SCENESETTER FOR VISIT OF A/S BLOOMFIELD TO YEMEN

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 SANAA 002055

SIPDIS

FOR PM A/S BLOOMFIELD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/21/2014
TAGS: PARM MASS PREL ASEC PTER YM OVID COUNTER TERRORISM
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR VISIT OF A/S BLOOMFIELD TO YEMEN

REF: STATE 180556

Classified By: Ambassador Thomas C. Krajeski; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Embassy Sana'a warmly welcomes the visit of PM
Assistant Secretary Bloomfield to Yemen. You will find
President Saleh and senior ROYG officials ready to discuss
the proposed USG buy-back and destruction assistance for
illicit Yemeni MANPADS. The ROYG wants this program, and
they want to keep it running. Be prepared for the ROYG to
seek extending the buy-back to cover other weapons systems.
Although your primary goal is ROYG buy-in and cooperation in
this limited buy-back, the timing is right to push for
greater SA/LW inventory controls and a rational ROYG
acquisition policy. Should you arrive with C-130 licensing
agreements in your pocket it will buy good-will by removing a
long-standing irritant in U.S. - Yemeni military cooperation.


2. (C) You can expect at least initial ROYG resistance to
sharing a serialized inventory of their official MANPADS
stock, as well as to any appearance of outside interference
in their acquisitions policy. The ROYG has asked that we
keep the U.S. role in providing technical and financial
assistance for MANPADS recovery and destruction secret --
citing potential backlash from the tribes, price gouging by
the merchants, and opposition from the street. Although the
fact of your visit will be public, we should not publicize
its main purpose.

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President Saleh
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3. (C) In the last two years, President Ali Abdullah Saleh
transformed Yemen's domestic security picture with major
counter-terrorism achievements: the 11/02 apprehension of
al-Qa'ida HVT Abu-Assem al-Mekki, aggressive CT operations
against the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, and the 9/03 round-up of
an emerging al-Qa'ida cell with plans to target the U.S.
Ambassador and other American and Western interests.


4. (C) Saleh's modus operendi vis-a-vis CT cooperation is to
leverage these successes into further U.S. military and
security cooperation, intelligence support, development
assistance and food aid. Saleh has determined that his
interests lie in his pro -U.S stance in the GWOT. The
MANPADS buy-back is part of our continuing CT partnership, as
well as an opportunity to build on the relationships
established by his visit to Sea Island and participation in
the G-8 Summit.


5. (S) Saleh is now embroiled in an armed-struggle against
the supporters of rebel Shi'ite cleric al-Houthi in the
northern Sa'da region. His difficulty in quelling the
conflict, and his reported fury at discovering the insurgents
are better armed with more advanced weapons than ROYG forces,
may lead to a realization that the traditional arms-loving
Yemeni culture, if unchecked, can seriously threaten regime
interests. However, while such thinking aids our push for
greater controls over the flow of illicit SA/LW in and out of
Yemen, it also feeds the ROYG hunger for acquiring new more
advanced weapons for its own arsenal. (Note: Saleh has
requested Embassy assistance both for vehicular and airborne
countermeasures to defeat SAMs. End Note.)

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Notional Schedule
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6. (C) We have not scheduled meetings outside the Embassy
for August 30. On August 31 you will meet with President
Saleh, Deputy Director of the National Security Bureau Ammar
Saleh (in charge of illicit weapons recovery in Yemen),
Minister of Defense Abdullah Ali Alaiwa, and Minister of
Interior Rashad al-Alimi. The Presidential Palace will
likely inform us on the timing of your meeting with Saleh
shortly before it occurs, and your subsequent meetings will
follow. A working lunch with key players is expected to take
place at one of the Ministries. The Ambassador would like to
host a small dinner at his residence on August 31 or
September 1 with Ministers of Defense, Interior, Foreign
Affairs, NSB Deputy Ammar Saleh, and Dr. Iryani. We are
waiting for ROYG response to the invitation. We have
requested to tour MANPADS storage sites on September 1, and
it may be possible for you to visit a weapons souk outside of
Sana'a, pending resolution of security and logistical issues.


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Ammar Saleh and the National Security Bureau
--------------


7. (C) In response to the Secretary's letter, President Saleh
tapped his nephew, Deputy Director of the National Security
Bureau (NSB) Ammar Saleh, as the ROYG lead for MANPADS
buy-back (Note: Ammar Saleh's lead was confirmed to Charge by
Foreign Minister al-Qirbi and Defense Minister Alaiwa. End
Note.) Ammar Saleh is expected to take the reins as NSB
Director soon. He will have his work cut out for him
wrestling NSB's new portfolio from the other security
organizations, chiefly the Political Security Organization
(PSO).


8. (S/NF) Ammar is charged with the illicit weapons recovery
account, and is already engaged in his own buy-back of all
sorts of materiel. On August 23 he told us he recently met
with an arms dealer who claimed there are Strela 1, 2 and 3's
as well as Stingers for sale on the Yemeni black market.
Ammar gave him the funds to purchase them. All MANPADS
recovered would become part of our buy-back. (Note: He was
not convinced on the Stingers, but promised to inform us
immediately if he recovers any. End Note.) Ammar reported
that he is also buying back C-4 and explosives detonators
from the market.


9. (S/NF) Ammar is a frank and direct interlocutor. In
private he speaks about his difficulties in dealing with the
Ministry of Defense, which he often describes as an
impediment. The ROYG envisions the NSB operating as a joint
NSC-CIA type organization modeled on the Jordanian GID. Our
main CT interlocutor, PSO Chief Gamish, will be the unseen
elephant in the room during your discussions with NSB. You
can capitalize on this tension -- Ammar needs to succeed in
this, his first major assignment.

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The Case of the Missing MANPADS
--------------


10. (S) The ROYG is ready to sell and destroy the 79 systems
it currently claims are its only illicit MANPADS stock. Your
challenge will be getting the ROYG to provide a serialized
inventory of their official MANPADS stock.


11. (S) ROYG cooperation rises and falls along a predictable
"what have you done for me lately" pattern. After an initial
July 2003 inspection, the ROYG rebuffed Embassy requests to
inventory ROYG recovered MANPADS stocks. Following delivery
of Secretary Powell's letter, offering assistance to buy-back
and destroy MANPADS, we were allowed to view current stocks
in July 2004. In the latest inspection, Emboffs viewed 79
SA-7's which appeared inoperable, vice 1,100 in the same
storage facility in 2003. (Note: You will be touring this
facility during your visit. End Note.)


12. (S/NF) NSB Ammar Saleh told us on August 18 that the
Ministry of Defense re-distributed all usable systems to its
own forces. "They bought them, they own them, they can do
what they like with them," said Ammar. As for the remaining
79, they will be destroyed as part of the tabled buy-back.
He assured us that all U.S. buy-back funds will be handled by
his organization and promised complete control of the systems
from collection to destruction.


13. (S/NF) Ammar has developed his own proposal for storage
and control of recovered MANPADS under the U.S. proposal. He
has twice raised his idea for a joint USG-NSB effort. "You
build the warehouse, I'll buy the land." He wants to use
non-Ministry of Defense facilities to prevent acquired
illicit MANPADS from becoming "mixed up" with MOD stocks.

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Official Inventory Controls
--------------


14. (S/NF) You can expect Minister of Defense Alaiwa to
balk at our request for a serialized account of official
MANPADS stocks. Ammar described this information as "Top
Secret" and exclaimed "Why would you want to know?" Your

SIPDIS
answer is simple: MANPADS leaked from Yemen's official stock
were used in al-Qa'ida operations in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and
Yemen. The ROYG position is that these weapons were smuggled
out during the chaos of the 1994 civil war, but that current
controls are much better. However, in reality they share our
concern and are highly motivated to prevent any recurrence
given the damage it could do to the U.S. - Yemeni CT
partnership and therefore their growing USG development
assistance account. Ammar Saleh has suggested that our
demand for a serialized inventory account would be better
received if couched in an offer of technical assistance to
modernize and computerize inventories of the Yemeni Armed
Forces arsenal.

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Continued Acquisition and Destruction of Illicit MANPADS
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15. (S/NF) Presently, the ROYG uses a list of 29 approved
arms dealers to collect illicit weapons from the grey market.
MANPADS buy-back will create an additional demand in the
local arms market. This is to our advantage if we can
destroy additional non-Yemeni systems floating in from HOA.
What we want to avoid, however, is a secondary arms market
for cheap North Korean MANPADS that cost less to produce than
what we are offering to pay for recovered systems. Given
that the ROYG has violated its bilateral agreement not to
deal with North Korea, we should impress upon them our
concerns regarding control of future buy-back acquisitions.

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New Acquisitions
--------------


16. (S/NF) President Saleh will claim the sovereign right to
determine Yemen's defense needs. You will want to press
Saleh and Alaiwa that the purpose of this buy-back is not to
fund illegitimate acquisitions of more advanced MANPADS
systems for ROYG forces. (See other channel reporting.)


17. (C) The ROYG described initiatives to Senior Advisor
Bodine and NSC Deputy Townsend in 2003 to negate all current
end-user licenses and increase MFA involvement in the
acquisitions process by issuing new certificates through
overseas embassies -- there has been no action on this
commitment.

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Proliferation of SA/LW beyond MANPADS
--------------


18. (C) Ammar is hoping this buy-back will lead to other
SA/LW buy-backs -- which will expand his portfolio. He and
the ROYG are motivated for success in the hope that
additional buy-backs for SA/LW will follow. This visit is an
opportunity to study the greater issue of weapons
proliferation in Yemen.


19. (C) Yemen has a gun loving culture and has long been a
regional center for weapons smuggling. A dhow interdicted by
the U.S. Navy in early May with a shipment of 500 AK-47s
bound for Somalia underscores the continuing problem. Saleh
must balance political support from the northern tribes with
the fact that so many of them are heavily involved in weapons
smuggling operations.

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Grey Arms: Border Control
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20. (C) Yemen and Saudi Arabia have announced joint efforts
to tighten border security, but improvement and application
to date is limited and uneven. The security of Yemen's land
and maritime borders remains a priority concern. The USG has
installed the Pisces system here and just initiated the EXBS
program for further assistance. The Yemeni Coast Guard is up
and running. Still, tackling the issue remains well beyond
Yemen's current border control capacity, particularly along
the long and largely unregulated boarder with Saudi Arabia.

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The Al-Houthi Factor
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21. (S/NF) The difficulty of the Yemeni Army and Central
Security Forces to end the bloody conflict with the armed
supporters of rebel Shi'ite cleric al-Houthi in the northern
region of Sa'da is causing some ROYG officials to rethink its
traditional hands-off policy on SW/LA flow in and out of
Yemen. It appears al-Houthi supporters are better armed with
newer weapons than ROYG forces. This thinking presents us
with a double-edged sword. We can capitalize on it by
pressing for strong cooperation on illicit MANPADS recovery.
At the same time, it is likely to feed ongoing ROYG efforts
to acquire new, technologically advanced weapons.
KRAJESKI