SULTAN'S WEAKNESSES
Even though liked by King Faisal, Sultan preferred to remain in the background, but not without satisfying two immense urges: spending money and having sex. If any normal Saudi citizen is asked to name Sultan's trademarks, the answer would almost invariably be his generosity and his sexual appetite. To foster his beneficent image and to ensure public support, Sultan "borrows" from the government at will and gives away billions of dollars a year to constituents in a variety of ways (See Northrop Scandal), including: compensating a Bedouin from Al-Uneiza tribe for his dead goat, giving away armament contracts to his cronies and strong supporters, flying an elderly man to Europe on his private plane to get emergency medical treatment, caring for the scores of women he married on the spur of the moment and, just as quickly, divorced. Sultan pays for all this and more with money from the coffers of the Government of Saudi Arabia.

Sultan is known to keep several harems throughout Saudi Arabia. His harems are perpetually supplied by women who come from all over the world. They are treated like queens, showered with gifts and a lifetime supply of cash. Because of Sultan's generosity, there have been almost no scandals related to his love nests. Just by joining a harem, a woman is provided with at least $100,000 in cash and an annual salary that she could only have dreamed of making. The women are pampered, treated well, and kept away from the eyes of the curious as well as from Sultan's personal friends. Because Sultan is pushing into his seventies, his sexual prowess, no matter how adequate, can never satisfy the number of women he keeps. The likelihood that any of these women sees Sultan more than once in six months is so dim that their stay at the harem is truly an extended paid, dream vacation. In these harems, a woman can flaunt her beauty anytime, but not her individuality. Sultan is known not to be patient of women who ask too much. He wishes them loyal, subservient, and sexual.

SULTAN'S RIGHT-HAND MAN
His most trusted servant is his secretive chief of personal affairs and of his private office, Mustapha Idrissi, who is an elderly, quiet, and loyal gentleman with access to Sultan's most sensitive secrets. It is through his private office, comprised of less than 10 people, that Sultan pays off the women in his harem or where they receive their private mail. It is through this office that he pays off his spies in Yemen and his emissaries who search for arms deals. It is through this office that Sultan plants seeds of support or destruction depending on whether he considers you a friend or a foe. In this office pictures of Sultan raping young children or making love to men or women or both are kept. It is through this office that Sultan corresponds secretly and confidentially with the outside world. And it is Mustapha Idrissi, a humble, quiet, intelligent Saudi gentleman, whose roots can be traced back to Yemen and the Hadramout area in Western Saudi Arabia, whom Sultan trusts the most for these and other such tasks.

TREASURY RAIDS
Sultan's supplements his generosity by raiding government coffers, as a perusal of the Saudi defense budget for the last twenty years will show. Saudi Arabia has spent $292 billion between 1976 and 1993 on defense. The defense program grew from a small, $5-billion navy program in the early eighties under the control of Captain Bassam Al-Omar (Read about the story of his daughter who married Sultan under women's rights.) to an FMS (Foreign Military Sales) contract providing the Saudi Air Force with AWACS, airplanes equipped with early warning systems. Saudi Arabia has spent billions upon billions on military hardware, software, and maintenance. On the day Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saudi Arabia had 5,000 soldiers at their borders armed with water jerricans and rusted equipment whose shelf life expires as soon as Saudi Arabia goes on its next spending spree. Many Saudi-Arabian intellectuals ask about the wasted billions of dollars spent on equipment that does not last long and wonder about the inability to defend the country even with the US as an ally. The answer lies under the web of corruption and deceit masterminded by Sultan and the people who serve as fronts for his arms purchases. From the billions spent on these programs, a large portion is stolen as commissions or "baksheesh." The exact amount is hard to pinpoint but, assuming 30% commissions, Sultan has stolen $60 billion between 1976 and 1993. Sultan manages to spend more than he steals, which, in a way, makes his actions a metaphor for the Saudi Arabian style and modus operandi. Because of this over extension of resources, Saudi Arabia is now having trouble paying its bills and financing future projects that will make more stolen money for Al-Saud family who plan the projects and profit from the fruitful results. (See Yamamah Scandal)

CONTROL THROUGH DIVISION
Sultan's relationship with his immediate cronies is so well-structured and organized that his system of "checks and balances" is followed by King Fahd and other family members. This system relies on separating tasks among people according to types and geographic areas. For example, Saudi Arabia has bought arms from every westernized country in the world. Each country deals with a different front man--Wafic Al-Saeed in London, the late Akram Ojjeh in Paris, etc. Each one of them is responsible for a territory and faithfully works to supplement the hundreds of millions of dollars Sultan needs to maintain his lavish lifestyle. The front men acts as the liaison to the contracting company and filters the funds, earned by his front company acting as agent, from the contracting company to Sultan. In return, he receives anywhere from a 5% to 50% commission. In the early days (between 1975 and 1985), the commissions used to be in the range of 50%. Today, it is 5% to 10% because the country is squeezed financially, so Sultan needs more money to spread among his constituents. In addition to using front men for government contracts, Sultan has "front men" responsible for his other activities. For example, he has a "front man," always a Saudi, taking care of his divorced wives and making sure they are paid. Another "front man," also a Saudi, handles his immediate family. Another is responsible for his investments and fund transfers, another his political messages, another for spying on other members of his immediate family and so on. It is an endless maze of people with different agendas but with one master. All report to him directly. This horizontal form of management gives Sultan a lateral form of control and keeps him informed at all the times. No mind can handle the myriad of small details needed to control everything, but that is the price Sultan is willing to pay in order to keep everyone in check. It is similar to Stalin's management style but without the doubtful aspects and murderous results.

Sultan is patient with his cronies because they know too much. Loyalty is the most important element that he demands. No matter how smart you are, no matter how useful you are, if you are not loyal, you have no place in his life and will derive no benefit for slaving for him, as Adnan Khashoggi, considered one of the smartest businessmen ever to come out of Saudi Arabia, learned. His intelligence became useless to Sultan when Khashoggi began to attract attention with the money he earned fronting for Sultan since 1969. His loyalty in doubt, Khashoggi fell from grace and floundered for a while before being taken back by King Fahd as a goodwill gesture and for old times sake. Today, he is still in contact with Sultan but other people less flashy and more secretive have replaced him as front men.

Sultan's second demand is secrecy. Sultan does not like his front people to become public figures. In fact, the Saud family is so corrupt that it does not want anyone to know how, when, and who. Being secretive means staying away from limelight and out of headlines. Money stolen with Sultan should be spent, invested or used inconspicuously; no flashiness or publicity allowed.

Stolen money necessitates secrecy to avoid any trail, news, or finger pointing by anyone oppose to the actions of the Saud family. Through the system of using front men, stolen money has found its way into the lives of hundreds of million of people.

When the Yemen war was raging last year, Bandar fingers could be found when Saudi Arabia delivered sophisticated jet fighters to South Yemen. Orders by him with the help of his son Bandar with Bandar's approval saying that the United States backed the move to bomb US oil installations in the North of Yemen that were under dispute between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Those oil installations were owned and operated by Hunt Oil of Texas. Martin Endyk, the Australian born member of the security council, called Bandar himself and gave him the official line of the US government and their disapproval. The telephone conversation became so heated, it is reported that Endyk told Bandar that he will seek to remove him as Ambassador to the United States and called him a liar several times during that conversation. This telephone conversation did not sit well with Sultan who pushed some buttons with his friends in the U.S. Congress, through Bandar, and at the White House. Martin Endyk ended up being the US Ambassador to Israel knowing very well who his enemies are.

THE KING-MAKING GAME
Sultan is, after Abdullah, next in line to become King. However, King Fahd does not like Sultan because Sultan has competed directly with him for an ever shrinking pot of government funds (The defense budget was fixed at $15.7 in 1990 and 1991, due to a truce between Sultan and Fahd which allowed Sultan to steal under the Desert Storm auspices). Early on, Sultan has used his position as Defense Minister to take from the defense industry. Fahd on the other hand has used the oil and construction industries to raid the coffers of the government. Since Sultan controls the army, Fahd has been cautious in trying to steal much more than Sultan. That competition has escalated the enmity between the two as the money available dwindles to a trickle and their greed swells every year. The competition has fueled political maneuvering as Fahd attempts to undermine Sultan. Hence, the law allowing a king to change his crown prince and Fahd's last attempt at giving Abdullah a taste of power to control Sultan's reaction and maneuvers. Fahd is playing with Sultan, so he keeps close to Bandar, Sultan's son. Bandar, on the other hand, is fully aware of the game. Being paid handsomely by Fahd, even though he is working to the detriment of his father, does not bother Bandar at all. Finding himself in the limelight after years in the shadows is overwhelming for Bandar; he cannot begin to fathom the future consequences.

Sultan is finding his aspiration to become king blocked by forces inside and outside of the family. The following family and non-family members oppose him: King Fahd because he wants to bring his children into the picture, Prince Abdullah so that he may bring his tribe into power after his ascension to the throne, Bandar bin Sultan who wants his father ousted so he can take over the defense ministry, and the Ibrahim family led by Khaled and Walid--two brothers who dislike each other but whose interests prohibit them from publicizing their differences--who, not being royalty, wish to maintain their power over King Fahd's fortune themselves or through Abdul Aziz bin Fahd.