[Peace-discuss] [ufpj-activist] [syriadiscussion:4581] U.S. Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels

Sun Jan 24 21:38:34 EST 2016

I thought the key revelation was that Bernie's dream solution of having
Saudi pony up the $$ for f--ing up the region further had already come true
and we didn't even know it. What's left to solve now?

On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 9:36 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:

> It is good that the NYT's publishes articles by Mark Mazzetti, who has
> taken on CIA abuses for a while now.
>
>
> As to why the Saudi's give money to the CIA & what and who the US provides
> with financial assistance, and sells weapons.
>
>
> I suggest reading "Legacy of Ashes, History of the CIA" by Tim Weiner,
> published in 2007-2008. CIA  requiring money from Saudi as well as other
> nations which include China, and Taiwan, the Jordanian King on our payroll,
> this has been going on since the CIA gun running in the 70's. See: pages
> 158,434,445,462,493-94,533. Some of us with AWARE have discussed this issue
> at length.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* ufpj-activist <ufpj-activist-bounces+karenaram=
> hotmail.com at lists.mayfirst.org> on behalf of Robert Naiman <
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
> *Sent:* Sunday, January 24, 2016 5:26 PM
> *To:* Michael Eisenscher
> *Cc:* syriadiscussion at googlegroups.com; UFPJ Activist List
> *Subject:* Re: [ufpj-activist] [syriadiscussion:4581] U.S. Relies Heavily
> on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels
>
> This is a fascinating and useful piece. It shows how deep the thing is
> that we're up against.
>
> [...]
> The roots of the relationship run deep. In the late 1970s, the Saudis
> organized what was known as the “Safari Club” — a coalition of nations
> including Morocco, Egypt and France — that ran covert operations around
> Africa at a time when Congress had clipped the C.I.A.’s wings over years of
> abuses.
> [...]
>
> That was under Carter, Mr. "Human rights will be the soul of our foreign
> policy."
>
> On the plus side: the fact that the NYT is reporting this suggests that
> this may be moving from "taboo" to "something we can possibly talk about."
>
> Let's try to turn this into an action item:
>
> While the Obama administration saw this coalition as a selling point in
> Congress, some, including Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, raised
> questions about why the C.I.A. needed Saudi money for the operation,
> according to one former American official. Mr. Wyden declined to be
> interviewed, but his office released a statement calling for more
> transparency. “Senior officials have said publicly that the U.S. is trying
> to build up the battlefield capabilities of the anti-Assad opposition, but
> they haven’t provided the public with details about how this is being done,
> which U.S. agencies are involved, or which foreign partners those agencies
> are working with,” the statement said.
>
>
>
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
>
> <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
> Just Foreign Policy <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/>
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> Just Foreign Policy is an independent and non-partisan membership
> organization. We are dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy to serve
> the interests and reflect ...
>
>
>
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
>
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 2:10 PM, Michael Eisenscher <
> m_eisenscher at uslaboragainstwar.org> wrote:
>
>> U.S. Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels
>>
>> JAN. 23, 2016
>>
>> By MARK MAZZETTI
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mark_mazzetti/index.html>
>>  and MATT APUZZO
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/matt_apuzzo/index.html>
>>
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/world/middleeast/us-relies-heavily-on-saudi-money-to-support-syrian-rebels.html?emc=edit_th_20160124&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=30295955
>> Photo
>> Shiite Muslims in Karachi, Pakistan, protested the Saudis’ beheading of a
>> dissident cleric this month. The Obama administration did not publicly
>> condemn it. Credit Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
>>
>> WASHINGTON — When President Obama secretly authorized the Central
>> Intelligence Agency
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
>>  to begin arming Syria
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>’s
>> embattled rebels in 2013, the spy agency knew it would have a willing
>> partner to help pay for the covert operation. It was the same partner the
>>  C.I.A.
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
>>  has relied on for decades for money and discretion in far-off
>> conflicts: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/saudiarabia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>
>> .
>>
>> Since then, the C.I.A. and its Saudi counterpart have maintained an
>> unusual arrangement for the rebel-training mission, which the Americans
>> have code-named Timber Sycamore. Under the deal, current and former
>> administration officials said, the Saudis contribute both weapons and large
>> sums of money, and the C.I.A takes the lead in training the rebels on AK-47
>> assault rifles and tank-destroying missiles.
>>
>> The support for the Syrian rebels is only the latest chapter in the
>> decadeslong relationship between the spy services of Saudi Arabia
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/saudiarabia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>
>>  and the United States, an alliance that has endured through the
>> Iran-contra scandal, support for the mujahedeen against the Soviets in
>> Afghanistan and proxy fights in Africa. Sometimes, as in Syria
>> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/syria/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>,
>> the two countries have worked in concert. In others, Saudi Arabia has
>> simply written checks underwriting American covert activities.
>>
>> The joint arming and training program, which other Middle East nations
>> contribute money to, continues as America’s relations with Saudi Arabia —
>> and the kingdom’s place in the region — are in flux. The old ties of cheap
>> oil and geopolitics that have long bound the countries together have
>> loosened as America’s dependence on foreign oil declines and the Obama
>> administration tiptoes toward a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran.
>>
>> And yet the alliance persists, kept afloat on a sea of Saudi money and a
>> recognition of mutual self-interest. In addition to Saudi Arabia’s vast oil
>> reserves and role as the spiritual anchor of the Sunni Muslim world, the
>> long intelligence relationship helps explain why the United States has been
>> reluctant to openly criticize Saudi Arabia for its human rights abuses, its
>> treatment of women and its support for the extreme strain of Islam,
>> Wahhabism
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/middleeast/isis-abu-bakr-baghdadi-caliph-wahhabi.html>,
>> that has inspired many of the very terrorist groups the United States is
>> fighting. The Obama administration did not publicly condemn Saudi Arabia’s
>>  beheading this month
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-executes-47-sheikh-nimr-shiite-cleric.html?ref=todayspaper>
>>  of a dissident Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who had challenged
>> the royal family.
>>
>> Although the Saudis have been public about their help arming rebel groups
>> in Syria, the extent of their partnership with the C.I.A.’s covert action
>> campaign and their direct financial support had not been disclosed. Details
>> were pieced together in interviews with a half-dozen current and former
>> American officials and sources from several Persian Gulf countries. Most
>> spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
>> discuss the program.
>>
>> From the moment the C.I.A. operation was started, Saudi money supported
>> it.
>>
>> “They understand that they have to have us, and we understand that we
>> have to have them,” said Mike Rogers, the former Republican congressman
>> from Michigan who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
>> <http://intelligence.house.gov/> when the C.I.A. operation began. Mr.
>> Rogers declined to discuss details of the classified program.
>>
>> American officials have not disclosed the amount of the Saudi
>> contribution, which is by far the largest from another nation to the
>> program to arm the rebels against President Bashar al-Assad’s military. But
>> estimates have put the total cost of the arming and training effort at
>> several billion dollars.
>> Photo
>> King Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Barack Obama in September at
>> the White House.CreditGary Cameron/Reuters
>>
>> The White House has embraced the covert financing from Saudi Arabia — and
>> from Qatar, Jordan and Turkey — at a time when Mr. Obama has pushed gulf
>> nations to take a greater security role in the region.
>>
>> Spokesmen for both the C.I.A. and the Saudi Embassy in Washington
>> declined to comment.
>>
>> When Mr. Obama signed off on arming the rebels
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/us/politics/pressure-led-to-obamas-decision-on-syrian-arms.html>
>>  in the spring of 2013, it was partly to try to gain control of the
>> apparent free-for-all in the region. The Qataris and the Saudis had been
>> funneling weapons into Syria for more than a year. The Qataris had even
>> smuggled in shipments of Chinese-made FN-6 shoulder-fired missiles
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/world/middleeast/sending-missiles-to-syrian-rebels-qatar-muscles-in.html>
>>  over the border from Turkey.
>>
>> The Saudi efforts were led by the flamboyant Prince Bandar bin Sultan, at
>> the time the intelligence chief, who directed Saudi spies to buy thousands
>> of AK-47s and millions of rounds of ammunition in Eastern Europe for the
>> Syrian rebels. The C.I.A. helped arrange some of the arms purchases for the
>> Saudis, including a large deal in Croatia in 2012.
>>
>> By the summer of 2012, a freewheeling feel had taken hold along Turkey’s
>> border with Syria as the gulf nations funneled cash and weapons to rebel
>> groups — even some that American officials were concerned had ties to
>> radical groups like Al Qaeda.
>>
>> The C.I.A. was mostly on the sidelines during this period, authorized by
>> the White House under the Timber Sycamore training program to deliver
>> nonlethal aid to the rebels but not weapons. In late 2012, according to two
>> former senior American officials, David H. Petraeus, then the C.I.A.
>> director, delivered a stern lecture to intelligence officials of several
>> gulf nations at a meeting near the Dead Sea in Jordan. He chastised them
>> for sending arms into Syria without coordinating with one another or with
>> C.I.A. officers in Jordan and Turkey.
>>
>> Months later, Mr. Obama gave his approval for the C.I.A. to begin
>> directly arming and training the rebels from a base in Jordan, amending the
>> Timber Sycamore program to allow lethal assistance. Under the new
>> arrangement, the C.I.A. took the lead in training, while Saudi Arabia’s
>> intelligence agency, the General Intelligence Directorate, provided money
>> and weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles.
>>
>> The Qataris have also helped finance the training and allowed a Qatari
>> base to be used as an additional training location. But American officials
>> said Saudi Arabia was by far the largest contributor to the operation.
>>
>> While the Obama administration saw this coalition as a selling point in
>> Congress, some, including Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, raised
>> questions about why the C.I.A. needed Saudi money for the operation,
>> according to one former American official. Mr. Wyden declined to be
>> interviewed, but his office released a statement calling for more
>> transparency. “Senior officials have said publicly that the U.S. is trying
>> to build up the battlefield capabilities of the anti-Assad opposition, but
>> they haven’t provided the public with details about how this is being done,
>> which U.S. agencies are involved, or which foreign partners those agencies
>> are working with,” the statement said.
>>
>> When relations among the countries involved in the training program are
>> strained, it often falls to the United States to broker solutions. As the
>> host, Jordan expects regular payments from the Saudis and the Americans.
>> When the Saudis pay late, according to a former senior intelligence
>> official, the Jordanians complain to C.I.A. officials.
>>
>> While the Saudis have financed previous C.I.A. missions with no strings
>> attached, the money for Syria comes with expectations, current and former
>> officials said. “They want a seat at the table, and a say in what the
>> agenda of the table is going to be,” said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A.
>> analyst and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
>> <http://www.brookings.edu/>.
>>
>> The C.I.A. training program is separate from another program to arm
>> Syrian rebels, one the Pentagon ran that has since ended. That program was
>> designed to train rebels to combat Islamic State fighters in Syria, unlike
>> the C.I.A.’s program, which focuses on rebel groups fighting the Syrian
>> military.
>> Photo
>> Prince Bandar bin Sultan, in a 2007 photo, directed Saudi spies to buy
>> thousands of AK-47 assault rifles for Syrian rebels. CreditHassan
>> Ammar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
>>
>> While the intelligence alliance is central to the Syria fight and has
>> been important in the war against Al Qaeda, a constant irritant in
>> American-Saudi relations is just how much Saudi citizens continue to
>> support terrorist groups, analysts said.
>>
>> “The more that the argument becomes, ‘We need them as a counterterrorism
>> partner,’ the less persuasive it is,” said William McCants, a former State
>> Department counterterrorism adviser and the author of a book on the
>> Islamic State <http://us.macmillan.com/theisisapocalypse/williammccants>.
>> “If this is purely a conversation about counterterrorism cooperation, and
>> if the Saudis are a big part of the problem in creating terrorism in the
>> first place, then how persuasive of an argument is it?”
>>
>> In the near term, the alliance remains solid, strengthened by a bond
>> between spy masters. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister
>> who took over the effort to arm the Syrian rebels from Prince Bandar, has
>> known the C.I.A. director, John O. Brennan, from the time Mr. Brennan was
>> the agency’s Riyadh station chief in the 1990s. Former colleagues say the
>> two men remain close, and Prince Mohammed has won friends in Washington
>> with his aggressive moves to dismantle terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in
>> the Arabian Peninsula.
>>
>> The job Mr. Brennan once held in Riyadh is, more than the ambassador’s,
>> the true locus of American power in the kingdom. Former diplomats recall
>> that the most important discussions always flowed through the C.I.A.
>> station chief.
>>
>> Current and former intelligence officials say there is a benefit to this
>> communication channel: The Saudis are far more responsive to American
>> criticism when it is done in private, and this secret channel has done more
>> to steer Saudi behavior toward America’s interests than any public
>> chastising could have.
>>
>> The roots of the relationship run deep. In the late 1970s, the Saudis
>> organized what was known as the “Safari Club” — a coalition of nations
>> including Morocco, Egypt and France — that ran covert operations around
>> Africa at a time when Congress had clipped the C.I.A.’s wings over years of
>> abuses.
>> Continue reading the main story
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/world/middleeast/us-relies-heavily-on-saudi-money-to-support-syrian-rebels.html?emc=edit_th_20160124&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=30295955#story-continues-11> The
>> Big Four in Saudi Arabia’s Government
>>
>> Brief background information on the most powerful figures in the kingdom,
>> and how they stand in the sometimes complicated order of succession.
>>
>> “And so the kingdom, with these countries, helped in some way, I believe,
>> to keep the world safe at a time when the United States was not able to do
>> that,” Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence,
>> recalled in a speech at Georgetown University in 2002.
>>
>> In the 1980s, the Saudis helped finance C.I.A. operations in Angola,
>> where the United States backed rebels against the Soviet-allied government.
>> While the Saudis were staunchly anticommunist, Riyadh’s primary incentive
>> seemed to be to solidify its C.I.A. ties. “They were buying good will,”
>> recalled one former senior intelligence officer who was involved in the
>> operation.
>>
>> In perhaps the most consequential episode, the Saudis helped arm the
>> mujahedeen rebels to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The United
>> States committed hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the mission,
>> and the Saudis matched it, dollar for dollar.
>>
>> The money flowed through a C.I.A.-run Swiss bank account. In the book “Charlie
>> Wilson’s War
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/books/wilson-the-warrior.html>,” the
>> journalist George Crile III describes how the C.I.A. arranged for the
>> account to earn no interest, in keeping with the Islamic ban on usury.
>>
>> In 1984, when the Reagan administration sought help with its secret plan
>> to sell arms to Iran to finance the contra rebels in Nicaragua, Robert C.
>> McFarlane, the national security adviser, met with Prince Bandar, who was
>> the Saudi ambassador to Washington at the time. The White House made it
>> clear that the Saudis would “gain a considerable amount of favor” by
>> cooperating, Mr. McFarlane later recalled.
>>
>> Prince Bandar pledged $1 million per month to help fund the contras, in
>> recognition of the administration’s past support to the Saudis. The
>> contributions continued after Congress cut off funding to the contras. By
>> the end, the Saudis had contributed $32 million, paid through a Cayman
>> Islands bank account.
>>
>> When the Iran-contra scandal broke, and questions arose about the Saudi
>> role, the kingdom kept its secrets. Prince Bandar refused to cooperate with
>> the investigation led by Lawrence E. Walsh
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/us/politics/lawrence-e-walsh-iran-contra-prosecutor-dies-at-102.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C&>,
>> the independent counsel.
>>
>> In a letter, the prince declined to testify, explaining that his
>> country’s “confidences and commitments, like our friendship, are given not
>> just for the moment but the long run.”
>> *Correction: January 24, 2016 *
>>
>> An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the beheading
>> of a Shiite cleric was public. While the execution was not kept secret, it
>> was not carried out in open view.
>>
>> C .J. Chivers contributed reporting.
>>
>> *Follow The New York Times’s politics and Washington coverage on*
>> * Facebook* <https://www.facebook.com/nytpolitics>* and** Twitter*
>> <http://twitter.com/nytpolitics>*, and sign up for the** First Draft
>> politics newsletter* <http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/politics/>*.*
>>
>> A version of this article appears in print on January 24, 2016, on page
>> A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Saudis, the C.I.A. and the
>> Arming of Syrian Rebels.
>>
>>
>>
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