1 NATIONAL COUNCIL ON U.S.-ARAB RELATIONS 18 TH ANNUAL ARAB-U.S. POLICYMAKERS CONFERENCE “FRESH VISIONS, OLD REALITIES, NEW POSSIBILITIES: THE IMPACT OF LEADERSHIP CHANGE ON ARAB-U.S. RELATIONS ” FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009 RONALD REAGAN BUILDING & INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTER WASHINGTON, D.C. “DEFENSE COOPERATION- ENHANCING REGIONAL SECURITY" Chair: Dr. John Duke Anthony - President & CEO, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. Speakers: Mr. Christopher Blanchard - United States Congress, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Middle East Policy Analyst, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division; author and co-author of, among other works, numerous CRS studies for the Congress, including reports on the Gulf Security Dialogue and related U.S. arms sales, U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and regional perspectives on the Iraq conflict. General Joseph P. Hoar (USMC, Ret.) - Former Commander, U.S. Central Command, with responsibility for planning and operations for 27 countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and the Horn of Africa. Upon retirement from his long military career, General Hoar formed J.P. Hoar and Associates, a consulting firm engaged in business development in the Middle East and Africa. Brigadier General Mark T. Kimmitt, (U.S. Army, Ret.) - Executive Vice- President, Advanced Technology Systems Company (ATSC), former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Middle East Policy, former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. Mr. Richard J. Millies - Vice President, International Strategy and Business Development, BAE Systems; former Deputy Director, Defense Security Cooperation Agency, U.S. Department of Defense and former Director of Policy, Office of the Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs. H.E Mohammed Bin Abdullah Bin Mutib Al Rumaihi - Foreign Minister’s Assistant for Follow Up Affairs, State of Qatar; Qatar’s Ambassador to France and non-resident Ambassador to Belgium, the Swiss Federation, Luxembourg, and the European Union (2002-2003); Head of the Government Committee for Delineating Maritime Borders and the Working Team of the U.N. Security Council (200-2007). This transcript is the property of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations 2 Anthony Chairing this session will be Christopher Blanchard, whose been long a productive member of the Policy Analysis Foreign Affairs Practitioners in the nation’s capital. His works are required reading, highly regarded and respected, and because when you deal with policymaking issues it is unavoidable to factor in the congressional, national legislative reality and processes. And he’s in that branch of the U.S. Government in the Congressional Research Service, that provides analysis based on facts and as Congressmen Ellison said to be informed, and to be thoughtful, and to be responsibly knowledgeable about these issues before one votes. Christopher Blanchard. Blanchard Good morning, thank you Dr. Anthony for that kind introduction. I’m not sure, compared to our distinguished panel here, how long I’ve been a trusted voice on these matters but I’m happy to be in such distinguished company this morning. Welcome. This panel will be focused on defense cooperation; I had the pleasure of speaking on this panel last year when we were looking forward to trying to set the agenda for the new administration. To sort of review issues that we are going to be facing in the administration as it came in. So I’m looking forward to this discussion now that we are 9 to 10 months into the administration and there has been some significant changes, both in the region and in the administration’s approach. In Iraq, the U.S. transition continues, I’m looking forward to the parliamentary elections in January. The Iraqi security forces continue to develop and reconstitute their capabilities. The administration is pursuing new strategies of policies of engagement both with Iran and Syria, and obviously the engagement of the peace process has been welcomed, I think, by many of the U.S. - Arab allies and also embraced by our U.S. allies in Israel. The man focus of the moment as you know is a bit further to the east in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some very important strategic decisions about to be made by the White House and obviously U.S. defense cooperation with many of the Arab states will continue to be pivotal to the success of the strategic decisions that the Obama Administration makes. Dr. Anthony asked me to make some very brief comments on the Hill’s view of the defense cooperation issue. I should stress that my remarks this morning and also my role in the panel is my personal capacity and does not necessarily represent the views of the Congressional Research Center. But I would say that in general my work has led me to the conclusion that despite what we often hear maybe about a rocky relationship with the Hill on some of these defense issues, arms sales etc., the truth of the matter is that the leadership on the Hill, I think the majority opinion continues to recognize the value of the defense cooperation relationships that the United States has with its Arab allies. Continue to improve the line share of proposed arms and service sales to the allies in the region. Some 54 billion dollars in potential agreements from 2001 to 2008, and the Hill continues to view the issue of defense cooperation through these lenses. Obviously the issues I mentioned above, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran’s role in the region and obviously the partnership with Israel and Israel’s QME. Issues that I hope or know our panelist will touch on today, integration in the region, partnerships between the GCC countries. How to address non-conventional threats, including threats from Iran but also threats such as piracy and This transcript is the property of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations 3 proliferation. The transition I addressed in Iraq, the strategic decision, the pivot towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, the engagement on the peace process and hopefully something that Congressmen Ellison mentioned, what the administration, their partners, and also the Hill can do to sort of create more understanding on this important subject. Our first panelist this morning is familiar to all of you. He is currently serving as the Executive Vice-President for Advanced Technology Systems Company, formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy and Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs, and also long served as a Deputy Director for Strategy and Plans at United States Central Command. I am pleased to welcome Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt. Kimmitt Chris, well listen, first thank you very much for that introduction but as we sort of connived among ourselves as old generals have a tendency to do. My sense would be more appropriate if we started off with General Hoar, I’m going to cede my time, initially, to General Hoar. Because he’s going to give a sort of how we got to here which might be a better way to start this entire session. Hoar Thank you Mark. What we attempted to do was to prevent the two of us from saying exactly the same thing over the next ten of fifteen minutes. And so, I’m going to try and provide a little bit of a background to all of this and what has really been good in respect to defense cooperation. A bumpy road but nonetheless good, and then Mark is going to pick it up and talk about the current events in Afghanistan and Iraq and where we’re headed. Defense cooperation as you know is not a new issue, going back to Mr. Roosevelt the Lend-Lease Program is probably one of the best examples of this. And in the wake of the Second World War as we saw communist expansion we became very involved in the existing friends and allies that were either under pressure from external communist sources or internal subversion. And that took place across Europe, Latin America, and of course along the Pacific Rim, with mixed results I might add. But the point is that this has been going on for some time and it’s probably useful to remember that with respect to the Middle East context in 1968 the British produced a white paper that said essentially they were going to withdraw from east of Suez. And I remember being in Washington at the time and thinking, boy we should pay the Brits to stay on, this is going to be a big job. And I never realized exactly what a big job it turned out to be, and of course we’ve been at it in a very large way since. And of course the single event as we became more enmeshed in the Middle East were the results of the Camp David Accords in which we produced military assistance in a big way both to Israel and to Egypt. 1.3 billion dollars a year for the Egyptians, 1.7 billion a year for the Israelis, which continues to this day. This is contentious but in various different ways, the point is that we provided that money for the defense of those two countries. You will recall that Egypt, as a result of this had already split their relationship with the Soviet Union but they were also viewed as an outsider by many other countries in the region for having made peace with Israel. And so shortly after that time we see that Saudi Arabia began to become more involved with American This transcript is the property of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations 4 equipment. But what has evolved over the years is a defense cooperation that has three separate elements.