How martyrs are made
Baghdad Residents Don't Want U.S. Troops to Go Soon, Poll Says
Iraqis: Ousting Saddam worth hardships
Why is the State Department so cozy with the Saudis? - shocking exposure

How martyrs are made- Toronto's Globe & Mail


By MARGARET WENTE
Saturday, October 11, 2003

Early last Saturday morning, 27-year-old Hanadi Jaradat waved goodbye to her parents and hurried off down the street. She had business to do -- something about a land transaction. An apprentice lawyer, she was only a few days away from finishing her internship and opening her own office. "She was happy," her father later said.

But Ms. Jaradat's true business lay elsewhere. She changed from her traditional Arab robe and scarf into blue jeans, and put her hair up into a ponytail. She slipped across a lightly guarded part of the security fence that now separates large parts of the West Bank from Israel, and made her way to a busy Arab-Israeli restaurant in Haifa called Maxim. It was full of families on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. Somehow, she dodged the security check that all restaurants in Israel have these days. Inside, she detonated her body-belt full of explosives. She blew up 19 people, including herself and three generations of two different Israeli families, and injured dozens more. Five of the dead were Israeli-Arab Christians, and three were Jewish children.

The Maxim was co-owned by an Arab family and a Jewish family, and was almost 40 years old. It served both Arab and Jewish customers, and was a symbol of peaceful co-existence. No one knows if that irony occurred to Hanadi Jaradat, who is now the newest role model for Palestinian girls -- the most-successful female suicide bomber ever.

"Everyone was happy and proud of her," said a neighbour in Jenin, the explosive refugee camp where she lived. "We are receiving congratulations from people," said her 15-year-old brother, Thaher. "Why should we cry? It is like her wedding today, the happiest day for her."

The usual explanation for what motivates people like Ms. Jaradat is despair and revenge. There was plenty of that. A few months ago, Israeli soldiers killed her older brother and a male cousin. The family says they have no idea why, but the Israelis say they were Islamic Jihad terrorists. It was Islamic Jihad that claimed credit for Ms. Jaradat's murder mission.

I've heard this story before. I heard it from another family last January, who told me how their bright and beautiful 17-year-old daughter left home one day to detonate herself in a Jewish supermarket. I also learned then that young Palestinians are urged by a relentless stream of propaganda to choose violent death. This poison is manufactured not by Islamic Jihad or Hamas, but by the Palestinian Authority itself. It includes TV news shows and newspaper articles that glorify murderers (interviews with proud mothers of the dead are a standard feature), and sermons from extremist imams. It also includes a unique invention of Palestinian culture -- music videos celebrating suicide, starring attractive boys and girls in Western fashions and set to catchy music. These music videos have two themes. One is the wickedness and depravity of the Israelis. The other is the beauty of Shahada -- dying for Allah -- which is depicted as the supreme act of patriotism.

In these videos, Israelis are depicted as monsters -- cruel, sadistic people who murder mothers, children, and helpless old men in cold blood. One that ran on TV all summer (after the PA had agreed to engage in the "peace process") shows a mother who is targeted and murdered by soldiers. Her daughter mourns her death and sings sadly over her grave. In another, shot in a similarly gauzy, impressionistic style, soldiers shoot down Palestinian schoolchildren at a checkpoint in successive waves, until they're all dead. The last scene shows a graveyard, where the ghostly children rise again, presumably to ascend to the sweet afterlife. In another, a handsome young man sees his sweetheart shot dead. She ascends to Heaven, where she appears robed in white among the other maidens of Paradise. Then he becomes a martyr, too, and is reunited with her in Paradise, where they once again embrace.

Other music videos show children riding off on their bicycles to throw stones at enemy soldiers and falling happily to their death. "Don't cry for me," they write in notes left for their parents. In one, a mother mourns her fallen son and then hands a gun to the younger one (who looks to be about 12). You can see this infinitely depressing material for yourself at the Web site of Palestinian Media Watch http://www.pmw.org.il, an independent Israeli organization which has done the world a service by documenting it.

These messages, which have been broadcast for years, are part of mainstream culture. And although most Palestinians are desperately poor, almost every family has a TV. The messages run on official Palestinian Authority TV. (Since the summer, the amount of airtime has been substantially reduced, but they're still shown every day.) They are produced with money supplied by the European Union and other nations that subsidize the PA.

What political goal are they designed to achieve? There isn't one. In fact, the only goal seems to be to get rid of the Jews. The message is that all of Israel, not just the territories, belongs to the Palestinians. Palestinian textbooks don't even show the state of Israel. The entire region is depicted as greater Palestine.

One music video that aired a couple of weeks ago did show a map of Israel. There was a heart over it, dripping blood. Then, arms with stones sprouted from the ground, and in the final shot, the Palestinian flag covered the whole map.

Many outsiders believe that these extreme beliefs are confined to a small minority of people. This is not true. Yasser Arafat periodically repeats his enthusiasm for child martyrs (but only in Arabic). Soccer teams and UN-sponsored summer camps are named after suicide bombers. Last May, the director of the Palestinian children's aid association gave a television interview in which she explained that part of education policy is to teach children to aspire to death for Allah. "The concept of Shahada for him [the child] means belonging to the homeland, from a religious point of view. Sacrifice for his homeland. Achieving Shahada in order to reach Paradise and to meet his God. This is the best."

It has worked. One of the most-chilling television moments I have ever seen features two 11-year-old girls being interviewed on a news set around a year ago. They are talking about wanting to die, in the same way that girls here talk about wanting to be teachers, or doctors, or brides. "Do you think it is beautiful?" asks the adult male host. "Shahada is very, very beautiful," answers one of the girls. "Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be better than going to Paradise?"

"Every Palestinian child aged, say 12, says 'O Lord, I would like to become a Shahid,' " says the other girl.

The story of the Yom Kippur massacre was quickly overtaken by fresh news this week. Israel bombed an empty terrorist training camp in Syria in retaliation. Governments and newspapers around the world condemned Israel for it. People criticized George W. Bush for not being tough enough on Sharon. The latest Arafat government fell apart. Wise people opined once again that Israeli will never be able to achieve a political solution through military action.

This is true. It's also true that peace will never come until Palestinians renounce their death cult. So far, there's no sign of it.

mwente@globeandmail.ca

WASHINGTON -- More than two-thirds of Baghdad (search) residents would like to see U.S. troops stay longer than a few more months, but many of those Iraqis still have sharply mixed feelings about the troops, a poll says.



Baghdad Residents Don't Want U.S. Troops to Go Soon, Poll Says

AP Oct 13, 2003

The Gallup poll found that 71 percent of the capital city's residents felt U.S. troops should not leave in the next few months. Just 26 percent felt the troops should leave that soon.

However, a sizable minority felt there were circumstances in which attacks against those troops could be justified. Almost one in five, 19 percent, said attacks could be justified, and an additional 17 percent said they could be in some situations.

These mixed feelings from Baghdad residents come at a time when many in the United States are calling for the troops to be brought home soon.

When Gallup set out recently to poll residents of Baghdad on their feelings about the war, U.S. troops and the future of their country, the biggest surprise may have been public reaction to the questioners. The response rate was close to 97 percent, with some people following questioners around the streets begging for a chance to give their opinions, said Richard Burkholder, director of international polling for the organization.

Almost six in 10 in the poll, 58 percent, said that U.S. troops in Baghdad have behaved fairly well or very well, with one in 10 saying "very well." Twenty 20 percent said the troops have behaved fairly badly and 9 percent said very badly.


REBUILDING IN THE GULF
Iraqis: Ousting Saddam worth hardships
Posted: September 24, 2003

A new Gallup poll of Baghdad residents released today shows 62 percent think ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships they have personally endured since the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces.

The poll was the first scientific survey "assessing the postwar social and political climate of Baghdad's 6.4 million citizens," the Gallup Organization said in a statement. The group says it has committed to a multi-year task of reporting Iraqis' opinions.

The poll was conducted in homes across Baghdad. Galllup says 1,178 hour-long interviews were conducted.

Among the poll's findings:


*Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of Baghdad's citizens think ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships they have personally endured since the invasion.

*Nearly half (47 percent) thinks the country as a whole is currently worse off than it was before the invasion - 33 percent thinks it is already in better shape.

*Two-thirds (67 percent) believe Iraq will be in better condition five years from now than it was before the U.S. and British-led invasion; just 8 percent think it will be worse off.

*61 percent take a favorable view of the new Iraqi Governing Council, but see its policies and decisions "still mostly determined by the coalition's own authorities" (75 percent).

*Fully half (50 percent) think that the Coalition Provisional Authority is doing a better job now than was the case two months ago, while just 14 percent think it is doing a worse job.



DANGEROUS DIPLOMACY

Foggy Bottom's Friends
Why is the State Department so cozy with the Saudis?

BY JOEL MOWBRAY
Monday, October 13, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

(Wall street journal's editor's note ): This is adapted from , "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security," which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore.)

The date was April 24, 2002. Standing on the runway at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, the cadre of FBI, Secret Service and Customs agents had just been informed by law-enforcement officials that there was a "snag" with Crown Prince Abdullah's oversized entourage, which was arriving with the prince for a visit to George W. Bush's Western White House in Crawford, Texas. The flight manifest of the eight-plane delegation accompanying the Saudi would-be king had a problem. Three problems, to be exact: One person on the list was wanted by U.S. law enforcement authorities, and two others were on a terrorist watch list.

This had the potential to be what folks in Washington like to refer to as an "international incident." But the State Department was not about to let an "international incident" happen. Which is why this story has never been written--until now.

Upon hearing that there was someone who was wanted and two suspected terrorists in Abdullah's entourage, the FBI was ready to "storm the plane and pull those guys off," explains an informed source. But given the "international" component, State was informed of the FBI's intentions before any action could be taken. When word reached the Near Eastern Affairs bureau, its reaction was classic State Department: "What are we going to do about those poor people trapped on the plane?" To which at least one law-enforcement official on the ground responded, "Shoot them"--not exactly the answer State was looking for.

State, Secret Service and the FBI then began what bureaucrats refer to as an "interagency process." In other words, they started fighting. The FBI believed that felons, even Saudi felons, were to be arrested. State had other ideas. The Secret Service didn't really have any, other than to make sure that the three Saudis in question didn't get anywhere near the president or the vice president. State went to the mat in part because it was responsible for giving visas to the three in the first place. Since this was a government delegation--for which all applications are generally handled at one time--the names were probably not run through the normal watch lists before the visas were issued.

Details about what happened to the three men in the end are not entirely clear, and no one at State was willing to provide any facts about the incident. What is clear, though, is that the three didn't get anywhere near Crawford, but were also spared the "embarrassment" of arrest. And the House of Saud was spared an "international incident." That normally staid bureaucrats engaged in incredible acrobatics to bail out three guys who never should have been in the United States in the first place says a great deal about State's "special relationship" with the Saudis.

The State-Saudi alliance really does boil down to one thing: oil. At least that's what former secretary of state George Shultz seems to think: "They're an important country," he told me. "They have lots of oil. You do pay a lot of attention to that." Foggy Bottom agrees, and has been conditioned to do so by the 1970s oil shocks. When the infamous oil crisis of 1973 was ballooning, America was confident that its tight relationship with the Saudis would ensure an uninterrupted flow of cheap oil. This confidence was shattered--and world oil prices more than tripled--when the Saudis pursued their own economic interests. Saudi power inside Washington skyrocketed, with bureaucrats realizing that the House of Saud could not be taken for granted.

When the next oil crisis struck in 1979, prices shot up by more than 150%--but that was mostly driven by other countries: a substantial drop in Iraqi production and the sudden halt in Iranian production. Consumer panic, hoarding by nervous companies and individuals, and price gouging also contributed. Saudi Arabia did little to deepen the crisis--Saudi-controlled OPEC implemented two comparably modest price increases in 1979--and actually was seen by many as an invaluable ally. The balance of power managed to shift even further in the Saudi direction in following years--and State became ever more willing to accede to Saudi demands.




The bond between Washington and Riyadh may have deepened because of the oil crises, but it began decades earlier. FDR initiated the oil-for-protection relationship in 1945. President Eisenhower enshrined this arrangement as a strategic goal with his Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957, where he declared the protection of the Arab world--with particular focus on Saudi Arabia--to be a national-security priority.
While official policy was coziness with the House of Saud and Foggy Bottom was dominated by Arabists, there was some degree of tension, with many officials uncomfortable with the radical Wahhabi clerics who dominate everyday life in Saudi Arabia. In 1962, President Kennedy became increasingly concerned that the civil war in Yemen--in which Egypt backed the pan-Arab revolutionaries, and Saudi Arabia backed the royalists--posed a tremendous threat to the stability of the region. According to Hermann Eilts, a former ambassador to both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Kennedy pushed the House of Saud to engage "in internal economic and political reform and end all aid to the Yemeni royalists." Such pressure, though, turned out to be short-lived. Mr. Eilts, in a review of a book by a fellow Arabist, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Parker Hart, noted that promotion of reform--something Mr. Eilts himself found unpleasant and unhelpful--was abandoned entirely just a few years after it started.

Not until Lyndon Johnson's administration did then-secretary of state Dean Rusk wisely discontinue all such exhortations for reform, which by then had become almost rote and counterproductive. The Saudi leadership, Rusk believed, was best qualified to judge its own best interests.

But in the intervening years, the State Department's refusal to press for reform in Saudi Arabia turned into humiliating obsequiousness. Wahhabi Islam--the militant strain endorsed by the ruling family--is the only permitted religion in the kingdom. Christians are not allowed to worship on Saudi soil--and Jews are not even allowed in the country. Even Shiites, the majority population in the oil-rich Eastern Province, are not free to practice their denomination of Islam. Not only does State not push to change this flagrant violation of religious liberty, it behaves like the House of Saud when asked to do so. In 1997, the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah banned the offering of Catholic Mass on the premises--Protestant services had already been relegated to the British Consulate--because of the Saudi government's "displeasure."



Perhaps former assistant secretary (the lead position of a bureau) for Near Eastern Affairs Ned Walker said it best when he told the Washington Post, "Let's face it, we got a lot of money out of Saudi Arabia." Mr. Walker meant "we" as in the U.S. government, but he easily could have used it to refer to former Foggy Bottom officials who benefit financially after retirement. Some do it directly--and in public view, because of stringent reporting requirements--while most, including Mr. Walker, choose a less noticeable trough.
The gravy train dates back more than 25 years. In that time, it has created a circle of sympathizers and both direct and indirect lobbyists. But the most important--and most indirect--byproduct of lining the pockets of former State officials is that the Saudi royal family finds itself with passionate supporters inside Foggy Bottom. Which is precisely the intended effect. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, was quoted in the Washington Post: "If the reputation then 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." This is not to say that State officials make decisions with visions of dollars dancing in their heads, but at the very least, they probably take a more benign view of the royal family that "takes care of" their friends and former colleagues.

Among the first former Foggy Bottom officials to work directly for the House of Saud was former assistant secretary for congressional affairs Frederick Dutton, starting in 1975. According to a 1995 public filing (mandated for all paid foreign agents), Mr. Dutton earns some $200,000 a year. Providing mostly legal services, Mr. Dutton also flacks for the House of Saud and even lobbies on the royal family's behalf from time to time. One of his successors as head of congressional affairs, Linwood Holton, also went to work for the Saudis, starting in 1977. Rounding out the current team of retired State officials now directly employed by the Saudis is Peter Thomas Madigan, deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs in the first Bush administration.

Most of the Saudi money, though, goes indirectly to former State officials, most commonly by means of think tanks. This approach pays dividends in many ways: Foggy Bottom retirees get to have their cake--without the public realizing they're eating it--and the Saudis get to have "indirect" lobbyists, who promote the Saudi agenda under the cover of the think-tank label. Three organizations in particular are the primary beneficiaries of Saudi petrodollars, and all are populated with former State officials: the Meridian International Center, the Middle East Policy Council and the Middle East Institute.

After a long and "distinguished" career in the Foreign Service, Walter Cutler took the reins at the Meridian International Center. He had served as ambassador to Zaire and Tunisia, and twice in Saudi Arabia, and he stayed close to the Saudis after leaving State. Mr. Cutler told the Washington Post that the Saudis had been "very supportive of the center." Meridian is not alone. The Middle East Policy Council, which also receives significant Saudi funding, counts among its ranks former ambassadors--career Foreign Service members all--Charles Freeman, Frank Carlucci, and Hermann Eilts.

The Middle East Institute, officially on the Saudi payroll, receives some $200,000 of its annual $1.5 million budget from the Saudi government, and an unknown amount from Saudi individuals--often a meaningless distinction since most of the "individuals" with money to donate are members of the royal family, which constitutes the government. MEI's chairman is Wyche Fowler, who was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1996-2001, and its president is Ned Walker, who has served as the deputy chief of Mission in Riyadh and ambassador to Egypt.

Also at MEI: David Mack, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs; Richard Parker, former ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco; William Eagleton, former ambassador to Syria; Joseph C. Wilson, career foreign-service office and former deputy chief of mission in Baghdad; David Ransom, former ambassador to Bahrain and former deputy chief of Mission in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Syria; and Michael Sterner, former ambassador to the UAE and deputy assistant secretary of Near Eastern affairs.

For Meridian and MEI, at least, the House of Saud is not the only government entity lining up to fund them; Foggy Bottom is as well. Meridian does significant amounts of work with State, particularly in coordinating the International Visitors Program, which determines the individuals and groups invited--and not invited--to Washington for a chance to curry favor with State officials in person. MEI last year was slated to handle a conference of Iraqi dissidents--which was going to exclude the umbrella organization of pro-democracy groups, the Iraqi National Congress--in London. (The conference was cancelled after public outcry over MEI's role.) The grant for holding the conference was a staggering $5 million--more than three times MEI's annual budget.

The money, the favors, and State's affinity for Saudi elites over the decades have all helped contribute to the "special relationship" between State and the House of Saud. Notes Hudson Institute senior fellow Laurent Murawiec, "This is a relationship that has been cemented by 40 years of money, power, and political favors that goes much deeper than most people realize."





State has by no means been acting as a rogue department in dealing with Saudi Arabia, somehow coddling a nation that various White Houses considered hostile. But the lengths to which State goes to pamper the Saudis is something largely carried out of its own volition. There is no better example of this than Visa Express, the program that required all Saudis (including noncitizens) to turn in their visa applications at private Saudi travel agencies, which then sent them in bundles to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh or the Consulate in Jeddah. Visa Express was entirely of State's own making; it was conceived of and planned for while Bill Clinton was president, and was officially launched when President Bush was in the White House. And in the three months it was operational before the September 11 attacks, Visa Express let in three of the hijackers. But State did not shut it down. It took 10 months--and tremendous public pressure--before that happened.
From the moment in early 1993 that Mary Ryan became head of Consular Affairs, the division that oversees visa issuance, consulates and embassies, traditional requirements for visa applicants started getting pared down. Partial versions of Visa Express--though not by that name--were implemented in various countries in the mid- to late 1990s. But nowhere in the world had State launched a program whereby all residents, citizens and noncitizens alike, would be expected to submit visa applications to local, private travel agencies. It was a bold--and untested--plan. Yet State chose to try out this ambitious project in a nation that was a known hotbed of al Qaeda extremists.

To be fair, most Americans were not thinking about national security in late 2000 and early 2001, but State should have been. That's its job. Khobar Towers, the U.S. military dormitory, had been attacked by Hezbollah terrorists in 1996, killing 19 U.S. soldiers and wounding 372. And State had ample information that al Qaeda was fully operational inside Saudi Arabia. Yet State went ahead with plans to launch its first nationwide Visa Express program.

Although State vociferously defended Visa Express when it came under intense scrutiny--claiming that it was almost irrelevant that travel agencies had been deputized to collect visa applications (and more, as it turned out)--the truth is that Visa Express was an incredible threat to U.S. border security. State's official line was that travel agencies did no more than, say, FedEx would in collecting and passing on applications. This was simply not true.

According to internal State documents, travel agencies were expected to conduct preinterviews and ensure compliance. In other words, people with financial incentive to obtain visas for others were helping them fill out the forms. At first blush, this might not sound significant. But the average visa application is approved or refused in two to three minutes, meaning that there are key indicators a consular officer looks for in making his decisions. With a two-page form--one page of which has questions like "Are you a member of a terrorist organization? (Answering 'yes' will not necessarily trigger a refusal)"--a travel agent who handles dozens or hundreds of applications daily could easily figure out the red flags that are to be avoided. Armed with that information, it would be relatively easy to help an applicant beat the system. Visa Express also arranged it so that the overwhelming majority of Saudi applicants never came into contact with a U.S. citizen until stepping off the airplane onto American soil.

Apparently oblivious to the glaring security loopholes created by Visa Express, State proudly implemented the program in June 2001. In an e-mail that, in hindsight, is shocking for its gleeful tone, the deputy chief of mission in Riyadh, Thomas P. Furey, wrote to Mary Ryan about Visa Express being a "win-win-win-win"--with nary a mention of security concerns. In the e-mail, Mr. Furey notes that the program started with Saudi nationals--whom he amazingly refers to as "clearly approvable"--and then says that Visa Express had been expanded to include non-Saudi citizens one day earlier, on June 25, 2001. Visa Express also resulted in the overwhelming majority of Saudi applicants never coming into contact with visa applicants. "The number of people on the street and coming through the gates should only be fifteen percent of what it was last summer," Mr. Furey wrote.

The four wins Mr. Furey boasts about? From his e-mail:


The RSO [regional security officer, an American responsible for coordinating embassy security with local police] is happy, the guard force [Saudi residents who provide embassy and consulate security] is happy, the public loves the service (no more long lines and they can go to the travel agencies in the evening and not take time off from work), we love it (no more crowd control stress and reduced work for the FSNs [Foreign Service Nationals, Saudi residents]) and now this afternoon Chuck Brayshaw and I were at the Foreign Ministry and discovered the most amazing thing--the Saudi Government loves it!
It would be easier to defend State's creation of Visa Express if it had abandoned it on Sept. 12, 2001--or at least had done so after it realized that 15 of the hijackers were Saudis, including three who got in through the program. But in the month after September 11, out of 102 applicants whose forms were processed at the Jeddah consulate, only two were interviewed, and none were refused. When word leaked to the Washington Post that 15 of the 19 terrorists were Saudis, the embassy in Riyadh assured the Saudis that the U.S. had "not changed its procedures or policies in determining visa eligibility as a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
After my investigative story on Visa Express came out in mid-June 2002, State's initial change was cosmetic--literally. It dropped the name "Visa Express," but changed nothing about the program itself. Only after a month of a full-court press defending the suddenly nameless program did State shutter it. And even then, it was not because it had realized the error of its ways, but because it needed to offer some proof to Congress--set to vote near the end of July to strip State of the visa authority altogether--that it was indeed fit to handle such a vital function of U.S. border security. (The gambit worked--Congress sided with State.)

After the program was sacked, officials at State "openly worried that Saudi relations would worsen with the stricter requirements," according to an official there. If only they had expressed such "worry" about the wisdom of fast-tracking visas in a nation teeming with Islamic extremists.

Saudi Arabia, after all, is the home of Wahhabi Islam, and Wahhabi true believers' favorite catch phrase is "Death to America"--well, maybe the second favorite, after "Death to Israel." But look again at Mr. Furey's e-mail. He was clearly--frighteningly--blind to this reality. He referred to Saudi nationals as "clearly approvable." What he saw was a nation filled with people he believed belonged in the United States. Mr. Furey, in his e-mail, summed up his idealized vision of Saudi Arabia quite succinctly: "This place really is a wonderland."




State's obliviousness to reality--and security--had an even more incredible result: One of the 10 travel-agency companies contracted as a Visa Express vendor is a subsidiary of a suspected financier of terrorism. Fursan Travel & Tourism is owned by the Al-Rajhi Banking & Investment Corporation, or RBIC, which is one of the alleged financiers of al Qaeda listed in the "Golden Chain" documents seized in Bosnia in March 2002 (detailing the early supporters of al Qaeda back in the late 1980s, after the Soviets left Afghanistan). RBIC was also the primary bank for a number of charities raided in the United States after Sept. 11 for suspected ties to terrorist organizations. RBIC maintained accounts for the International Islamic Relief Organization, the Saudi Red Crescent Society, the Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. RBIC also was used to wire money to the Global Relief Foundation in Belgium, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization.
Records recovered by Spanish authorities show that several members of an al Qaeda affiliate there held accounts at RBIC, and the terror cell's chief financier told a business partner to use RBIC for their transactions in a fax recovered by Spanish police. And they were not the only al Qaeda terrorists who did business there. Abdulaziz Alomari, who helped Mohamed Atta crash American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center and was one of the three terrorists who received a visa through Visa Express, held an account at RBIC as well. Because his visa application form--which I obtained--does not indicate which travel agency he used, it is not known whether Alomari submitted his application to the agency owned by RBIC.

The founder and namesake of RBIC, Suleiman Abdul Aziz al-Rajhi, also started the SAAR Foundation, whose successor, Safa Trust (SAAR liquidated, but most of the same people and operations carried over to Safa) was at the center of the FBI's investigation into the extensive financial network of mostly Saudi-financed terrorist activities in the U.S. Operation Greenquest, as it was called, resulted in the raiding of 23 different Muslim organizations' offices, including Safa Trust and several charities that had bank accounts with RBIC. Although the raids occurred after September 11, the FBI had been investigating the elaborate financial arrangements--which regularly included SAAR--for years before the September 11 attacks.

Yet the State Department was so careless in choosing its Visa Express vendors that one owned by a suspected financier of terrorism became deputized to handle the collection and initial processing of U.S. visas.




When driving from Jeddah to Mecca, one encounters two road signs. The first tells Muslims that Mecca is straight ahead. The other tells non-Muslims to proceed no further and take the last available exit. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, where some Muslims can practice their religion freely, and no one else can. Shiite Muslims, the majority population of the oil-rich Eastern Province, are not only not free to practice their version of Islam, but they can be imprisoned and tortured for doing so. History helps explain some of this disdain and contempt for non-Wahhabists. Mohammed ibn Saud, ancestor to the current king, struck a pact with Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab some 250 years ago, whereby Wahhab's fundamentalist clerics and followers would support the Saud family, in exchange for the royal family's generous financial support of Wahhabism, Wahhab's militant version of Sunni Islam. Modern-day Wahhabists hate nothing more--aside from Christians, Jews, and other infidels--than Muslims practicing non-Wahhabist Islam.
In a June 28, 2000, letter to then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which was established by Congress in 1998 to advise Foggy Bottom, wrote:


In Saudi Arabia, the government brazenly denies religious freedom and vigorously enforces its prohibition against all forms of public religious expression other than that of Wahabi Muslims. Numerous Christians and Shi'a Muslims continue to be detained, imprisoned and deported. As the Department's 1999 Annual Report bluntly summarized: "Freedom of religion does not exist."
Even worshipping or praying in the dark of night can be a dangerous activity in Saudi Arabia, for Saudi police regularly storm into homes if they have reason to believe Christians are attempting to worship. Punishment can be severe. In 1998, a Christian Ethiopian got 1,000 lashes--carried out over several months--after merely being accused of distributing religious materials.
The worst punishments are reserved, though, for those who leave Islam. The punishment for people who commit apostasy--the "crime" of converting from Islam to another religion--is beheading. The House of Saud, however, promotes conversions of a different kind--bringing people into Islam, particularly those who work in embassies. Paid on a sliding scale, those who cajole others into converting to Islam are rewarded with bounties of up to $20,000. The highest payment is for converting an American diplomat; lower payments of a few hundred dollars are given for converting a foreign national from one of the non-Western embassies.

Based on overwhelming evidence of religious persecution and overall denial of any form of religious liberty, the Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended--for the fourth year in a row--that State designate Saudi Arabia as one of the handful of nations considered a "country of particular concern (CPC)." According to the commission, Saudi Arabia qualified under every criterion--and was actually seen as the worst offender in the world.

But for the fourth year in a row, State didn't comply. The CPC designation is despised by listed countries, because it automatically triggers sanctions, though those sanctions can be easily waived for reasons of U.S. national interest. Under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which both created the commission and mandated that State provide annual reports on international religious freedom, State has no leeway on whether or not to report a country that meets certain standards of religious persecution or denial of religious liberty.

There is a simple explanation for the Saudi exclusion: higher-ups at State put their collective foot down. According to an administration official familiar with the internal squabbling surrounding the Saudi-CPC question, "It was Armitage's decision. He made the call." That would be Richard Armitage, Foggy Bottom's No. 2 official, Secretary Colin Powell's right-hand man, and a trusted friend of the Saudis. In the Powell State Department, Mr. Armitage is the filter through which all major policy changes must go. And Mr. Armitage made it quite clear, according to another official, that Saudi Arabia was not to be given the CPC designation. A different administration official, however, says that although politics played a part, Mr. Armitage's role in the process was a bit more nuanced, meaning those writing the report were made to "know" early on how things operate and what wouldn't be tolerated. "Let's put it this way: the decision [on Saudi Arabia] was made a long time before it was actually 'made,' " explains the official. Either way, the House of Saud received another free pass.





Prince Bandar is often considered the most politically savvy of all the foreign ambassadors living in Washington. That may or may not be true--but he certainly is the best-protected. According to a Diplomatic Security official, Prince Bandar has a security detail that includes full-time participation of six highly trained and skilled DS officers. (DS officers are federal government employees charged with securing American diplomatic missions.) The DS officers and a contingent of private security officers guard him at his northern Virginia residence and travel with him to places like Florida or his ski resort in Aspen, Colo.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that State was reimbursed by the Saudi government for the use of the DS officers, though he refused to provide any specifics or evidence to that effect. Even if the salaries are reimbursed, though, six skilled DS agents are diverted from meaningful work, such as investigating visa fraud, in order to protect one person.

To show his appreciation for their presence, Prince Bandar provides the DS agents with catered meals every day, and with fresh-brewed coffee and gourmet pastries to start out the mornings. The agents enjoy these delicacies from the comfort of an extra house on the premises reserved for the security staff. When the DS agents join Prince Bandar in Aspen--where they have their own ski chalet--he typically buys them full ski outfits and other gifts.

But each agent who works for Bandar is cycled off-rotation very quickly: on average about 30 days after arriving. There doesn't seem to be any real reason for this, other than that Bandar might hope that the more agents he serves catered meals and buys fancy gifts for, the more friends he is likely to have. But with the number of "friends" he--and the rest of the Saudi royal family--already have at Foggy Bottom, one wonders why he would need more.

Mr. Mowbray is author of "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Threatens American Security" (Regnery, 2003), from which this article is adapted. You can buy it from the OpinionJournal bookstore.