Making Repression Our Business: The Pentagon’s Secret Training Missions in the Middle East

"As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Obama hesitated about whether to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater Middle East, the Pentagon acted decisively.  It forged ever deeper ties with some of the most repressive regimes in the region, building up military bases and brokering weapons sales and transfers to despots from Bahrain to Yemen. 

As state security forces across the region cracked down on democratic dissent, the Pentagon also repeatedly dispatched American troops on training missions to allied militaries there.  During more than 40 such operations with names like Eager Lion and Friendship Two that sometimes lasted for weeks or months at a time, they taught Middle Eastern security forces the finer points of counterinsurgency, small unit tactics, intelligence gathering, and information operations -- skills crucial to defeating popular uprisings.

These recurrent joint-training exercises, seldom reported in the media and rarely mentioned outside the military, constitute the core of an elaborate, longstanding system that binds the Pentagon to the militaries of repressive regimes across the Middle East.  Although the Pentagon shrouds these exercises in secrecy, refusing to answer basic questions about their scale, scope, or cost, an investigation by TomDispatch reveals the outlines of a region-wide training program whose ambitions are large and wholly at odds with Washington’s professed aims of supporting democratic reforms in the Greater Middle East... ... ... 

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Pentagon’s regional military headquarters that oversees operations in Africa, has planned 13 such major joint-training exercises in 2011 alone from Uganda to South Africa, Senegal to Ghana, including African Lion.  Most U.S. training missions in the Greater Middle East are, however, carried out by Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees wars and other military activities in 20 countries in the Greater Middle East. 

“Annually, USCENTCOM executes more than 40 exercises with a wide range of partner nations in the region,” a military spokesman told TomDispatch.  “Due to host-nation sensitivities, USCENTCOM does not discuss the nature of many of our exercises outside our bilateral relationships.”       

Of the dozens of joint-training exercises it sponsored these last years, CENTCOM would only acknowledge two by name: Leading Edge, a 30-nation exercise focused on counter-proliferation last held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in late 2010; and Eager Resolve, an annual exercise to simulate a coordinated response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high yield explosive attack, involving the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. 

However, military documents, open-source reports, and other data analyzed by TomDispatch offer a window into the training relationships that CENTCOM refused to acknowledge.  While details of these missions remain sparse at best, the results are clear: during 2011, U.S. troops regularly partnered with and trained the security forces of numerous regimes that were actively beating back democratic protests and stifling dissent within their borders... ... ... 

In January, for example, the government of Saudi Arabia curtailed what little freedom of expression existed in the kingdom...  

On February 19th, U.S. and Saudi forces launched Friendship Two, a training exercise in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.  For the next 10 days, 4,100 American and Saudi troops practiced combat maneuvers and counterinsurgency tactics... ...

As the Arab Spring brought down U.S.-allied autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt, the Kingdom of Jordan, where criticizing King Abdullah or even peacefully protesting government policies is a crime, continued to stifle dissent. ...  in March, U.S. troops joined Jordanian forces in Eager Light 2011, a training exercise in Amman, the country’s capital, that focused on counterinsurgency training.  Then, from June 11th to June 30th, thousands of Jordanian security forces and U.S. troops undertook Eager Lion, focusing on special operations missions and irregular warfare as well as counterinsurgency.... 

At around the same time, U.S. troops were wrapping up Operation Flexible Saif.  For about four months, American troops had engaged in basic mentoring of the Jordanian military, according to Americans who took part, focusing on subjects ranging from the fundamentals of soldiering to the essentials of intelligence gathering. 

Earlier this year, Kuwaiti security forces assaulted and arrested “Bidun” protesters,...   More recently, Kuwait has been cracking down on online activists... This spring, U.S. troops took part in Lucky Warrior, a four-day training exercise in Kuwait designed to hone U.S. war fighting skills particular to the region.... 

TomDispatch has identified other regional training operations that CENTCOM failed to acknowledge, including Steppe Eagle, an annual multilateral exercise carried out in repressive Kazakhstan from July 31st to August 23rd which trained Kazakh troops in everything from convoy missions to conducting cordon and search operations.  Then there was the Falcon Air Meet, an exercise focusing on close air-support tactics that even included a bombing contest, carried out in October by U.S., Jordanian, and Turkish air forces at Shaheed Mwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. 

The U.S. military also conducted a seminar on public affairs and information operations with members of the Lebanese armed forces including, according to an American in attendance, a discussion of “the use of propaganda in regards to military information support operations.”  In addition, there was a biannual joint underwater demolitions exercise, Operation Eager Mace, carried out with Kuwaiti forces... ... 

The U.S. military ignored TomDispatch’s requests for information about whether any joint operations were postponed, rescheduled, or canceled as a result of Arab Spring protests.  In August, however, Agence France Presse reported that Bright Star, a biannual training exercise involving U.S. and Egyptian forces, had been canceled as a result of the popular revolt that overthrew president ally Hosni Mubarak, a Washington ally... 

This spring, as Operation African Lion proceeded and battered Moroccan protesters nursed their wounds, President Obama asserted that the “United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region” and supports basic human rights for citizens throughout the Greater Middle East.  “And these rights,” he added, “include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders -- whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.”

The question remains, does the United States believe the same is true for those who live in Amman, Kuwait City, Rabat, or Riyadh?  And if so, why is the Pentagon strengthening the hands of repressive rulers in those capitals?"