SCENESETTER FOR LTG WHITCOMB'S VISIT TO SANAA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SANAA 003233

SIPDIS

FOR LTG WHITCOMB FROM THE CHARGE D'AFFAIRES

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2015
TAGS: PREL PTER MARR MASS YM COUNTER TERRORISM
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR LTG WHITCOMB'S VISIT TO SANAA

Classified By: CDA NABEEL KHOURY, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) Welcome to Sanaa. We have requested meetings for you
with Minister of Defense MG Abdullah Ali Aliwa, Minister of
Interior Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, and Commander of the
Yemeni Special Operations Forces (YSOF) Ahmed Ali Abdullah
Saleh. Chief of Staff MG Mohammed al-Qassemi is currently in
the United States for medical treatment.


2. (C) You will find these officials anxious to discuss what
they characterize as excellent but inadequate U.S. assistance
to support what they view as Yemen's role in the GWOT. They
will likely express some disappointment that President
Saleh's visit to Washington last week did not result in an
agreement to substantially increase military assistance. MOD
officials may complain that the Foreign Military Financing
(FMF) system, with which they are just now developing some
familiarity, is too slow, cumbersome and difficult, and may
make an appeal for rapid and direct transfers of equipment,
spare parts, and cash -- something the Office of Military
Cooperation (OMC) has repeatedly made clear is not possible.
You should expect a more congenial meeting with the Minister
of Interior whose open and cooperative attitude has enabled
MOI to maximize training and FMF opportunities.

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COOPERATION AT ARM'S LENGTH
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3. (C) Although Yemen remains an important regional partner
in the GWOT with a post-9/11 string of CT successes,
cooperation on this front has not been perfect -- a point
that was made clear to President Saleh during his visit to
Washington. He and his ministers often claim that they have
"done everything asked of them," that they are "fighting our
fight" in the GWOT, but that USG assistance has not been
commensurate with their efforts. In fact, ROYG CT
cooperation is spotty, and is tinged with mistrust, often
leading to the hoarding of information both between ROYG
agencies and between the ROYG and the USG. You may want to
press your interlocutors to use the recently created MOD
Working Group and the MOD's new 3-5 year CT and Border
Security Plan as the basis for greater, routine information
sharing. You may want to make the point that, while the
Yemenis often respond to requests for information at the very
highest levels, close partners should not wait for arms to be
twisted before sharing useful data on a common enemy. You
may particularly wish to impress upon the Minister of Defense
and the YSOF commander, who is also the President's son, on
the need for direct, continuing engagement between U.S.
military trainers and YSOF units.

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SMALL ARMS/LIGHT WEAPONS
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4. (C) For decades, President Saleh has performed a delicate
balancing act between competing military, tribal, and
islamist interests, and has masterfully used USG assistance
as a major point of leverage. While many of the aspects of
this internal politicking are invisible to us, one is
particularly threatening to Yemeni and international
security: the proliferation of small arms and light weapons
(SA/LW). Saleh and his ministers are aware that weapons
ostensibly procured through official MOD channels have ended
up in the hands of terrorists in Saudi Arabia, Somalia and
elsewhere. The President pledged privately in March to stop
relying on arms dealers to equip his armed forces, and, at
our insistence, made the pledge public in November. There is
no evidence thus far that the message has been received by
weapons brokers, who continue to purchase arms abroad.


5. (C) You should make clear to the Minister of Defense
that it is simply too dangerous for our diplomatic presence
in the region, for our troops in Iraq, as well as for the
Saleh regime to allow the arms trade to continue. We are
willing to help the ROYG monitor the flow of arms, but there
must be a high-level acceptance of our repeated offers to
build a weapons inventory system for the ROYG. You may wish
to press the Minister of Defense on this issue, perhaps by
requesting that we start at the unit level and work up from
there.

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INTERNAL POLITICS
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6. (C) Your visit comes against the backdrop of the
beginning of the campaign season for Yemen's presidential and
local council elections, which are scheduled to take place
next year. Saleh has announced that he will not seek a third
term, but most observers expect the ruling party to formally
nominate him at their general conference in December -- and
for Saleh to reluctantly accept. At that point, Saleh is
expected to name a caretaker cabinet until the elections, a
long overdue move that will alter the political landscape,
but will not likely have a major impact on the ROYG's
foreign, defense or CT policies. It is not clear to us if
the ministers with whom you are scheduled to meet will see a
change in their portfolios as a result of this re-shuffling;
they may not know themselves at this point and for that
reason may be more cautious than usual in their interactions
with you.

7. (C) Your meetings offer an important opportunity to
firmly reinforce the message President Saleh heard in
Washington about the need for better cooperation on CT
efforts to safeguard Yemen's stability. Previous U.S.-Yemeni
CT cooperation offers a good foundation, but it is critical
that Yemen make the transition from ad hoc cooperation to a
fully developed partnership. The ROYG needs to make
verifiable commitments to stopping the arms trade and
routinizing information sharing. Your support for this
approach will be helpful indeed.
Khoury