Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz
Naef Bin Abdul Aziz
Salman Bin Abdul Aziz
Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz
Prince still charming, but..., The Baltimore Sun - Mark Mathews, November 24, 1995
- WASHINGTON -- It wasn't too long ago that Saudi Arabia's ambassador could walk into the Oval Office without an appointment, arrange to have highly sensitive American intelligence reports brought to his home or kick in millions of dollars to finance covert action that the United States wanted to undertake abroad. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz still has enviable access at the White House.
- But he is no longer the swashbuckling presence who somehow infused diplomacy, war planning and even the Middle East peace process with a sense of adventure. In fact, he's not much of a presence at all. Somewhat bored, periodically sidelined by back problems and increasingly preoccupied with his family, Prince Bandar spends noticeably less time in Washington.
- He now is in Saudi Arabia a third of each year, and each year there are lengthy vacations spent at his retreat in Aspen, Colo. His diminished profile reflects a subtle change in U.S.-Saudi ties, as well as a less chummy relationship between Prince Bandar and the White House now that it is run by Democrats instead of Republicans.
- The mutual dependence of the two nations remains as strong: Western economies need Persian Gulf oil, and the gulf states need U.S. protection. But after 1 1/2 decades of steady improvement, cooperation between the two countries may have peaked.
- The terrorist bombing last week of a U.S. training center for the Saudi Arabian National Guard showed how the kingdom's heavy reliance on the United States for protection can cause its rulers grief. The presence of thousands of Americans there draws hostility not just from extremists but from members of the Saudi middle class. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has disappointed U.S. officials who hoped it would play a more active role in the Arab-Israeli peace process.
- Prince Bandar first appeared on the Washington scene in the late 1970s. And he quickly broke the mold of gulf diplomats, figures who until then operated only behind the scenes. With his trim goatee, well-cut double-breasted suits and his persuasive, idiomatic English and talent as an amateur stand-up comic, Prince Bandar seemed to be the perfect bridge between the reclusive desert kingdom and the anything-goes character of the United States. But what looked like spontaneity was not. He plunged into studies at the U.S. Air War College and a specially tailored master's program in international relations at the Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.
- "Underneath the fly-boy bon vivant is a very astute political mind," says David E. Long, a retired Foreign Service officer and gulf expert who designed the master's program for Prince Bandar. He acquired his savvy in childhood. Son of a concubine, the prince spent his early years as something of an outsider in the royal household. He once said that his distant relationship with his father, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, now the kingdom's defense minister, "taught me to have patience and to calculate." Even before being appointed ambassador in 1983, Prince Bandar sized up the Reagan administration's foreign policy in the Middle East: He energetically supported the unsuccessful bid to end Lebanon's civil war, joining American envoys' shuttle missions and sending a blizzard of idea-filled memos dubbed Bandar-grams. "He had extraordinary energy, enthusiasm and a sense of the practical which, frankly, for Arab princes was quite exceptional," says Geoffrey Kemp, a Reagan aide who is now with the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom. When the United States began to favor Iraq in its war against Iran, Prince Bandar allowed U.S. officials to use his home as the venue for passing to Iraq's ambassador intelligence on Iranian troop movements.
- And when Congress moved to cut off U.S. funding for the anti-Communist contra rebels fighting to topple the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, Prince Bandar persuaded his government to come through with millions of dollars in covert aid. For all his Western extroversion, however, Prince Bandar remained a fiercely loyal servant of his uncle, King Fahd, who has ruled Saudi Arabia since 1982. The high point of Prince Bandar's Washington career came when George Bush, a Texas oil man with long-standing Saudi ties, entered the White House, and the prince developed a relationship of macho camaraderie with top officials. Gen. Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, writes that his familiarity with the prince "approached the outrageous and the profane." When Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Prince Bandar played a key role in securing a U.S. commitment to defend Saudi Arabia and in winning King Fahd's consent to station hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in the kingdom. He also became a major salesman in the United States during the build-up to the war to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
- After the war, he quietly helped then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III restart the Arab-Israeli peace process, working behind the scenes during the Madrid, Spain, peace conference in late 1991 and using his embassy to reach out to the American Jewish community. Prince Bandar's ties to the Bush White House made Democrats wary, and after the 1992 election the incoming Clinton administration sought to put the relationship on a more formal footing. The White House team soon learned, however, that if it wanted help from King Fahd, it had to work with Prince Bandar. "Every administration comes in determined to make Bandar do the normal thing and come in the C Street entrance," says Chas W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, referring to the State Department entrance commonly used by diplomats. "All have failed." Saudi philanthropy didn't hurt, either. The kingdom provided $ 20 million to the University of Arkansas for a Middle East studies program, a contribution that Bill Clinton had sought while he was governor.
- And Saudi Arabia soon agreed to buy $ 6 billion worth of American commercial aircraft. The past three years, however, have exposed the limits of U.S.-Saudi ties. While united in protecting the Persian Gulf and its oil supplies, the two countries have been at odds over how to undermine Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Cooperation on combating terrorism has been uneven, and the two countries remain deeply at odds on democracy and human rights.
Field for Saudi succession is open, AFP, December 4, 1995
- DUBAI, Dec 4 (AFP) - The crown prince of Saudi Arabia has until now automatically succeeded the king on his death or ouster, but a law adopted in 1992 by the now ailing King Fahd has opened up the field for succession.
- Under the so-called basic law, "the most able" among the sons or grandsons of the late king Abdel Aziz ibn Saud, the kingdom's founder, will be named king although there are no explicit steps for choosing him.
- The crown prince, currently King Fahd's half-brother Abdallah, would serve as temporary monarch until a new king is appointed and therefore does not succeed automatically the king under the new law.
- Until now, the crown prince has become king, following the order of Abdel Aziz's eldest born son. According to custom, the king proposed the name of the crown prince to the royal family, who consented and sought the approval of the religious clerics. Abdel Aziz had 45 recorded sons, including 25 who are still living.
- Upon his death, his son and crown prince Saud succeeded him in 1953. Nine years leader, crown prince Faisal succeeded his brother who was ousted for corruption and poor management. When King Faisal was assassinated in 1975, Crown Prince Khaled succeeded him to be replaced on his death in 1982 by the Crown Prince Fahd. Crown Prince Abdallah had been the heir apparent until the basic law was adopted.
- Among the potential rivals are his six half-brothers of the powerful Sudairi clan, named after Abdel Aziz's favorite wife, diplomats said.
- These include Prince Sultan, the defense minister, Prince Nayef, interior minister, and Salman, governor of Riyadh.
- Among Abdel Aziz's prominent grandsons are the children of King Fahd, including Mohammad, but especially the children of the late King Faisal, which include Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, who is the son of the defense minister.
- It is up to the Al-Saud family to decide who will be the new king. It must then inform the religious establishment and obtain its approval. The new monarch must then receive the allegiance of the country's main tribes.
- A sewer war is erupting in one of Aspen's ritziest enclaves.
- A Starwood homeowner has gone to court in an effort to prevent the expansion of a wastewater-treatment plant at the $ 26 million home of his neighbor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz.
- Karl Parrish wants the Pitkin County District Court to review the state's decision to approve the expansion of a wastewater treatment plant in the prince's hotel-size complex in Starwood. Parrish, who filed his lawsuit Sept. 21, is peeved because much of the wastewater must be trucked from the prince's regal estate, which includes a 55,000-square-foot house complete with 26 bathrooms and more than 100 cable outlets.
- ''There would be a lot of construction, and a lot of truck traffic; it would be a nuisance,'' said Parrish's attorney, Eugene F. Megyesy Jr. of Denver.
- In his petition to the state, the prince - who is Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States - asked for permission to expand his treatment facility to accommodate estimated maximum flows of 8,300 gallons per day.
- His current treatment plant carries a capacity of about 3,000 gallons.
- Parrish, a wealthy New York businessman and part-time Aspen resident who lives adjacent to the prince's complex in a 15,000-square-foot home, has asked the court in Aspen to review the conditional approval by the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission and a division of the state's Department of Public Health and Environment.
- He has challenged the expansion and the design of the proposed system, which he maintains will not work in Colorado's high country because it relies heavily on evaporation and transpiration rather than other septic systems typically used in the mountains.
Affluent homeowners mired in effluent battle royal, Rocky Mountain - Michael Romano, October 5, 1995
He also claims it does not meet the requirements of state law because it is not large enough to meet expected maximum flows. The continued trucking of wastewater, Parrish's lawsuit contends, will present the potential for ''contaminating groundwater and / or surface water, both in violation of state law.''