdom is only because of the ancient spite against Islam and Saudi Arabia's commitment to Islam."

Yet critics of the Saudi government have plenty of ammunition. "The ruling family is perpetuating a system that breeds intolerance and political violence," says Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

"Saudi Arabia stands out among US allies in the region for the utter absence of functioning networks of independent human rights lawyers, activists, and institutions. The government has permitted no visits to prisons to monitor conditions."

Despite the media exposure, Saudi courts continue to impose punishments such as amputations of hands and feet for robbery, and floggings for lesser crimes such as "sexual deviance" and drunkenness.

The number of lashes can be up to several thousand, applied over weeks or months. A court in Qunfudah, for instance, sentenced five Saudi alleged transvestites to prison terms of six years and 2,600 lashes, and four others to five years and 2,400 lashes. The floggings were to be carried out in 50 sessions.

Some 121 people were beheaded in 2000, and at least 75 people were beheaded by mid-November last year, according to unofficial figures.

Meanwhile, the much-feared mutaween police , known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, continue to roam the streets enforcing dress codes and sex segregation, and ensuring that prayers are performed on time.

In March this year, in a rare criticism of the mutaween, the Saudi media accused them of hindering attempts to save 15 girls who died in a fire in a Mecca school by trying to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the head scarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam. There are also notorious restrictions on the rights of women, which extend from unequal legal status with men in marriage, divorce, and child custody to a ban on driving.

But it is the suggestion that Saudi Arabia is a sponsor of terrorism that makes the Rand briefing so explosive. US investigators have uncovered masses of evidence that Saudi leaders and financial institutions have links with fundamentalist institutions of the sort that terrorists use.

The US Treasury has frozen the assets of 150 Saudi individuals, companies and charities suspected of financing terrorism. It has named Blessed Relief, a Saudi "charity" as a front organisation providing funds to Osama bin Laden. "Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to Bin Laden through Blessed Relief," the agency said.

One rich Saudi patriarch under suspicion is Khaled bin Mahfouz, owner of the National Commercial Bank, banker to the Saudi royal family, and married to one of Bin Laden's sisters.

Through close family connections Mahfouz became president of Blessed Relief, in which Salem bin Laden, a brother of Osama, worked. An audit by the Saudi government reportedly discovered that the bank had transferred at least $3m to charitable organisations believed to be fronts for Bin Laden's terror network. Bin Mahfouz was placed under house arrest in Taif, Saudi Arabia, where he still is.

US and British authorities have also investigated Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi, another billionaire Saudi, for possible financial ties to Bin Laden. Al-Amoudi, who oversees a vast network of companies involved in construction, mining, banking and oil, has also denied any involvement with Bin Laden. His Washington lawyers said he "was unalterably opposed to terrorism and had no knowledge of any money transfers by Saudi businesses to Bin Laden".

Both Al-Amoudi and Bin Mahfouz have been left untouched by the US Treasury Department. The case against them, let alone against the government itself, is unproven. But the post-September 11 spotlight on Saudi Arabia has brought into sharp focus the fundamental question facing the country's rulers.

Nigel Dudley, a London-based Middle East analyst, says: "The battle for the soul of Saudi Arabia is over whether it remains internally focused and conservative or whether it opens up economically and integrates with the advanced world."

The driving force, he says, is money. With 38 % of Saudi Arabia's population having been born after the Gulf War its government needs $175bn over the next 20 years for basic infrastructure, including electricity and water supplies.

Crown Prince Abdullah, although elderly, is said to have been persuaded of the need to attract both foreign investment and Saudi money back into the economy.

"Foreign financing means that to some extent you lose control," says Dudley. "The modernizers accept this but the traditionalists don't. There are a number of Saudis, especially younger ones, who are economically progressive. If they win and the country goes for economic development then social change will inevitably follow. Already Saudi Arabia has moved from having the most restrictive foreign investment laws to the most liberal.

"You have the conservative Bedouin in the east, the more liberal internationally minded traders in Jeddah in the west and those ethnically linked to Jordan in the north. The one thing you need to destroy a regime is something on which everyone can focus. I cannot see any focal point because those who oppose the Saudi rulers all want different things."

The possibility that the Saudis will join the America's rogues gallery seems far-fetched.

But the Rand Corporation briefing has lifted a taboo. A bad week for the House of Saud.




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