House of Bush, House of Saud
Craig Unger
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Buy *House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties* online

House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties
Craig Unger
Scribner
Hardcover
368 pages
March 2004
rated 5 of 5 possible stars

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The current President Bush may go down in history as being the President who had the most books written about him, the majority of which are definitely not flattering. The most fascinating, anger-inducing and important of these books is Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud, which meticulously documents the ongoing close relationship with the Bush family and the royal Saudi family, many of whom have direct links to terrorists that have attacked and killed innocent Americans.

This secret relationship between the “world’s two most powerful dynasties,” as Unger puts it, is about oil, money, power and influence and has done more to shape the political and economical landscape of the last few decades than most people know, or are willing to admit. Unger documents the relationship’s earliest origins in the 1970s when an oil-rich House of Saud began courting American politicians in an effort to gain more political, military and economic influence. And gain it they did.

The administrations of President Reagan and Bush Sr. fueled the growing friendship as connections deepened into a widening web of influence. Top Saudi officials were suddenly granted access to the highest levels of power in America, an access that continued through to the current Bush administration, despite overwhelming evidence of Saudi participation in a number of terrorist attacks on and off of U.S. soil -- including 9-11. Unger shows how the Saudis were instrumental in the rise of such notorious companies as the Carlyle Group, Harken Energy and other U.S. corporations drenched in Saudi investment capital. The author includes several revealing, if not outright shocking, interviews with former CIA directors and Saudi and U.S. intelligence officials who blow the lid off this dangerous alliance. Oh, and the names of the guilty when it comes to courting the Saudi’s despite evidence of state-sponsored terrorism reads like a Who’s Who of the Bush administration - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, James Baker…

This intricately researched and thoroughly sourced book covers all aspects of the bond between U.S. politics and Saudi oil, and how those bonds created a foundation of future policy that would include the special treatment of the Bin Laden family immediately following 9-11, when 140 Saudis were allowed to leave the U.S. on secret flights, and the ongoing refusal by the Bush administration during the 9-11 hearings to hold the Saudi’s responsible for their part in funding and supporting terrorism. In fact, Unger shows over and over again how our government leaders, namely Republicans, chose to just ignore the warning signs of Saudi extremism and corruption, because they didn’t want to give up the oil, the power, and the access to material wealth the Saudis promised them. It certainly became a two-way street for both the Saudi royalty and the U.S. government.

Unger lays out a truly shocking and compelling case that the Bush administration -- indeed, the entire Bush family -- is so closely aligned with our nation’s biggest enemies that they are allowing terrorism to occur without any retribution to the offenders. Bush pays lip service to the public, stating he will stop at nothing to put an end to the “evil-doers,” but this book proves that those evil-doers are in many cases best pals with Bush and his neo-con team. Unger asks how the American public can just let this fact go, even after over 3000 of our innocent citizens perished in a terrorist attack. That the Bush family is so tight with our gravest enemies should terrify and anger people, yet where is the outrage?

Hopefully, the more people that read this critical book, the more that outrage will grow.


© 2004 by Marie D. Jones for Curled Up With a Good Book

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