A Military Machine Led by Retired US Officers: This Is How Saudi Arabia and the UAE Secretly Recruited Them
For the first time, the US administration leaked the documents of hundreds of retired military contractors from the US Army to foreign governments, in a step that was described in terms of timing as being in the context of putting pressure on those countries that depend on the services of those US military personnel to develop their armies.
The documents published by the Washington Post confirmed that these military experts receive salaries of more than a quarter of a million dollars, considering that these US officers did not achieve them throughout the period of service in their country.
The newspaper considered the work of these soldiers to be contrary to US law and exposed them to legal accountability, noting that the Biden administration had previously refused to provide any information about these retirees, which prompted the newspaper to sue it as well.
The publication of the documents coincides with White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre talking about President Joe Biden's arrangements with Congress to take security measures against Saudi Arabia in response to its decision to side with Russia to reduce oil production.
According to experts, the leaking of documents of US contractors with Saudi Arabia and the UAE is an attempt to pressure them to withdraw voluntarily, which is a card in a series of US measures that Saudi Arabia may be subjected to in retaliation for its decision to wage war against the Americans, as described by Biden's spokeswoman.
It is noteworthy that since the Arab Spring in 2011, the armed forces of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the defense companies owned by the two governments have hired US military contractors of all levels by offering double or triple the salary and incentives they receive in the United States.
Since 2012, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been among the world's top three buyers of US arms, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks global arms sales.
Political Influence
The Washington Post, in a long-term investigation on October 18, 2022, highlighted retired US military personnel who work for other governments by providing advisory, security, or military services to foreign countries after their service, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
According to the newspaper, more than 500 US military personnel, including dozens of retired generals and admirals, have served as advisers to foreign governments since 2015, drawing on their military experience and political influence, unaware of human rights abuses by these countries.
According to records obtained by the newspaper, after a two-year legal battle with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Armed Forces, "Foreign governments pay huge sums for their expertise, amounting to between six and seven times what they receive from their government during their service, especially from generals and admirals."
The documents also revealed that 15 former generals and admirals worked as advisors to the Saudi Ministry of Defense, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who launched the country's war in Yemen.
One of the generals is the former NATO commander, retired General James L. Jones, who served as national security advisor to former President Barack Obama and began working with Riyadh in 2017.
"Jones owns two companies in Riyadh that have consulting contracts with the Saudi Ministry of Defense, and which employ ten former senior Pentagon officials, including William Cohen, who served as Secretary of Defense in the Bill Clinton administration, in addition to 32 lower-ranking military personnel," according to the newspaper.
Jones said, in an interview with the newspaper, that the US government had encouraged him to work with Saudi Arabia, noting that the Americans' withdrawal means the Saudis could resort to building other relationships with the Chinese and Russians.
Among the generals, there is also Keith Alexander, director of national security during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who obtained the approval of the US State Department to work on developing the Prince Mohammed bin Salman College of Cyber Security, two months after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The investigation also revealed that many officers continued to work with the kingdom after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post, and Middle East Eye columnist, who was killed by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018.
A retired four-star Air Force general served as an advisor to the Saudis, as well as a former commander of US forces in Afghanistan.
The documents indicate that four unnamed retired lower-ranking officers received salaries ranging from $200,000 to $300,000 to advise the Saudi Ministry of Defense.
An Outsized Role
Another long-term investigation published on October 18, 2022, by the Washington Post, which works alongside the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), found that 280 military retirees had sought permission to work in the UAE, either as military contractors or consultants.
Among those who have served as military contractors or as advisers to the UAE is retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, who was a military adviser to the UAE in 2015 before becoming the Trump administration's secretary of defense in 2017, according to the documents.
Stephen Toumajan, a retired lieutenant colonel who served 20 years in the US Army, also became the commander of the UAE's special operations aviation unit called Group 18 and then the commander of the UAE's Joint Aviation Command.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon kept the salaries of generals and admirals secret. It disclosed the salaries of low-ranking officers and enlisted personnel.
Records show that retired US military personnel who move to the UAE receive salaries estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
They often receive a housing and transportation allowance of tens of thousands of dollars while continuing to receive their US military pension.
The documents revealed that Thomas Drohan, a professor at the US Air Force Academy, was lured to the UAE with a salary of $240,000 and a housing allowance of $49,000.
Daniel Baltrusaitis, a retired Air Force colonel, also moved to Abu Dhabi to become dean of the college, with a salary of $338,000 and $53,200 in housing allowance.
The investigation revealed that the UAE provided annual compensation packages of more than $200,000 to US helicopter pilots and $120,000 to US aircraft mechanics.
Most Americans have secured jobs with a network of defense contractors controlled by the UAE government through subsidiaries of Edge, a state-owned defense conglomerate with annual revenues of $5 billion, in addition to Knowledge Point Consulting, one of the most important US talent recruitment companies based in Abu Dhabi.
Meanwhile, in Washington, however, Congress and human rights groups have become more critical of the UAE, including its decision this month to join Russia and other members of OPEC+ to reduce global oil production.
In addition to this, the Department of Justice has scrutinized the country's leaders for their interference in US elections and politics.
Billionaire and former Trump ally Tom Barrack is currently on trial for illegally lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of the UAE.
"The UAE has gained tremendous influence and is playing an outsized role," said Jodi Vittori, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a retired US Air Force officer.
"However, they have used that to undermine US foreign policy in terms of our support for the rule of law, democracy, and counter-terrorism, and it's hard to see that as a good thing," she added.
With their military capabilities enhanced by US contractors and weapons, UAE leaders have become more aggressive in interfering and creating conflicts outside their country's borders with little regard for human rights.
The newspaper considered that the brutality of the violations of the UAE army is mainly due to the significant strengthening of its capabilities by the US retirees.
The Emirati outsourcing of military action from the Americans increased in 2010 when the country decided to retain Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, a famous private US security company that gained notoriety in 2007 when its guards killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.
Prince, a former US Marine, served in the US Army for four years before founding Blackwater and establishing a 7,000-acre training facility in North Carolina.
Working on behalf of the UAE, Prince helped recruit hundreds of former soldiers from Colombia, South Africa, and other countries to form a commando force that trained at a camp near Abu Dhabi.
However, the commando unit's plans failed after the Prince's disagreement with the leaders of the UAE, while they continued to search outside their country's borders for combat and military experience.
Loyal to Foreign
Federal law prohibits retired military personnel as well as reserve soldiers from accepting jobs or gifts from foreign governments without the approval of the State Department and the Pentagon.
The purpose is to prevent veterans from becoming loyal to foreign powers or from undermining US interests.
The law applies to retirees who are classified as having served at least 20 years and receiving a pension because they can be called back to active duty.
However, in 1977, Congress allowed the Pentagon and the State Department to make exceptions to the law, and the newspaper pointed out that there is no criminal penalty for breaking the law and its enforcement is almost non-existent.
The Washington Post reported that some US military personnel negotiated jobs with foreign governments while they were still on active duty in the US military.
Since 2015, 95% of retired officers who applied to work for foreign governments have obtained permission, according to documents obtained by the newspaper.
It also found that dozens of veterans offered their jobs in Gulf countries on LinkedIn, the top business platform, but there was no federal record of them applying for permission to work there.
The revelations add to concerns about the extent to which foreign countries, including many authoritarian governments, are expanding their influence over US institutions.
Foreign governments often spend huge sums in Washington on lobbyists, consultants, and think tanks, but the employment of retired US military personnel by Gulf states has risen sharply in the past decade.
In order to address some of these problems, in June 2022, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced new legislation, which, if passed, would compel think tanks and other tax-exempt organizations to disclose any gifts or large donations from foreign governments.
The bill, called the Fighting Foreign Influence Act, would also impose a life-long ban on US officials from lobbying on behalf of a foreign entity.
The bill also responds to the growing concern on Capitol Hill that key components of government and civil society remain vulnerable to foreign interference six years after the Kremlin campaigned to influence the 2016 presidential election.
