'Sleeping with the Devil,' and the Saudis

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- Robert Baer is a retired CIA agent and the author of "See No Evil," a chronicle of the CIA and its loss of power and efficiency in the last few years.

According to Baer, who served for 21 years in the Middle East and other "hellholes" of the world, the Central Intelligence Agency is losing its ability to spy effectively due to political correctness and an increasing reliance on technology. More men on the ground, more ears and eyes, more direct contact with potential enemies is what Baer advocates. If that had been the case, he and others speculate the tragedy of September 11 might have been averted.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, Baer's theory is that Washington, and that goes for Republicans as well as Democrats, chooses not to see and hear what is going on in the kingdom.

It is a measure of the hypocrisy of politics that our "best friends and allies" in the Middle East are members of a repressive monarchy. We advocate democracy and women's rights, and yet support a regime that veils its women and deprives them of their most basic liberties. We've even demanded that our servicewomen, who are in Saudi Arabia to protect the kingdom at the cost of their lives, wear the veil and sit in the back of the car when driven off base. Why the double standard?

Because of our shortsighted policy on energy, because of our need for oil. America's reliance on Saudi oil is at the root of our problems. And we get that oil cheap. Like the diamond producers of South Africa, Saudi Arabia determines how much oil it chooses to produce, thereby controlling world prices. There is oil elsewhere in the world, including the U.S., but it is cheaper for us to get it from Saudi Arabia. The only time we felt the pinch was in 1973, when the Saudis felt pressured by other Arabs to apply an oil embargo.

We need their oil, and they need our arms and training to protect the Saudi royal family from their enemies within and without, but especially within. The Saudi royal family, all 30,000 of its royal princes, makes tons of money from the various contracts with U.S. companies. Whether it is the oil industry, arms or construction, billions of dollars are spent with large chunks finding their way into the pockets of private individuals, mostly members of the royal family. Bribes and baksheesh are nothing new in the Middle East; they keep the wheels of business going round. But when they are grabbed by a greedy few to the detriment of the rest of the nation, and when those greedy few are willing and able to bribe others in turn to be allowed to continue their luxurious and decadent lifestyle, and these others happen to be Muslim fundamentalists and radicals, well, that becomes quite a different story.

It is now a matter of public record that Saudi Arabia funds madrassas, religious schools, in countries ranging from Indonesia to Pakistan to Tajikistan. Those religious schools teach the Koran, but also a radical interpretation of the holy book, advocating hatred of all things Western, especially America and Israel. Saudi Arabia does that to get the fundamentalists off its own back -- give them money and keep them busy elsewhere.

Baer's book explains all that and more, albeit in a tone that makes me think he has a bone to pick. Why not? If he really tried to get the agency and the U.S. government to take a closer interest in Muslim fundamentalism, Koranic schools and the Saudi government, and was rebuffed at every turn, he has good reason to feel bitter. From the results of Sept. 11, we should, too. Unfortunately, people behind desks always think they know better and don't often listen to subalterns in the field:

"The years I spent serving my country as a CIA officer in places like Lebanon, the Sudan, northern Iraq, and the Muslim states of Central Asia taught me something else. They showed me the human carnage and suffering that always seem to follow when America puts its head in the sand or when dollar signs blind us to what's in front of its nose. Saudi Arabia is no abstraction. It's a powder keg waiting to explode. If that happens, it could carry me and you, our savings and security, with it."

Baer opens his narrative with a hypothetical attack on the Saudi oil wells and pipelines, demonstrating how easy it would be for a handful of determined terrorists to sabotage production. Young Saudi men have no outlet for their energy or their frustrations. Channeling that energy toward religion has backfired on their government, as the imams and mullahs are fanning the flames of discontent and advocating rebellion. It is a measure of the national discontent that 15 of the 19 hijackers of Sept. 11 were Saudi nationals. There have also been attacks inside the kingdom itself, claiming both American and Saudi lives. In a country as repressive as Saudi Arabia, it is amazing that people have been able to obtain arms and explosives to man the several attacks that have taken place in the last few years.

And yet, in the face of repression and corruption, in the face of a country that has lost control of its own citizens, we continue to proclaim our friendship and support for the Saudis. Again, it's because of the oil. As Baer puts it, we're addicted and in no position to challenge the pusher.

Baer proclaims, "At the corporate level, almost every Washington figure worth mentioning has served on the board of at least one company that did a deal with Saudi Arabia, and practically every deal with the Saudis grows opaque, lost in some desert sandstorm back near the well heads where all the money sprang from."

Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger, Lawrence Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, to name but a few, have all had ties with companies dealing with Saudi Arabia, such as Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, Boeing, Amerada Hess, Bechtel, Halliburton and many more. As Baer points out, "The Western world, Islam, oil and Saudi Arabia can never be wholly separated."

Baer deplores the fact that Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, has easier access to the White House than the director of the CIA. His uncle, King Fahd, has been incapacitated by a stroke since November 1995. Baer claims that the kingdom is now run by Fahd's favorite wife, Queen Jawhara.

Having lived in Saudi Arabia, I find it very hard to believe that Queen Jawhara is running the kingdom. Women in Saudi Arabia have a certain amount of influence on their husbands or sons, but it would surprise me very much if the princes allowed a woman much say in the affairs of state.

Saudi Arabia, according to Baer, is a mess, "and it's our ... mess." We made them what they are today by our dependence on their oil, and by our tacit collusion with their corruption and repression. Because of their anti-Communism, we tolerated their radical brand of Islam, only to find it today turned against us, much as we did with Saddam Hussein and the Iranian mullahs.

The solution, according to Baer, might lie in the invasion of the oil fields -- a once preposterous proposition that does not sound so far-fetched now that we are engaged in Iraq. A much less plausible scenario is his plan of using Syria as a model to impose the rule of law.

Without taking everything that Baer has to say at face value, his book nevertheless offers an interesting and chilling look at the politics of the Middle East, the situation in the Saudi kingdom and our relationship with the Saudi royals, especially in the light of recent developments.

(Sleeping with the Devil by Robert Baer, Crown Books, $24.95, 212 pages)