S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 DUBAI 000010

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR PM, NEA, NEA/ARPI, NEA/I, NEA/ELA, INR; SECDEF
FOR OSD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/2/2016
TAGS: PREL MOPS MARR PTER XF TC IR IZ SY LE XD SO
SUBJECT: GENERAL ABIZAID MEETING WITH ABU DHABI CROWN PRINCE AND
DUBAI CROWN PRINCE

REF: A. ABU DHABI 5124; B. ABU DHABI 4715

DUBAI 00000010 001.2 OF 004


CLASSIFIED BY: Jillian L. Burns, Acting Consul General, Dubai,
UAE.
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d)




1. (S) Summary: CENTCOM Commander General Abizaid met December
27 in Dubai with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme
Commander of the UAE Armed Forces General Sheikh Mohammed bin
Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) and Dubai Crown Prince and UAE Minister of
Defense General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (MBR).
They discussed Iraq, Iran, Syria/Lebanon, and the war on
terrorism. Both sides were in agreement over most issues, other
than the question of loyalty to Iraq on the part of Iraqi Shia.
In an earlier Abu Dhabi meeting with UAE Armed Forces Chief of
Staff, General Abizaid discussed many of the same themes. End
Summary.


2. (S) Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of
the UAE Armed Forces General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan
(MBZ) flew CENTCOM Commander General Abizaid, CENTCOM Director
of Intelligence Brigadier General Custer, CENTCOM Deputy
Director of Plans and Policy Brigadier General Kimmitt, and USLO
Chief Colonel Simm to Dubai by helicopter December 27. They met
Dubai Crown Prince and UAE Minister of Defense Genera Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (MBR) for dinner, joined by the
head of Dubai State Security Directorate (SSD), as well as MBZ's
oldest son, Sheikh Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Nahyan, MBZ's personal
associate Bessam Sreih, MBZ's principal aide and Director of
International Affairs Yousef Al Otaiba, and acting Consul
General Jillian Burns (notetaker).

IRAQ
--------------

3. (S) Abizaid's primary message was that for Iraq to succeed,
Sunnis must abandon the insurgency and participate in the new
government. The responsibility is on all of us to convince
Sunnis that in this regard, their interests and U.S. interests
dovetail. MBR asked why the Sunnis should trust the U.S.
Saying he did not want to rehash a point he has made in the
past, MBR called the dismantling of the Iraqi army a mistake.
Sunnis were left with no jobs or resources. Abizaid replied it
was in Sunnis' own long-term interest to participate
politically. If they did so, Abizaid was optimistic that Shia
and Kurds would not be able to squeeze Sunnis out of power. One
issue hurting the Sunnis, however, was the lack of strong
political leaders emerging from among their ranks. MBZ and MBR
took the point but demurred when Abizaid asked their own views
on Sunni leaders.


4. (S) MBZ and MBR stressed that in Saddam-era Iraq, many had
joined the Baath party out of necessity rather than conviction
and should not now be excluded. Abizaid agreed, saying he
believed the list of those excluded should be short, and the
rest should be allowed to contribute to the new Iraq. He
mentioned, however, that the Unified Iraqi Coalition (555)
wanted a much longer list of names of former Baathists
blackballed.


5. (S) Abizaid gave a positive overview of progress of standing
up the Iraqi army, mentioning as an example that Iraqi forces
are responsible for security for 25 percent of Baghdad. A
significant obstacle, however, was the mindset among some in the
Iraqi military that their job was to terrorize their own people,
not grasping that there will be a reaction to such abuse of
power. Abizaid noted that success with rehabilitating the Iraqi
police lagged behind the rehabilitation of the Iraqi military.

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ZARQAWI/BAATHIST INSURGENCY
--------------


6. (S) Abizaid underscored the progress made against al-Qa'ida
as a whole and specifically the Zarqawi network in Iraq,
including cutting off sources of funding. All agreed the
November 9 Amman bombings had greatly hurt Zarqawi's stature
(presumably region-wide). Abizaid and Custer assessed that the
Baathists probably had a lot more money than al-Qa'ida,
squirreled away pre-war in accounts around the world by the
Iraqi intelligence service or taken by fleeing Baathists into
Syria. Unfortunately, no one knew yet who has control of these
accounts.


7. (S) Custer briefed that while there was friction between
Zarqawi and al-Qa'ida, they were united. Zarqawi certainly had
a more direct hand these days in the operational aspect of the
organization, compared to Zawahiri or bin Ladin, which boosted
his stature.

IRAN IN IRAQ
--------------


8. (S) MBZ and MBR's principal message to Abizaid was their
strong concern over the foothold Iran is gaining in Iraq. MBR
said that while he views Shia as Muslims, he worries where their
allegiance lies. Both MBZ and MBR believed that with the Shia
tradition of veneration of religious figures, Iraqi Shia
loyalties were more to their religion and, by extension, to
Iran, than to their own country.


9. (S) Abizaid reiterated the fact that it behooves Sunnis to
play a positive role, because chaos in Iraq serves only the
interest of Iran. He agreed Iran is a danger and stressed that
the U.S. and all the countries in the region must work together
to contain Iranian expansionism. He made clear that the U.S.
stands with Iraq against Iran and that U.S.'s vast military
superiority should not be discounted.


10. (S) On the other hand, Abizaid questioned this assumption
about Iraqi Shia loyalties and said he did not believe Iran was
calling the shots with all Iraqi Shia politicians. He
maintained that as a rule, Iraqi Shia were Iraqi before they
were Shia, citing the thousands of Shia who died fighting Iran
in the Iran-Iraq war. He also did not believe there was much
support among the Shia for a theocratic system of government in
Iraq.

IRANIAN PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD
--------------


11. (S) All agreed with Abizaid that Iran's new president
Ahmadinejad seemed unbalanced, crazy even, and MBR shook his
head at the idea of Ahmadinejad acquiring nuclear weapons. MBR
and MBZ mentioned the rumors about Ahmadinejad's belief in the
imminent return of the missing Imam and said some think that
Ahmadinejad believes himself to be an incarnation of the
"hidden" Twelfth Imam. Abizaid said Sultan Qaboos of Oman
forecast to him that Ahmadinejad would be sidelined in a few
months (Note: a view many Iranians have expressed to AmConsulate
Dubai). MBZ noted that Ahmadinejad's rhetoric follows the line
of Khomeini and that he does have a populist following. Custer
added Ahmadinejad seemed to be mimicking Moqtada al Sadr's
strategies in Iraq for attracting followers among the poorer
strata of society.

FIGHTING TERRORISM IN THE UAE AND ELSEWHERE
--------------

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12. (S) Abizaid commended UAE efforts against terrorism and said
the UAE was a role model in terms of its success in providing a
strong economy for its people. Abizaid asked for their
assessment of vulnerability to an attack in the UAE. MBZ said
he thought it more likely that al-Qa'ida would try again soon to
hit the U.S. in order to rebuild its credibility, and said it
was mostly luck that had spared the U.S. a repeat attack to date.


13. (S) MBZ and MBR saw a continuing threat in the region from
the Muslim Brotherhood (a term Emirati leadership uses
generically to refer to Islamic extremists). The Dubai SSD
Director mentioned how difficult it was to monitor the sermons
here. He also said the UAE kept anyone who went to Afghanistan
under close eye and had arrested some of them. He
differentiated between those who had gone in previous years to
fight the Soviets with the newer generation. MBR then told the
story of going to visit someone who had been planning an attack
here. The man was living in miserable conditions in a small
room of a big house and complained about quality of life in the
country. MBR said the conditions here are not like in Saudi
Arabia or Afghanistan and reminded him of all the government
made available to him in terms of land and money. MBR told him
it was your father, not the government, who had deprived you of
what was yours. The man then changed his ways and later turned
in a colleague who was planning to abduct U.S. soldiers, after
he failed to convince him to abandon his plans.


14. (S) Abizaid, Custer, MBZ, and MBR all agreed that Somalia
posed the highest risk as a new site for terrorist training
grounds. The Dubai SSD Director mentioned operations the UAE
had been involved in regarding Somalia. Abizaid said the U.S.
base in Djibouti was an asset necessary to monitor the situation.

SYRIA/LEBANON
--------------


15. (S) Rather than give their own assessment of the situation
in Syria and Lebanon, MBZ and MBR asked Bessam Sreih, a local
businessman of Lebanese origin with UAE citizenship and a
personal friend of MBZ, to tell the Americans what he thought.
Sreih said in unequivocal terms that he thought the government
in Syria was archaic, Stalinist, and irredeemable. He believed
the decisions to assassinate Hariri, Tueni, and others went all
the way to the top to Bashar al-Asad. Sreih claimed that in the
entirety of Hafez al-Asad's regime, the father had assassinated
10 people, while Bashar had killed more than that in one year.
He also said Saudi Secretary General of the National Security
Council Prince Bandar bin Sultan told him after meeting Bashar
three times that Bashar never once mentioned reform. Sreih's
greatest concern was that the U.S. would strike a bargain with
Syria that would allow the regime to stay in power.


16. (S) MBR did not seem to share Sreih's complete condemnation
of President Asad. He mentioned that when Bashar had visited
him in Dubai (most likely December 2003), Bashar looked around
him and said, give me a year (to bring similar economic change
to Syria). A while later, Bashar revised his estimate and said
he'd need five years.


17. (S) Abizaid said that there had been some limited
improvement in Syrian cooperation along the Iraqi border, and
that he was optimistic about the future of Lebanon. Regarding
Syria, he said no regime that does not modernize and listen to
the demands of its people will survive.


18. (S) Comment: After the meeting, General Abizaid shared with
USLO some of his observations. He was taken by the change in
Emirati priorities, which used to be Iraq, al Qa'ida, Iran (in

DUBAI 00000010 004.2 OF 004


that order), and now appears to be Iran, al Qa'ida, Iraq. He
repeated that he does not agree with the Sheikhs regarding the
Shia: he believes Iraqi Shia are Iraqis first, and Shia second,
and that they will not be swayed by Tehran if it is not in their
direct, national interests. End comment.

ABU DHABI MEETING WITH UAE ARMED FORCES CHIEF OF STAFF
-------------- --------------


19. (S) In an earlier meeting that day with UAE Armed Forces
Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Hamad Thani Al Rumaithy at
General Headquarters in Abu Dhabi, attended by CDA and USLO
Chief, General Abizaid discussed many of the same themes. He
opened by expressing thanks for the ongoing contributions of UAE
Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan. Hamad Thani responded
that he was satisfied with both the roles assigned to UAE SOF as
well as their integration in the Coalition campaign. Abizaid
also thanked Hamad Thani for UAE's contributions to Pakistan
following the November 2005 earthquake, especially UAE's
contribution (at CENTCOM request) of much-needed spare parts for
Pakistan's over-tasked MI-17 helicopter fleet. Abizaid
continued by assuring Hamad Thani that the recently announced
plan to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq was a calculated decision
based upon the improving capability of Iraqi forces to assume a
greater share of the burden. Hamad Thani expressed his concern
that any premature withdrawal of U.S. forces would lead to an
inevitable clash between Sunni and Shia Iraqis, but was
satisfied that the planned reduction was timely.

SYRIA, SAUDI ARABIA, AL-QA'IDA
--------------

20.(S) When asked by Hamad Thani about Syria, Abizaid noted the
Syrians are doing a much better job of controlling their border
with Iraq, especially their efforts to stem the flow of foreign
fighters, but that the network remaining inside Syria --
especially the hardcore Baathists -- ultimately poses a bigger
threat to Syria than it does to Iraq. Hamad Thani agreed.
Regarding the situation in Saudi Arabia, Hamad Thani offered his
opinion that the roots of terrorism lay in the problems there.
He further noted that if the Saudi government were to fail, "we
may be next (referring to the spread of Islamic radicalism)."
Hamad Thani then offered his opinions regarding the status of
al-Qa'ida. He acknowledged that AQ was certainly weaker now
than at any other point in recent years, but that it was not yet
ready to break. He asserted his belief that "we must continue
to join our efforts" to defeat this common enemy. He then
concluded that "as Muslims, we must disprove what al-Qa'ida
asserts about Islam."


21. (U) This message has been cleared by General Abizaid and
Embassy Abu Dhabi.
BURNS