SCENESETTER FOR CODEL HINOJOSA'S NOVEMBER 13-14

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 DOHA 000777

SIPDIS

H PLEASE PASS TO CODEL HINOJOSA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/03/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV KPAO SCUL QA
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR CODEL HINOJOSA'S NOVEMBER 13-14
VISIT TO QATAR

Classified By: AMBASSADOR JOSEPH E. LEBARON, FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D
).


1. (U) Embassy Doha welcomes your visit to Qatar. We have
requested meetings for you with the Amir, the Prime
Minister/Foreign Minister, and the Amir,s wife, Sheikha
Mozah, who heads the Qatar Foundation, the organization that
oversees the six U.S. universities in Qatar. Yours will be
one of the largest congressional delegations to visit Qatar
in the past year and presents an excellent opportunity to
advance the important U.S.-Qatar educational partnership.


2. (C) Below we provide the Country Team's views on how your
visit can best advance the U.S. Government's strategic
objectives in Qatar. We also discuss the key strategic
trends in U.S.-Qatari relations over the coming three years.
We start, however, with a brief overview of the bilateral
relationship.

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THE U.S.-QATAR RELATIONSHIP
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3. (C) The breadth and depth of Qatar's relationship with the
United States is impressive, especially for a country the
size of Connecticut, with only 1.7 million inhabitants, of
whom only about 225,000 are actually Qatari citizens.

-- Because it is so small and its energy resources so large,
Qatar now has an annual per capita income of over $60,000.
Even through the current global financial crisis, Qatar's
national revenues will continue growing, and Qatar should
soon have the highest per capita income in the world.

-- Qatar,s leaders have invested a major portion of that new
wealth in the education of their citizens, and have turned
decisively to the Unites States for help. Qatar has thus far
imported branch campuses of six U.S. universities, including
Texas A&M, Carnegie-Mellon, Weill-Cornell Medical School,
Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth, and Northwestern. The
Brookings Institution and RAND Corporation have also opened
offices here, at the Qataris, request. RAND in particular
is assisting Qatar in implementing what RAND analysts have
described as "the most ambitious K-12 modernization project
we have ever seen anywhere in the world."

-- Undergirding this long-term partnership in the education
sector is a U.S.-Qatari economic relationship that is just as
vital. Qatar possesses the third largest natural gas
reserves in the world after Iran and Russia. U.S energy
companies have invested tens of billions of dollars in the
oil and gas sector here, helping make Qatar the world's
largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. With the opening
next year of a major regasification terminal at "Golden Pass"
in south Texas, on the Louisiana border, Qatar is expected to
become in 2009 one of the most important suppliers of
imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the U.S. market.

-- Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment
Authority (QIA),is a growing potential source of direct
investment in the United States and elsewhere. QIA will be
increasingly important to the United States as it grows in
parallel with our own need for foreign investment. Given
Qatar's wealth, the country also has great potential to be a
partner in providing aid to struggling regional states, and
we frequently approach them about participating financially
in these initiatives.

-- Vast wealth has bolstered the country's political
ambitions, leading to Qatari foreign policy initiatives that
have often been at odds with U.S. objectives, including
Qatar's relations with Hamas and Syria. The Qataris, recent
success, however, in brokering a deal among Lebanon,s
political factions and the seriousness with which they are
undertaking a new initiative to help resolve the problems in
Darfur, may signal a growing maturity in Qatar,s regional
foreign policy.

-- Qatar's location, wide-ranging foreign relations,
fast-growing economy, and expanding transportation links have
made counterterrorism cooperation, including terrorist
financing, a key aspect of our relationship. Qatar's wealth,
in particular, means its citizens are potential sources of
money for violent extremists and cooperative efforts to
target and prevent these financial flows are central to our
bilateral agenda.

-- The U.S.-Qatar military relationship is extremely

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important. Qatar provides the U.S. military exceptional
access to two major Qatari military installations, Al Udaid
Air Base and Camp As-Saylieh - perhaps CENTCOM's most
important operating installations outside of Iraq. Qatar
charges us no rent, and in fact is funding over USD 700
million in construction projects for the exclusive use of the
U.S. military.

-- Qatar's rapid growth, and the resulting massive demand for
foreign workers to develop the country's infrastructure,
often leads to exploitation and abysmal working conditions
for the laborers. The USG is concerned about the treatment
of foreign workers in Qatar, which has been ranked on Tier 3
- the lowest - in the State Department's Trafficking in
Persons Report for 2008.

-- Al Jazeera, the television network with an Arabic-speaking
audience of some 60 million, is based in Qatar and funded by
the Amir. The network's often biased coverage, particularly
of issues important to the United States, has long been an
irritant in our bilateral relationship. We nevertheless
recognize the value of appearing on Al Jazeera in order to
ensure that official U.S. voices are heard in the Arab world,
and regularly engage Al Jazeera,s management and journalists
in this regard.

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THE EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIP: KEY TRENDS THROUGH 2011
-------------- --------------


4. (SBU) Over the next three years, we believe the following
are the major trends with the greatest potential influence on
the U.S.-Qatari educational partnership. It is here where
your visit, and those of other American officials, can have
the most important impact.

-- (SBU) The Qatari Government will continue its efforts to
modernize its K-12 and higher education systems based on a
largely American model, with U.S. institutions as long-term
partners.

-- (SBU) Qatar Foundation will seek more U.S. branch campuses
in Education City, focusing first on schools that offer
graduate degrees in law and business.

-- (SBU) As their student bodies grow, U.S. universities at
Education City will endeavor to fill their classrooms with
more students from elsewhere in the region, and even further
afield, as they continue to face difficulty in recruiting
enough qualified Qatari students.

-- (SBU) Qatari women will continue to outnumber men in
higher education, both at U.S. schools and Qatar University,
where they currently make up more than 75% of the Qatari
student population. We do not expect this trend to change as
long as the Qatari Government offers secure, well-paid
government jobs with generous benefits to men with no higher
education. (NOTE: Qatari Government statistics indicate
that as many as 45% of Qatari boys do not finish high school,
let alone attend college. END NOTE)

-- (SBU) Although Qatar currently hosts a vocational school
operated by the Canadian College of the North Atlantic, the
Ministry of Education will continue looking to other models,
including Australia, to create a vocational/technical
education system that grants certificates and licenses
recognized by the private sector and Qatar University.

-- (SBU) Because of the absence of sufficient
vocational/technical training, and the inability of many
Qataris to "make the grade" at Education City, a growing
number of companies and Qatari government agencies will see
the benefit of sending more new hires to earn two, four, and
six-year degrees in the United States in exchange for working
for them for a fixed period of time. Some companies and
government agencies will also seek the assistance of
U.S.-based firms and schools to provide focused on-the-job
training to new hires.

-- (SBU) In addition to its expanding higher education
portfolio, Qatar will continue its "Outstanding Schools
Initiative8 to attract quality high schools with specialized
curricula from the United States and Europe. The Debakey
School of Houston is so far the only school to have opened
its doors under this initiative.

-- (SBU) Despite its education challenges and opposition in
some quarters to the radical changes that modernization is

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bringing to the education system, Qatar will not be a major
source of young people leaving to engage in terrorism,
largely due to its small size and great wealth. Some of
Qatar's citizens, however, may support terrorism financially,
perhaps outstripping the ability of government agencies to
stop it.

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EXPORTING EDUCATION: MAJOR GOALS OF OUR STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
-------------- --------------


5. (SBU) The Amir and his wife are investing billions in
trying to create an alternative future for their own youth
and for others in the region ) an alternative to the path of
extremism and intolerance that has beset so many other parts
of the Middle East. Education is the primary vehicle they
are using to create that alternative future. In this sense,
Qatar is unique in the world, because it is not only seeking
to modernize its educational system on an American model, but
is actually importing high-quality American institutions to
help them achieve that goal.


6. (SBU) Based on mutual agreement, each U.S. school
operating here has agreed to issue degrees indistinguishable
from those conferred at their home campuses, and to provide
the same quality of instructors and courses. Entrance
requirements are also exactly the same as for the main U.S.
campuses. Because of these rigorous standards, Qatar,s high
schools simply do not produce enough qualified graduates to
fill even 40% of the seats at these universities. The bulk
of Education City,s student body is, therefore, non-Qatari.


7. (SBU) It will take at least a generation for Qatari high
schools to produce enough graduates to form a substantial
majority of the student body at Education City,s U.S.
universities, so the schools will need to continue to focus
their recruitment efforts on the region beyond Qatar. This
is a goal shared by the Qatar Foundation, which offers a
certain number of scholarships to non-Qataris each year.
Qatar,s neighbors, many of whom are also building new
universities and trying to attract American schools, have
been reticent to send their students here on scholarships.


8. (SBU) In this context, the importance of Education City
in helping the coming generations of this region,s leaders
better understand and empathize with the United States and
our values will only grow. We need to expand and deepen our
partnership in education beyond the institutions already at
Education City to include vocational and technical schools,
as well as preparatory high schools.


9. (SBU) The United States has the best schools in the world
to offer, and we should take every opportunity to promote
them with a Qatari leadership that is clearly positively
disposed toward American education. Doing so would not only
benefit these schools commercially, but would further enhance
understanding between our people and provide more
opportunities for the many Qataris and others in the region
who cannot or do not want to attend the elite schools already
present in Education City.

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HOW YOUR VISIT CAN HELP THESE STRATEGIC GOALS
--------------


10. (SBU) We believe the following approach will help your
visit advance these goals:

-- (SBU) Applaud the Amir,s and Sheikha Mozah,s strategic
decision to invest in American education for their people.
Encourage them to expand their initiatives to include U.S.
vocational, technical and college preparatory schools ) by
far the best in the world.

-- (SBU) Emphasize that you see our partnership on education
as every bit as strategic to our two countries as our
military and economic relationships. Offer your assistance
in identifying more schools that may be interested in coming
to Qatar, and in facilitating those relationships in any way
possible.

-- (SBU) Commend Qatar,s leaders for the alternative future
that they are trying to create for the region through these
investments in their children,s education; seek their
thoughts on how they plan to make Education City a regional
destination for quality education, and ask how the USG or
American companies could be helpful in that endeavor.


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-- (SBU) If your interlocutors raise negative perceptions
about visa processing delays and border entry procedures for
Qatari students going to study in the United States, note
that this is an issue that Congress follows closely and that
U.S. agencies are working hard to smooth out while
maintaining safe and secure borders.
LeBaron