Inside the Kingdom
Page 48
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Far are the shades of Arabia,
Where the Princes ride at noon
’Mid the verduous vales and thickets
Under the ghost of the moon . . .
They haunt me—her lutes and her forests;
No beauty on earth I see
But shadowed with that dream recalls
Her loveliness to me;
Still cold eyes look coldly upon me,
Cold voices whisper and say—
“He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia,
They have stolen his wits away.”
—Walter de la Mare
I write this after an evening driving around the laid-back northern town of Ar’Ar on the Saudi border with Iraq, where I have been greeted with a mountain of rice and sheep and the warm Saudi welcome to which, over the years, I have grown accustomed. We are talking now of more than thirty years, and my debt to those who have helped me in that time is immeasurable—starting in 1978, when my beautiful and intrepid wife, Sandi, gamely agreed to pack up our home in London and brave the hazards of life in oil-boom Jeddah. The friends I made back then are friends to this day, chief among them being Khalid Ahmed Youssuf Zainal Alireza and his wife, Ghada Abduljawad, the staunchest of allies and battlers on behalf of an inquisitive khawajah whose curiosity has not always brought them popularity.
Looking through the acknowledgments to The Kingdom, published in 1981, I see that I thanked no less than 380 people, with Sandi at the head of the list. She and I have since separated, but my admiration and thanks to her remain boundless. This sequel has run up a comparable debt of gratitude to the family, friends, colleagues, and total strangers an author exploits ruthlessly as he seeks out secrets, contacts, perspective, correction, encouragement, reliable facts—along with the occasional cup of tea, of which there is no shortage in the Kingdom. The following have helped me in one or more of those varied departments, starting with those who agreed to be interviewed on the record.
Raja and Shadia Aalim; Dr. Abdul Khalik Abdul Haq; Kamal Ali Abdel Qader; Abdullah Abu Al-Samh; Rasheed Abou Al-Samh; Abdul Rahman Abuhaimid; Muna Abu Sulayman; Dr. Hamoud Abutalib; Ali Al-Ahmed; Ahmad Al-Ajaji; Yussuf Al-Ajaji; Madeha Al-Ajroush; Ahmad Ali Al-Qaisi; Dr. Abdul Muhsin Al-Akkass; Amb. James Akins; Bassim A. Alim; Sheikh Ahmad Yussuf Zainal Alireza; Hamida Alireza; Tareq Alireza; Al-Johara Al-Angary; Dr. Sami Angawi; Dr. Issa Al-Ansari; Mahdi Al-Asfour; Colonel Adel Al-Sheikh; Asya Al-Asheikh; Dr. Abdullah Al-Askar; Husayn Al-Sayed Ali Al-Awwami; Sheikh Salman Al-Awdah; Abdullah Al-Ayyaf; Ahmad Badeeb; Dr. Lamia Al-Baeshen; Dr. Abu Bakr Bagadr; Dr. Khalid Bahaziq; Douglas Baldwin and Judy Baldwin; Dr. Fawzia Al-Bakr; Alan Barton; Dr. Fawzia Ba Shattah; Dr. Khaled Batarfi; Shaid Al-Bayat; Saud Al-Behari; Ahmad Bin Baz; Abdullah Bin Laden; Sam Blatteis; Brad Bourland; Marian Bukhari; Ibrahim Al-Bulayhid; Dan P. Cagle; Brigadier Nick Cocking; Sir Sherard Cooper-Coles; Dr. Paul Thomas Cox; Amb. Walter Cutler and Didi Cutler; Amr Dabbagh; Yusuf Al-Dainy; Turki Al-Dakheel; Ali Domaini; Nancy Dut ton; Nicholas Egon; Dr. Horst Ertl; Sheikh Abdullah Faddaq; Abdul Aziz H. Fahad; Ahmad Al-Abbadi; Dr. Matrook Al-Faleh; Farida Farsi; Dr. Hatoon Al-Fassi; Samar Fattany; Sheikh Hadi Mattar Al-Fayfi; Maha Fitaihi; Dr. Walid Fitaihi; Amb. Wyche Fowler; Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr.; Dr. Ahmad Gabbani; Frank Gardner OBE; Sheikh Abdullah Al-Garni; Gus Gennrich; Tatian C. Gfoeller; Hayat Al-Ghamdi; Qenan Al-Ghamdi; Khalid Al-Ghannami; Dr. Enaam Ghazi; Richard Goffin; Dr. Ghazi Algosaibi; Armond Habiby; Dr. Ali Al-Haji; Turki Al-Hamad; Mohammed Salama Al-Harbi; Bandar Al-Hasan; Dr. Sulayman Al-Hatlan; Hassan Hatrash; Dr. Gene W. Heck; Dr. Thomas Hegghammer; Dr. Steffen Hertog; Abbas Hidawi; Al-Anoud Al-Houti; Khaled Al-Hubayshi; Sheikh Saleh Al-Humaid; Saleh Al-Humaidan; Lubna Hussain; Hassan Al-Husseini; Dr. Sadad Al-Husseini; Wajeeha Al-Huwaider; Fouad Ibrahim; Sheikh Khalid Al-Ibrahim; Nisreen Al-Idrisi; Soheir Al-Idrisi; Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu; Dr. Samira I. Islam; Majdi Islami; Somayya A. Jabarti; Mustafa Jalali; Matouq H. Jannah; Shireen Jawa; Mohammed Al-Jazary; Mohammed Jazzar; Salman Al-Jishi; Dr. Yahya M. Ibn Junaid and the staff of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh; Dr. Ali Al-Johani; Amb. Robert Jordan; Adel Al-Jubeir; Dr. Sadeeq Al-Jubran; Abdullah Saleh Jum’ah; Major Omar Al-Kahtani; Eng. Tariq Al-Kasabi; Sean Keeling; Hasna Al-Keneyeer; Dr. Khalil Al-Khalil; Seema Khan; Adnan Khashoggi; Jamal Khashoggi; Ghassan Al-khunaizi; Najeeb Al-khunaizi; Dr. Hind Al-Khutailah; Nabil Al-Khuwaiter; John S. Kincannon; Usamah Al-Kurdi; Zuhair Kutbi; Abdul-Rahman Al-Lahem; Dr. Haifa Jamal Al-Lail; Sheikh Hattim Lut fallah; Eyad Madani; Dr. Ghazzi Madani; Khaled Al-Maeena; Mohammed Mahfoodh; Abdullah Al-Majdouie; Hassan Farhan Al-Malki; Dr. Sadiq A. Malki; Dr. Aisha Al-Mana; Dr. Hamed Al-Mana; Haifa Al-Mansour; Ali Al-Marzouq; Isa Al-Marzouq; Suzanne Al-Mashhadi; Dr. Abdullah H. Masri; Samar Al-Migrin; Fouad Al-Moushaikhis; Dr. Ali Saad Al-Mosa; Dr. Abdul Elah Al-Moayyad; Dr. Hamza Al-Mozainy; Abdullah Al-Muallimi; Faisal Al-Muammar and the King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue; Ebtihal Mubarak; Ibrahim Muftar; Ibrahim Al-Mugaiteeb; Dr. Ibrahim A. Al-Muhanna; Dr. Majid Al-Munif; Dr. Wafa Al-Munif; Mustapha I. Mutabaqani; Hassan Al-Nakhali; Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr; Mansour Al-Nogaidan; Dr. Zakir Naik; Dr. Saleh Al-Namlah; Sheikh Abdullah Naseef; Professor Tim Niblock; Fouad Nihad; Dr. Abdullah S. Obaid; Ahmad Al-Omran (www.saudijeans.org); Abdul Wahhab Al-Oraid; Dr. Yousef Al-Othaimeen; Sir William Patey; Dr. Abdullah A. Al-Rabeah; Lawrence M. Randolph; Turki Faisal Al-Rasheed; Dr. Madawi Rasheed; Dr. Mohammed Rasheed; Owain Raw-Rees; Dr. Hamid Al-Rifaei; Cecile F. Roushdie; David H. Rundell; Ahmad Mustafa Sabri; Sheikh Hassan Al-Saffar; Dr. Abdul Aziz O. Sager; Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Said; Dr. Tawfiq Al-Saif; Adnan K. Salah; Sami Salman; General Norman Schwarzkopf; Dr. Fahd A. Al-Semmari and the King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives; Ian Seymour and the staff of MEES, the Middle East Economic Survey; Dr. Jameel Shami; Jafar M. Al-Shayeb; Husain Shobokshi; Dr. Mohammed S. Al-Showayer; Ahmad Al-Shogairy; Dr. Kamal Shukri; Dr. Naila Al-Sowayel; Jawaher Al-Sudairi; Turki K. Al-Sudairi; Mohammed Al-Suhaimi; Dr. Said Al-Surehi; Dr. Faleh Al-Sulaiman; Lama Suleyman; Dr. Fahd Al-Sultan; Zahir Tahlawi; Dr. Abass Tashkandi Leila Tayba; Mohammed Sayed Tayyib; Abdullah Thabit; Peter Theroux; Nada Al-Tobaishi; Dr. Abdullah Turki; Khalid Ali Al-Turki and Sally Al-Turki; General Mansour Al-Turki; Abdul-Aziz Al-Tuwayjri; Dr. Ahmad Al-Tuwayjri; Sheikh Abdul Muhsin Al-Ubaiqan; Graham Wisner; Dr. Adnan A. Al-Yafi; Dr. Mohammed Abdo Yamani; Faisal Yamani; Hani Yamani; Dr. Mai Yamani; Ali Al-Yami; Manea bin Saleh Al-Yami; Hassan Yassin; Sab
bah Yassin; Sheikh Sahal Yassin; Fawwaz Al-Zahrani; Colonel Talal Al-Zahrani; Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil; Mahdi Zawawi; Dr. Mohammed Al-Zulfa.
I am grateful to the following members of the royal family for their help: Abdul Aziz bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz; Abdul Aziz bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz; Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki; Ahmad bin Abdul Aziz; Amr Al-Faisal; Bandar bin Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman; Bandar bin Khaled Al-Faisal; Princess Fahda bint Saud bin Abdul Aziz; Faisal bin Abdul Aziz bin Faisal; Faisal bin Abdullah bin Mohammed; Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz; Dr. Faisal bin Mishaal bin Saud bin Abdul Aziz; Dr. Faisal bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz; Khaled Al-Faisal; Khaled bin Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz; Khaled bin Faisal bin Turki; Khaled bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz; Princess Latifa bint Musaid bin Abdul Aziz; Princess Loulua Al-Faisal; Princess Maha bint Mishari bin Abdul Muhsin; Mansour bin Miteb bin Abdul Aziz; Princess Mishael bint Faisal; Mishaal bin Mohammed bin Saud bin Abdul Aziz; Mohammed bin Khaled bin Abdullah Al-Faisal; Mohammed bin Mansour bin Miteb bin Abdul Aziz; Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz; Mugrin bin Abdul Aziz; Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz; Nawaf bin Nasr bin Abdul Aziz; Nayef bin Ahmad bin Abdul Aziz; Princess Sara bint Talal bin Abdul Aziz; Dr. Seif Al-Islam bin Saud bin Abdul Aziz; Sultan bin Fahd bin Abdullah; Sultan bin Salamn bin Abdul Aziz; Talal bin Abdul Aziz; Turki Al-Faisal; Dr. Turki bin Mohammed Saud Al-Kabeer; Dr. Turki bin Saud bin Mohammed; Turki bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz.
I should also like to thank: Dr. Abdul Rahman Abdul Waheed; Dr. Hassan Abedin; Fahd Abu Al-Nasr; Safa Al-Ahmad; Bandar Mohammed Al-Aiban; Neal Allan; Maja Ahmad Al-Anaizy; Reza Aslan; Alan Barton; Shajahan Chandrathil; Sir James Craig; Sir David Gore-Booth; Dr. Christopher Boucek; Yvonne Butcher; Jim Chapman; Dr. Jeevan S. Deol; Samia Al-Edrisi; Ishtiyaq Eftekhar; Ahmed Eitezaz; Matt Elliott; Jacqui Powell, and Kirsty MacArthur at Coutts; Zaki Farsi; Professor F. Gregory Gause III; Camilla Goslett; Mohammed Hanif; Roger Hardy; Roger Har rison; Dr. Waleed Hassanen; Mounir Hassanieh; Aldine Honey; Saud Al-Houti; Hamdan Al-Hunaiti; Christopher H. Johnson; Albert Beckford Jones; Colonel Brian Lees; Thomas Lippman; Leslie McLoughlin; Yasmin Malik; Reehab Massoud; Reema Memon; Ben Montanez; Ann Morris; William D. Morrison; Sir Alan Munro; Dr. Joshua Muravchik; Caryle Murphy; Khadija Nehfawy; Professor Tim Niblock; Dr. Farhan Nizami; David B. Ottaway; K. P. Pillai; Sultan Ghalib Al-Quaiti and his wife Sultana; Raid S. Qusti; Lawrence P. Randolph; Hugh Renfrew; Dr. Eugene Rogan; Shaheeda Sabir; Abdulbaset Al-Sahafi; Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Sal amah; Dr. Sami Salman; Najat Al-Shafie; Mansour Al-Shalhoub; Professor Avi Shlaim; Gary Sick and the refreshingly disputacious members of his Gulf 2000 web forum; Qazi Suhail; Kevin Sullivan; Kirsty Sutherland; Dr. Abdullah Al-Thayer; Jan and Anna Thesleff; Jim Thomas; Ismail Tutla; Siraj Wahab; Dr. Ayman Samir Wahba; Val Weir; David Wells and John Whitbeck; Sir John and Maureen, Lady Wilton; Suzan Zawawi; and Rustom Zere.
I arrived in Jeddah in February 2006 to find Lawrence Wright winding up the research on his classic, The Looming Tower. With true collegiality he shared with me his finest contacts, including the finest of them all, Faiza Saleh Ambah. Life beside the Red Sea would not have been the same without her—nor without Friday lunches in the acerbic and genial company of Ben Dyal, a “virtual” Saudi whom I have known for thirty-one years, since we first met in the Polyglot Language School in London. With his knowledge and love of Jane Austen, Ben is an eighteenth century person living in the twenty-first century—like a good number of folk in this country.
On the east coast, I have benefited immeasurably from the support and wisdom of my friends Nabil Al-Khuwaiter and Hassan Al-Husseini, the latter of whom has generously assumed the burden of checking the Arabic aspects of the manuscript. In Riyadh, Lubna Hussein has kept me laughing and given me more plugs that I deserve on her television show, Bridges.
My greatest debt of all in the Kingdom has been to Ms. Hala Al-Houti, the executive assistant of Khaled Alireza, whom Khaled generously seconded to translate, organize, and shepherd me through my three years of research. Hala has been a joyful and ever resourceful companion—living proof, like many a determined young woman I have met here, that the Saudi future resides with the sex that wears black. The “whites” are discovering, day by day, that they cannot match the dynamism of women like Hala.
Back home, my mentor has been my calm and shrewd young literary agent, Jonathan Pegg, who has brought me home to harbor with two superb publishing teams and editors in Kevin Doughten of Viking Penguin, New York, and Caroline Gascoigne of Hutchinson—the house that published The Kingdom, as chance would have it, and who are now part of the Random House group in London. My additional thanks to Carla Bolte, Emily Votruba, Veronica Windholz, and Wendy Wolf at Viking. I am grateful to my former colleagues from the Sunday Times Magazine Suzanne Hodgart and Ian Denning for their work on the research and design of the pictures sections, and to Mateen Munshi and L. Ramnarayan Iyer at Arab News in Jeddah, who heeded the generous call of their editor Khalid Al-Maeena to unlock their picture archive. My thanks to Camilla Panufnik for her Photoshop expertise.
My friend Kieran Baker of Political Bytes Productions has enlivened my recent months by bringing the talented Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady of LOKI Productions to the Kingdom to shoot two documentary films that have grown out of my work here. Thank you to Kieran and to his wife, Nancy, for their hospitality in Washington, D.C.—and to David Sherwood and James Brooker of Flamble for keeping my e-mails and Apples buzzing. My thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Ian Seymour for their hospitality in Cyprus while I was researching the archives of the Middle East Economic Survey—and thank you to MEES for access to their invaluable records.
Cut off from home, whatever “home” has come to mean, it has been consoling to buy up the latest special offer of Mobily minutes and to talk long-distance with my supportive friends Lili Agee; Nafeesa Chinoy; Joe Feinberg; Prentis Hancock; Neil Letson; Daniel St. George; Bob and Patricia Shaheen—and to Jane Rayne, my most inspiring and supportive friend of all. “Home” for me, I have come to realize in the last three years, is the joy of being with Jane.
My children, Sasha and Scarlett, provide me with home whenever I can get to stay with them in Oregon and California, while Bruno looks after what used to be my home in Pimlico. My thanks to Thomas and Stephane Walde for being the most accommodating tenants for which a landlord could hope.
Before I had a publisher for this book, I had my old friend and editor Bill Phillips, who encouraged me and corrected me as I stumbled through early drafts of the text and who showed me, as ever, how to locate the story in the meaning of what I was discovering. He and his wife, Gladys, had been warm and gracious hosts on my annual visits to Massachusetts. In England Diana Melly made cheering and insightful comments on the manuscript, while Claus von Bülow and Christophe Gollut have been cheering and insightful in general. My thanks too to Gregorio Kohon.
Hana Moazzeni did calm and crucial work in organizing the source notes and reference section of the book when I was rushing to finish the manuscript, and, as always at such junctures, my old friend and colleague Jacqueline Williams came to the rescue with countless details from her mind-boggling research bank of electronic, documentary, and personal contacts. For The Kingdom, Jackie and I went to the desert together. For this book, we found gems in Marbella.
My most unexpected and welcome support came from my brother, Graham. Our mother, Vida Lacey, fell ill last year, and it was Graham who cared for her unstintingly, with the help of his companion, Gabriella Merry. My brother made it possible for me to keep working on my book. More important, he made the final months of our mother’s life a relaxed and warm experience in her own home, surrounded by those she loved. Thanks to Graham, I was there when she died.
Robert Lacey
Ar’Ar, Saudi Arabia,
March 2009
INDEX
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations and maps; and n. indicates a footnote. Non-personal names beginning with Al-, the Arabic definite article, are listed here in the A’s under Al-. Surnames beginning with Al- are listed under the sta
rting letter of the name: e.g., Banna, Al-. For members of the House of Saud, see the dedicated index of names and topics beginning on page 401. Indexes by Cohen Carruth, Inc.
General Index
Abdul Aziz (later the Prince Abdul Aziz; yacht)
Abdullah, Ahmed
Abu Bakr
Abdul Wahhab, see Wahhab
Abuhaimid, Abdul Rahman
Aburish, Said K.
Afghanistan
civil war in
jihad in
Soviet withdrawal from
Taliban in
U.S.-Anglo invasion of
Africa
Safari Club and
AIDS
Air Force, Saudi
Air Force, U.S.
Al-Aghar (The Forehead)
Al-Awjam
Alaysha prison
Al-Asheikh family
Al-Azhar
Albani, Mohammed Nasser Al-Deen Al-
alcohol
Alfred the Great
Algeria
Algosaibi, Ghazi
Al-Haier prison
Al-Haraka Al-Wataniya (the National Movement)
Al-Hasa
Al-Hayat (Life)
Ali (cousin of Mohammed)
Al-Ikhwan, see Brothers; also Muslim Brotherhood
Al-Islahiyoon (the Reformists)
Al-Jazeera (newspaper)
Al-Jazeera (TV news network)
and CNN/Crown Prince Abdullah effect
Al-Johara Al-Ibrahim (the Jewel)
Al-Khafji
battle for (1991)
Al-Kharj
Al-Khobar
Allegiance Council, see Bayaa
Al-Muslimoon (The Muslims)
Al-Qaeda
at Guantánamo
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
bombings by
Al-Udeid Air Base
Al-Waqt (The Time)