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Bush family ties to Saudi Arabia: The $1.4 billion figure (last updated October 4, 2004)
Fahrenheit 9/11 repeats the $1.4 billion figure that Craig Unger estimated in his book "House of Bush, House of Saud" (actually $1.477 billion) as going from Saudi Arabia to the Bush family, its friends and related businesses. This figure is based on some broad principles that are somewhat questionable. First, he took any money that Saudi Arabia paid or contracted to pay any company somehow affiliated with the Bush family or to Dick Cheney. Second, he took any money that Saudi citizens invested in a company somehow affiliated with the Bush family. Third, he took money that Saudi royalties gave to charities affiliated with the Bush family or to the Bush presidential libraries.
Some points worth noting about the figure:
- No money in the $1.4 billion figure went directly to the Bush family.
- The figure is mostly comprised of money ($1.1886 billion) that went to a company that the Carlyle Group stopped owning (BDM) before George H.W. Bush even became involved with Carlyle in 1999. Bush's Secretary of State Jim Baker was associated with Carlyle during the period in which Carlyle owned BDM, which helps support the overall figure somewhat.
- The $1.4 billion figure does count about $115 million that went from Saudi Arabia and its citizens to companies affiliated with the Bush family while the Bush family member was involved. That includes $80 million invested by Saudis in the Carlyle Group, though no Bush family member owns part of the Carlyle Group or benefits directly from such investment. That also includes $25 million invested by a Saudi citizen in the Harken Energy company in the 1980s when George W. Bush was a director.
- The $1.4 billion figure also counts $180 million that went from Saudi Arabia to Halliburton in 2000 when Dick Cheney was its chairman and CEO.
- The figure also contains $1.5 million in donations to charities affiliated with George H.W. Bush (including his high school, Phillips Academy, which I also attended), $1 million to George H.W. Bush's presidential library, and a $1 million gift to George W. Bush's eventual presidential library.
However one credits Unger's figure, it pales compared to how much the United States has given the Bush family, based on the same principles that Unger applied to calculate his Saudi figure. It is difficult to calculate such a figure precisely, but even conservative estimates would put the figure at several times more than $1.4 billion. Any "investment" by Saudi Arabia into the Bush family and its friends should be compared more fairly against all the money that the United States has similarly "invested," not merely against the salary George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have earned as president.
- The United States government has paid George H.W. Bush a lot of money just for being or having been president. It paid him a total of about $1 million in salary and expenses while president ($200,000 annual salary plus $50,000 annual expenses), another $1-2 million in post-presidential pensions (about $160,000 a year), and about $4 million in post-presidential expenses from 1992 to 2000. It has paid or will pay George W. Bush even more. It will pay him about $1.8 million in salary and expenses assuming just one term as president ($400,000 annual salary plus $50,000 annual expenses), probably millions in post-presidential pensions, and probably millions in post-presidential expenses.
- The United States government actually is a much bigger customer of various companies affiliated with the Carlyle Group, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney than Saudi Arabia. It has paid billions to such companies, easily dwarfing the amount that Saudi Arabia has ever paid to such companies. United Defense, a defense contractor that was owned by Carlyle for several years, alone reported $3.81 billion in revenues from the United States just from 1998 to 2001, about twice Unger's entire figure.
BDM reported receiving $931.4 million in revenue from the United States in 1995 and 1996, compared to $281.0 million from Saudi Arabia in the same time period. Halliburton itself has been criticized for its own lucrative contracts with the United States.
- Third, United States citizens have given far more to the Bush family than Saudi royalty and citizens ever have. U.S. citizens have given millions upon millions to the various Bush campaigns (both through direct contributions and through the presidential-election funding system), as well as millions to George H.W. Bush's presidential library, which reported about $22 million in assets in FY 2002.
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| Saudi Arabia Government
| U.S. Government
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| Salary, expenses, pension, post-presidency expenses to GWB
| $0
| about $6-7 million as of 2004
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| Salary, expenses, future pension, future post-presidency expenses to GWB
| $0
| $1.8 million for his first term
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| Payments to companies affiliated at some time with GWB (Carlyle)
| $1,188.6 million
| far in excess of $5,000 million
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Finally, it is worth pointing out, as Craig Unger does in his book, that Saudi Arabia has not just contributed to the Bush family. According to Unger, Bill Clinton approached Prince Bandar in 1991 for $20 million to launch a Middle East studies program at the University of Arkansas and that Prince Bandar announced that the request was approved shortly before Bill Clinton won the presidential election. There may be some irony in that, by Unger's own account, Saudi Arabia has contributed eight times as much to Bill Clinton's charities than to George H.W. Bush's.
Sources: Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties (Simon & Schuster, 2004). General Accounting Office, Former Presidents: Office and Security Costs and Other Information (GAO-01-983, September 2001). 3 U.S.C. 102 (setting compensation of president at $400,000 a year plus an expense allowance of $50,000). Annual reports for United Defense, BDM, and Halliburton filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Phillips Academy, Statement on Bush Scholars Program (December 31, 2002) (on-line here).
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