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Editor's Note
Earlier this month, the Saudi-US Relations Information Service was pleased to present an
interview with Ambassador Robert
Jordan, who served as America's top diplomat in Saudi Arabia from 2001 to 2003. Last week, he was profiled by Jim Landers in the Dallas Morning News. We present that profile as an item of interest today to provide further insight into one of the most challenging tours of duty served by a United States ambassador.
This article was originally published September 18, 2004 in the Dallas Morning News and is reprinted here with permission.
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Crises and Opportunities in U.S.-Saudi Relations: Ambassador Robert Jordan Interview (SUSRIS)
Robert Jordan's Crucible
By Jim Landers
He was the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, with an elegant home and a team of Saudi bodyguards and armored vehicles. But after al-Qaeda bombed three American housing compounds last year, Robert Jordan was slipping out the back door in blue jeans and a ball cap, hiding in the back of a black GMC Suburban as his new U.S. diplomatic security team sped into the Riyadh night toward an "undisclosed location."
Those were long nights, far from the Dallas corridors of power where Mr. Jordan was a star attorney and George W. Bush was his star client. The terrorists had killed nine Americans. The calls and the news about the May 12 bombings were lost in the silence of hideouts with no phone and no television.
He'd warned the Saudis. Three times he wrote the prince running the Interior Ministry that al-Qaeda was planning to strike where Americans slept. The prince never answered.
Yet out of this month of fear and anger came a belief that the Saudi royal family finally realized al-Qaeda was a mortal danger. The kingdom that held itself out to the world's Muslims as a guardian of the faith had let religious terrorism take root. As Mr. Jordan kept urging, the roots - there were many - needed pulling.
"The export of hatred and intolerance has to be dealt with," Mr. Jordan said. "It is of fundamental importance to the path of survival of the regime. They have to take the oxygen away from these terrorists by completely reorienting the extremist ideology that has been allowed to percolate in the last 25 years."
Mr. Jordan came back to Dallas last October, drained by his two-year stint as President Bush's envoy. He'd been tasked with making the case for the president to the Saudis for invading Iraq, and for the administration's view that a major diplomatic effort in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute made sense only under a Palestinian leader other than Yasser Arafat.
Mr. Jordan still believes these were the best policies, despite the welling anti-American anger that swept across Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world.
Today, even as books and movies question the Bush family's ties to the House of Saud, Mr. Jordan remains convinced the United States must stand by the Saudi royal family.
"The alternatives would be unthinkable," he said. "What would replace them looks a whole lot more like the Taliban than Jeffersonian democracy. If there was an election for president today in Riyadh, Americans would not be very happy with the result."
An education in Islam
Ambassador Jordan arrived in Saudi Arabia one month after a mostly Saudi team of terrorists killed 3,000 Americans in September 2001. His friend James Doty, managing partner of the Baker Botts law office in Washington (and another of Mr. Bush's former lawyers), says the assignment was one of the most challenging in modern American diplomacy.
"I know of no other case except for World War II with [William] Dodd in Germany and [George] Kennan in Russia during the Cold War, where an ambassador had such a very difficult assignment at a time of such high tensions," he said.
Like a string of diplomats before him, Mr. Jordan, 58, was charmed by the hospitality and impressed by the grasp of world affairs of many Saudi princes and professionals. Working together, they exercised the old tenets of the relationship - oil and arms. U.S. air wars against Afghanistan and Iraq were directed out of Saudi Arabia. Saudi oil flattened the price hikes at American service stations in 2001 and 2003.
The leaderships of the two countries shared a loathing for Saddam Hussein: "They would have been very happy for him to be vaporized," Mr. Jordan said of the Saudis.
This was, however, a new era of diplomacy in the heartland of Islamic terrorism. Mr. Jordan found deep roots of intolerance among what he calls the "ultra-conservatives" of Saudi society.
He met aging princes who assured him the Israelis were responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
He learned that religious militants in the kingdom were destroying the 7th century homes of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers to keep these antiquities from becoming sites for idolatry.
He read translations of texts used to teach Saudi children, where subtraction was explained by the number of mujahedeen heading off for jihad, where Christians were infidels and Jews were monkeys.
In interviews over the last several months with The Dallas Morning News, Mr. Jordan listed several reasons why Saudi Arabia became the fountainhead of al-Qaeda's ideology. Both the kingdom and al-Qaeda share the puritanical strain of Sunni Muslim faith called Wahhabism, named after the 18th century spiritual partner of the Saudi royal family. Militant followers of the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood fled Egypt and Syria in the 1960s for sanctuary in Saudi Arabia, where often they became schoolteachers.
After zealots seized the holiest spot in Islam by occupying the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, Saudi princes had the survivors beheaded - but then caved in to their demands for stricter religious control over education, cultural affairs and the rights of women.
In the 1980s, veterans of the holy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan inspired many disaffected young Saudi men. In the 1990s, radical imams found a home in Saudi mosques preaching against the presence of U.S. forces in the kingdom.
In the war on terrorism, Mr. Jordan's mission was to reform this milieu by working with the Saudi royal family - particularly 81-year-old Crown Prince Abdullah, who runs the country for his infirm older brother, King Fahd.
"At a time of conflict and terrorist attacks, this requires cooperation with the Saudis both to capture or kill the actual terrorists, and to reduce the breeding ground," he said. "There is still a lot of work to do."
As ambassador, it also fell to Mr. Jordan to help the Saudis communicate their grievances with the United States. There were several.
Mr. Jordan urged Mr. Bush to speak out against American evangelicals preaching hatred and intolerance toward Islam. The president did, but "I would prefer he had done it more," Mr. Jordan said.
Mr. Jordan criticized Israel's excesses in the war with the Palestinians, while telling the Saudis that Mr. Bush had lost all patience with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Mr. Jordan also had to face whether the House of Saud was part of the problem.
He prodded the CIA about whether Saudi royals had ties to al-Qaeda. He asked them to look again when media accounts made such connections. None was ever confirmed. Like the commission examining the 9-11 attacks, Mr. Jordan concluded there was no evidence of Saudi government support for al-Qaeda.
Mr. Jordan met with Saudi critics of the royal family. He went to the offices of Saudi charities and confronted executives about the libel and hatred in their publications.
A lengthening list of Saudi domestic affairs became part of the ambassador's agenda.
"Lately I've been saying what goes on in Saudi mosques and schools is no longer an internal matter. It affects our national security," he said.
A call from the White House
Bob Jordan was a founding partner in the Dallas office of Baker Botts, the law firm of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. In 1989, he went to an inaugural party for President George H.W. Bush hosted by Baker Botts' Washington office. That's where he met George W. Bush, who at that time was looking to buy a piece of the Texas Rangers. Mr. Bush later hired Mr. Jordan to represent him in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
Mr. Bush and Mr. Jordan would meet socially at the Ballpark in Arlington for dinner and a game. Later, the Jordans were guests at the governor's mansion in Austin.
When Mr. Bush won the presidency, Mr. Jordan offered his congratulations and his service.
The White House personnel office called in March 2001.
He wasn't sought out for his contributions to the campaign. Mr. Jordan donated $2,000 toward Mr. Bush's election drive.
Instead, the president wanted a friend for this job - the Saudis, Mr. Jordan said, insisted on an ambassador with the president's ear. Mr. Bush was also looking for loyalty, discretion and someone who would level with him about what was going on in Saudi Arabia. Despite all the contacts and familiarity with Saudi Arabia held by his father, George W. Bush was still feeling his way, with some skepticism, Mr. Jordan said.
Mr. Jordan was at the top of his game in Dallas. He had a 9th-floor office in the Trammell Crow building overlooking the Dallas Museum of Art. He had a wife and three sons, a home in University Park, and a five-minute commute he made in a dark blue Porsche 911.
In Saudi Arabia, he'd be in charge at an embassy built like a fortress. He'd be chauffeured in an armored BMW with Saudi bodyguards in lead and chase cars, living in comfort but in profound cultural isolation in one of the most conservative societies in the world.
The president urged Mr. Jordan to talk with his father about Saudi Arabia. So Mr. Jordan flew to Houston and met with the former president.
Even before Sept. 11, the job was a challenge. On Aug. 24, 2001, Crown Prince Abdullah flew into a rage while watching President Bush tell the media that the onus was on the Palestinians, rather than Israel, to get the peace process started again. The prince ordered Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, to deliver a 25-page letter to Mr. Bush warning that his stance on the Middle East had brought the U.S.-Saudi relationship to a crossroads.
Mr. Bush responded by advocating a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. The Saudis were pleased, but the next U.S. ambassador would have to keep working the issue.
"The crown prince doesn't like the telephone. He does call the president from time to time. But he does a lot of business in person, and he doesn't travel much," Mr. Jordan said. "It falls to the ambassador to convey to the president the personal thoughts of the crown prince, and to represent the president in this personal relationship."
Mr. Jordan's first meeting with Crown Prince Abdullah was at the king's palace in Riyadh. The United States was bombing Afghanistan, and the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan was approaching. The Bush administration was worried that the Saudis would stop U.S. warplanes heading to Afghanistan from flying out of Saudi bases for the month. Gen. Tommy Franks came to argue against the idea, and Mr. Jordan went with him.
Despite Gen. Franks' growing impatience - "He had a war to fight," Mr. Jordan recalled - the prince kept the two men waiting more than three hours. So they talked about the Bush family, and about familiar stomping grounds in Texas.
After his first months exploring the seeds of terrorism in Saudi society, Mr. Jordan flew to Washington and argued that the administration needed to pull Saudi Arabia into the World Trade Organization.
In a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Jordan argued that WTO membership would compel Saudi Arabia to do much more than lower tariffs. It would change Saudi society. Saudi businesses would need a workforce schooled in business, math, science and critical analysis rather than Wahhabi dogma. And it could lead to greater rights for Saudi women.
Despite making several changes, the Saudis still lack membership in the trade organization. Reforms in education and freedom of speech, curbs on extremist sermons and radical charities, and greater rights for women - all steps Mr. Jordan urged on the Saudis - have fallen short of U.S. expectations.
The prospect of reform breakthroughs that would satisfy the United States was never great, said David Long, a retired diplomat who worked in the kingdom and still visits and writes about the relationship. Ties between the two governments held in the aftermath of Sept. 11. But bitterness and animosity mushroomed between the American and Saudi people.
In that atmosphere, Mr. Jordan's task was "almost impossible," Mr. Long said.
"I wouldn't have wanted that job for all the tea in China. Given those circumstances, he did about as well as he could."
Mr. Jordan takes pride in having pushed the dialogue. He hopes his successor as ambassador to the kingdom - Dallas oil executive Jim Oberwetter, another friend of the president with tact, loyalty and candor - will have better results.
'This tragic event'
As U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003, a new battleground was about to open inside Saudi Arabia. Intelligence from numerous sources, including interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects, convinced the CIA there would soon be bombings at housing compounds in the kingdom.
Ambassador Jordan sent a letter to Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the Saudi deputy interior minister, who runs the ministry for his father, Prince Nayef.
The letter passed on the intelligence information and asked for improved security at compounds used by Americans.
There was no reply. Mr. Jordan wrote again. Still no reply.
On May 6, Saudi police uncovered a nest of 19 al-Qaeda militants in northeast Riyadh, less than 1,000 yards from a luxury housing compound. There was a gunbattle. The militants escaped.
Mr. Jordan wrote again to Prince Muhammad. No answer.
On May 12, al-Qaeda militants attacked three Riyadh housing compounds with car bombs. Nine Americans were killed, along with 16 others of different nationalities. Nine terrorists also died.
Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived the next morning. He and Mr. Jordan toured the bomb damage at two of the compounds. Angry and exhausted, Mr. Jordan talked with a TV news crew.
"We contacted the Saudi government, in fact on several occasions, to request that added security be provided to all Western residential compounds and government installations in the kingdom," Mr. Jordan said on CBS' The Early Show. "But they did not, as of the time of this tragic event, provide the additional security we requested."
Crown Prince Abdullah apologized to Mr. Powell and Mr. Jordan.
U.S. and Saudi officials say the scales fell off of Saudi eyes that day. Ever since, they say, there has been complete law enforcement and intelligence cooperation in the war on terrorism.
After the bombings, a State Department security detail examined Mr. Jordan's residence in the Diplomatic Quarter of Riyadh. The detail was alarmed by the unguarded ravine behind the walled residence. Mr. Jordan was told he should not sleep at the residence until new cameras and other gear were installed.
Mr. Jordan said goodbye to the dependents and non-essential personnel of the embassy community, who were ordered to leave the country.
During those tense weeks, he went to dinner parties with Saudi intellectuals and princes, where the talk turned to how the kingdom could deal with its disaffected young and shake up its geriatric royal line of succession.
Then he went home to his cavernous, empty house, changed into blue jeans and a baseball cap, and snuck out the back door.
U.S. security agents with flak vests and submachine guns shielded him from the Saudi guards as they sped him to his hideouts.
At dawn, the agents would return Mr. Jordan to his house.
Early in June, Mr. Jordan joined Mr. Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah at the U.S.-Arab summit in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt. The president wanted endorsements from Arab leaders for the recently completed "road map" for negotiating a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute.
Between meetings, Mr. Jordan got a moment alone with Mr. Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. It was time for him to leave, the ambassador said. He'd stayed on for the war in Iraq, and through the aftermath of the May 12 bombings.
"I can't thank you enough for your service," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Jordan returned to Baker Botts in Dallas. He plans to write a book about his experiences.
Chas. Freeman Jr., former President George H.W. Bush's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, came to the job after a career in government service rather than a friendship with the president. Some presidential friends want an ambassadorship because "it's the closest thing we have to a knighthood, and they want the title," Mr. Freeman said.
"But Bob Jordan was very definitely the exception," he added. "He gave this job everything he had."
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
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Crises and Opportunities in U.S.-Saudi Relations: Ambassador Robert Jordan Interview (SUSRIS)
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