House of Bush, House of Saud: The Hidden Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties Hardcover – 1 Jan. 2004

An old book which is nowadays slightly 'out of date' as it focuses on the period almost 20 years ago, but also a very informative book that sheds a great light on events which shaped the world of today. A very well put together accord of how the relationship between the Saudis and USA started through the friendship between Prince Bandar and firt Bush Senior, then Junior. Many interesting details which show how close these two countries are and how much they do to help each other - both overtly and covertly. Don't necessarily agree with final conclusions of the book, but still an interesting read.

Good book

Excellent

Good read

this book was described as being in good condition - it was in fact very tattered and bent out of shape

Craig Unger has done a terrific job in this book, of exposing the conflicted loyalties of President George W. Bush. Unger exposes the financial dealings of Bush, from his days as a failed business man, running Harken, a company that was bailed out of bankruptcy by the Saudi royal family, to his days as one of the most unpopular presidents in US history, smoking cigars on the Whitehouse balcony with the Saudi amabassador, whilst the Pentagon smoldered in the distance, after 9/11.If you have watched Fahrenheit 9/11, you will have seen Craig Unger interviewed and some of his material from this book used in that film. Obviously, this book goes in to far more detail than Michael Moore's film does.Unger's book can be considered as a selective biography of Bush, focusing primarily on his business history, such as the above-mentioned Harken and Arbusto (emphasise the 'bust' in pronounciation).Of particular attention to readers should be the Carlyle group, a multi-tentacled investment group that counts among its members George H. W. Bush and members of the Bin Laden family. The Carlyle group has investments in US defense companies, so it could be argued that one of the economic benificaries of Osama Bin Laden's attacks on 9/11 were members of his own family.This book also details how members of the Bin Laden family were allowed to fly out of the US without being questioned by the FBI, shortly after the 9/11 attacks, in contravention of the no-fly policy.Craig Unger's book is well written and the evidence documented in it is well presented. This book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the hidden influences on George W. Bush's foreign policy in the Middle East.

A great read! This book is very full of the details of the sordid relationship between the Al-Saud's and the Bush Family. Anyone who reads this book will see why George W Bush, having been advised of the attacks of the 11th September, adopted that facial expression.The unholy alliance between Wahhabi Islam, and so called American, `Christian' Fundamentalism, and the appalling spectacle of American Politics is also well documented, here. As are the hostages to fortune, set up when the U.S. supported what became the Taliban, in Afghanistan, and a certain Saddam Hussein, in the Iran-Iraq War.A fine account of the way in which an empire's (in all but name) actions, can cause the death of civilians (fine, as long as it is in far-off countries, in 'certain peoples' minds) whilst making a nice profit, into the bargain.

I couldn't put the book down!I'm sure evryone one of us has had doubts that the whole 9/11 was fishy in more ways than one! This book explains a large chunk of why that is!The writter uses declassified documents and other sources to draw a more complete picture for the reader!However, the writter makes the slight implication that most Muslims are either terrorist or supportive of terrorists, which I felt offended by.That aside, I feel the book tells a part of what happned in a way most news media channels don't!Really a great book that uncovers the great hipocracy of the two apparently opposing countries!A MUST READ!

Good historical perspective.

This book will test you. When you wonder aloud why Congress doesn’t get anything done, foreign wars continue without reason and deficits are so high, most are unable to see the cause. Unger doesn’t explain it all but he explains the relationship between money and power better than any book I’ve read to date.The storyline of the book takes you through how the rich Saudi ruling class and really a group of Texan oilmen bonded over business. When you read about the genesis of the relationship in the 70s during the first part of the book, it looked merely like the cozy insider-only type of stuff that is common in the fabric of corporate America and most human relationships.But the nuance Unger uncovers with his hawk-like ability to pull minutiae from rivers of source material outlines a darker agenda. His fact finding mission lays bare a Saudi elite trying to nudge the levers of power in Washington. And with this insight, Unger explains the nearly invisible pattern in which money buys powers in America. Unger’s work uncovers so many conspicuous connections amongst so many smart, ambitious men that coincidence is ruled out as the cause. Complicity makes the case here as well as any outsider like Unger can.But the circumstantial nature of this book cannot be completely swept away. Unger has grokked the nefarious nature of this relationship but is missing the proverbial smoking gun. There is no ipso facto ‘A funded B which lead to C relationship’ outlined in the book. The closest we get to this as a reader is when the Bin Laden family and other Saudi royals are ferried out of the country while the FAA has all airspace on lockdown, a fascinating story that makes the TSA’s security theatre we endure at every airport comically irksome.Recommending this book is easy, but to whom I would make that recommendation is difficult. If you sometimes watch/read the news with an open mind and wonder, “How did we get to this place?”, then I’d put this book on your list. If you’re knowledge of the middle east and current events is low, try paying attention to that news first, watch for the patterns and then read this to learn the connections. Most importantly though, any citizen trying to understand the ways in which money buys power in the modern nation-state needs to read this book.

This book contains all the information that one would need to put together the information contain in the 28 pages of classified material the Government is not releasing. It also connects the dots in respect too the Saudi's involvment in 9/11......and show how the relationship between the Bushes and Saudi Arabia influenced American Policy and got the Bushes and their cohorts very rich......and to not disturb that relationship after 9/11 how the Bushes ran interference...... A very reveling read....and an important book

This book should be required reading for every political science class in america. I leave it up the reader to come to their own conclusions as there is a "missing link" of info in the book as to WHY the Sauds backed 911. That missing link MAY be found in the movie VICE......will we ever know for sure??? Only history can tell

In Craig Unger's book, he reveals an incredible link between Saudi money, and the last 40 years of the Bush family and their business dealings and investments. It turns out that Prescott Bush, the Senator from CT, and father of George Bush Sr. '41 was something else, before he retired to be a Senator from CT. He was the Managing Partner of Brown Brothers Harriman which is a private bank, used only by the rich and famous, as today, BBH will not take an account for less than $3 million in cash/securities.Through these money connections and through Bush '41 and Bush '43 oil connections, incredible amounts of Saudi money were invested in companies that were either owned by the Bush family or that the family had interest in. The biggest of these is the Carlyle Group, a giant private equity company. Unger estimates that $1.4 Billion was invested by Saudi's in the Carlyle Group which very much directly benefitted the Bush family.But the most interesting part of Unger's book, is the fact that it was published between that of O'Neill's book and Clarke's book, and thus got a bit of the short shrift in the marketing department. However, Unger's book supports both O'Neill's book and Clarke's book.Apparently, a little known fact is that during the period between 9/11 and 9/13/2001, there were several commercial non-military airplanes flying over the skies of the US of A. These planes contained members of the Saudi Royal Family and the Bin Laden family, who were congregating in Lexington, KY in readiness to evacuate the country.No one else was allowed to fly. Former President Clinton was stuck in Australia at the time and was not allowed to fly back in. Former V-P Al Gore was in Austria at the time and was not allowed to fly back in. But with White House approval, a bunch of Saudi's, about 140 all told, were not only allowed to fly during the no fly period, but some even left the country on 9/13, prior to Logan International being reopened for commercial traffic, with special White House Clearance. This event is what Unger characterizes as the "Greatest Crime In American History." When the country is devastated, when the vast majority of the hijackers and killers had been identified as Saudi Nationals, and in cooperation with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the White House lets 140 members of the Saudi Royal Family and members of the bin Laden family, to fly, unimpeded, around and out of the country.Unger's book gives excruciating detail about the connections between the Bush '43 administration and the Saudi Royal Family. In fact, George W. Bush was personal friends with Prince Bandar, as was his father.Unger explicitly indicates, that it is difficult to imagine that a President would act entirely in the national interest, when his personal interest is so tightly tied to the interests of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, in addition to the failure to develop a cohesive anti-terrorism plan, despite Richard Clarke's preparedness to do so at anytime, and his plan sitting doing nothing waiting for the NSC to review it, the Bush administration badly damaged our ability to really properly respond to a threat such as the type that Al Qaeda was and is involved in still to this day. And that the very funders of this terror are also the closest allies of the Bush family. And that this indeed seems to represent a serious conflict of interest for the President of the United States of America.This is recommended reading for all US citizens who want to have at least a glimpse of the truth, without nearly the spin that the White House is putting on its statements today in the news. It is highly recommended for its well researched factual revelations.

I read this book with a growing sense of amazement. I cannot understand how this book did not create an absolute firestorm of controversy, considering the damning, but exhaustively researched revelations it contains. The relationship between the Bush family and the house of Saud, and how it led to our being "blindsided" by 9/11, yes, that scared me. But more than that was that this book was released in 2004. It should by now be required reading and its conclusions unassailable. Yet, nine years later, I only heard about it through happenstance and I somehow have the feeling that is not an accident.

If the subject matter is not of interest to you, don’t bother...the book can be meandering at times, with an excess of facts and details that will bore the laymen. But, anyone that is fond of this topic, it is uber interesting! Will leave you shocked and appalled.

This book is amazing. You think you know all there is to know about the relationship between Bush and the Sauds, until you read this.This book really reveals how deep their relationship is. So deep that despite the fact that Osama Bin Laden and the majority of the 9/11 highjackers were Saudis, Bush still insisted that the FBI and CIA not delve into Saudi Arabia because they are our "allies". Although the great majority of them hate us profusely (which explains why the majority of Al Qaeda members are established there) Bush and the administration worked it out so that Saudi Arabia would not be investigated. What a shame. I've always said this, but I don't know how Bush sleeps at night.This book also explains how after 9/11 he and his buddies were trying to find ways to link Iraq to 9/11 (and that was difficult at first). Of course they did this by deceiving Americans. Please educate yourselves, read this book and give it to your friends, and we should all mobilize to impeach this man.This book also provides a great amount of references, in case you want to verify or check the facts.

Craig Unger has written a fantastic and shocking investigative piece that reads like a novel, but it's better than a novel, because this story is true. In "House of Bush, House of Saud," Unger not only explores the very close relationship between the Bush I, II and Reagan administrations to the Saudi royal family, he blows the lid off many myths regarding the war on terrorism. Most notable among his startling revelations is how the United States government largely created two monsters that would later come back to haunt us in a big way - Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.In the 1980s, during the Iran/Iraq war, the U.S. alternated funding both sides with weapons. During that war, the Reagan administration, while having the public stance of "not negotiating with terrorists," illegally sent 4,000 missiles to Iran, a violation of U.S. law, in order to free American hostages. Unger doesn't openly state it (he doesn't have to), but this is beyond contempt, considering Iran held 52 U.S. hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days from 1979-1981. I'd certainly call that negotiating with terrorists. But with this, Unger is just getting started.Our government was equally kind to Iraq during the war, supplying it with chemical and biological weapons. The Reagan administration was aware that Saddam was gassing both his own people and Iranians during the war. Publicly, we condemned the attacks, but privately, we winked at Saddam and looked the other way. Ironically, President George W. Bush cited these Saddam atrocities as a reason for going to war against Iraq in 2003 - that Saddam had used poison gas and chemical weapons against his own people. The hitch - he wasn't doing it in 2003, he was doing it in the 1980s and early 90s. And those mass graves that we are now finding? Many are from the same era, and our government knew about this genocide while it was occurring. Hey, Saddam may have been a brutal dictator in the 1980s, but he was OUR dictator, and he had the added attraction of having lots and lots of oil.Unger also explores the rise of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and how our government LAVISHLY funded the Afghan rebels during the Soviet invasion - almost certainly the right decision. But, we sold so many weapons to the Afghan rebels, they were selling an unneeded surplus to other buyers. We oversupplied the rebels. The main problem with our Afghanistan strategy was that the U.S. experts didn't anticipate what would happen if the rebels were successful, which they ultimately were. When the Soviets finally left Afghanistan, Osama, born in Saudi Arabia, needed a new enemy to fight. He was now flush with cash and weapons to fight with, the latter courtesy of the U.S.A. The United States became his perfect target, when our forces arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1991 to fight the Gulf War against Saddam. Our existence in the Saudi kingdom was and is unforgivable in the eyes of bin Laden.The book also covers in detail what's advertised - the very close, personal relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud, the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. Incredibly, the highest levels of our government allowed over 100 Saudi nationals, including many members of the bin Laden family, to leave the United States just days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when private flights were still prohibited and commercial flights were just resuming. Another Unger whopper - just months prior to 9-11, the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia rolled out a "Visa Express" program, where Saudis did not even need to appear in person to get a visa to the United States. Some of the 9-11 hijackers didn't even have to wait in line to get their U.S. visa. This program remained in effect even after 9-11!My main praise for the book - it not only explores the Bush family-House of Saud intimate relationship, as advertised, but it also offers the reader an in-depth look at the U.S. government's role in supplying Osama bin Laden and Saddam before they became our sworn enemies. Other fascinating details covered, but that you'll have to get from the book and not here: the extensive PR campaign by the Kuwaiti government prior to the start of the '91 Gulf War to sway American public opinion; an extensive look at Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.; the bin Laden family history, its rise in Saudi Arabia, and the myth that the entire family has disowned Osama; how the Saudi government, despite very generous foreign aid, provided almost no assistance in helping to apprehend terrorists following attacks against U.S. citizens/soldiers in 1995, 1996 (Khobar towers) and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole; and the right-wing, conservative myth that President Clinton turned down Sudanese offers to turn over bin Laden to the United States.Anyone wishing to gain a valuable understanding into our enemies and wars we are waging today in the name of terror should definitely read this book. Unger has a terrific writing style that flows well and is easily understood - I read the book in one day; I simply couldn't put down this compelling read. Very highly recommended.

This book made me want to read all the rest of his work. In fact, I got a Kindle just so I could read them in digital form. There are connections that made me squirm such as the Bohemian Grove and other right wing organizations. The transition from George H. W. Bush to George W. Bush is also enlightening. For example, not marching on Baghdad after the Gulf War was a source of pride for Bush41. For Bush43 it was a humiliating failure. Don't miss any book by this author.

This book is tremendously engaging, well-written and most importantly, does an exceptional job in exposing and explaining the complex relationship between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family. I could barely put this down.

I wish more people had read this book prior to the 2004 election and that it got much more press than it did. I'm so glad we will never have to live through another eight years of this "president's" electoral mess. Good riddance and stay away forever, Bushwacked.

After reading the jaw dropping book "Family of Secrets-America's Invisible Government" by Russell Baker, I was compelled to read this book, House of Bush, House of Saud. It brings you deeper into the web of interdependence that was created by these two families and the resulting disastrous effects their game brought to this world.

I can only surmise that the copy of this book read by one of the reviewers below (`NO FACTS') must have had most of its pages missing - or that the reader is coming from a place where the definition of `facts' is radically different from the accepted one. Craig Unger's book is chock full of facts - he has done exhaustive research, which is meticulously annotated (there are nearly a thousand notes, some of them quite lengthy). Additionally, unlike many of his Right-leaning counterparts, he actually uses information from both sides of the `aisle' - what a concept! - which in turn leads to a straightforward look at the subject at hand. That subject is the incredibly intense and labyrinthine commingling of business, political and personal interests that tie the Bush family (and their friends and supporters) to the Saudi royal family. The ties that Unger documents so clearly go back over 30 years - and the ensuing time has done nothing to weaken them, at least up until the present. The tragic attacks of 9/11, the subsequent events and their fallout may have a different tale to tell when all is said and done.The crony capitalism and government-by-secrecy practiced by the Bush administration are laid bare here - the inside deals, the lucrative favors given and received, the about-faces in policy which have occurred when convenient, the end-justifying-the-means mentality that seems to govern everything they do. The facts laid out by Unger cannot be simply explained away as `coincidence' - and the actions of the administration to cover up their actions and their relationship with the Saudis merely demonstrate that they have something to hide. This book does a great service to America by exposing what has gone on `under the radar' - hopefully it will cause a lot of people to ask some vital questions. Who knows, maybe if enough people ask firmly enough, the questions will actually get answered - wouldn't that be refreshing?Why were dozens of Saudi citizens - including members of the bin Laden family - allowed to fly out of the US soon after the attacks on 9/11, when US air traffic was pretty much completely shut down? Why were the people on board these planes not at least interviewed by the FBI or other federal agencies who made such a show about protecting the `homeland'? Why did Bush suddenly change his position on the Middle East peace process - from a stated policy of non-involvement to one espousing a `road map for peace'? Why were so many of the high-rolling, high-contributing supporters of the Bush family given such powerful positions in his administration? Why is his administration being run with the highest level of secrecy in the modern era? Why has the administration actually WEAKENED the fights against terror by switching their focus from Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda - the actual perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks - to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, whom no less of a key player than George W. Bush now admits had `no ties with Al-Qaeda'?While Unger's opinion on these and other matters isn't hard to discern, his journalistic ethics and methods cannot be seriously questioned. He has garnered information from a variety of sources: Democrats, Republicans and Independents, dozens of present and past government officials both in the US and Saudi Arabia, friends and business associates of the Bush and Saud families, and others who are knowledgeable and expert in these matters. The result is eye-opening, and pretty scary - decisions that have affected the lives of thousands of people, military and civilian, in the US, Iraq and other countries, have been made as if they were business decisions, all the while being touted as acting the interests of `national security'. It's outrageous - and this well-written account is essential to understanding how this house of cards was built.The book deals with many serious, complex issues, and the result is surprisingly readable - it's also a vital tool that every American who plans to vote in November should read.

Good insights on how we got to where we are with oil dependency and why Bush let the Saudis leave the country during the "No Fly" period after the 911 Attacks. He let them leave even though a majority of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia... and of course he invaded Iraq... not Saudi Arabia.It's "House of..." because the relationship goes back generations in the two families. Not just with G.W. - What a $cam! Treasonous!