UKRAINE: DASD CAGAN REQUESTS PLUS-UP IN IRAQ

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 002566 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/UMB AND EUR/RPM E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2017 TAGS: PREL MARR MOPS IZ UP US SUBJECT: UKRAINE: DASD CAGAN REQUESTS PLUS-UP IN IRAQ TRAINING MISSION REF: A. KYIV 1459 ¶B. STATE 8055 Classified By: Ambassador for reasons 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (U) Action Request: See paragraph 13. ¶2. (C) Summary. In consecutive meetings with Ukrainian Chief of Defense, General of the Army Serhiy Kyrychenko, Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko, and Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Veselovsky on October 8, visiting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) Debra Cagan expressed continued SIPDIS U.S. support for Ukrainian Armed Forces reform, stressed the benefits of Ukrainian interoperability gained by deployment with U.S. forces and solicited increased Ukrainian Ministry of Defense support to U.S. operations in Iraq. DASD Cagan expressed a U.S. wish for Ukraine to increase its number of armed forces personnel in Iraq with the purpose of increasing capacity for Iraqi police and security forces training. The request was politely received with some reservations from the Minister of Defense. End summary. ¶3. (U) Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Coalition, Peacekeeping and Multinational Cooperation Debra Cagan and her party visited Kyiv October 7-8. Cagan, accompanied by the Ambassador and DATT, met with Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Chief of the General Staff General of the Army Serhiy Kyrychenko, and Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Veselovsky. MFA Arms Control and Military Technical Cooperation Director Volodymyr Belashov, U.S. and Canada Desk Director Yuriy Nykytiuk, and Third Territorial Department (covering the Middle East) Counselor Mykola Leshchenko participated in Veselovsky's meeting. CHoD: Political Okay Needed to Do More in Iraq -------------- - ¶4. (U) In the meeting with General Kyrychenko, DASD Cagan thanked Ukraine for its ongoing support to U.S. operations in Iraq where 34 Ukrainian Armed Forces officers and NCOs are serving in headquarters staff and training Iraqi security forces. DASD noted that, in many ways, Ukraine has a head start on its neighbors in defense reform and interoperability with NATO forces due to its rotation of service members through Iraq and other operations. ¶5. (U) DASD Cagan informed General Kyrychenko that the Ukrainian personnel in Iraq have an excellent reputation as trainers of Iraqi forces. U.S. military commanders continue to praise their police training work. Due to the combined efforts of the Polish presence with the Iraqi 8th Corps and the effective Ukrainian police training, the security situation in Diwaniya had improved substantially from two months ago. DASD stated she understood by existing Presidential decree the Ukrainian Armed Forces could increase their personnel in Iraq up to 50 military personnel. DASD insisted that increasing the number of Ukrainian personnel to at least 50 would go a long way in the training of Iraqi counter-insurgency police forces. She added that the Iraqi police hold the Ukrainian trainers in such high regard that embedding Ukrainian trainers with Iraqi Police outside Camp Echo would allow for direct mentorship and yield positive and immediate results. ¶6. (U) DASD Cagan raised the possibility of off-setting certain pre-deployment training costs associated with Ukrainian military deployments to Iraq with existing Coalition Support Funds. She added that if the Ukrainian military could commit to increased military support to the police training mission and expand that commitment to an embedded mobile training team, the U.S. would undertake to provide airlift, sustainment and necessary equipment requirements to support the mission. ¶7. (C) In response, General Kyrychenko thanked the U.S. for continued support in reform, joint exercises and training assistance. While acknowledging the importance of deployments and joint overseas military operations to Ukrainian military reform, Kyrychenko stressed that Ukraine was "politically and economically limited" in the nature and extent of expanding such deployments. He stated that deployment to Iraq was in fact a good school for the development and transformation of the Ukrainian military. It provided useful feedback and a test of sorts to allow Ukraine to evaluate ongoing reforms. Kyrychenko allowed that the existing Presidential decree permits up to 50 military KYIV 00002566 002 OF 003 personnel in Iraq; however he noted that the nature of the mission in training police is not a normal task assigned to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and required additional retraining of Ukrainian instructors. He underscored the readiness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to conduct increased deployments in support of operations in Iraq, if that decision were taken by political authorities. DefMin Skeptical About Increasing Numbers -------------- ¶8. (U) Immediately following the meeting with Kyrychenko, DASD Cagan met with Minister Hrytsenko. DASD expressed appreciation for Ukrainian soldiers serving in Iraq. She told Hrytsenko they have been excellent trainers and have earned a reputation among Iraqi police as some of the best trainers they have had. Due to Ukrainian and Polish efforts, the number of trained Iraqi counter-insurgency police had increased enormously. Addressing the concern about attacks against Coalition bases, DASD said the number of attacks against Camp Echo had gone down to near zero and repeated the observation of the level of violence in Diwaniya being substantially decreased. The training of Iraqi police and other security forces had contributed to the overall security situation. 8th Iraqi Division and Iraqi police interoperability had improved. Polish forces working with the Iraqi Army and Ukrainian soldiers working with counter-insurgency police had provided very effective synergy. ¶9. (U) DASD Cagan explained that General Petraeus wants to move to the next stage of strategy, and he requires additional trainers to do this. His desire was to move U.S. forces to areas of high conflict where they are most needed and to continue training Iraqi security forces in areas where it is doing the most good. This is where the Ukrainians came in. He would like to see more Ukrainian soldiers accomplishing more training in Camp Echo and the surrounding area. Since the Ukrainians have moved away from border training in Wasit Province to Camp Echo, they were no longer training border guard troops. They would do the most good by training more Iraqi counter-insurgency police and security forces. ¶10. (C) Minister Hrytsenko stressed that in accordance with the Presidential Decree, Ministry of Interior (MoI) should be covering ten personnel positions and State Border Guard Service (SBGS) of Ukraine should be covering ten personnel positions from the total of 50 allowed. They have not done so to date due to what he called "bureaucratic laziness." MoI and SBGS claim they were not trained for this type of mission and had not completed the necessary staff work to initiate preparation or deployment. Hrytsenko claimed the Interior Troops of the MoI were perfectly competent to fulfill the mission as they are a trained military force. Hrytsenko continued to insist that MoI and SBGS had to realize the intent of the Presidential Decree by fulfilling their agreement. ¶11. (C) In response to further questioning on Ukraine's ability to raise the number of deployed personnel to the number allowed by the Presidential Decree (up to 50 personnel),Hrytsenko claimed the Ukrainian Armed Forces had a limited number of qualified personnel to meet the requirements of serving in Iraq. Specifically, he expressed concern about language requirements for additional Ukrainian trainers in Iraq. In expressing his reluctance to increase the numbers of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel, he cited the difficulty in finding volunteers, saying wives and mothers do not wish to see their men deploying to Iraq which they view as being a dangerous place. According to Hrytsenko, the law dictates that deploying personnel must be volunteers for the deployment. (Note: The ChoD, however, had contradicted this at the earlier meeting and observed there were three volunteers for every one position in Iraq. End note.) ¶12. (C) Comment: During further discussion, Hrytsenko appeared to gain an understanding that Iraqi police forces were not being trained for traditional civic police roles, but rather to operate in coordination with Iraqi military security forces to battle the counter insurgency. In the beginning of the conversation he did not believe armed forces personnel should be used to train Iraqi police, but later agreed that it was appropriate due to the counter-insurgency missions being performed by the Iraqi police. The discussion ended without a firm commitment by Hrytsenko as he expressed skepticism that they could increase their current commitment KYIV 00002566 003 OF 003 given the domestic political situation and the perceived decreasing security situation in Iraq. Although he listened intently, Hrytsenko appeared to be quite preoccupied, most likely due to the continuing negotiations between political parties as they work to form a government coalition. End comment. Ukraine's Issues -------------- ¶13. (C) Hrytsenko continued the discussion with two issues of his own. He first asked about U.S. plans concerning Iran (he was asking if the U.S. was making plans to attack or invade Iran),to which, DASD said the U.S. has no intention of attacking or invading Iran, repeating the President's policy and statements. The second issue was one Hrytsenko has asked us in the past (see reftels) regarding the planned deployment of a U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System in Central Europe. Hrytsenko claims that the U.S. written response to his questions concerning BMDS sites in Central Europe differed from the more positive response to his questions provided orally by MDA heaad General Obering during his visit to Kyiv. Hrytsenko claimed this put Ukraine in a very difficult position, and if the answers previously provided by the U.S. represent U.S. policy (ref B),then there will be geo-political complications for Ukraine. His three basic questions are: 1) Will the U.S. provide launch warning to all concerned countries of the region? 2) Will the U.S. allow a verification regime to be constructed allowing inspection of the BMD sites? And 3) Will the U.S. allow Russian and Ukrainian military officers to work on a permanent basis at the BMD sites? Hrytsenko said that he would raise these issues with SecDef Gates when he visits Kyiv October 21-22. Department's guidance on these two issues would be appreciated. Foreign Ministry Cautious As Well -------------- ¶14. (C) Veselovsky responded to Cagan's request that Ukraine consider providing the full Presidential authorization of 50 personnel to the Iraq training mission by noting that the Ministry of Defense (MOD) felt that its personnel resources were stretched to the limit. The Defense Ministry leadership was keenly interested in improving interoperability, but, with 37,000 Ukrainians having served in international peacekeeping operations, MOD was encountering difficulty in rotating overseas deployments in a balanced fashion throughout the entire uniformed force. Nevertheless, Foreign Ministry representatives continued to make the case for Ukraine's PKO participation in discussions with MOD counterparts. ¶15. (C) On a political level, President Yushchenko's decision to withdraw Ukrainian troops from participation in the Multinational Force Iraq (MNF-I) had been widely supported; redeployment of combat troops would be difficult. (At this point, Cagan noted that this was not what she was requesting.) Veselovsky said MFA hoped to convince the Ministry of Interior to contribute the personnel envisioned in the Presidential Decree, but would also continue to engage with MOD on the question. Cagan responded that the police training mission was not civil police training, but counterinsurgency training, at which the Ukrainian military had demonstrated that it excelled. She cautioned that the U.S. would be cautious about the deployment of MOI forces, with an unproven track record, and observed that, above all, the military prefers to know, and be able to trust, the forces on its right and left on the battle front and that they be interoperable. Veselovsky said Ukraine's Interior Troops differed from the police in other European countries, resembling a militia more, and that the MOI had already proven its capability during PKO operations in Kosovo. ¶16. (U) DASD Cagan has cleared this cable. ¶17. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website: www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev. Taylor