The United Arab Emirates finances the military leader trying to topple a United Nations-recognized government in Libya. It helps lead a coalition of nations imposing an economic blockade of Qatar, despite U.S. calls to resolve the dispute. It hired former staffers of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as elite hackers to spy in a program that included Americans as surveillance targets, a Reuters investigation found this year.
And yet,
in a highly unusual practice, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does
not spy on the UAE’s government, three former CIA officials familiar with the
matter told Reuters, creating what some critics call a dangerous blind spot in
U.S. intelligence.
The
CIA’s posture isn’t new. What’s changed is the nature of the tiny but
influential OPEC nation’s intervention across the Middle East and Africa -
fighting wars, running covert operations and using its financial clout to
reshape regional politics in ways that often run counter to U.S. interests,
according to the sources and foreign policy experts.
The CIA’s
failure to adapt to the UAE’s growing military and political ambitions amounts
to a “dereliction of duty,” said a fourth former CIA official.
The U.S.
intelligence community doesn’t completely ignore the UAE. The NSA conducts
electronic surveillance - a lower-risk, lower-reward kind of
intelligence-gathering - inside the UAE, two sources with knowledge of the
agency’s operations told Reuters. And the CIA works with UAE intelligence in a
“liaison” relationship that involves intelligence-sharing on common enemies,
such as Iran or al-Qaeda.
But the
CIA does not gather “human intelligence” - the most valuable and
difficult-to-obtain information - from UAE informants on its autocratic
government, the three former CIA officials told Reuters.
The CIA,
the NSA and the White House declined to comment on U.S. espionage practices in
the UAE. The UAE’s foreign ministry and its U.S. embassy did not respond to
requests for comment.
The
CIA’s hands-off practice - which hasn’t been previously reported in the media -
puts the UAE on an extremely short list of other countries where the agency
takes a similar approach, former intelligence officials said. They include the
four other members of an intelligence coalition called “The Five Eyes”:
Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada.
CIA
spies gather human intelligence on almost every other nation where the United
States has significant interests, including some key allies, according to four
former CIA officials.
The
closest contrast to the UAE may be Saudi Arabia - another influential U.S. ally
in the Middle East that produces oil and buys U.S. weapons. Unlike the UAE,
Saudi Arabia is often targeted by the CIA, according to two former CIA
officials and a former intelligence officer for a Gulf nation. Saudi
intelligence agents have caught several CIA agents trying to recruit Saudi
officials as informants, the sources said.
The
Saudi intelligence agencies do not complain publicly about CIA spying attempts
but privately meet with the agency’s station chief in Riyadh to ask that the
CIA officers involved be quietly ejected from the country, said the former
intelligence official for a Gulf nation.
Robert
Baer, a former CIA agent and author, called the lack of human intelligence on
the UAE “a failure” when told about it by Reuters. U.S. policymakers, he said,
need the best available information on the internal politics and family feuds
of Middle Eastern monarchies.
“If you
pride yourself on being a world service, it’s a failure,” he said. “The royal
families are crucial.”
‘ROGUE
STATE’
A former
official in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration said the lack of UAE
intelligence is alarming because the desert monarchy now operates as a “rogue
state” in strategic nations such as Libya and Qatar and further afield in
Africa.
In
Sudan, the UAE spent years and billions of dollars propping up long-serving
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, then abandoned him and supported the
military leaders who overthrew him in April. The new government’s security
forces in June killed dozens of protesters who were pushing for civilian rule
and elections. The UAE has also built military bases in Eritrea and the
self-declared Republic of Somaliland.
“You
turn over any rock in the horn of Africa, and you find the UAE there,” the
former Trump administration official said.
The UAE
has asserted itself as a financial and military power in areas “far from its
immediate neighborhood,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the
Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.
“Whether
Somalia, or Eritrea or Djibouti, or Yemen, the UAE is not asking for
permission,” she said.
In
Yemen, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have led a coalition of nations fighting
Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, but the UAE recently started drawing down troops
amid international criticism over air strikes that have killed thousands of
civilians and a humanitarian crisis that has pushed millions to the brink of
famine. The U.S. Congress recently passed resolutions to halt arms sales to
Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but President Trump vetoed the measures.
The UAE
government has spent $46.8 million on U.S. lobbyists since 2017, according to
the Center for Responsive Politics.
One of
the three former CIA officials with knowledge of the agency’s UAE operations
said intelligence on its government is needed for reasons beyond its regional
interventions. The UAE is also forging closer ties with Russia – including a
wide-ranging strategic partnership signed last year to cooperate on security,
trade and oil markets – and with China, where Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the
crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s de facto ruler, last month made a
three-day visit for a UAE-China economic forum.
Some
national security experts, however, continue to see enough alignment between
U.S. and UAE interests to explain the continued lack of spying.
“Their
enemies are our enemies,” said Norman Roule, a retired CIA official, referring
to Iran and al-Qaeda. “Abu Dhabi’s actions have contributed to the war on
terror, particularly against al-Queda in Yemen.”
FEAR OF
DEMOCRACY, POLITICAL ISLAM
The Abu
Dhabi crown prince controls the foreign policy of the UAE, a federation of
desert emirates, with a small group of advisors. He installed his U.S-educated
brother, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, a mixed-martial arts buff who owns a stable
of Arabian race horses, as his National Security Advisor. His son, Sheikh
Khalid bin Mohammed, runs the country’s sprawling internal surveillance
network.
The
UAE’s rising interventionism dates to 2011. Mass protests demanding democracy
across the region during the so-called Arab Spring sparked rising concern
within the UAE palace elite over the preservation of its own power, said Jodi
Vittori, a former Air Force Intelligence officer now with the Carnegie
Foundation for International Peace.
Like
many Gulf royals, UAE leaders viewed the demonstrations as a threat to
monarchic rule in the region. They have since fought the rise of political
Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, the international Islamic party that briefly
rose to power in Egypt after the 2011 protests that ousted President Hosni
Mubarak. The UAE cut off financial support to Egypt when brotherhood candidate
Mohamed Mursi was elected president in 2012, and then resumed sending billions
in aid after Egypt’s army ousted Mursi a year later.
Vittori,
of the Carnegie Foundation, acknowledged some continuing shared goals between
the U.S. and UAE governments but said those interests are diverging as the UAE’s
monarchy focuses on self-preservation.
“When
the goal is regime-survival at all costs,” she said, “it’s not one that’s going
to align with the U.S.”
(The
story was refiled to fix typos in paragraphs 17 and 21)
***Reporting
by Aram Roston; Editing by Brian Thevenot