Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude

By Robert B. Baer

Book Overview

"Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state--a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can't get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?"

In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA's efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government's cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America' s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism.

For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a "harmony of interests." America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom' s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa'ud family. But the rot at the core of our "friendship" with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens.

In Sleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa'ud's culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa'ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups--an end game just waiting to play out.

Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa'ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand--and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa'ud's money--we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400052688
• ISBN13: 9781400052684
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

the real 'Axis of Evil'

Robert Baer, a twenty year veteran case officer of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations (the people who have their feet on the ground in foreign nations around the world) who most recently served as vice-director of operations, Iraq, shatters the consensual naiveté of Western populace with his compelling and disturbing work, "SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude." In a work that spans nearly the entirety of his two-decade experiences and takes us through the dark and disgustingly murky intrigues and backroom graft that have made regime of Saudi Arabia virtually inseparable from the political process of modern America. Let's get something straight; unlike most of his contemporaries Robert Baer makes no socio-political argument within his text. The truth, as he sees it, is his only cause. Regardless of your political persuasion and the vagaries of your opinions on the social contract of the individual vis-a-vis the state "Sleeping with the Devil" will make you take a second look at the party you favored with your vote. In fact, Baer refers to the last half century of corruption within Washington to be "the greatest bi-partisan effort in the history of Washington politics". A period which began with a briefcase containing one million dollars accidentally "forgotten" by Khashoggi, a Saudi billionaire (who is still active in Washington today), in the Nixon White house and has continued unabated and in ever growing depth to the modern day. The road to corruption is paved in black gold it seems. Baer leads us down this miasmic path and walks us through backroom deals of Washington's K Street lobbyists, intrigues in sub-Saharan Africa, the 4.6 billion dollar palace of the most corrupt Saudi Prince and pool-side meetings with Russian Mafiya arms-traffickers. How does it all come together? Baer's brutal truth should make every American reader shudder; it is our nation's political elite who have blindly subsidized the very terrorism of which we have recently become victims. Through our alliance with the House of Saud (the Saudi Royal Family) we have seen billions of petrodollars go to regime who has returned that money to us via graft and commissions to buy all the influence it needs. The rest of the western money is largely spent in two fashions. The lion's share goes to funding their own decadent excess. A Baer gives us insight into a lifestyle of depravity which includes almost ten-thousand princes, twice again as many palaces, the thousands of Filipino and Moroccan women who serve at their pleasure, and a lifestyle in which there is open competition for the greatest amount of excess. The Saud royal lifestyle has not gone unnoticed by the people of Saudi Arabia and it brings us to the far more disturbing second use of western oil-money. The Saudi's own people have suffered the most at their hands; they have no rights and referred to as property on their own passports. Religious fundamentalists

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Welcome to the Magic Kingdom: Saudi Arabia.Former Middle East CIA operative Robert Baer, author of the critically acclaimed memoir 'See No Evil' follows up that work with a brilliant expose at the world's best funded breeding ground for terrorists, our allies (?) The Saudis. " We had hardwired in our brains that the stereotype of young , oil-rich brats screaming at their Filipino servants to take the wrappers off their candy . . .Sept 11 undid that stereotype for me "By 'we' he means CIA and other official Mid-East think tanks. If they were so far off, what did the average American know? The Saudis were our buddies, they had never gone to war against Israel and they probably celebrated the 4th of July with fireworks. . .An image that Baer contends was sold to the American people, because half of Washington was bribed and the other had their heads buried in the sand.-----------------------------------------------------------------A few items:1. Osama, as we all know is a Suadi. In fact, to many opposing the royal family (about every Saudi that's not a millionare) he's a national hero. Fifteen of the 9/11 hijakers were Saudi nationals. Ditto for aprox 75% of the al Qaeda prisoners subsequently held at Guantanamo "the worst of the worst." 2. Back in 1996 when Sudan had Osama in custody, The Saudi government declined the offer to have him extradited back home. Reason? He was too popular, let him go. . 3. Saudi citizens blew up the National Guard facility in '95 and the Khobar barracks in '96. Two Saudis and one Egyptian hijacked a plane to Baghdad in 2000. Saudis were almost certainly behind the atttack on the USS Cole as well as hundreds of other terrorists activities prior to 9/11 from Kenya to Chechnya-- and yet, unlike say, an Argentinian or a Frenchman, Saudis did not have to bother to appear at a screening at an American embassy to get to the US. A system called 'Visa Express' took care of it for a fee. In other words, any Saudi travel agent stood in place of the American government. Baer tells us that under this system, Osama himself could have gotten through.4.The Saudi government has not allowed the FBI or any US agency to question the relatives or associates of the 9/11 hijackers despite repeated requests.5. The Royal Family is demented. Made up of five extended 'dysfunctional' families presently run by King Fahd's favorite wife, Jawara and her son Abd-al Aziz, or Azuzi ( 'deary' as Mommy calls him ) they spend more money than France on their 'army' --a praetorian palace guard. 6. There is no rule of law, it's a Mafia chieftain's paradise run by deary. Leaders of the world in public beheadings (Riyadh plaza is commonly known as Chop-Chop square) The Royals hedge their bets by supporting universities which are, in fact, ultra fundamentalist Anti American hate camps.7. Further hedging are shows of piety put on by their muttawa, the public-decency police, which performs the useful function of beating women on the legs and arms if their robe

Compelling Reading!

Given his stature as a former CIA operative working extensively within the Middle East, author Robert Baer uses his unique blend of personal insight and extensive research to illustrate just how dangerous a road we Americans have embarked on by hitching our wagon to the star hovering over the House of Saud. From the opening nightmare scenario of a fragile and exposed oil delivery network that is dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attack to the final considerations of just how intertwined and interminably convoluted the geo-politics among the American government, the international oil concerns, the Saudi royal family, and the radical Islamic fundamentalists such as the Muslim Brotherhood seems to be, this is a book that all of us can profit by reading. What is most rotten within the welter of factors is the Saudi royal family itself, so large, so cumbersome, and so bedeviled by greed and corruption that it is crumbling from within. The fact of this wracking corruption and approaching demise of the House of Saud may well be catastrophic, according to Baer, yet people within the American government are so compromised by the overwhelming flood of money via bribes, payoff, and subsidies that no one dare speak an angry or critical word against the Saudis, even as the royal family provides hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorist front organizations and as it actively supports and promotes the radical anti-western Wahabbi sect within the Kingdom itself. It is a kingdom built on what is proving to be a literal time bomb built of contradictory impulses and interests.Given the fact that Saudi oil provides the lynchpin of world wide petroleum prices, instability within the regime is extremely threatening to economic stability of world markets, and the fall of the House of Saud could well be catastrophic for the west, which depends on relatively cheap and easily available oil for its economy and its very basis of life. Yet the Saudi regime tolerates thievery, ignores prostitution, and both directly and indirectly promotes both radical Muslim fundamentalism and terrorism. For Baer, it is no accident that the bulk of the hijackers involved in the 911 tragedy were dissident Saudis. Nor is it an accident that both the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Quaida are so well financed, since the royal family has been sponsoring their activities for more than a decade. Given this, the stage is set, argues the author, for a potentially catastrophic event, one that might require American military intervention and result in the triggering of an economic meltdown the likes of which have not been seen since the great Depression. Amazingly, though, the American government continues to maintain the idea that the situation is stable, that the Saudis are our friends and allies, and that the Kingdom is moving down the road toward a more egalitarian form of self-government. Unless we adopt a more enlightened policy and work toward the end of protecting American interests for the l

Compelling Condemnation of Crude Corruption

Edit of 22 Dec to add links. Book is available in paperback. Former spy Robert Baer, author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, makes the leap from intelligence reformist to national mentor with his new book, "SLEEPING WITH THE DEVIL: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude." Indeed, his last sentence has the White House laying in the moonlight with its legs spread, lustfully eyeing the Saudi wallet on the bureau. This is an extraordinary compelling work, not least because it provides detailed and documented discovery not previously available, of how the U.S. government has over the course of several administrations made a deliberate decision to a) not spy on the Arab countries, b) not collect and read open sources in Arabic, c) not attempt to understand the sub-state actors such as the Muslim brotherhood, despite a long history in which these groups commit suicide to achieve their objectives, including the murder of several heads of state. Baer's most brutal points should make every American shudder: it is America itself that is subsidizing terrorism, as well as the corruption of the Saudi royal family. Baer's documented estimate is that $1 dollar from every barrel of petroleum is spent on Saudi royal family sexual misbehavior, and $1.50 of every barrel of petroleum bought by America ultimately ends up funding extremist schools, foundations, and terrorist groups. Baer has "gone back in time" to document how all of this terrorism began in the 1970's, but despite its terrible local consequences (including the assassination of heads of state), was ignored by Washington as "a local problem." In one lovely real-life account, Baer, then duty officer at CIA while Iraq poised to invade Kuwait, found that the $35 billion per year system was useless, impotent. It came down to his calling the chief of station in Kuwait, who called a border guard, who lifted his binoculars and described the Iraqi tanks stopped for lunch. Baer says: "As I waited, I wondered: Is this what all that money for intelligence is buying us? A pair of binoculars?" Baer joins with Robert Kaplan in concluding that democracy in Arabia would be an out and out disaster. The decades of Islamic extremism and anti-Americanism run amok cannot be resolved by democratic elections because the very people who most hate America will be elected. Baer observes that "strongman tactics" such as used by Saddam Hussein and by the Syrian leadership--including a "scorched earth" campaign against the internal terrorist groups--are a more stable "rule of law". One can conclude that the US has made a mistake in destabilizing Iraq, and that the imposition of a democratic solution in Iraq will turn out to be vastly more difficult, and vastly more expensive, than the naive neo-conservatives understood when they set forth without bothering to establish who was in the majority within the population being "liberated." Saudi Arabia has bought and paid for a

More pieces to the puzzle

I have, like most Americans, have wondered how we got into the 9/11 mess to start with. This book adds more pieces to the puzzle by showing the relationship America has had with Saudi Arabia and, really the rest of the Middle East, since oil was discovered there. The whole thing reminds me of several boys who can't resist eating a chocolate cake before dinner. When confronted as to who ate all the cake, the boys, all covered in chocolate point firmly at each other.The US government, with an ever growing demand for oil to fuel our plastic SUV world turned a blind eye to the serious political situation of our main suppier, Saudi Arabia, a country ruled by the most dysfunctional family ever. The royal family must contend with not only family members who spend them into oblivion, but also with various terrorist groups who must be appeased with new mosques, weapons, money, and a safe haven.Baer goes into as much detail as he can to show how the mechanism has worked over the years. Some sections are blacked out as the CIA considers the information classified. Also, since Baer was not a high level agent, there are some connections that can be reasonably made, but not proven. You will need to see how this unfolds in the coming years to get the complete story.Bottom line: Read this book to fill in the background on the current Middle East situation.