Back to Basics

Syrian government forces continue to attack opposition forces, civilians, and aid volunteers, preventing the international community from getting emergency aid to the Syrian people, USAID has detailed in a series of internal reports obtained by The Cable.

In its latest “humanitarian update,” written at the end of April, USAID reported in detail the extensive attacks perpetrated by Syrian Arab Republic Government (SARG) troops, despite an ongoing U.N. monitoring mission and in direct violation of the “cease-fire” there. The USAID report, marked “sensitive but unclassified,” sourced its findings to U.N. representatives in Syria as well as representatives of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), and other aid groups on the ground.

“U.N.-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Kofi Annan expressed concerns regarding reports of SARG reprisal attacks in areas where Syrian civilians met with U.N. observers, including in Hamah and Damascus governorates,” the report stated. “The observers report that SARG forces have not withdrawn heavy weapons from urban centers — a condition of the U.N. and Arab League supported ceasefire and peace plan that went into effect on April 12.”

Although the U.N. Security Council has authorized the deployment of 300 monitors, the report could only confirm that “at least 11″ U.N. monitors had arrived in Syria as of April 24. (Additional monitors have reportedly arrived since then.)

Meanwhile, USAID reported that government forces attacked an SARC vehicle April 24 that was evacuating wounded civilians in Douma, a suburb of Damascus, killing one aid volunteer and injuring three. Twenty-six aid workers were trapped in an SARC building following the attack and the SARC had to negotiate a temporary ceasefire between opposition and government forces to get them out, USAID reported.

Following a request from SARC, USAID contractors have suspended the deployment of mobile medical units that were providing health-care services in and around Damascus, the report said.

“In addition to emergency medical needs resulting from ongoing violence, a USAID/OFDA partner report increasing constraints on the availability of medications for chronic diseases, which are prohibitively expensive for Syrians without financial assistance,” the report stated. “In addition, the U.N. World Health Organization representatives have expressed concern about the health of displaced Syrians in Jordan.”

A USAID contractor is working to train Syrian doctors in Jordan so they can return to Syria and provide life saving medical care there, and a USAID contractor has procured 10,000 kg of medical supplies for use in Syria and is trying to get those supplies into the country, according to the report.

In an April 26 press briefing, USAD Deputy Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Christa Capozzola criticized the Syrian regime for not allowing emergency aid supplies to reach the Syrian people and called for more help.

“While some aid is reaching people in need through the Red Crescent, other U.N. agencies, and other international organizations, current humanitarian access restrictions remain a significant challenge to the aid effort,” she said. ”After months of working under these conditions, the aid organizations working in Syria are extremely stretched. To continue alleviating suffering and saving lives, they need more support and capacity from the international community.

The U.S. government has spent $39.4 million on assistance for Syria in fiscal 2012, the report stated.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Colombia this weekend, but they won’t give any ground on the demand by several regional leaders to move toward a different approach in the war on drugs.

The issue of decriminalizing and perhaps even legalizing cocaine, heroin, and marijuana after decades of fighting a bitter and bloody war on drug cartels in the region will be the “gorilla in the room” when regional leaders meet April 14 and 15 in Cartagena, Colombia for the first Summit of the Americas since 2009, according to regional experts. The issue is not on the official agenda, but several regional leaders plan to raise it, much to the chagrin of the Obama administration.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina demanded a more public debate over Latin American drug policy in January, calling for a regional strategy for decriminalization “as soon as possible.” In an April 7 editorial, Perez said, “Drug consumption, production and trafficking should be subject to global regulations, which means that consumption and production should be legalized but within certain limits and conditions. And legalization therefore does not mean liberalization without controls.”

Several other regional leaders have followed suit, seeking to adjust what they see as a failed policy and shift more responsibility toward the world’s number one drug consuming country, the United States. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who is hosting the summit, agrees that a having a new drug strategy must be on the agenda.

“Colombia, and I myself, have put this issue on the table, because if there is any country that has suffered more from drug trafficking, that has shed more blood, it’s Colombia,” he said in a speech last month.

But a White House official said Wednesday that the Obama administration is only willing to discuss law enforcement and drug education, not a wholesale reform of the current approach to drugs.

“U.S. policy on this is very clear. The president doesn’t support decriminalization, but he does consider this is a legitimate debate. And it’s a legitimate debate because it helps to demystify this as an option,” said Dan Restrepo, the National Security Council’s senior director for Latin America, on a Wednesday conference call with reporters.

Restrepo referred back to last month’s comments by Vice President Joe Biden, who traveled to Mexico and Honduras and said that a drug policy debate was “legitimate” but not likely to change the U.S. position. He also said drug consumption is not just a U.S. problem.

“As the consumption of drugs spreads throughout the Americas, the responsibility to address this challenge needs to spread,” he said. “This is a shared responsibility… Brazil is the second largest cocaine consuming country in the world.”

According to the 2011 World Drug Report, prepared by the U.N. office of drugs and crime, Brazil has about 900,000 cocaine users, roughly 0.7 percent of adults aged 15-64. In the United States, about 2.4 percent of adults in that age range use cocaine, a total of 5 million people.

Restrepo said the United States would be willing to discuss how to reduce crime and violence surrounding drugs, but not decriminalization or legalization. He also said there was no consensus on the issue in the region one way or the other.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and five like-minded lawmakers unveiled a new resolution on Syria Wednesday that calls for establishing safe zones inside Syria for civilians and support for arming the opposition against the regime of Bashar al Assad.

The non-binding resolution stops short of calling for direct U.S. military intervention in Syria, which McCain supports, and is meant to create a consensus on increasing U.S. support for the Syrian opposition that the greatest number of lawmakers can rally around. As of now, the resolution has six sponsors, mostly Republicans. In addition to McCain, they are Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and John Hoeven (R-ND).

The resolution expresses that the Senate “recognizes that the people of Syria have an inherent right to defend themselves against the campaign of violence being conducted by the Assad regime” and “supports calls by Arab leaders to provide the people of Syria with the means to defend themselves against Bashar al-Assad and his forces, including through the provision of weapons and other material support, and calls on the President to work closely with regional partners to implement these efforts effectively.”

The resolution also urges President Barack Obama to work with Middle East countries to develop plans for creating safe havens in Syria, which the senators feel “would be an important step to save Syrian lives and to help bring an end to Mr. Assad’s killing of civilians in Syria,” urges the president to hold Syrian officials accountable for atrocities, and supports the “Friends of the Syrian People” contact group, which will hold its second meeting Sunday in Turkey.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to attend that meeting, after a stop in Saudi Arabia, but don’t expect her to come out in support of the senators’ proposals. As The Cable reported earlier this month, the Obama administration is willing to provide non-lethal aid to the Syrian rebels and look the other way while other countries arm them… but that’s about it.

Some reports claim that the U.S. has already begun to provide communications equipment to the internal Syrian opposition and the U.S. has pledged $10 million in financial aid.

State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Wednesday that ongoing violence by the Assad regime showed a lack of progress but that the U.S. position, which is to support a political process that would see Assad step down, hasn’t changed.

“We will have the Friends of the Syrian People meeting this weekend. And I understand that Kofi Annan will also be making a report to the Security Council on Monday. So it’s incumbent on all of us to keep the pressure on Assad to meet the commitment that he’s made. And that’s our intention over the next few days,” she said.

On Tuesday, Clinton said she hopes the Assad regime will halt the violence so that a political process with the opposition — which she also urged to cease the use of force — can begin. “And I’m hoping that by the time I get to Istanbul on Sunday we will be in a position to acknowledge steps that the Assad regime and the opposition have both taken. We’re certainly urging that those occur,’ she said.

It’s not every day that groups supporting a State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization hold a party in the U.S. Congress, but that’s exactly what happened today when the friends of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) threw their Nowruz party in the hearing room of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“Members of Congress will join Iranian Americans in wishing the Iranian people a Happy Nowrouz and address the humanitarian rights of Iran’s main opposition in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, in Iraq,” reads the flyer for the party, which was held Thursday at the Rayburn building in room 2172, where the foreign affairs committee holds all of its public events.

The flyer says that the event is sponsored by “Iranian American communities” from around the United States, but the mention of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty is a clear reference to the MEK, a group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization that has about 3,000 members living in the secretive Ashraf compound in Iraq.

The U.N. and the State Department are working to move them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport, but the MEK is resisting that move, and has enlisted its  many supporters in the United States to decry the conditions at the former military base. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani even went so far as to call Camp Liberty a “concentration camp.”

House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) spoke at the event and discussed human rights in Iran, but did not mention the MEK by name. Former Homeland Security secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a paid advocate of the MEK, also spoke.

“The event was not sponsored by the MEK,” Ros-Lehtinen’s spokesperson Brad Goehner told The Cable.  “The room was requested by the Iranian-American Society of South Florida and sponsored by the Iranian-American communities of 39 cities for an event commemorating the Iranian New Year. Space in Congressional office buildings is routinely made available to organizations wishing to hold events on issues important to members of Congress.”

The flyer doesn’t say the party is being thrown by or for the MEK, and aides who attended told The Cable that there were no MEK signs or banners at the event, as one usually sees wherever the MEK is camped out.

That could be a result of the revelation that the Treasury Department’s counterterrorism unit has issued a subpoena to former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell for records related to his paid advocacy of the MEK, as part of an investigation into the web of organizations that support the terrorist group.

There is a long list of Iranian-American organizations that fund pro-MEK events and pay speakers fees to MEK supporters. Many of these organizations – such as the “Global Initiative for Democracy, whose homepage is entirely devoted to the MEK’s concerns and who hosted an MEK conference in January — seem to have no other function other than to advocate for the MEK, and the actual sources of their money is unclear.

Receiving funding from a terrorist organization or even providing it with “material support,” which could include advocacy, is a crime.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decided to use a national security waiver to allow over $1.5 billion of U.S. aid to Egypt, bypassing Congressional restrictions even while the Egyptian government’s assault on NGOs in Cairo continues.

The State Department hadn’t planned to announce the waiver decision today. “We’re still expecting a decision this week, but she hasn’t made it yet,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at Thursday’s press briefing. But apparently Clinton had decided, because Senate Appropriations State and Foreign Ops Subcommittee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the author of the restrictions, got a call from the State Department today notifying him of the waiver. In a statement Thursday afternoon, he announced the waiver and criticized Clinton’s choice.

“I am disappointed by this decision.  I know Secretary Clinton wants the democratic transition in Egypt to succeed, but by waiving the conditions we send a contradictory message,” Leahy said. “The Egyptian military should be defending fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, not harassing and arresting those who are working for democracy. They should end trials of civilians in military courts and fully repeal the Emergency Law, and our policy should not equivocate on these key reforms.”

Leahy’s office has been urging Clinton not to use the waiver authority that Leahy himself added to the most recent appropriations bill. Now that the waiver has been exercised, Leahy is arguing that, just because the restrictions on the aid have been removed, that doesn’t mean the U.S. government necessarily has to deliver the aid — at least not all of it up front.

“Now that Secretary Clinton has decided to use the law’s waiver authority, she should use the flexibility the law provides and release no more taxpayer funds than is demonstrably necessary, withholding the rest in the Treasury pending further progress in the transition to democracy,” said Leahy.

We were told by multiple Congressional sources that the State Department is considering delaying part of the $1.3 billion of military aid and most of the $250 million in economic aid, at least for a while. The Pentagon has been urging Clinton to release some of the military aid because existing contracts with U.S. defense firms were dependent on the funds, multiple Congressional aides said.

Leahy’s House counterpart, House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops Subcommittee Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-TX), also came out against Clinton’s decision to waive the restrictions today and said that she had been told it was in fact a partial waiver.

“I am disappointed by the timing of the Secretary’s decision to issue a partial waiver of restrictions on FMF funds for Egypt while the Egyptian government’s transition is ongoing,” Granger said in a statement to The Cable. “The State Department needs to make the case that waiving the conditions is in the national security interest of the United States. I expect the Secretary to follow the law and consult the Appropriations Committee before any funds are transferred.”

Critics of providing further military aid to the Cairo government have raised concerns over the actions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which allegedly played a role in the December raids on several NGOs in Cairo, including three funded by the United States: the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and Freedom House.

The Russian people and international observers may not see last Sunday’s presidential election in Russia as legitimate, but President Barack Obama has now officially endorsed the return of Russian past and future President Vladimir Putin.

“President Obama called Russian President-elect and Prime Minister Putin to congratulate him on his recent victory in the Russian Presidential election,” the White House said in a late Friday afternoon statement (read: news dump) about the Friday morning phone call between the two leaders.

“President Obama highlighted achievements in U.S.-Russia relations over the past three years with President Medvedev, including cooperation on Afghanistan, the conclusion and ratification of the START agreement, Russia’s recent invitation to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) and cooperation on Iran,” the statement read. ”President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed that the successful reset in relations should be built upon during the coming years.”

Obama told Putin he looked forward to Putin’s May visit to Camp David for the G-8 summit and the two talked about how they could benefit economically from Russia’s joining the WTO, the statement explained.

That could be a reference to administration efforts to get Congress to repeal the 1974 Jackson-Vanik law that prevents the U.S. from giving Russia permanent normal trade status. Some in Congress are resisting that because of Russia’s deteriorating record on democracy, rule of law, and human rights.

At the end of the statement, the White House mentioned the crisis in Syria, in which the Russian government is arming the brutal regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed to continue discussions on areas where the United States and Russia have differed, including Syria and missile defense,” the statement read. “President Obama and President-Elect Putin agreed to continue their efforts to find common ground and remove obstacles to better relations.”

The State Department, in their May 5 statement on the election, noted the concerns of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe about the election, including that it wasn’t a level playing field to begin with, that government resources were used partisan purposes, and that there were procedural irregularities on the day of the election.

“We urge Russian authorities to build on these steps to ensure that the procedures for future elections will be more transparent,” the State Department said. The White House statement made no mention of the problems with the election.

After Russia’s Dec. 2011 parlaimentary elections, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called them “neither free nor fair.” When Russian protesters took to the streets to protest those elections and Putin’s return to the presidency, Putin publicly accused Clinton of inciting the protests.

Airstrikes against Syria are tempting but ultimately not a good idea, House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) told The Cable today, reacting to the Monday call for airstrikes from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), also first reported here.

It’s not easy these days to be more hawkish than Ros-Lehtinen, but that’s where McCain ended up today after he called for the United States to lead an international military intervention in Syria to halt the killing of civilians by President Bashar al-Assad.

“Providing military assistance to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition groups is necessary, but at this late hour, that alone will not be sufficient to stop the slaughter and save innocent lives. The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower,” McCain said Monday. “To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air defenses in at least part of the country.”

We caught up with Ros-Lehtinen, who has been vocally opposed to any outreach to the Assad regime since 2009, on the sidelines of the AIPAC conference, where she had just finished her appearance on a panel calling for more Iran sanctions.

Ros-Lehtinen told us she wants the United States to do more to stop the bloodshed there, but active military involvement at this juncture was just a bridge too far.

“Senator McCain’s heart is always in the right place. He was right on Egypt and Libya. But I believe that we’ve got to get our allies involved and get them committed,” she said. “So my heart agrees with him, but my head says no.”

Ros-Lehtinen said the American people, following decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that seem to finally be winding down, are war weary.

“The American people and the constituents that I represent, they are cautious about getting involved in another military operation,” she said. “I understand the humanitarian issues involved…  But I hear people saying, ‘Who’s going to enforce the no-fly zone? Who’s going to do all of this? Is it always the U.S.?’”

Attacks on Syria now could also create a “domino effect” that could lead to a hot war with Iran, which considers Syria a client state, Ros-Lehtinen warned.

“Senator McCain has been right, but I worry the Syria operation may be harder because of its tie-ins to Iran and what will Iran do militarily,” she said.

She said her committee will mark up a new Syria sanctions bill she co-sponsored with Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) March 8. The bill imposes mandatory sanctions against persons that transfer or retransfer goods or technology that can aid Syria’s efforts to obtain WMDs and their delivery systems. Further, the legislation mandates extensive sanctions, including asset freezes and a travel ban, on senior officials of the Syrian regime.