Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06DAMASCUS4737
2006-10-02 15:52:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Damascus
Cable title:  

"WHISTLE PAST THE GRAVEYARD" SYRIAN RESPONSE TO

Tags:  PGOV PREL SY LE 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO6902
OO RUEHAG
DE RUEHDM #4737/01 2751552
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 021552Z OCT 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1823
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0222
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0172
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAMASCUS 004737 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

PARIS FOR WALLER; LONDON FOR TSOU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL SY LE
SUBJECT: "WHISTLE PAST THE GRAVEYARD" SYRIAN RESPONSE TO
BRAMMERTZ REPORT

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Michael Corbin, per 1.4 b,d.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAMASCUS 004737

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

PARIS FOR WALLER; LONDON FOR TSOU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL SY LE
SUBJECT: "WHISTLE PAST THE GRAVEYARD" SYRIAN RESPONSE TO
BRAMMERTZ REPORT

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Michael Corbin, per 1.4 b,d.


1. (C) Summary: The SARG has publicly reacted positively
to the latest Brammertz report but officials are privately
troubled by some of its language, including the focus on
linkages between the Hariri assassination and other
politically-targeted killings that occurred in the same time
frame. Contacts report that many in the regime are looking
past the investigation and focusing with significant
apprehension on the formation of the tribunal that will
accuse and try suspects based on Brammertz's UNIIIC work.
Some believe that one of the key factors that may drive Syria
try to destabilize Lebanon in the coming months is its desire
to prevent the Lebanese Cabinet and Parliamentary from taking
the action required to set up the tribunal. End Summary.



2. (C) Like all the other UNIIIC reports except the first
broadside that Mehlis issued one year ago, this one has been
discounted to a degree here as predictable and without much
substance. Overall, however, Syrian officials privately have
not been as dismissive of this report as they were with
previous reports, say contacts. There remain fears,
buttressed by the highly professional, confident tone of this
report, that Brammertz is concealing a significant body of
damning evidence that he has accumulated. Contacts say it is
clear that Brammertz is preparing the final stages of
presentation of a legal case that will go to trial. Dr.
Samir al-Taqi, an informal advisor to the MFA who has helped
organize the SARG legal defense strategy and recruited the
British experts on its legal team, said that the report
points to the implication of several relatively senior Syrian
officers. Brammertz's mention of the "multiple motives" idea
could be viewed as leaving room for accusing such senior
figures without necessarily accusing and requiring
convictions at the very top of the regime, indicated al-Taqi.


3. (C) Many contacts said that Syrian officials were happy
with Brammertz's praise for SARG cooperation with the
investigation. Hence the SARG has been relatively positive

in its public reactions, but careful not to be effusive,
praising the professional manner of the investigation and
tone of the report. SARG officials are also relieved that
Brammertz did not blame Syria for the recalcitrant or
misleading attitude of a few Syrians that UNIIIC interviewed,
noted al-Taqi, who in addition to his MFA connections, is
closely tied to GID head Ali Mamluk. The Syrian official
media offered restrained front page coverage, reporting that
UNSYG Koffi Annan had expressed gratitude to Syria for its
cooperation with UNIIIC.


4. (C) Contacts pointed to several aspects of the September
25 report that the Syrians did not like:

-- the linkages Brammertz made between the Hariri
assassination and the other 15 assassinations and attempts;

-- Brammertz's continuing basic adherence to the Mehlis
theory behind the assassination; and

-- the report's focus on the political environment beforehand
as a key motivating factor in the killing.
These aspects taken together indicate that Brammertz
believes, without saying so directly, that Syrian officers
and other Syrians remain prime suspects.


5. (C) The real concern on the Syrian side is not the
ongoing Brammertz investigation, however, but the tribunal
that is being formed. SARG officials seem to be divided about
how to respond to this development. Some contacts report
regime support for turning the situation in Lebanon upside
down, using proxies like Hizballah to cause the fall of the
Siniora government. This would prevent the necessary Cabinet
and Parliamentary action for the formation of the tribunal.
Al-Hayat correspondent Ibrahim Hamidi have described to us
scenarios that pointed to SARG-instigated action in November
that could cause rising instability in Lebanon. Because the
formation of the tribunal is likely to proceed quite slowly
in any case, given the difficult legal and political
complexities, al-Taqi said it is possible that any
destabilizing action, including efforts to bring down the
Sinora government, could be postponed until after the new
year.


DAMASCUS 00004737 002 OF 002



6. (C) While such a view has powerful adherents inside the
regime, there is an opposing view which argues that Syria
will not be able to stop the tribunal by destabilizing the
Lebanese government, reported Hamidi, who is thought to have
good contacts inside the MFA and the Syrian security
services. Even if SARG proponents of this view succeeded in
completely destabilizing Lebanon, the UNSC would likely
respond by forming a tribunal on its own authority.
Consequently, it is in Syria's interest to cooperate with the
tribunal and avoid drastic action that would destabilize
Lebanon, as Syria seeks the best legal deal possible to
extricate itself from its current UNIIIC legal bind, argue
these pragmatic defenders of the regime, said Hamidi.


7. (C) This battle over the SARG's likely reaction to the
formation and functioning of the tribunal is not over.
Al-Taqi noted that the SARG may "defy the tribunal and refuse
to give up any suspects," as well as dig in its heels
completely and refuse to arrest anyone in Syria. But even
al-Taqi at other points in the conversation with A/DCM
acknowledged that the situation was quite fluid, making it
difficult to predict accurately the SARG response. Other
contacts expressed the conviction that in the end the SARG
will have to cooperate. Attorney Salahideen al-Khatib even
speculated that the President Bashar al-Asad will be willing
to sacrifice anyone necessary, including family members, as
long as it allows him to retain power.


8. (C) COMMENT: We seriously doubt that Asad is willing to
countenance the sacrifice of any senior regime figures,
especially his brother Maher and his powerful brother-in-law,
SMI chief Asif Shawkat. The sacrifice of a few of the lower
level "usual suspects, is possible but the SARG may insist
on guarantees that they would be tried in absentia and
imprisoned in Syria. For now, the regime seems to believe it
is not under anywhere near as much pressure as it was under
in the fall and winter of 2005-2006. At the end of that
period, the SARG begrudgingly allowed five Syrian suspects
and witnesses to travel to Vienna to be questioned by
then-UNIIIC head Detlef Mehlis. Getting the SARG to
cooperate with the tribunal in the coming months will likely
prove to be a major challenge. Given the regime's previous,
sometimes unpredictable violent lurches in Lebanon, we do not
rule out a SARG-instigated effort -- with its proxies there
-- to bring down the Siniora government, among other reasons
(such as despising Sa'ad Hariri and the March 14 grouping) in
order to delay and undermine the formation of the tribunal.
Any such foreign effort in Lebanon would likely be matched by
a powerful demagogic campaign inside Syria -- playing on
national pride and Islamic religious sentiments -- aimed at
whipping up support for the regime and demonizing UNIIIC, the
tribunal, and the U.S.

CORBIN