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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.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
July 15, 2003 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781400053377
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781400053377
- File size: 453 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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May 12, 2003
In his blustering second book, former CIA officer Baer (See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism) targets Saudi Arabia's corrupt leadership and cozy relationship with Washington. He argues that because the Saudis pay vast sums to powerful Americans, often in the form of lucrative defense contracts, those U.S. agencies that could help stop terrorism are thwarted by their own side. For example, CIA superiors tell Baer that they have no operating directive to look into Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia in the early '90s. He is deeply disappointed in both the CIA and the State Department, which he says looked the other way throughout the '90s as widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo took root in Saudi Arabia. While Baer's attacks on Washington's "consent of silence" sometimes beg for clarification, his many working years in the Middle East and Central Asia give him great believability, and he makes a strong case that Saudi Arabia—with skyrocketing birth rates, growing unemployment, a falling per capita income and a corrupt ruling family draining the public coffers—is a powder keg waiting to explode. To prevent being overthrown, Saudi rulers channel money to violent fundamentalists, including al Qaida, via Islamic charities. Baer's radical solution is guaranteed to stir debate and make many skittish: "An invasion and a revolution might be the only things that can save the industrial West from a prolonged, wrenching depression." (June 24)Forecast:Bestselling author Baer has credibility, an appealingly tough style and perfect timing. This could sell big. An excerpt appeared in the May issue of the
Atlantic. -
August 1, 2003
Baer (See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism) here argues that to secure access to vital oil supplies, the United States has blindly helped the corrupt Saudi government at the cost of American finances, values, and other interests. In return, Saudis have helped finance terrorism and destabilize the region. The Saudi oil industry is extremely vulnerable to attack, asserts Baer, and the Saudi people are seething with discontent, making them ripe to follow religious fundamentalists. Baer goes on to say that American agencies are hindered in their security efforts by the big corporations, which have lucrative Saudi contracts and carry a lot of clout in Washington. In the end, Baer, a disgruntled veteran of CIA operations in the Middle East, feels that to protect the oil and to prevent the country from dissolving into chaos, which would be exploited by Islamic extremists, perhaps an American invasion will be necessary. Readers may also be interested in Doug Bandow's less alarmist Befriending Saudi Princes: A High Price for a Dubious Alliance and John Peterson's Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security. Suitable for all libraries.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, ILCopyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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