The Foreign Service Journal, April 2003

t was Jan. 25, 1986, a night to remember for Chicagoans. Their beloved Bears, habitual losers, won the Super Bowl. For different, less joyful reasons, it was also a memorable night for Patricia Roush, who was living on the out- skirts of the city. Her daughters, Alia, 7, and Aisha, 3, were spending the evening with Roush’s former husband, a Saudi Arabian named Khalid al-Gheshayan, whom she had divorced a month earlier. The two had met at a party in San Francisco in 1975. They wed three years later, but the marriage soon foundered, partly because of his excessive drinking. As Roush glanced at Alia’s Brownie handbook on a nightstand, something told her that all was not well with her daughters. When she tried to call Gheshayan, there was no answer. She rushed over to his residence and was told by a neighborhood child that Gheshayan had taken the girls away in a taxi over their vigorous protests. Days later, he informed her by telephone that he and the girls were in Saudi Arabia. One of Roush’s first calls was to the State Department’s Office of Overseas Citizens Emergency Center. Roush says she was told there was nothing they could do for her. But she was not about to give up. She had been given court-ordered custody rights. So to her, Gheshayan’s act was an outright kidnapping. Her grief was compounded by the fact that her daughters had been taken to Saudi Arabia, a country known for the sub- servient role it assigns to anyone who doesn’t happen to be male. Beyond that, Gheshayan had a long history of psychiatric and alcohol problems. Roush’s campaign to get back her daughters has now lasted 17 years. She has written to every member of Congress, asking them to plead her case with the Saudis. She has arranged for the hand-delivery of let- ters to three U.S. presidents. Her lobbying of the State Department has persisted through four secretaries of State and included frequent contact with consular affairs officials. In 1989, she even employed a private investigator, Ed Ciriello, to find her daughters and bring them back to her. Ciriello, a veteran of Middle East intrigue, hired four Saudis. They made their move on Jan. 18, 1991, just as the Gulf war against Iraq was getting under way. The plotters had the awful misfortune of crossing paths with police in Riyadh who were chasing a traffic violator; Ciriello thought he and his companions were being pur- sued. Shots were fired, two of Ciriello’s accomplices were killed and the mission was aborted. Since her daughters were whisked away to Saudi Arabia, Roush has seen them only once, during a two- hour meeting at a Riyadh hotel on June 13, 1995, spon- sored by a wealthy Saudi sympathizer. The Washington Center of Peace and Justice gives the following account of the meeting: “They were now young women, clad completely in black draping. They removed their veils, and stood per- fectly still. Roush searched their faces, trying to deter- mine which daughter was which. The eyes, of course, provided the answer. “‘Is that Alia?’ the mother asked. ‘Yes,’ was the mur- mured reply. Roush was overcome with emotion. She ran to the girls sobbing, grabbed them, touching their hair and kissing their faces. They sat on a sofa, Roush in the middle. She showed them photos of themselves when they were small, she told them repeatedly in Arabic that she loved them. A P R I L 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 61 P ATRICIA R OUSH ’ S 17- YEAR CAMPAIGN TO GET HER DAUGHTERS BACK FROM S AUDI A RABIA HAS RECEIVED A LOT OF PUBLICITY AND HIGH - LEVEL CONGRESSIONAL ATTENTION , BUT TO NO AVAIL . S HE BLAMES THE S TATE D EPARTMENT FOR NOT DOING MORE TO HELP . B Y G EORGE G EDDA A RABIAN N IGHTMARE : T HE P ATRICIA R OUSH C ASE I George Gedda is the State Department correspondent for the Associated Press.