The killing of Jamal Khashoggi is rocking the U.S.-Saudi partnership, insiders tell Post columnist David Ignatius
By David Ignatius David Ignatius Columnist covering foreign affairs Email Bio Follow Columnist March 29 at 2:16 PM It has been nearly six months since Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, but the aftershocks continue. The U.S.-Saudi defense and intelligence partnership has been rocked. The future of the relationship is on hold, pending answers from Riyadh.
The bottom line is that unless the crown prince takes ownership of this issue and accepts blame for murderous deeds done in his name, his relationship with the United States will remain broken. Saudi officials claim that MBS has made changes, firing Saud al-Qahtani, his former covert-operations coordinator. But the Saudi machine of repression remains intact, run by many of the same people who worked for Qahtani. U.S.
“The Saudis have internalized the idea that this will not blow over,” says Bernard Haykel, a Princeton professor who knows MBS well. “They want to make good with Congress, but they don’t know how.”Prince Khalid bin Salman, Saudi vice defense minister, departs the State Department in Washington after a meeting on Thursday. Dangerous tools The Khashoggi story is a lesson in how U.S.-supported intelligence and special-operations capabilities can be misused by other countries.
●Michael Morell, former acting director of the CIA, was publicly identified as Culpeper’s chairman of the board in 2017, but he no longer holds that position, according to a source familiar with the company. A second source said Morell withdrew from the project within days of Khashoggi’s murder because of his concern about the direction Saudi Arabia was heading. Morell declined to comment.
As these corporate examples illustrate, the murder of a Post columnist has affected the contour of the U.S.-Saudi relationship. This partnership has been beneficial for both countries’ security, and it’s especially important now, at a time when the Trump administration is challenging Iranian meddling in the region. But many current and former U.S.
Qahtani developed special-operations capabilities at the center. Several key operatives later became members of the Rapid Intervention Group sent to Istanbul to kidnap or kill Khashoggi. The biographies of three alleged team members sanctioned by the Treasury Department illustrate how the group came together.
Mutreb was drawn into Qahtani’s circle when he was invited to join the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, said the Saudi source, citing contacts inside the royal court. A fluent English speaker, Mutreb traveled with MBS on his trips to the United States in 2017 and 2018. With his intelligence and cyber skills, he was tapped in 2017 as assistant secretary general for security at Qahtani’s center, according to U.S. and Saudi sources.
One macabre detail of the interrogations, according to U.S. and Saudi sources, was that detainees were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements pledging that if they talked about their imprisonment and interrogation, they would bear “full responsibility” for the consequences. A European source described Alharbi as a “very close ally” of MBS because of his work on sensitive security matters; that might have made him a natural selection for the Istanbul team.
The best account of Khashoggi’s murder seems to come via a bug planted in the consulate by Turkish intelligence. A Saudi who has carefully read a transcript of an audio recording of that illegal surveillance described its contents. He said it indicates the team planned to kidnap Khashoggi and bring him back home for detention and interrogation — but that the plan was botched and Khashoggi was killed. His body was then dismembered and disposed of.
The clearest evidence that the kidnapping, at least, was a premeditated crime is that the Saudi team included a man named Mustafa Almadani. He was a general in Saudi intelligence and older than other members of the Istanbul team, according to passport records. His build was similar to Khashoggi’s, and he could wear his clothes and impersonate him after the operation was concluded.
Qahtani’s Center for Studies and Media Affairs has been supplemented by a new Center for Communication and Knowledge Foresight and put under the control of Nasir al-Biqami, who also runs a counterterrorism center at the royal court known as Etidal, according to U.S. and Saudi sources. U.S. companies that want to sell technology or services to Saudi Arabia or other foreign nations face a complicated, little-known vetting process. This applies both to direct government-to-government deals, known as “foreign military sales,” and private contracts referred to as “direct commercial sales.” Both categories are licensed by the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, which is part of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
The Khashoggi case obviously raises some of these issues. And presumably, before the State Department and Congress approve future sales, they will need new assurances that the Saudi military, foreign intelligence service and domestic security agency have taken real steps to halt their reported human rights abuses. “Sen. Leahy’s staff has made inquiries of the State Department regarding any U.S. training provided to Saudi security personnel who murdered Khashoggi,” a Leahy Senate aide told me.
How should a company such as NSO manage its business with Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Khashoggi killing? Company officials won’t talk about specific clients. But they describe a vetting process in which a Business Ethics Committee reviews proposed sales, investigates reports of abuses and, where appropriate, recommends changes in policy.
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