Serious charge: House of Saud bribes U.S. House of Reps, Senate

Prince Bandar
USA

Three decades’ entrenched influence: Saudi Prince in Washington

Editing by Carolyn Bennett

Bandar bin Sultan is Saudi Arabia’s Director General of Intelligence. He was appointed to this post on July 19, 2012 by King Abdullah. He is a member of the House of Saud and before his current position was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States (1983 to 2005) and secretary general (2005) of Saudi Arabia’s National Security Council.

Bandar, a militarist and former fighter pilot, graduated from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in 1968 and received additional training at Maxwell Air Force Base (U.S. Air Force installation in Alabama, USA) and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF, a U.S. Military institution). He also holds a master’s degree in International Public Policy from The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in the U.S. state of Maryland.

Saudis and
Obama government

In 1978 Prince Bandar was appointed the Saudi King’s personal envoy and he successfully lobbied the United States Congress to approve the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia.

At the Oval Office, President Carter [U.S. President James Carter 1977-1981] told him to win the support of California governor Ronald Reagan [U.S. President 1981-1989]. He did and in exchange helped Carter win the support of South Dakota Democratic Senator James Abourezk for the Panama Canal treaty. King Fahd made Bandar an emissary to Carter and granted him permission to act independently of the Saudi-U.S. ambassador.

In 1982, King Fahd made Prince Bandar military attaché at the Saudi Embassy and the following year (October 24, 1983) appointed him Saudi Ambassador to the United States.

Saudi-Syria relations

Prince Bandar wielded extensive influence in the United States and at the 

pinnacle of his career he was both ‘the King’s exclusive messenger and the White House’s errand boy.’ In more than three decades, he was the face of the Saudi Arabia lobby and in the course of his ambassadorial work Prince Bandar had dealt with five U.S. presidents [Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush (1989-1993), William Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush, (2001-2009)], ten secretaries of state, eleven national security advisers, sixteen sessions of Congress, and the media.

Bandar was reportedly so close to George H. W. Bush that he was often described as a member of the former president’s family. He advocated the overthrow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in March 2003 and “encouraged military action against Iraq and supported the Dick Cheney “agenda for ‘The New Middle East’, which called for pro-democracy programs in Syria and Iran.”

Iran-Saudi relations

His current appointive position as Director General of Saudi Intelligence Agency (2012 - present), which also includes membership on the Military Service Council, is said to demonstrate Saudi Arabia’s “more aggressive foreign policy.” According to an August 2013 Wall Street Journal article Prince Bandar was appointed to lead Saudi Arabia’s efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar al- Assad and that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] considered this a sign of how serious Saudi Arabia was about overthrowing Syria’ head of state.

Bandar was described as ‘jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the Élysée Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime.’ 

In late 2012 Saudi intelligence, under Bandar’s direction, also began efforts to convince the U.S. that the Assad government was using chemical weapons.”

PressTV reports this week:

“Saudi Arabia bribing U.S., French lawmakers on Syria: American journalist”

Saudis and
Obama government

In an article by Dr. James H. Fetzer published on Press TV’s website on Wednesday, “Wayne Madsen” has reportedly [according to Fetzer] “learned from multiple intelligence sources in Washington, London, Beirut, and Paris that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan has paid off key members of the U.S. Senate and House [of Representatives] leadership as well as key ministers of the French government, with ‘incentive cash’ to support an American and French ‘shock and awe’ military strike on not only Syria but (also) Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.”

‘Sen. Harry Reid [D-Nevada], Sen. John McCain [R-Arizona], Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-South Carolina], Sen. Barbara Boxer [D-California] and Sen. Robert Menendez [D-New Jersey]

Saudis and
Obama government

‘House Speaker John Boehner [R-Ohio], Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi [D-California], House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers [R-Michigan], New York’s Peter King [R-New York], Minority Whip Steny Hoyer [D-Maryland] and others

‘…have seen their campaign chests grow substantially as a result of Bandar’s financial largesse, according to Madsen’s multiple sources’.

Sources and notes

Biographical brief of Bandar bin Sultan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan

“Saudi Arabia bribing U.S., French lawmakers on Syria: American journalist: Saudi Arabian spy chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has paid to American and French lawmakers to get their support for a possible military strike against Syria, U.S. investigative journalist Wayne Madsen says,” September 12, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/12/323583/bandar-bought-support-for-syria-strike/

Wayne Madsen (born April 25, 1954) is a U.S. militarist, information specialist turned “online investigative journalist, author and columnist specializing in intelligence and international affairs,” [blogging] at the “Wayne Madsen Report”; described as a “conspiracy theorist.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Madsen

Dr. James H. Fetzer is a McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth [Minnesota].

Saudi Arabia kings current

King Fahd (ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Saʿūd), king of Saudi Arabia (1982-2005); as crown prince and as an active administrator, he had been virtual ruler during the preceding reign (1975–1982) of his half brother King Khālid.

King Abdullah (ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, b. circa 1923), king of Saudi Arabia (2005-) ; as crown prince (1982–2005), he had served as the country’s de facto ruler following the 1995 stroke of his half brother King Fahd (reigned 1982–2005).

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Southwest Asia U.S. wars’ war dead

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett

AFPAK

Northwest Pakistan
One hundred and two (estimated) people have died in double suicide bombings in northwest Pakistan. The death toll on Friday had stood at 62 people, but Saturday’s reports made the attack the deadliest since an October 2009 car bomb destroyed a market in the northwestern city of Peshawar that left 125 people dead. In recent months, “Pakistan has been hit by a wave of deadly attacks. Last week at least 42 people died in an attack on Pakistan’s most important Sufi shrine in the eastern city of Lahore.”

Afghanistan’s Kandahar
Seven (estimate) civilians and seven NATO forces died this week in the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and elsewhere in the country. Cars were blazing, windows shattered; seven people suffered wounds in Saturday’s blast from explosives strapped to a parked motorcycle in Kandahar’s commercial center. The five NATO forces’ deaths happened in three separate attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan. A sixth soldier reportedly died in an accidental explosion. All the reported dead were Americans.

NATO forces issued a statement on Saturday admitting its troops on Thursday had “‘accidently’ killed six [Afghan] civilians while battling Taliban fighters [in Paktia province south of Kabul] earlier in the week.” Saturday’s admission of killing civilians came the day after another NATO confession to “accidentally” killing “five Afghan soldiers in a botched airstrike” on the Andar district of Ghazni province “where the Afghan soldiers were launching a pre-dawn ambush against fighters.”

Hundreds of Afghan protesters took to the streets on Saturday chanting slogans against foreign forces and against Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai after U.S. troops killed two civilians and arrested three others during a Wednesday pre-dawn raid on the outskirts of the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Corruption in war
Afghans paid nearly $1 billion in bribes last year. Since 2006, corruption has become far more widespread. Corruption appears to be worst in Afghanistan’s justice and security agencies. Ten percent of Afghans reported paying bribes to obtain court decisions or police protection. Many of those bribes were expensive and nearly half of them cost more than 2,500 Afghanis ($55).

Thirty-eight percent of Afghans reported effect of police corruption [AFP]. Forty-two per cent said the interior ministry was the most corrupt in Afghanistan, 32 per cent said the justice ministry was most corrupt. The findings come from a study conducted by Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), a Kabul-based NGO, based on interviews with 6,500 people in all but two (Paktika and Nuristan) of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Integrity Watch Afghanistan’s similar survey in 2007 found the total cost of bribes was $466 million, less than half the level recorded in 2009. A January 2010 report released by the United Nations found that Afghans paid $2.5 billion in bribes in 2009 and that 59 per cent of Afghans think corruption is the biggest problem facing the country.

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting

July 11, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 184]

Wounded 31,874-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides 18 a day

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count figures

96,933 – 105,688

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,412 U.S., 4,730 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,171 U.S., 1,920 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Sources and notes
“Pakistan death toll soars above 100,” July 10, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/20107954021715355.html
“Deadly blast rocks Kandahar city,” July 10, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010710103937406855.html
“Study says Afghan graft worsening” (Gregg Carlstrom), July 08, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201078124118415689.html