>> u.s. presidents have to varying degrees been willing to pander to saudi arabia. >> to the arms of an old friend, the kingdom of saudi arabia. >> the pariah that they are. >> we must act and we will act. >> the president who vowed to be different. >> president biden is about to kiss the ring of mbs. >> remarkable reversal. >> it's going to be awkward. >> is now just another patron of a prince. >> the crown prince is a wrecking ball. >> a dictator renowned for a very brutal end. >> his body was chopped up into small pieces. >> why would you bring a bone saw? >> who at the same time is a reformer. >> this man is extremely popular. >> revolutionizing his nation. >> new era, new age. it's that simple. >> the kingdom's power lies under the desert sands. >> keep your pumps up and you can do whatever you want out back. liquid gold -- oil. is america betraying its values? to understand this unusual relationship you need to understand the very unusual country that is saudi arabia. good evening. saudi arabia is a fascinating study in contrasts, the dark kingdom that spawned bin ladin, lively cafes dot the street corners of glittering cities. american pop stars perform to sold-out crowds. some of the world's best golfers are leaving the pga to join the saudi tour. all of this even as the world cannot forget the gruesome murder of "washington post" journalist jamal khashoggi. the 2018 killing was ordered, says the cia, by the crown prince of saudi arabia himself, mohammed bil salman. mbs has also sparked a saudi renaissance. an economic boom. he's taken on extremists, has given rights to women. joe biden once called him a pariah. now he's about to make a friendly visit to an old ally but a story that is making a turn. in saudi arabia almost nothing is what it seems. to find the real story you have to go beneath the surface. about one mile beneath, to be precise. there's more oil in saudi arabia than almost anywhere else on earth. when oil was first discovered, legend has it the king said, cap the well. too much money brings trouble. then -- ♪ he got over it. ♪ money money money money ♪ oil brought with it fantastic wealth. >> they make a billion dollars a day. >> this is the prince's palace. 317 rooms. >> there are thousands of saudi princes. they blow gigantic sums all over the world. ♪ from sunup sundown ♪ >> we counted at least seven huge saudi yachts. >> oil money buys million-dollar prizes for camel races. and expensive cars you can crash for fun. but most importantly, oil carved a country out of the desert. modern cities sprang out of the sand in just decades. there's only one other force as powerful as oil in saudi arabia. religion. saudis practice the most extreme form of islam in the world. >> article 1 says the sayings of the prophet are the constitution of this country. >> sharia is the only law. women are rendered virtually invisible. black ghosts. >> domination. men have dominated women. there's this sense that any mixing between men and women is fraught with the potential for evil to happen. >> historically women had the status of children. by law their husbands or fathers were their guardians. some clerics give men a free hand to beat women. mohammad al arifyi counsels young men on the right way to hit their wives. "lightly with the hand," he says, "and not in the face." if the beating did not keep a wife in line, men could download a government app used for wife tracking. among other functions it could accepted out a text alert if a wife headed for the airport or the border. >> testosterone is a dangerous drug. it's this view of women as both children and as chaotic sexual beings. >> the app is called absher, arabic for "your wish is my command." some men might have needed more than one app because they had more than one wife. there are reportedly more than 1 million saudis in polygamous marriages. there are no churches in saudi arabia. christians pray in secret. >> we have secret churches there. house churches. >> practicing christianity is against saudi arabia's version of islamic law. so is every other religion. except islam. >> it is a tough place to be a christian. >> even tougher to be jewish. "we must kill all the jews" says the so-called religious scholar. textbooks published in 2018 taught the jews are cowardly, devious. another evil in saudi arabia was music. movies were considered heresy, too. if you complain publicly about any of it, any government st stricture, you could be arrested. foes of the government can be tortured, even beheaded. >> saudi arabia lives a bizarre double life. fabulously rich. drenched in oil. it was at the same time handcuffed for years by extremist islam. the saudis are deeply conflicted. but then so are we. because their story is intertwined with ours. the closest ally of this strange desert kingdom has been america, one of the world's most open democracies, where freedom of religious is enshrined in the constitution. why? "new york times" columnist thomas friedman put it succinctly. >> guys, here's the deal. just keep your pumps open, your prices low, and don't bother the yahudis too much, and you can do whatever you want out back. >> out back. that's where you'd find the medievalism, the extremist rhetoric, the clerics, the hatred of other religions. >> it is my view, fareed, 9/11, we got hit with the distilled essence of everything that was going on out back. >> osama bin laden and 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were all suddenies. saudis. more isis soldiers come from saudi than from anywhere else in the middle east. for years america has been desperate for a new day in saudi arabia. >> welcome to the stage, ladies and gentlemen, his royal highness -- >> enter the 36-year-old crown prince mohammad bin salman. he is unlike any saudi ruler the world has seen before. mbs effectively took over from his father, king salman, five years ago. suddenly everything in saudi arabia seemed to change. >> right away he looks like a breath of fresh air. and he's forceful. ♪ >> remember, music was evil and forbidden. ♪ but then mariah carey performed. ♪ after her came a parade of stars. among them justin bieber and the black-eyed peas. he was beginning to do something i hadn't seen from any saudi leader ever. >> his reforms inside saudi arabia have been revolutionary. >> he says, i am not going to leave this life until i see the entire middle east in the first rank of nations. >> movies were forbidden but then the crown prince himself opened a movie theater. >> don't freeze. >> i never freeze. >> watching "black panther" were men and women sitting together. that is a dramatic change for this country. >> this man is extremely popular. >> here it is, ladies and gentlemen, here in front of the amc theater. >> we've just begun to actually fight the war of ideas. >> hi! >> women were finally allowed to drive. and some of the guardian laws that treated them like children were revealed. mbs stripped the dreaded religious beliefs of much of their power. he arrested some of the crazy clerics. including the brief detention of mohammed al a-rifi, the wife-beating advice giver. and remember the cleric who talked about killing the jews? the crown practice is now talking about recognizing the state of israel. saudi arabia is changing. but even as it does, there is something else going on. >> massive purge of princes, all arrested by a man who would be king. >> early in his reign mbs imprisoned hundreds of princes and wealthy businessmen at the riyadh ritz-carlton, of all places. >> we drive in under police escort -- >> it was called a crackdown on corruption. >> no one enters here now without official permission. >> what appeared to be cell phone video emerged showing a chaotic scene in one of the world's fanciest hotels. >> and it was a shakedown power play of all his potential rivals. >> i think it was really about control. >> there were reports of torture and one death which the government denied. meanwhile, even as mbs gave women the right to drive, saudi police arrested the leaders of the right to drive movement. and again there are credible reports that some of the women were tortured. >> this is an authoritarian absolute monarchy. >> the truth about mbs was beginning to emerge and it was a complicated picture. >> you were young, 29 years old when you became deputy crown prince. had some very dark impulses, saddam-like impulses we now understand. >> u.s. officials usually weigh in when allies like saudi arabia go off course. >> they need us to draw red lines. >> donald trump drew no lines. like other presidents before him, he fanned the friendship because of oil. >> if you want to see oil price go to $150 a barrel, all you have to do is break up our relationship with saudi arabia. >> but unlike previous presidents, trump never questioned any saudi action. >> and what they've all needed was to say to their captain, their advisers, i'd love to do that crazy thing you want me to do. i'd love to do that. my heart is with you. the american secretary of state broke my arm. if we don't play that role, these guys will drive right over the cliff. that's what happened, fareed. >> that cliff was, of course, the murder of "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. >> a murder/mystery pitting the u.s. against its key ally saudi arabia. >> it began in the dead of night. october 2nd of last year. a private saudi plane landed in istanbul. >> the turks say assassins waiting for him inside the consulate -- >> jamal khashoggi had an appointment there that day. >> he is a saudi journalist, a vocal opponent of his own government. >> he is creating an environment of intimidation and fear. >> khashoggi was well connected with ties to some senior royals. he had been treated well at the consulate before. so at the appointed time, he went inside. what follows is from an audiotape described to cnn. >> within moments of his fateful steps into the consulate, khashoggi recognizes someone. >> mahereb matreb, a former intelligence official close to the crown prince, mohammad bin salman. matreb tells him, you are coming back. khashoggi says, you can't do that. and then he's attacked. there are screams. his last words, "i can't breathe." then the sound of a saw. >> turkish officials say khashoggi's body was cut up with a bone saw. >> jamal khashoggi's body was dismembered, chopped up into small pieces -- >> a saudi autopsy expert tells the men, put on headphones and listen to music. presumably to drown out the sound of the saw. a khashoggi look-alike can be seen leaving the consulate. >> same clothes, same glasses and beard, everything, except the shoes. >> saudi arabia vehemently denies knowing anything about khashoggi's disappearance. >> as details began to emerge, the saudis said a fight had broken out. >> the official saudi explanation that khashoggi's death was the result of a fistfight gone bad has been deemed laughable. >> finally the saudi government settled on one word, rogue. it was a rogue operation. >> the saudi foreign minister told fox news that this was a rogue operation. >> rogue elements may have been involved. >> they're going to say he was killed by rogue operatives. >> this rogue killer's explanation, this is absurd. >> sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers, who knows. >> the cia said it believed mbs was involved with the murder. >> mbs, the crown prince, is a wrecking ball. i think he's complicit in the murder of mr. khashoggi to the highest level possible. i think he's crazy. i think he is dangerous. >> trump appeared unconvinced. >> whether he did or whether he didn't, he denies it vehemently. >> i would really question somebody's judgment if they couldn't figure this out. >> it was an example of sometimes elements of the bureaucracy going rogue. >> ali shihabi used to act for the u.s. >> u.s. intelligence believes that jamal khashoggi was murdered on the instructions of the crown prince. that an elite team of people very close to the crown prince went to istanbul with the purpose of doing him harm. what do you say to that? >> look, had you wanted to kill jamal, there were so many cheaper and easier ways to do it. he was very much a friend of the royal family. he was an insider. he was a prominent person, he was a prominent player. everybody has their friends and enemies. the crown prince has denied it. and there simply isn't a piece of evidence. >> senator lindsey graham says there is a smoking gun, it's just a smoking bone saw, not a gun. "the washington post" editorial page puts it very simply. if this was meant to be an interrogation that went rogue, why would you bring a bone saw to an interrogation? >> well, first of all, nobody has shown us that bone saw. >> how was he dismembered? >> again, not to get gruesome, but i saw an interview on television with a doctor that said any saw could dismember a human being. >> why did they bring any saw? >> look, he was killed, and it seems like he was dismembered and the body was disposed of, so, i mean, it's a tragic, horrible event . (fisher investments) it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same, but at fisher investments we're clearly different. (other money manager) different how? you sell high commission investment products, right? (fisher investments) nope. fisher avoids them. (other money manager) well, you must earn commissions on trades. (fisher investments) never at fisher. 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(fisher investments) no. we structure our fees so we do better when clients do better. that might be why most of our clients come from other money managers. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. ♪ three times the electorlytes and half the sugar. ♪ pedialyte powder packs. feel better fast. as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. in 1996, osama bin laden declared war on the united states. these youths love death as you love life, he warned. these youths are steadfast at war. they will sing out that there is only killing. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from one country, saudi arabia. the man who led them, osama bin laden, was from saudi arabia. isis and other terrorist groups killing americans have been filled with recruits from saudi arabia. how did one of america's closest allies become the home of its most bitter enemies? to understand, we have to go back almost 300 years. to the 1700s. two men formed an alliance in the arabian desert. a cleric known as mohammad bin ahab and a warrior named mohammad bin saud, patriarch of the saudi royal family. al ahab and his family were the isis of their time, preaching strict adherence to the koran on pain of death. their puritanical faith became known as wa habbiism. and it was that creed which dominated saudi arabia for years. >> authorities inside saudi arabia have executed -- >> wahhabism starts as a principle that i, as a muslim, can determine if another muslim is a good muslim. if he or she is not, i can proclaim him or her a heretic and that person is subject to the most drastic penalties, including death. >> wahhabism was only a minor sect of islam for much of its history. the muslim world was shaped far more by diverse societies like egypt. >> oil in commercial quantities -- >> then saudi arabia struck oil. >> 200,000 barrels a day -- >> with mountains of cash, the kingdom eclipsed other muslim nations and spread its version of the faith everywhere. >> what oil money did was finance the building of islamic centers, mosques. putting conditions that ensured that their exclusivist ideas alone would be taught in those islamic centers, and those mosques. >> but in 1979, wahhabism turned on the kingdom itself. >> armed religious fanatics today seized the great mosque in the muslim holy city of mecca in saudi arabia and took hostages. >> the attackers were extreme religious conservatives. they were appalled by the unholy westernization that the riches of oil had wrought. >> they broadcast their message that the saudi ruling family are drunkards, gamblers, people who have taken saudi arabia away from the true islamic faith. >> after two weeks the rebels were captured and beep headed. >> it was a triumphant and tumultuous welcome fare the ayatollah khomenei -- >> that same year an islamic revolution swept through iran. >> a tearful shah of iran left his country today -- >> ousting a monarchy. launching the rise of iran's shiite version of puritanical islam, the rival faith of the saudis. the saudi royal family panicked and gave more power to the wahabis. >> from the age of 12, she must dress in black -- >> to run the kingdom their way. >> no more. cinema. women could not appear on tv uncovered. no music in schools. they basically banned fun. >> at the end of 1979, the soviet union invaded afghanistan. a godless superpower had taken over a muslim nation. this gave the saudis a golden opportunity. >> it was a gift from heaven to the people of saudi arabia. they looked into these islamists eyes and they said, why don't you go find the infidels who just invaded afghanistan. >> one of the men who answered the call was osama bin laden. >> bin laden was always a true believer. he really believed in all these ideals taught to him by wahabi schools early on in his childhood in saudi arabia. >> bin laden's father had been a construction magnate with close ties to the king. but osama bin laden gave up his life of comfort and moved to afghanistan. forming a ragtag army of foreign mercenaries from across the arab and islamic world. in the late '80s, the organization was given a name. al qaeda. in 1990, a new enemy caught bin laden's eye. >> more than 400,000 u.s. troops in "operation desert shield" -- >> half a million american troops came to saudi arabia to defend against saddam hussein. >> reports of iraqi forces overrunning the capital of kuwait -- >> saddam had taken over neighboring kuwait and was poised to strike the kingdom. the presence of u.s. soldiers saved saudi arabia. but it infuriated the wahabis. bin laden urged the saudi royal family to let him fight saddam himself with his own army of mujahedin. they brushed him off. >> osama bin laden was furious. he thought this is the unholiest thing anybody can do, bringing the infidels to the eyearabian peninsula. >> in 1996 with american troops still in the kingdom osama bin laden issued a fatwa. it is a moral obligation he declared to the americans. >> outrage, shock and heavy loss of life. >> thus began the road to 9/11. >> terrorist bombs explode. >> who did it and why? >> killed hundreds and wounded over 5,000. nearly sunk a destroyer killing 17. >> both towers -- >> and in 2001 -- >> appear to have collapsed. >> bin laden's greatest triumph, nearly 3,000 americans obliterated. saudi arabia had created a monster. after 9/11 the monster turned against its homeland. mounting a deadly offensive inside the kingdom. the house of saud mounted a vicious counterattack. >> they began systematically to find and go after al qaeda cells in the kingdom. >> mohammed bil salman. but the ideology of wahhabism is still alive across the world. when isis established its schools, the textbooks that it first used came from saudi arabia. >> the narrative that you have to behead and kill anyone who doesn't believe in what you believe, the narrative you have to blow up mosques, the narrative that anyone who's not a muslim does not have any rights, not even the right to live, this is