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Muawiyah,

Not a bad write up, but you I disagree with a couple of your statements.

1. The Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), like the Army (Ministry of Defense) is manned by tribal members. But both organizations answer to the king. They are headed by members of the royal family who are also loyal to the king. They are similar in strength and as ballast to each other, to ensure that no Prince leading an armed organization would choose to seize power ahead of his time. When I was working with the SANG, the guy in charge of it was Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah, who was King Fahad’s brother.

2. On a more minor point, all sources I have ever heard on the size of the royal family place it at 6,000 (+/-), vice the 50,000 (+/-). Where does the 50,000 estimate come from?

V/R

Bill

Thanks for writing.

50,000 ~ includes people who were born outside of approved marriages or those that occur with girls from the tribes where there is no expectation of royal status ~ plus, they've been using that 6,000 number for a good 5 decades and you just know that's not so.

As you undoubtedly recall, when they had about 1,500,000 people they were reporting 7,000,000 ~ today the estimate they seem to accept is about 24,000,000 ~

It's not unbelievable that they have a whopping huge population these days ~ there's so little to do there otherwise.

Now, why would anyone continue to accept the 6,000 number.