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DE RUEHTRO #0031/01 0150706
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O P 150706Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4326
INFO RHMFISS/CDR USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLAD COLLECTIVE
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 4849

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TRIPOLI 000031 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR NEA/MAG (JOHNSON) 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  1/14/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM MASS MARR LY
SUBJECT: SENIOR REGIME FIGURES AMBIVALENT ABOUT U.S.-LIBYA RELATIONS 
 
REF: A) 08 TRIPOLI 699,  B) 08 TRIPOLI 992, C) TRIPOLI 22  TRIPOLI 00000031  001.2 OF 003   

CLASSIFIED BY: Gene A. Cretz, Ambassador, U.S. Embassy - Tripoli, U.S. Dept of State. REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 

¶1. (C) Summary: MFA A/S-equivalent for the Americas Ahmed Fituri recently expressed concern that Libya would miss a key window of opportunity for expanded cooperation and engagement with the U.S. because of limited human capacity and decision-making ability within the government and regime elites' lingering ambivalence about the nature of the relationship they want with the U.S.  The "negotiations phase" to re-establish full diplomatic relations had run its course; the upcoming "cooperation phase" would in his view be even more difficult. Tired of intra-GOL machinations and turf wars and skeptical about his government's ability to capitalize on the chance to expand bilateral U.S.-Libya engagement, Fituri said he personally hoped to leave his MFA post and turn to other, less frustrating pursuits.  The GOL's lack of capacity and conflicted views on expanded ties with the U.S. suggest that its reaction to U.S. initiatives is likely to be inconsistent and fitful, and argue for a clear prioritization of desired programs of cooperation and engagement and a persistent yet patient approach.  End summary.  GOL'S CAPACITY LIMITED  

¶2. (C) In a meeting in late December, MFA Secretary for the Americas (A/S-equivalent) Ahmed Fituri shared with A/DCM his "private view" that Libya would miss its window of opportunity for expanded cooperation and engagement with the U.S. because of disorganization within the regime and lingering ambivalence about the nature of the relationship Libya wants.  The U.S. and Libya had completed the "negotiations phase" of the project to re-establish full diplomatic relations with the implementation of the U.S.-Libya claims compensation agreement in late October; the next step should be an expanded suite of training, cooperation and engagement in what he characterized as the "cooperation phase".  The problem, however, was that the Government of Libya (GOL) "lacked the capacity to coordinate" such engagement and had not decided what it really wanted to accomplish in the cooperation phase.  

¶3. (C) Fituri said he had urged National Security Adviser Muatassim al-Qadhafi, son of Muammar al-Qadhafi, to organize an intra-GOL meeting after the upcoming session of the General People's Congress to determine what avenues of cooperation with the U.S. the GOL wanted to pursue and which GOL entities would have the lead for those projects.  Disagreements between senior regime figures and within GOL institutions about who had the lead on various aspects of the U.S.-Libya bilateral account had complicated efforts to expand engagement.  The more fundamental issue was that even in instances in which the desired outcome was clear, the GOL's limited human and bureaucratic capacity had circumscribed the ability of the regime to get what it thought it wanted.  

SENIOR REGIME FIGURES AMBIVALENT ABOUT RELATIONSHIP WITH THE U.S.  

¶4. (C)  In addition to capacity constraints, senior regime elements remained conflicted about the nature of the relationship Libya wanted with the U.S., Fituri said.  There were "two strains" of thinking within the GOL with respect to U.S.-Libya ties: a pro-U.S. camp and a group that remained suspicious of U.S. motives and steadfastly opposed to a broader suite of engagement.  The pro-U.S. group included Muammar al-Qadhafi, Qadhafi Development Foundation Chairman Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi, National Security Adviser Muatassim al-Qadhafi, External Security Organization Director Musa Kusa, senior regime figure Abdullah Sanussi, and key Revolutionary Committee members and old guard fixtures Mustapha Kharrubi and al-Hweildi al-Hmeidi.  Fituri said Muammar al-Qadhafi generally supported increased U.S.-Libya cooperation, but with "conditionalities" born of an abiding concern that the eventual goal of U.S. engagement with Libya was regime change.  He urged the U.S. to remain mindful of al-Qadhafi's remarks during his 2008 Revolution Day speech (ref A), when he stressed that Libya seeks "neither friendship nor enmity from America, but just that they would leave us alone".  The truth was more complicated than that, Fituri offered.  Al-Qadhafi was keenly focused on U.S.-Libya ties, in part because it afforded him a brighter spotlight in the international arena; however, he would not be dictated to, especially on core issues like security and human rights.  Kusa and Sanussi supported more robust ties "to an extent", but had argued that Libya should not allow itself to become "dependent" on the U.S.  Kharrubi and al-Hmeidi had initially opposed re-engaging with the U.S., but had become increasingly convinced that it was the correct policy since it had helped Libya begin to shed its image as an international pariah.  

¶5. (C) Despite the rapid improvement in bilateral ties in 2008,  TRIPOLI 00000031  002.2 OF 003   significant opposition to engagement with the U.S. remained. Notwithstanding the key role he played in aggregating funds for the U.S.-Libya claims agreement fund, Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi remained "philosophically opposed" to broader engagement with the U.S.  Colonel al-Tuheimi Muhammad Khaled, Director of the Internal Security Organization, believed cooperation on counterterrorism and extremism was beneficial, but was troubled by the Embassy's efforts to develop contacts with non-official Libyans, had expressed particular concern about the Embassy's engagement on high-profile human rights cases like Fathi el-Jahmi  and suggested that the eventual goal of the U.S. was to "destabilize the Jamahiriya".  Fituri characterized several senior officials at the Temporary Committee for Defense (MOD-equivalent), including Minister of Defense-equivalent Abu Bakr al-Yunis and Major General Abdulrahman al-Zwayy, Director of the MOD's Bureau of Technical Cooperation and Head of the Staff College, as being essentially opposed to broader engagement with the U.S.  Some of their reticence about military-to-military engagement with the U.S. stemmed from the greater degree of comfort they had with Russian/Soviet systems and doctrine; however, some of their opposition was also "ideological". (Note: See ref B for further detail on senior GOL figures' views on expanded U.S-Libya military-to-military ties.  End note.)  

¶6. (C) Even Abuzeid Dorda (Chairman of the powerful Housing and Infrastructure Board and a former Prime Minister), who had awarded multi-milion dollar project management contracts to U.S. companies AECOM and Tennessee Overseas Construction, had reservations about the extent to which Libya should broaden its official ties to the U.S.  (Note: In a recent conversation with a visiting journalist, Dorda - whom Fituri described as a "committed Arab nationalist" - dismissed the idea that the regime had embarked on a program of political-economic reform, arguing that the only change had been that the international community, upon lifting sanctions against Libya, had beaten a path to the Jamahiriya in pursuit of profits.  End note.) Finally, Fituri stressed that key elements of the Revolutionary Committees (RevComm) - which remained a force to be reckoned with despite efforts by Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi and, to a lesser extent, Muammar al-Qadhafi, to circumscribe their writ in the past several years - continued to oppose cooperation and engagement with the U.S.  (Note: See ref C for recent reports on a joint attack by RevComm elements and members of Saif al-Islam's Libya al-Ghad (Libya of tomorrow) on Berbers, suggesting that Saif al-Islam may be balancing public calls on the regime to abandon heavy-handed tactics of the past with a quiet effort to curry favor with his most stalwart opponents. End note.)  

TIRED OF THE GAME AND SKEPTICAL ABOUT CHANCES FOR SUCCESS  

¶7. (C) As to his own future, Fituri flatly said he is tired of intra-regime machinations, the pervasive lack of human capacity and absence of clearly delineated lines of authority within the GOL.  He was proud of his involvement in the negotiations leading to the U.S.-Libya claims compensation agreement, but was skeptical that U.S.-Libya cooperation in the near to mid-term would develop as quickly as the two sides hoped, mostly because the GOL was too disorganized and too ambivalent to capitalize on the potential window of opportunity created by implementation of the claims deal and the recent exchange of ambassadors.  He personally had no desire to "beat his head against the wall" to try to expand cooperation and hoped to leave his position as A/S-equivalent after the upcoming session of the General People's Congress, at which a signficant cabinet shuffle and other key personnel changes were expected to be announced.  He intends to return to his work at the UN-affiliated Africa Development Center and as director of a prestigious private school in Tripoli.  Noting Libya's proposal for a broad U.S.-Libya security framework agreement, he underscored the importance of developing "in the near future" some kind of security agreement that included language referring to security assurances.  Such an agreement would help regime elements supportive of expanded U.S.-Libya ties rebut the arguments of the naysayers, and would constitute an important gesture from the perspective of skeptical old guard elements opposed to engagement with the U.S.  

¶8. (C) Comment: Fituri's personal relationship with Muatassim al-Qadhafi, together with the fact that he is U.S.-educated and instinctively intuits how we prefer to do business, lend him valuable perspective and make him an unusually astute observer of the bilateral state of play.  His analysis of the GOL's critical lack of human and decision-making capacity is consistent with what we have experienced first-hand and heard from other well-informed interlocutors, including Dr. Mahmud Jibril, head of the National Economic Development Board and  TRIPOLI 00000031  003.2 OF 003   National Planning Council, and Ali Essawi, Secretary of the General People's Committee for Economy and Trade (minister-equivalent).  Such limitations will continue to constitute a significant brake on the extent to which we are able to expand cooperation and the speed with which we are able to do so.  More broadly, Fituri's remarks on regime elites' lingering ambivalence about the pace and extent of desired engagement with the U.S. suggest that the GOL's reaction to U.S. initiatives is likely to be inconsistent and fitful.  That fact, together with the GOL's pronounced lack of bureaucratic capacity, argue for a tightly disciplined approach from our side, to include clear prioritization of desired programs of cooperation and engagement and a healthy dose of patience.  With the arrival of the Ambassador, we will have further opportunities to gauge the GOL's desire for expanded cooperation and engagement; however, even the afterglow of finally having exchanged ambassadors has been clouded by events in Gaza and the visceral Libyan reaction, which will complicate efforts to assess the GOL's druthers with respect to the bilateral relationship itself.  End comment. 
CRETZ