Category Archives: Legislation

General Kelly Pegged to Head DHS

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This is going to take another waiver…. I hope that early on in the Trump administration there will be a final act to list and designate drug cartels as terror organizations. Fair warning however, the economies of Latin American countries could financially collapse.

 FreeBeacon

It is also notable that General Kelly lost a son to the enemy known as the Taliban in 2010 in Afghanistan.

WaPo: Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, turning to a blunt-spoken border security hawk who clashed with the Obama administration over women in combat and plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to people familiar with the decision.

Kelly, who retired in February as chief of U.S. Southern Command, would inherit a massive and often troubled department responsible for overseeing perhaps the most controversial part of Trump’s agenda: his proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. DHS is the third-largest Cabinet department, with more than 240,000 employees who do everything from fight terrorism to protect the president and enforce immigration laws.

Kelly, 66, is a widely respected military officer who served for more than 40 years, and he is not expected to face difficulty winning Senate confirmation. Trump’s team was drawn to him because of his southwest border expertise, people familiar with the transition said. Like the president-elect Kelly has sounded the alarm about drugs, terrorism and other cross-border threats he seems as emanating from Mexico and Central and South America.

Yet Kelly’s nomination could raise questions about what critics see as Trump’s tendency to surround himself with too many military figures. Trump has also selected retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis for defense secretary and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser, while retired Army Gen. David Petraeus is under consideration for secretary of state.

Kelly, a Boston native, was chosen over an array of other candidates who also met with Trump after his surprise election victory last month. Those in contention included Frances Townsend, a top homeland security and counterterrorism official in the George W. Bush administration; Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Clarke and Kobach are vocal Trump backers, with Kobach being nationally known for his strong views on restricting illegal immigration. More here.

 MilitaryTimes

**** Why is General Kelly a stellar choice for the Department of Homeland Security? In 2015, in part his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee gives us a huge clue:

Last year, almost half a million migrants1 from Central America and Mexico—including over 50,000 unaccompanied children (UAC) and families—were apprehended on our border, many fleeing violence, poverty, and the spreading influence of criminal networks and gangs. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson testified that the “UAC migration serves as a warning sign that the serious and longstanding challenges in Central America are worsening.”2 In my opinion, the relative ease with which human smugglers moved tens of thousands of people to our nation’s doorstep also serves as another warning sign: these smuggling routes are a potential vulnerability to our homeland. As I stated last year, terrorist organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives with intent to cause grave harm to our citizens or even bring weapons of mass destruction into the United States. Mr. Chairman, Members, addressing the root causes of insecurity and instability is not just in the region’s interests, but ours as well, which is why I support President Obama’s commitment to increase assistance to Central America.

These and other challenges underscore the enduring importance of U.S. Southern Command’s mission to protect our southern approaches. We do not and cannot do this mission alone. Our strong partnerships with the U.S. interagency—especially with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Departments of Treasury and State—are integral to our efforts to ensure the forward defense of the U.S. homeland. We are also fortunate to have strong, capable partners like Colombia, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, and Panama, regional

leaders and outstanding contributors to hemispheric and international security. Given our limited intelligence assets, interagency relationships and bilateral cooperation are critical to identifying and monitoring threats to U.S. national security and regional stability.

I am also troubled by the financial and operational overlap between criminal and terrorist networks in the region. Although the extent of criminal-terrorist cooperation is unclear, what is clear is that terrorists and militant organizations easily tap into the international illicit marketplace to underwrite their activities and obtain arms and funding to conduct operations.4 It’s easy to see why: illicit trafficking is estimated to be a $650 billion industry—larger than the GDP of all but 20 countries in the world—and less than 1 percent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized or frozen.5 The terrorist group Lebanese Hezbollah—which has long viewed the region as a potential attack venue against Israeli or other Western targets—has supporters and sympathizers in Lebanese diaspora communities in Latin America, some of whom are involved in lucrative illicit activities like money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit goods and drugs. These clan-based criminal networks exploit corruption and lax law enforcement in places like the Tri-Border Area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina and the Colon Free Trade Zone in Panama and generate revenue, an unknown amount of which is transferred to Lebanese Hezbollah. Unfortunately, our limited intelligence capabilities make it difficult to fully assess the amount of terrorist financing generated in Latin America, or understand the scope of possible criminal-terrorist collaboration. You can read his presentation and testimony here.

 

 

Is General Mattis on a Collision Course with Keith Ellison?

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For Gen. Mattis as SecDef, Mission is Iran

Keith Ellison’s Life as NIAC Cheerleader

The would-be head of the DNC has a long, cozy history with the Tehran lobby

By Armin Rosen

July of 2009 was not the most obvious time to argue against sanctioning Iran. In June, the regime violently suppressed a widespread protest movement that emerged in response to the alleged rigging of the country’s presidential election. Mir Hossein Moussavi, who the regime had declared the election’s loser, was under house arrest, securing the belligerent Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office. Iran was also operating 3,800 uranium enrichment centrifuges and stonewalling international nuclear monitors, in violation of international law. As a result, even President Obama and members of his administration who favored dialogue were suggesting the need for more intensive U.S. sanctions against a country that leaders of both parties agreed posed a potential nuclear threat. 

But for Keith Ellison, then a freshman congressman from Minnesota, mid-2006 was an ideal time for the U.S. to try something radically different in its relations with Tehran. “I haven’t been persuaded that the best thing for us to do is to rush to crippling sanctions,” said Ellison during a July 22, 2009 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing covering recent developments in Iran. Although Ellison clarified he was “not in principle against sanctions,” he argued that Washington could not shape Iranian behavior without broader international cooperation: “We have sanctioned ourselves out of sanctions unilaterally,” Ellison said, years before many of the most restrictive U.S. measures had even been introduced.

Ellison also submitted an op/ed piece by Trita Parsi, the founder and president of what was then a little-known organization called the National Iranian American Council, and a strong proponent of closer U.S. ties with Iran, into the committee’s hearing record. (In a March 2011 speech at a NIAC event, Ellison thanks Trita Parsi for being “an indispensable partner” in helping to develop a 2009 bill that would have sanctioned individual human abusers in Iran while lifting U.S. restrictions on NGO work in the country, and refers to the NIAC founder as a “friend.”)

Ellison is now vying to be head of the Democratic National Committee, and his statements at the 2009 hearing are part of a larger pattern of taking views on Iran that put him in the minority of the party he hopes to lead. If Ellison does become DNC head, the Democrats will have elevated an outspoken proponent of a transformed U.S. policy towards Tehran who has taken a notably independent course, even in relation to other Democrats—including Obama, whose early outreach efforts were scuttled after the existence of Iran’s secret Fordow uranium enrichment facility was exposed in September of 2009. 

Ellison’s wariness of increased U.S. sanctions continued well beyond that point. During a March 2011 address at a National Iranian American Council event, Ellison voiced his support for the U.S. opening a diplomatic interest section or embassy in Tehran, something that the notably pro-engagement Obama has been careful not to publicly endorse. He also appeared to argue against sanctioning non-Iranian companies for doing business in Iran: “We have sanctioned Iran so much we have almost no levers to play on this,” said Ellison. “Now we’re at the point of sanctioning our economic partners who will then impose sanctions on them. Very sad, very not exactly a direct relationship.” 

In the same speech, Ellison cited the tear gas attacks against anti-regime Egyptian protesters as an example of when U.S. sanctions would be morally and strategically prudent. “You and I as Americans do not want any Egyptian who is fighting for civil or human rights to have to pick up a tear gas canister that says ‘made in America,’ said Ellison. “If that government’s going to oppress people they can’t do it with our participation. That’s a good reason for sanctions….” The Iranian nuclear program appeared to strike Ellison as a less deserving target.

It is unusual to hear even dovish Democrats talk about dramatically upgrading relations with a self-proclaimed enemy of the United States without exacting any changes in behavior from the country: As Ellison said in his NIAC talk, “When we put up an embassy or an interest section in another country, it’s not a gift to them… You’re not doing something for the other country by having someone to look after our interests there, and by withdrawing it, it’s not a punishment.” Along with the idiosyncratic Dennis Kucinich and Justin Amash, Ellison was one of only 11 members of Congress to vote against the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act in December of 2011, which expanded sanctions against Iran’s energy sector.

In August of 2013, NIAC lauded Ellison for being one of 20 members of the House of Representatives to “stand up to the war lobby” by opposing additional sanctions in a House vote that occurred three months before the start of serious, publicly acknowledged nuclear negotiations with Iran. In May of 2015, Ellison was one of only five Democratic members of Congress to vote against the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which submitted the July 2015 nuclear deal to a potential vote and compelled the White House to disclose documents relevant to the agreement to Congress. (A number of hawkish Republicans, including incoming CIA director Mike Pompeo, also voted against the bill, but because they felt its oversight mechanisms weren’t rigorous enough). 

Keith Ellison’s long-term relationship with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam may be in his past, while leading Jewish Democrats like Chuck Schumer continue to vouch for his present status as a “friend” of Israel—even despite his embrace of clerics who fund Hamas and his public positions against funding missile defense programs for the Jewish State. Yet if Ellison does become DNC chair, it would bring enthusiastic and often uncritical supporters of the U.S.-Iran relationship closer to the center of power of the Democratic Party. It would also create an unavoidable contrast with the incoming Republican president, who has stocked his administration with national security figures who are deeply skeptical of Tehran—thereby cementing the Iran Deal as a defining feature of America’s partisan divide. 

**** Keith Ellison seems void of this information or he conveniently ignores it. Does the DNC really want him as Chairman?

Declassified IDF Map Shows Hezbollah Installations Embedded in Civilian Areas

Tower: A map released Tuesday by the Israel Defense Forces shows the degree to which Hezbollah has embedded itself into the Lebanese civilian population. The map shows hundreds of military emplacements, including weapons depots, rocket launchers, and terror tunnels, that Hezbollah has constructed in preparation for its next war against Israel.

2016-12-06_idf_hezbollah_map

Hezbollah’s deliberate positioning of military infrastructure in Lebanese villages, a tactic that the IDF has called a “war crime,” is consistent with the Iran-backed terror organization’s history of exploiting civilians to launch wars against Israel.

It was reported in 2013 that Hezbollah was paying poor Shi’ite families in southern Lebanon to allow them to store weapons in their homes, effectively making them human shields.

An Israeli defense official told The New York Times in May 2015 that Hezbollah’s buildup in southern Lebanese villages meant that “civilians are living in a military compound….We will hit Hezbollah hard, while making every effort to limit civilian casualties as much as we can…[but] we do not intend to stand by helplessly in the face of rocket attacks.” A few days later, a newspaper linked to Hezbollah confirmed the Israeli assessment.

Hezbollah has “turned the Shiite villages…into essentially missile silos,” Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in July.

Noting the threat posed by Hezbollah’s extensive rocket arsenal and its placement among civilians, Geoff Corn, an international military law expert at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, observed earlier this year that the resulting devastation from a war with these conditions would “both legally and morally…lie solely at the feet of Hezbollah.”

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed unanimously to end the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, forbids countries from transferring weapons to the terror organization. However, Iran has continued to arm Hezbollah, and the Security Council has refused to act to enforce the resolution.

The IDF released a similar map two years ago showing that Hamas—also an Iranian client—had used a civilian neighborhood in Gaza to house its terrorist infrastructure.

**** There is more:

Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, with thousands of short and medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles capable of striking as far as Israel and southeast Europe.These weapon systems have become a central tool of Iranian power projection and anti-access/area-denial capabilities in the face of superior U.S. and Gulf Cooperation Council naval and air power in the Arabian Gulf region. While Iran has not yet tested or deployed a missile capable of striking the United States, it continues to hone longer-range missile technologies under the auspices of its space-launch program. In addition to increasing the quantity of its missile arsenal, Iran is investing in qualitative improvements to in its missile’s accuracy and lethality. Iran has also become a center for missile proliferation, supplying proxies such as Hezbollah and Syria’s al-Assad regime with a steady supply of missiles rockets, as well as local production capability. Furthermore, Iran is likely supplying Houthi rebel groups with short-range missiles in the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

Iranian Missiles

VA Secretary McDonald is an Ass

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Citizens Against Government Waste does a remarkable job as a watchdog over waste, fraud and abuse. Hat tip to this organization for their stellar work and notably this item on VA Secretary Robert McDonald.

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CAGW Names VA Secretary Robert McDonald November Porker of the Month

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Robert McDonald its November 2016 Porker of the Month for giving bonuses to some of the senior executives who were involved in the continuing hospital wait-times scandal.

Despite assurances by Sec. McDonald and President Obama that the wait-times scandal was isolated to Phoenix and that the department has solved the problem, numerous VA inspector general (IG) reports over the last year have confirmed that thousands of veterans still languish in the VA’s single-payer system. They are waiting for care mainly due to the department’s abject failure to solve its corrosive culture, which led to the scandal in the first place.  Data released on June 3, 2016 found that the number of patients who have waited more than a month to see a doctor exceeded a half a million since the beginning of 2016, and no improvement was seen in any month so far this year.

In the face of this continued mismanagement, an October 28, 2016 USA Today report found that the VA had provided $177 million worth of bonuses to its nearly 189,000 employees in 2015.  Included in that total were more than 300 senior executives, some of whom were intimately involved in the ongoing wait-times scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital as well as facilities nationwide.

In an April 7, 2016 USA Today investigation, some of these same officials in 19 states were exposed as routinely “zeroing out” wait times for veterans and concealing the true length of delays.  Astonishingly, VA supervisors themselves instructed schedulers to fabricate wait times at medical facilities in seven states.

Sec. McDonald’s May 23, 2016 attempt to reassure veterans and taxpayers of his focus on reform failed in an epic fashion when he compared veteran wait times to lines at Disney theme parks.  Those comments, along with the payment of bonuses to corrupt VA executives, seems to clearly illustrate Sec. McDonald’s flagrant disregard for reforming his beleaguered department.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “The thoughtless payment of bonuses to shady VA bosses is despicable.  Sec. McDonald was heralded as a private-sector business leader who could turn around a troubled department.  Instead, Sec. McDonald is even worse than a standard issue Washington bureaucrat.  As I said after Sec. McDonald made his callous Disney comparison, he is Frozen in the past, and perhaps the fish from Finding Nemo need to be called on to help the VA find a new leader.”

The last time Secretary McDonald testified before the Senate:

For rewarding corrupt VA bosses and failing to ensure that veterans get timely care, CAGW names VA Secretary Robert McDonald its November 2016 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.  Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

The Beltway Lawyer Chatter about the Trump Admin

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As Trump Tests Legal Boundaries, Small DOJ Unit Poised for Big Role

Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal

President-elect Donald Trump moved quickly in naming his picks for two key legal posts, selecting a conservative politician in Sen. Jeff Sessions to run the U.S. Department of Justice and a loyal adviser in Jones Day partner Donald McGahn II to serve as White House counsel.

Washington lawyers now have their eyes on a less visible appointment, but one that could set the tone on issues ranging from how completely the incoming president separates himself from his business interests to how his administration acts on campaign promises to spike trade agreements and revive harsh interrogation policies.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which handles legal questions from the White House and federal agencies, often has the last word on murky areas of law and there are plenty trailing Trump into the White House. That positions the next OLC chief to play a key role as the White House maps out its agenda but may also mean navigating delicate politics in an administration that seems bent on testing conventional legal doctrine.

Former OLC officials say the next head of the office will have to walk a fine line to be a lawyer Trump trusts and won’t try to circumvent, without being seen as a rubber stamp.

“It’s going to be an interesting time at OLC because a number of issues are going to be turned upside down,” said Walter Dellinger, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers who led the office from 1993 to 1996.

Citing Trump’s statements in favor of waterboarding, for instance, Dellinger said “the fact that the incoming president has stated in several areas that he intends not to follow existing law will make the position more challenging—and more interesting.”

The Office of Legal Counsel often has a behind-the-scenes role in controversial executive branch policies. Under President George W. Bush, the Office of Legal Counsel established the legal framework for harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding; under President Barack Obama, it signed off on the deferral of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.

Questions about Trump’s ties to his eponymous company are expected to reach the office early in the new administration. In 2009, the OLC published an opinion about Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, concluding that it didn’t violate the constitutional prohibition on receiving gifts or titles from foreign governments. Trump’s business dealings overseas and ties that his U.S. properties have to foreign governments present a new set of ethics questions.

Should Trump follow through on his campaign pledges to roll back Obama’s executive actions and federal regulations on everything from immigration to climate change, the office would advise him on whether he could do it, and how.

Early in Obama’s presidency, the OLC withdrew legal opinions from the second Bush administration about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects. Trump, who said on the campaign trail that “torture works,” could ask the office to revisit the issue.

A large part of the office’s work is resolving legal spats among agencies and interpreting federal laws and regulations. The lawyers review executive orders, and serve as an adviser to the executive branch on separation-of-powers issues. Occasionally, a big legal question—like torture or government surveillance—will come through.

John McGinnis, a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the office from 1987 to 1991, cautioned against assuming that Trump’s campaign proclamations signal the policies he’ll embrace as president.

“People in campaigns, this is all politicians, do not speak in policy legal terms. I would not want to predict that what will come to OLC can be captured in the soundbites of a campaign,” McGinnis said.

Since the election, Trump has continued to express his interest in reviving the practice of waterboarding, although he said in a recent interview with The New York Times that he was intrigued by his conversation with a military general who said the practice wasn’t effective.

LEGAL CREDIBILITY

The Office of Legal Counsel is staffed by about 25 attorneys and has a budget of roughly $8 million. Yet because of its influence, it is one of the more politically contentious offices at the Justice Department. That was especially true in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the office faced criticism for providing a legal rationale for torturing terror suspects. Both Bush and Obama saw nominees to lead the office stall in the Senate amid partisan opposition.

With a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate and weakened filibuster rules for executive nominees, Trump is expected to have an easier time getting his nominee through.

Some former DOJ officials questioned whether Trump might have a tough time finding a lawyer willing to serve, given the nature of the legal questions they’re expected to confront and the president-elect’s reputation as someone who doesn’t like to be told “no.”

A former top DOJ official in the second Bush administration who spoke on condition of anonymity said he knew lawyers who were hesitant about working for the department and for the OLC, given the controversial questions that office takes on. However, he said that there were many others who would want to work in government regardless of reservations they might have about the president-elect. .

The office has been a stepping stone for many influential lawyers. Among those who held the post under past Republican presidents are the late Supreme Court justices William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Theodore Olson; J. Michael Luttig, general counsel of The Boeing Co. and a retired judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, who ran the office in the aftermath of 9/11 and signed the legal opinion authorizing “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Carl Nichols, a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and a former principal deputy associate attorney general during the second Bush administration, said the OLC chief is typically one of the most trusted advisers to the attorney general.

The office has “enormous legal credibility,” Nichols said. The specifics of the legal questions surrounding Trump and his agenda differ in some ways from his predecessors, Nichols said, but the ultimate task of grappling with the scope of executive power is a familiar one for the OLC.

“It’s a place where the White House and the agencies know if they have a hard question, they’ll have really terrific legal minds thinking about it,” he said.

HARD QUESTIONS

OLC lawyers aren’t the only ones who give legal advice to the executive branch. There are White House lawyers and each agency has its own legal department. During the Obama administration, a body of senior agency lawyers known as “The Lawyers’ Group” met to consider national security-related legal questions.

Harold Koh, a professor at Yale Law School who served as the legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration and worked as a lawyer in the OLC, wrote in a recent blog post that he thought the interagency approach, which had been used in previous administrations, was the most effective process.

“Different agencies have different equities, perspectives, and areas of expertise and getting the input of all relevant legal arms of our vast executive branch is vital to sound decisionmaking,” Koh wrote.

But the OLC’s decisions carry significant weight, said Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and although the president isn’t bound by the office’s conclusions, there’s strong precedent against defying them. That has led presidents to occasionally try to circumvent the office, Adler said, rather than having to deal with a contrary opinion. He cited as one example Obama’s decision in 2011 to reportedly eschew the usual OLC process in soliciting opinions about the legality of military action in Libya without congressional approval.

The office’s legal opinions “reflect, or are supposed to reflect, serious, largely neutral or as neutral as possible assessments of important legal questions about what the executive branch may or may not do,” Adler said.

A successful OLC head will take an “extremely proactive” approach to find ways for the administration to legally achieve policy goals, building up political capital for the occasions when the office has to tell the White House or an agency that they can’t do something within the bounds of the law, McGinnis said.

Dellinger said that his advice to an incoming president would be to pick an OLC head “who has a substantial career that gives him or her substantial stature and the ability to say no, and that will help keep you out of trouble.”

To the next head of the OLC, Dellinger said he would advise he or she to make sure to consult with career government attorneys, to always give an honest opinion of the law, and to have a good career to fall back on in the event of a serious disagreement with the White House.

“The job will drive you crazy if you’re not prepared to walk out the door,” he said.

 

Rehab Program with Fun Activities in Saudi is Fake

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Europe is trying to install and measure effectiveness of rehab programs for convicted and known terrorists. Such is the case in the United States with the DHS/WH program on Countering Violent Extremism, a euphemism to terrorist and such is the case for the failed programs in Europe. So, have these tests been modeled after those of Saudi Arabia? Let’s find out from a terrorist himself. Not sure, but memory tells us that the Guantanamo detainees actually did all of these activities during detention including having a soccer field.

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Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam

Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

NYPost: Counterterrorism experts have long suspected Saudi Arabia’s “rehabilitation” center for terrorists does a poor job of de-radicalizing jihadists. But a Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay now reveals it’s actually a recruiting and training factory for jihad.

According to recently declassified documents, senior al Qaeda operative Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi told a Gitmo parole board that the Saudi government has been encouraging previously released prisoners to rejoin the jihad at its terrorist reform school, officially known as the Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center.

The Obama administration has praised the effectiveness of the Saudi rehab program — which uses “art therapy,” swimming, ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer to de-radicalize terrorists — and conditioned the release of dozens of Gitmo prisoners, including former Osama bin Laden bodyguards, on their enrollment in the controversial program.

To date, 134 Saudi detainees have been transferred to the Saudi reform camps in Riyadh and Jeddah. Last year, nine Yemeni detainees were sent there, as well, and more are expected to follow over the next two months, as President Obama strives to meet his campaign goal of closing Gitmo.

Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

Al-Sharbi dropped a bombshell on the Gitmo parole board at his hearing earlier this year when he informed members that the Saudi kingdom was playing them for suckers. “You guys want to send me back to Saudi Arabia because you believe there is a de-radicalization program on the surface.

“True. You are 100 percent right, there is a strong — externally, a strong — de-radicalization program. But make no mistake, underneath there is a hidden radicalization program,” al-Sharbi added. “There is a very hidden strong — way stronger in magnitude — broader in financing, in all that.”

Al-Sharbi is one of the longest-serving, and most unrepentant, prisoners at Gitmo. A Saudi national with an electrical engineering degree from King Fahd University, he attended a US flight school associated with two of the 9/11 hijackers. He traveled to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 and trained at an al Qaeda camp, building IEDs to use against allied forces.

Al-Sharbi was captured March 28, 2002, at an al Qaeda safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan, with senior al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. According to his US intel dossier, he told interrogators that “the US got what it deserved from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.”

Given a chance at parole after 14 years, however, al-Sharbi was surprisingly frank with the board.

He explained that Riyadh is actively recruiting and training fighters to battle Iranian elements in neighboring Yemen and Syria. Saudi views Shiite-controlled Iran as a regional threat to its security.

“They’re launching more wars and the [United] States is backing off from the region,” he said. “They’re poking their nose here and here and there and they’re recruiting more jihadists, and they’ll tell you, ‘Okay, go fight in Yemen. Go fight in Syria.’ ”

Al-Sharbi said the Saudis also are “encouraging” former detainees “to fight their jihad in the States.”

Photo: Getty Images

“It’s not like a past history,” he said. “It’s increasing.”

A growing body of evidence backs up his claims. Last month, for example, a WikiLeaked email from Hillary Clinton revealed, citing US intelligence sources, that Saudi Arabia has provided “clandestine financial and logistic support to” ISIS and other Sunni terrorist groups in the region.

Al-Sharbi said the kingdom is playing a double game.

“They will proudly tell you they will fight terrorism,” he said. “That means they will support it.”

Al-Sharbi told the Gitmo board he doesn’t want to enroll in the Saudi rehab program, because he would be used to “fight under the Saudi royal cloak.”

“This is in the cause of a king. This is not a true jihad,” he said. “And I’m not going to Saudi unless I am sure they’re not gonna be using me.”

The Saudi rehab ruse has carried a lot of weight with the Gitmo parole board. Earlier this year, it released “Saudi al Qaeda recruiter and fighter” Muhammed Al Shumrani after his lawyers insisted that repatriating him to Saudi Arabia and enrolling him in its “well-established reintegration program” would cure his admittedly “problematic behavior.”

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Photo: Kate Brooks/Redux

Last year, the defense team of longtime bin Laden bodyguard Abdul Rahman Shalabi insisted that the same Saudi rehab program would make sure he’s reformed. In approving his release, the board said that it was “confident about the efficacy of the Saudi program.”

In both cases, US intelligence warned the board that the hardened terrorists would more than likely “re-engage in terrorist activity.”

By Riyadh’s own numbers, some 20 percent of the terrorist enrollees at its rehab club — which features golf carts, palm trees and an Olympic-size pool — go back to the jihad, returning to the ranks of the Taliban or al Qaeda. US officials believe the recidivism rate is much higher, but Saudi Arabia does not disclose criteria for evaluation.

One high-profile failure was Said Ali al-Shihri. After his graduation from the Saudi program, he returned to Yemen, where he ran an al Qaeda branch and helped plan the deadly bombing of the US Embassy and mastermind the failed plot to blow up a 2009 Christmas flight over Detroit, before a drone-fired missile finally caught up to him.

The Saudi center is more holiday resort than halfway house for paroled inmates. Jihadists are rewarded with gourmet meals, video games, ping-pong, jacuzzis and newly furnished private apartments reserved for conjugal visits. They also are allowed unescorted visits to family members. In September, the center granted “beneficiaries” Eid al-Adha holiday vacation for 12 days.

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Photo: Getty Images

Graduates are further rewarded with young brides and new cars.

Lending credence to al-Sharbi’s charges, the three-month program includes a few hours a day of lessons in Islam from Saudi clerics and “Shariah specialists.”

“Beneficiaries spend 15 hours a week in the Shariah program,” according to a local Jeddah press report, which is triple the amount of time devoted to psychological counseling.

Al-Sharbi’s parole was declined; he is still in Gitmo, along with 60 detainees — down from the 241 who were there when Obama started his term.

But with the administration rushing to reduce that number even further before the end of Obama’s term, how many more jihadists will be released into this highly suspect program?

Congress has an obligation to ask hard questions: Is this a pre-emptive campaign to prevent terror attacks or more likely an incubator for facilitating more attacks?