Category Archives: Russia

Cables Reveal Iran’s Weapons Status

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Item 7 of leaked intelligence cables from 2012 explains conditions on status of weapons.

Item 7 Iran

 

From an IAEA brief noted December 2014:
*Iran has had a nuclear weapons program since at least the late 1980s.
*In 1989, it set up a management structure for the program responsible to the Ministry of Defence, which it has reorganized over the years.
*At the start, a lot of Iran’s technical knowledge to produce nuclear weapons came from the same underground network which helped countries like Libya. *Iran has also been getting help from an unnamed “nuclear weapon state” (Russia? China?), but it has developed considerable scientific and technical capabilities of its own.
*The program has involved extensive procurement activity, much of it clandestine using false front companies, but benefitting from the fact that many of the components sought have both civilian and military applications.
*In addition to enriching uranium, Iran has been working on converting highly enriched uranium (HEU) into metal, and casting and machining it into the components of a nuclear core.
*It has done modelling and calculations on how an HEU device would function.
*Engineering work has been done on integrating a nuclear device into a missile delivery vehicle.
*Iran has been experimenting with a multipoint initiation system, with the explosives used having the dimensions of a payload that would fit into the warhead chamber of an Iranian Shahab 3 missile which has a range of some 1300 kilometers. (Iran is also working on a longer range missile.)
*Iran has been working on the development of safe, fast-acting detonators which can be triggered within a microsecond of each other in order to set off an implosion-type nuclear device.
*Work has been done on a prototype system for fuzing, arming and firing a nuclear weapon which could explode both in the air above a target and on impact.
*Iran has conducted a number of practical tests to determine how firing equipment might function over long distances with a test device located down a deep shaft; and it has studied safety arrangements for conducting a nuclear test.

***  

By the next decade, according to the IAEA, the regime would consolidate its weaponization researchers under an initiative called the “AMAD Plan,” headed by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a Ph.D. nuclear engineer and senior member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The AMAD Plan was charged with procuring dual-use technologies, developing nuclear detonators and conducting high-explosive experiments associated with compressing fissile material, according to Western intelligence agencies. The AMAD Plan’s most intense period of activity was in 2002-03, according to the IAEA, when current President Hasan Rouhani headed Iran’s Supreme National Security Council before becoming its chief nuclear negotiator.

Feeling the heat from the MEK’s disclosure of two nuclear facilities in 2002 and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the mullahs apparently halted the AMAD Plan’s activities in late 2003. But Mr. Fakhrizadeh and his scientists didn’t stop their weaponization work. As former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright told us, “Fakhrizadeh continued to run the program in the military industry, where you could work on nuclear weapons.” Much of the work, including theoretical explosive modeling, was shifted to Defense Ministry-linked universities, such as Malek Ashtar University of Technology in Tehran.

Mr. Fakhrizadeh has continued to oversee these disparate and highly compartmentalized activities, now under the auspices of Iran’s new Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its Persian acronym, SPND. The MEK first disclosed the SPND’s existence in 2011. Now the opposition group has obtained what it says are key new biographical details and the first photograph of the 56-year-old Mr. Fakhrizadeh, whom Iran has refused to make available to the IAEA for long-sought interviews.

The MEK has also compiled a list of what it says are 100 SPND researchers. Far from disbanding the SPND, the MEK alleges, the Tehran regime has kept its nucleus of researchers intact. Possibly to avoid detection by the IAEA, the MEK says, the regime recently relocated the SPND’s headquarters from Mojdeh Avenue in Tehran to Pasdaran Avenue. “The new site,” the MEK adds, “is located in between several centers and offices affiliated to the Defense Ministry . . . , the Union of IRGC, the sports organization of the Defense Ministry . . . and Chamran Hospital.”

To further mask the illicit nature of the relocation from the IAEA, the MEK says, “parts of Malek Ashtar University’s logistical activities were transferred to the former site of SPND. The objective was to avoid closing [the former] center, and in the event of inspections, to claim that the site has always had the current formation.” Don’t expect the regime to fess up to much of this by the August 25 deadline set in its joint communique with the IAEA.

The fact that the IAEA and the Western powers are now turning to the weaponization question is a sign of how far the Iranian nuclear-weapons program has progressed. As the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center’s Henry Sokolski, a former nonproliferation director at the Pentagon, told us: “A concern about weaponization followed by testing and use is the moral hazard when you don’t pay attention to fissile-material production.”

In other words, having ceded a right to enrich and permitted the Islamic Republic to develop an advanced enrichment capability, the West is now left with preventing weaponization as the final barrier against a nuclear-capable Iran. The diplomacy of Mr. Rouhani and his Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, is intended to soothe jittery Western nerves on weaponization.

That palliative effect will be reinforced by the IAEA’s latest quarterly report, also released last week, in which the Agency reported that Iran has sharply reduced its stock of 20% uranium and hasn’t enriched above 5% since the November interim agreement took effect. The report also highlights the Islamic Republic’s new willingness to address at a technical level the “possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” including Tehran’s development of exploding bridge-wire detonators and high-explosives testing.

But if past is precedent and the MEK’s new disclosures are to be believed, Mr. Fakhrizadeh will continue to do his work as he has to this day. The snake may shed its skin but not its temper, runs an old Persian proverb.

John Kerry vs. James Clapper

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Is it prudent or wise to under-estimate terror threats? Is it honest to downplay reality and blame attacks on just a few telegraphing the reasons to be just single lone wolves? Secretary of State John Kerry and the Director of the Office of National Intelligence seem to differ dramatically on intelligence matters.

 

Kerry and Clapper sit in the same meetings and they collectively participate in joint video conference calls on ‘critic’ (critical incident reports), flashing read terror events, and share in emails as part of agency distribution address lists. So this begs the question, how is it that Kerry and Clapper can be so far apart in assessing and telegraphing the global threat matrix just a day apart from testimony?

Kerry: “Our citizens, our world today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally, less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century.”  Video here.

Clapper: ““When the final accounting is done. 2014 will be the most lethal year in global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled. About half of all attacks including fatalities in 2014 occurred in just three countries, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Video here.

Clapper is the top intelligence official appointed to receive and analyze all global threats to the West that not only simmer but occur daily.

His opening statement says more to what the actual threat matrix is than John Kerry will allow himself to admit. Opening statement is here. Sadly, there is a non-bloody threat as well that rarely gets mentioned except Clapper did speak to it.

President Obama’s top intelligence official pointed to a range of threats facing America Thursday, from the surge by Sunni Muslim extremist groups in the Middle East, to the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea, to the push by Russian and Chinese operatives to penetrate Washington’s clandestine national security community.

But one threat was listed above all others in congressional testimony provided by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper — that of cyberattacks carried out by a growing host of politically, as well as criminally motivated actors against both government and private U.S. computer networks .

“Cyber threats to U.S. national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication and severity of impact; [and] the ranges of cyber threat actors, methods of attack, targeted systems and victims are also expanding,” Mr. Clapper said in prepared remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

While the threat is complex, however, Mr. Clapper downplayed the idea America is at a high risk of having its infrastructure crippled by a major doomsday-like “Cyber Armageddon” scenario.

“The likelihood of a catastrophic attack from any particular actor is remote at this time,” he said. “We envision something different. We foresee an ongoing series of low-to-moderate level cyberattacks from a variety of sources over time, which will impose cumulative costs on US economic competitiveness and national security.”

Computer system attacks by Russian, Chinese, Iranian and North Korea operatives represent the biggest threat, the intelligence director said. “Politically motivated cyberattacks are now a growing reality, and foreign actors are reconnoitering and developing access to U.S. critical infrastructure systems, which might be quickly exploited for disruption if an adversary’s intent became hostile,” he said. “In addition, those conducting cyber espionage are targeting U.S. government, military and commercial networks on a daily basis.”

Mr. Clapper’s remarks came as part of the intelligence community’s annual reporting to Congress on worldwide threats facing the U.S. The intelligence director’s prepared testimony is generally regarded each year as the declassified boilerplate of the intelligence community’s annual assessment of those threats.

In addition to cyber, Thursday’s threat assessment pointed to dangers associated with a variety of other developments around the globe, from Russia’s ongoing military action in eastern Ukraine, to the political and security crises in Syria and Libya, to the spread Boko Haram Islamic extremist attacks from Nigeria into Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

China’s nuclear weapons

Among the more notable passages in the assessment was one asserting that “the leading state intelligence threats to U.S. interests in 2015 will continue to be Russia and China, based on their capabilities, intent and broad operational scopes.”

The evolving nuclear weapons pursuits of Iran and North Korea were also noted — as was that of China, where the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA’s) Second Artillery Force continues to “modernize its nuclear missile force by adding more survivable road-mobile systems and enhancing its silo-based systems,” according to the assessment.

“This new generation of missiles is intended to ensure the viability of China’s strategic deterrent by providing a second strike capability,” it stated. “In addition, the PLA Navy continues to develop the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and might produce additional JIN-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.” “The JIN-class submarines, armed with JL-2 SLBMs, will give the PLA Navy its first long-range, sea-based nuclear capability,” the assessment said. “We assess that the Navy will soon conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrols.”

Mr. Clapper testified that “Sunni violent extremists are gaining momentum and the number of Sunni violent extremist groups, members and safe havens is greater than at any other point in history.”

While he said “the threat to key U.S. allies and partners will probably increase,” the intelligence director added that the growing number of the extremist groups is likely to be “balanced by a lack of cohesion and authoritative leadership.”

He also said that while “the January 2015 attacks against Charlie Hebdo in Paris is a reminder of the threat to the West,” most groups place a higher priority on “local concerns” than on attacking the so-called far enemy of the the U.S. and the West — the way that Osama Bin Laden’s original al Qaeda had been so focused during the years leading up to and immediately following Sept. 11, 2001.

But Mr. Clapper’s testimony suggested that there is still uncertainty surrounding the threat posed by the Islamic State movement, known by the acronym ISIL.

“If ISIL were to substantially increase the priority it places on attacking the West rather than fighting to maintain and expand territorial control, then the group’s access to radicalized Westerners who have fought in Syria and Iraq would provide a pool of operatives who potentially have access to the United States and other Western countries,” he said. “Since the conflict began in 2011, more than 20,000 foreign fighters — at least 3,400 of whom are Westerners — have gone to Syria from more than 90 countries.”

 

Putin Goes Beyond Ukraine to Artic..

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While the world is fretting with good cause over Islamic State, then al Qaeda and Ukraine, how come no one is fretting over Russia in the Artic? Where is Greenpeace or Tom Steyer? Heck where is Barack Obama?

In part from the Strategic Studies Institute , part of the U.S. Army War College:

The Arctic has reemerged as a strategic area where vital U.S. interests are at stake. The geopolitical and geo-economic importance of the Arctic region is immense, as its mineral wealth is likely to turn the region into a booming economic frontier in the 21st century. The Arctic coasts and continental shelf are estimated to hold large deposits of oil, natural gas, methane hydrate (natural gas) clusters, and large quantities of valuable minerals.
With the shrinking of the polar ice cap, navigation through the Northwest Passage along the northern coast of North America may become increasingly possible with the help of icebreakers. Similarly, Russia is seeking to make the Northern Sea Route along the northern coast of Eurasia navigable for considerably longer periods during the year and is listing it as part of its national boundaries in the Kremlin’s new Arc- tic strategy. Passage through these shorter routes will significantly cut the time and costs of shipping. (See Map 1-1.) In recent years, Russia has been particularly active in the Arctic, aggressively advancing its interests and claims by using international law and also establishing a comprehensive presence in the Arctic, including the projection of military might into the region.

Thanks to Jeff at Newsweek:

What Is Russia Up To in the Arctic?

The Mågerø air defense monitoring base is inside a mountain at the end of an unmarked country road two hours south of Oslo, Norway. With only a rudimentary sentry box, a simple draw gate and a lone soldier guarding its entrance, the installation looks more like the set for a movie about the Nazi occupation of the country than a key link in the country’s state-of-the-art defenses.

At the end of a long, narrow tunnel into the mountain, in a cavernous room filled with computers and radar monitor screens, intelligence specialists stare at blinking icons marking the movement of aircraft around Norwegian airspace. On an all-too-typical afternoon recently, they watched as two nuclear-capable Tu-95 Russian Bear Bombers floated like fireflies across the top right of their monitors. A few desks away, an airman picked up phone and called Bodø, a military base on Norway’s northern coast. Moments later, two F-16s rose to eyeball the intruders.

It turned out the Russian bombers were just practicing some kind of circling maneuver outside of Norway’s Arctic air space. But on January 28 two more Tu-95 bombers, escorted by tankers and Russia’s most advanced MiG-31 fighter jets, showed up off the coast. One of them was carrying “a nuclear payload,” according to the London Sunday Express, which cited intercepted radio traffic. And last fall, a Russian Tu-22 supersonic bomber skirting Norway’s northern airspace was photographed carrying a cruise missile in launching position, according to the Barents Observer blog. Similar examples abound.

Adding to the potential for an unintended catastrophe, Russian warplanes typically lift off without filing a flight plan and cruise the busy commercial flight lanes with their transponders off, riling airline and NATO pilots alike. In recent months Russian warplanes have been engaging in Top Gun–style stunts far from home, popping up unannounced aside an SAS airliner on a flight between Copenhagen, Denmark, and Oslo and buzzing a Norwegian F-16 pilot. (A widely watched cockpit video of the incident, released by the defense ministry, shows the pilot yelping “Holy shit!” as a MiG-31 darts past his wingtip.)

“We haven’t seen this kind of activity for many years,” Colonel Arvid Halvorsen, Mågerø’s base commander, says as he watches the blinking icons for the Russian Tu-95s on a radar screen. “The missions are also more complex lately,” he says, with larger and larger groups of bombers escorted by MiGs, tankers and surveillance aircraft.

Although Moscow isn’t threatening the West with anything near the number of warplanes deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, its air sorties around Norway have increased dramatically each year since 2007, when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his strategic bombers to resume flights in international airspace.

But late last year, with the world’s attention riveted on Ukraine, Putin put a little-noticed exclamation mark on his Arctic strategy. For the first time, the Kremlin’s announced military doctrine included instructions to prepare to defend Russia’s interests in the Arctic. Plans for two new Arctic army brigades were drawn up. An abandoned military base at Alakurtti, Russia, less than 30 miles from the Finnish border, was reopened. And military construction crews began refurbishing a string of Cold War–era bases on islands in the Arctic. “Our main objective is research and evaluation of conditions in the Arctic and the suitability of our weapons and equipment this far north,” Vladimir Kondratov, commander of the surface ships group of the Northern Fleet, told Russia Today.

New Red Dawn?

No one knows what Putin’s endgame is. And while the Norwegians would rather prepare quietly than stoke fears of a Crimean-style Russian grab in the Arctic, the country’s memory of the Nazi invasion 75 years ago remains fresh. At Mågerø and two dozen other bases scattered from Norway’s southern tip to its northern frontier with Russia, Oslo’s armed forces are preparing for the worst.

But “the worst” is a mystery. “I’d agree that the Russians have been very active,” says Keith Stinebaugh, a longtime Defense Department civilian intelligence specialist who is now a senior fellow in Arctic Security Policy at the Institute of the North in Anchorage. But “aggressive” may be overstating it, he adds. “You’d have to define what is meant by aggressive and compare it to what they did during the Cold War.… They are certainly more active around the world, not just in the Arctic.”

A Russian-speaking former CIA officer, who spent more than a dozen years operating undercover in the former Soviet Union, agrees. Today’s activities are “nothing like the Soviet air incursions that occurred on a weekly basis at the height of the Cold War,” the former officer says. And while Moscow’s armed forces, are “much improved over the past few years, [they] are still a shadow of their former Soviet selves.… Putin is very aware of this,” the officer adds, “but his beefed-up forces enhance national prestige and have allowed Russia to command more respect on the international scene.”

Which is a waste of money for Moscow, argues Ernie Regehr, a senior fellow in Arctic security at the Vancouver, British Columbia–based Simons Foundation. “Does it ever make sense to threaten to do what you know will never be in your interests to do?” Regehr recently argued in a paper for the foundation. “Symbolic flights of fighter aircraft and bombers are intended to remind the adversary that these weapons are available for use. But in any rational world, they are clearly not available for use by Russia against NATO or by NATO against Russia. There is no circumstance under which this would make sense or serve the interests of either side. Neither side wants them to be used.”

Stinebaugh, who spent 38 years in the Defense Department, suggests there may be a more prosaic reason for Russia’s Arctic buildup: money. “It may be that one way to get a project funded in the Russian military system today is to attach the word ‘Arctic’ to it, just like U.S. projects got funded by invoking [the global war on terror] and now get funded with ‘cyber’ even if the connection is tenuous,” he says.

Yet few Norwegians can completely banish the specter of the Russian bear on their doorstep, says Reidun Samuelsen, the editor at Aftenposten, Norway’s leading newspaper. “It’s never far from our minds,” she tells Newsweek.

Norwegian Nightmares

As was the case in the U.S. during the Cold War, when fears of nuclear conflict found outlets in films such as Dr. Strangelove Norwegians’ anxieties over Russian intentions will soon burst forth in Occupied, a political thriller conceived by Jo Nesbø, Norway’s internationally best-selling crime writer.

Scheduled to debut on Norwegian TV next year, the weekly drama “follows events in the close future” when Russia has carried out a “silk glove invasion” of Norway “in order to take control of its oil resources,” according to a news release.

“My idea was this,” Nesbø told Newsweek by email. “The Norwegian Green/left-wing government has decided it will stop producing fossil energy.” Russia moves in, seizing its oil facilities. When the U.S. and E.U. issue only paper protests, he says, Norwegian leaders “don’t see the point in military action, they try to negotiate while the Russians quietly take over the few things they [need] to take over to control the oil. And it’s a gentle occupation. Most Norwegians can’t really tell the difference. There are few Russians present, most of them are in suits, and there’s seemingly no censorship and Norwegians can travel freely and keep on living their lives as one of the richest populations in the world.”

News of the series emerged at about the same time Norway’s security service uncovered evidence of real-life subversion in the capital. Some foreign intelligence service—the main suspects were Russia and China, which also covets the Arctic’s future shipping routes—had planted so-called IMSI catchers, devices that can secretly capture the signals of cellphones, around Oslo’s government buildings. Officially, the perpetrator remains a mystery, but Norwegian sources tell Newsweek the government knows who did it but has shied from fingering the guilty party out of fear of triggering a full-scale international scandal.

Nesbø, whose 20 novels have sold 23 million copies in 40 countries, says the plausibility of Occupied’’s plot is beside the point. The real drama revolves around “a situation where it’s hard to pinpoint what you’ve lost in your everyday material world,” he says. “What would people be willing to sacrifice for phrases like freedom, independence and democracy? And who would be the first ones to resist? And would the nation follow?”

Guerrillas in the Arctic

Such questions are likely to rekindle unsavory memories of Norway’s capitulation to Germany in 1940 with the help of local Nazis led by the infamous Vidkun Quisling. The Norwegian king and tens of thousands of patriots escaped to England, where they set up a government in exile and formed a resistance movement eager to go back and fight. Trained by Britain’s secret services, the guerrillas of Norwegian Independent Company 1 eventually snuck back into the country and wreaked havoc on the Nazis.

Norwegians can’t get enough of this version of themselves. Every Sunday night for six weeks in January and February, more than one of every five Norwegians sat down to watch the latest episode of The Heavy Water War, a dramatization of the heroic guerrillas’ sabotage of Norway’s stocks of deuterium oxide, which the Germans seized to produce a nuclear weapon.

The guerrilla mentality remains an important strain in Norway’s military forces. Last year, Nils Johan Holte, the rangy, 57-year-old rear admiral who heads Norway’s Special Operations Command, took 10 of his officers back to the training camp in Scotland, where the first guerrillas learned hand-to-hand fighting and explosives. “It was about connecting with our origins.… ” Holte said as heavy snow fell outside his office in Oslo, “and for [the men] to understand that there’s a seriousness today about this.” It seems no accident that the headquarters of today’s Norwegian guerrillas is on the grounds of the hulking, medieval Akershus Fortress, built to defend the city from sea raiders 700 years ago. In 1940, it was occupied by the Nazis.

In 1988 the Norwegian government nearly disbanded its special operations force, which was initially set up as a small, discreet anti-terrorist unit inside the armed forces, as a money-saving move. Protests, including from the oil industry, which feared attacks on its North Sea drilling platforms—saved it. Since then, its commandos have seen action from the Balkans to Afghanistan and many secret places in between. And last year, the unit became independent, reporting directly to the chief of defense.

Like other Norwegian commanders and politicians, Holte is discreet when it comes to characterizing the recent Russian moves as sinister. Asked directly about the threat, he leans back in his chair, folds his hands behind his head, and smiles. His lone message for any potential adversary: “Do not attack Norway. We can defend ourselves.”

Why Obama Chose Qatar Over Congress

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Today, al Thani is visiting the White House again. Question is why?

Qatari officials have positioned themselves as mediators and interlocutors in a number of regional conflicts in recent years. Qatar’s deployment of military aircraft to support NATO-led operations in Libya and U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State in Syria signaled a new assertiveness, as has reported Qatari support for armed elements of the Syrian opposition. Some of Qatar’s positions have drawn U.S. scrutiny and raised the ire of its Gulf Arab neighbors, including its leaders’ willingness to engage Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Taliban and allegations of Qatari support for extremists in Syria. It remains unclear whether Qatar’s active and—for the United States—at times vexing policies may change under Emir Tamim. To date, the Obama Administration has remained committed to military and counterterrorism cooperation with the ambitious leaders of this wealthy, strategically located country.
The United States opened its embassy in Doha in 1973, but U.S. relations with Qatar did not blossom until after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In the late 1980s, the United States and Qatar engaged in a prolonged diplomatic dispute regarding Qatar’s black market procurement of U.S.- made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.7 The dispute froze planned economic and military cooperation, and Congress approved a ban on arms sales to Qatar (§566(d), P.L. 100-461) until the months leading up to the 1991 Gulf War, when Qatar allowed coalition forces to operate from Qatari territory and agreed to destroy the missiles in question.8 In January 1991, Qatari armored forces helped coalition troops repel an Iraqi attack on the Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, on the coastal road leading south from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province.9 In June 1992, Qatar signed a defense cooperation agreement with the United States, opening a period of close coordination in military affairs that has continued to the present. The United States promptly recognized the assumption of power by Shaykh Hamad in June 1995 and welcomed Qatar’s defense cooperation, as well as Shaykh Hamad’s modest political, economic, and educational reform efforts. President Obama congratulated Emir Tamim upon his accession to the throne in June 2013, and Qatari-U.S. relations remain close, amid some differences over regional security questions. Qatari-U.S. defense relations have expanded to include cooperative defense exercises, equipment pre-positioning, and base access agreements. U.S. concerns regarding alleged material support for terrorist groups by some Qataris, including reported past support by a prominent member of the royal family, have been balanced over time by Qatar’s counterterrorism efforts and its broader, long-term commitment to host and support U.S. military forces active in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the CENTCOM area of responsibility. In December 2013, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel visited Doha, met with Emir Tamim, and signed a new 10-year defense cooperation agreement, followed in July 2014 by agreements for $11 billion in advanced arms sales.

The United States has provided limited counterterrorism assistance to Qatar to support the development of its domestic security forces, and the Export-Import Bank has provided over $2 billion in loan guarantees to support various natural gas development projects in Qatar since 1996. The Obama Administration has phased out U.S. foreign assistance and has not requested military construction funds for facilities in Qatar since FY2012. Qatar donated $100 million to victims of Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. Gulf states, and Qatari state entities and private individuals continue to make large investments in the United States. Several prominent U.S. universities have established satellite campuses in Doha at Qatar’s Education City, where Qatari, American, and other students pursue undergraduate and graduate coursework across a broad range of subjects.
In Congress, legislative action related to Qatar remains relatively limited with the exception of appropriations and authorization legislation that affects U.S. defense programs and congressional review of proposed foreign military sales to the Qatari military. Qatar’s foreign and domestic policies are monitored by congressional foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence committees, while Qatar’s resource wealth and associated economic clout fuels congressional interest in U.S.- Qatari trade and investment ties. (1)
*** The collusion continues:
Qatar’s Ties to Militants Strain Alliance

DOHA, Qatar—During President Barack Obama ’s first term, some members of his National Security Council lobbied to pull a U.S. fighter squadron out of an air base in Qatar to protest the emirate’s support of militant groups in the Mideast.

The Pentagon pushed back, according to former U.S. officials involved in the discussion, saying a regional military command the U.S. maintains at the base was vital to American operations in the region. The issue was decided in late 2013 when the U.S. extended its lease on the base and didn’t pull out any planes.

The episode, not previously reported, reflects long-standing divisions within the Obama administration over America’s widening alliance with Qatar. The problem is that the very traits making the Persian Gulf emirate a valuable ally are also a source of worry: Qatar’s relationships with Islamist groups.

Secretary of State John Kerry has formed a tight partnership with Qatari diplomats, using them as conduits for messages to Hamas in the Palestinian territories, to Afghanistan’s Taliban and to jihadist rebel groups in Syria and Libya, according to State Department officials. Mr. Kerry has lauded Qatar’s role in seeking to negotiate an end to Israeli-Hamas fighting last summer.

U.S. officials also have praised Qatar for using its channels to broker the release of Westerners held hostage, including U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was swapped last year for five captured Taliban commanders.

Champions of the U.S.-Qatar alliance, especially in the Defense and State departments, say Qatar is indispensable to the struggle against Islamic State, the group also called ISIS or ISIL. U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State often launch from the air base in Qatar, al-Udeid, said American officials, who added that Qatar’s air force has provided surveillance and logistical support.

But Qatar also has given financial or diplomatic support to Mideast rebel groups, including some that seek to establish Islamic law or have ties to al Qaeda, according to U.S. and Arab officials as well as Western diplomats in the region. The support includes providing sanctuary to leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar acknowledges.

For years, Islamist rebel fighters from Libya and Syria traveled to Qatar and returned with suitcases full of money, according to rebels who were interviewed and to Persian Gulf government officials. American officials said the U.S. has uncovered Qatari connections—such as involvement by members of the emirate’s elite business, religious and academic circles—in financing for Hamas, al Qaeda and Islamic State.

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department said publicly that an Islamic State commander had received $2 million in cash from an unnamed Qatari businessman. The following month, a Treasury official publicly criticized Qatar for failing to act against what he called terrorist financiers living in the emirate.

Last week, Qatar protested when Egypt bombed Islamic State forces in Libya who had beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians. An Egyptian diplomat responded by publicly accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism, which Qatar denied.

Visit from the emir

A chance to air these issues comes Tuesday as Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, meets with President Obama at the White House.

In interviews, senior Qatari officials denied their government funds or has funded terrorist organizations. They said Qatar has a right to have diplomatic ties with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements that they said have broad support in the Arab public. (The U.S. lists Hamas as a terrorist organization but not the Brotherhood.)

“We are not a bloc-mentality-belonging country. We create platforms for dialogue,” said Qatar’s foreign minister, Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah. “If this approach allows us to bring long-lasting peace and security in our region, we will not be affected by any criticism.”

Washington’s ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, said the U.S. relationship with the emirate “is a fundamentally good one, and we share a number of important interests. We don’t agree on everything, but we are always frank with each other about‎ where we disagree and why.”

U.S. and Arab officials say there are signs Qatar has begun paring back support for the most extreme militant groups following repeated warnings from Washington and certain Arab states. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates pulled their ambassadors from Doha in March 2014 to protest Qatar’s foreign policy, but have since returned the diplomats to their posts.

Washington and the American oil industry played leading roles in Qatar’s emergence on the global stage. Qatar was among the less wealthy Gulf states in the 1980s, before the export of its plentiful natural gas was made possible by technologies developed by U.S. oil companies that later became Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips .

“The American companies were really the ones who took a big bet on Qatar when others wouldn’t,” said Mr. Attiyah. “That’s part of the core of our special relationship.”

Qatar now has the world’s highest per capita income, says the International Monetary Fund. Several U.S. universities, including Georgetown, Northwestern and Cornell, have opened campuses in Doha.

In 2003, the Pentagon moved the regional headquarters of the U.S. Central Command to Qatar’s al-Udeid air base, a move that gave the emirate a sense of security from potentially hostile neighbors.

Qatar also invests in the U.S. Last month, Qatar’s finance minister said his government would invest $35 billion in the U.S. over five years, in areas such as technology and infrastructure.

The “Arab Spring” protests of late 2010 and 2011 deepened Washington’s alliance with Qatar but also exposed divisions in the two countries’ visions for the Mideast. Qatar began promoting a brand of pro-Islamist foreign policy that confused Washington and alienated some Arab allies.

One Gulf-region government official described a Sheraton hotel in Doha as a hangout for Islamists from Libya, Syria, Egypt and the Palestinian territories. A spokesman for Sheraton owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. noted that the hotel hosts hundreds of international travelers daily and said, “We do not do business with terrorists nor condone or facilitate any activity that is antithetical to our company values.” He said the firm works with law enforcement, including retaining passport information for all guests.

Nusra Front

According to U.S. and regional Arab government officials, commanders of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s arm in Syria, began visiting Doha in 2012 for meetings with senior Qatari military officials and financiers. Nusra is fighting to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, a regional rival of Qatar.

Syrian rebels and Persian Gulf government officials said Qatar cultivates a relationship with Nusra in part to maintain the emirate’s role in negotiations to free hostages held by militants in Syria and Lebanon. Over the past year, Qatar has gained the release of hostages including United Nationspeacekeepers, Greek Orthodox nuns and a U.S. freelance journalist. Arab and U.N. officials have said the releases involve ransoms, which Qatar denies.

Some Qatari officials view Nusra as a crucial fighting force against the Syrian regime and don’t consider it terrorist.

The U.S. in 2012 tipped off Lebanese officials that a Qatari sheik, Abd al-Aziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, was visiting Beirut to pass funds to Nusra, according to Lebanese and U.S. officials. A Lebanese official said that on one trip, Sheik Attiyah, who is a cousin of Qatar’s current foreign minister, was driven to the Lebanon-Syria border town of Aarsal and there distributed money for Syrian rebel fighters.

Lebanese security forces arrested Sheik Attiyah on terrorism charges in 2012, but he was freed after a Qatari protest, Lebanese and Qatari officials said. This past June, a Beirut military court sentenced him in absentia to seven years in prison on the charges.

A London attorney for Sheik Attiyah, Cameron Doley, called the charges “completely and utterly untrue.” Qatari government officials also said Mr. Attiyah wasn’t involved in terrorism and described his arrest as political. Officials of the Lebanese government and the security directorate that carried out the arrest declined to comment.

U.S. officials have been pressing Qatar to arrest a former Qatari central-bank official who was sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.N. for an alleged role as a terrorism financier and as a lieutenant of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Qatar detained the official, Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy, in 2008 for six months after a Bahrain court convicted him on terrorism charges. He was released later that year, drawing a string of inquiries from the U.S. ambassador, according to State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.

Mr. Subaiy couldn’t be reached for comment. In September, the Treasury alleged that two Jordanians with Qatari IDs had worked with Mr. Subaiy to transfer cash to al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. The Jordanians couldn’t be reached for comment.

In October, the Treasury’s top counterterrorism official publicly criticized Qatar for inaction on Mr. Subaiy and a second alleged al Qaeda financier, Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi. “There are U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law,” said David Cohen , then a Treasury undersecretary.

Mr. Nuaymi, who also couldn’t be reached for comment, has in the past denied funding terrorism and called charges against him politically motivated.

Living in Doha

Qatari officials confirmed that Messrs. Subaiy and Nuaymi remain free in Doha but said they are under surveillance and their bank accounts are frozen. “We know that there is a problem, and we are building a case to take those involved to court,” said Qatar’s ambassador to Washington, Mohammad al-Kuwari. “We’re committed to working with the U.S. on these cases.”

The idea of pulling some U.S. fighter planes out of Qatar’s al-Udeid to signal displeasure with Qatar’s foreign policy—a proposal made several years ago by some National Security Council members—prompted a wrenching internal debate pitting U.S. ideals against pragmatism. One senior defense official at the time opposed the idea, saying it threatened to undermine a key Mideast relationship while having little effect on Qatar’s policy.

A senior administration official said, “Whether or not that was a view expressed or considered by an individual in the past, it was never a serious policy consideration in a broader context.”

In recent months, U.S. and Qatari officials said there has been an uptick in Qatari moves against alleged terrorist financiers. They said the emirate has expelled a Jordanian associate of Mr. Nuaymi and shut a social-media website the U.S. believed was used in raising money for al-Qaeda-linked militants in Syria.

Qatar has moved to mend its ties with Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and other Gulf countries. In November, Qatar’s emir met in Jidda with Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah and other regional monarchs, agreeing to end their feud and work to stabilize the region, said Arab officials.

But Qatar has resisted pressure from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to evict Hamas’s top leadership, according to U.S. and Arab diplomats. U.S. officials believe that many of the Qatari nationals involved in fundraising for Syrian rebels remain active. Mr. Kerry regularly raises his concerns about Qatar’s ties to extremist groups in his meeting with Doha’s diplomats, a U.S. official said.

“The Qataris need to know they can’t have it both ways,” said Dennis Ross, who was Mr. Obama’s top Mideast adviser in his first term. “But so far, they see that they can.”

—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.

(1) http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31718.pdf

The Denise Simon Experience – Radio Show – 02/19/15

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Hosted by DENISE SIMON, the Senior Research / Intelligence Analyst for Foreign and Domestic Policy for Stand Up America US as well as the aide de camp for MG Paul E. Vallely, US ARMY (ret.)

HOUR 1:  THE INTERVIEW WITH CRISIS NEGOTIATOR & COUNTER TERRORISM EXPERT DR. STEVE MOYSEY

DR. STEVE MOYSEY is an internationally recognized expert in the field of conflict and crisis negotiation, counter intelligence and counter terrorism with a specialization in the area of armed barricade standoff situations.

HOUR 2:  THE UNFILTERED INTERVIEW WITH ADMIRAL JAMES “ACE” LYONS

ADMIRAL JAMES “ACE” LYONS, JR. is a retired Admiral in the United States Navy who served as Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet from 1985-87.

Admiral Lyons served in the U.S. Navy for thirty-six years, including as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Senior U.S. Military Representative to the United Nations and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has received post graduate degrees from the U.S. Naval War College and the U.S. National Defense University.

BROADCAST LIVE WORLDWIDE:  THURSDAYS – 9:00PM (eastern) / 6:00pm (pacific) on WDFP – Restoring America Radio , Red State Talk Radio, American Agenda, and on Nightside Radio Studios