CNN
"Jamal Khashoggi was victim of 'ferocious' pre-planned murder, Erdogan says"
By Gul Tuysuz and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN
23 OCTOBER 2018
Jamal Khashoggi died as a result of a brutal premeditated murder, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, in a highly anticipated speech in which he rejected Saudi Arabia's claim that the journalist was killed accidentally.
Erdogan called on the perpetrators to be brought to justice in Istanbul and questioned whether the Vienna Conventions, which give immunity to diplomatic staff, applied in this case.
It was the first time that any official in Turkey has publicly outlined the Turkish contention that Khashoggi was killed by a hit squad sent from Saudi Arabia.
But while Erdogan had promised the "naked truth," he offered few details beyond those revealed by Turkish officials speaking privately.
The main thrust of his speech amounted to a comprehensive rejection of Saudi Arabia's case that Khashoggi died by accident, as a result of a brawl.
"The information obtained so far and the evidence found shows that Khashoggi was murdered in a ferocious manner," Erdogan told lawmakers in Ankara.
Among the new details revealed by Erdogan was an allegation that, on the day before Khashoggi was killed, a team of consular staff carried out a reconnaissance mission at two separate locations in Belgrad Forest, on the outskirts of Istanbul, and at Yalova, a city about a 55 mile (90 kilometer) drive south of the city.
He put into the public domain allegations that a 15-strong hit squad arrived in Istanbul, saying that a team of three arrived on a private jet the day before Khashoggi died, and that two teams of nine and three -- the larger team including "generals" -- arrived on the day of his appointment at the consulate.
Hours before Khashoggi arrived to obtain paperwork to marry his fiancee, security cameras were disconnected, Erdogan said.
"We stated that we would not remain silent and that we would take every step necessary for justice to be done," Erdogan said to members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
But there were some glaring omissions and few new details in the speech.
Much of what Erdogan said in the parliamentary address has already appeared in media reports and he made no reference to a previously reported audio recording from inside the consulate, said to have captured his alleged torture and killing.
Nor did he mention Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom's de facto ruler, by name.
Bin Salman, in public comments the day after Khashoggi disappeared, professed to know nothing about any malfeasance, insisting Khashoggi had left the Istanbul consulate alive.
Erdogan called on the King of Saudi Arabia for the 18 Saudi suspects linked to Khashoggi's death be tried in Istanbul.
After weeks of denying any knowledge of Khashoggi's whereabouts, the Saudi government said on Friday that the journalist had indeed died in the kingdom's diplomatic compound in Istanbul.
The Saudi story has shifted drastically since Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate on October 2; the official line is now that he was accidentally killed when a discussion with officials turned into a brawl.
Erdogan presented a very different version of events on Tuesday, speaking in Ankara as Saudi Arabia's flagship investment conference got underway in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
Dozens of top business leaders from around the world have pulled out of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's showcase event, known as "Davos in the desert," as questions mount over the Saudi government's role in the death of the Washington Post columnist and US resident.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Sunday that Khashoggi's killing was part of a rogue operation and that his government would punish those responsible for his "murder."
But Turkish officials have maintained from the start that Khashoggi's death was "violently planned" ahead of time, carried out by a team of Saudi operatives dispatched to Istanbul, and subsequently covered up.
In the intervening weeks, Turkish officials have released a drip-feed of information related to their investigation into Khashoggi's murder, including surveillance footage shared exclusively with CNN that showed what a Turkish source described as a "body double" leaving the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on the day Khashoggi died.
The Saudi operative, said by the Turkish source to be one of a 15-man team sent from Saudi Arabia to kill Khashoggi, was wearing the journalist's clothes and was picked up on surveillance footage at locations around Istanbul.
Erdogan confirmed the body double in CNN's exclusive.
The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday that evidence uncovered during the investigation has yet to be shared with any country, according to Turkey state-run Anadolu News, but that Turkey was "ready to cooperate in a possible probe into Khashoggi case at UN, international courts."
"Jamal Khashoggi's killing is a violently planned and a very complicated murder, which was being covered up," Omer Celik, AKP spokesman, said at the party's headquarters in Ankara on Monday.
"I hope those responsible for Khashoggi's killing are punished and no one ever thinks of repeating this."
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said: "The line our President put since the beginning of this case is very clear."
"The investigation will continue until the end."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jam ... id=HPDHP17
THE MIDDLE EAST
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
THE HILL
"Trump calls killing at Saudi consulate 'worst cover-up ever'"
Jordan Fabian
23 OCTOBER 2018
President Trump on Tuesday ramped up his rhetoric against Saudi Arabia over the death of Jamal Khashoggi, calling the kingdom’s efforts to hide the journalist’s killing the “worst cover-up ever.”
“They had a very bad original concept, it was carried out poorly and the cover up was the worst in the history of cover ups,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“They had the worst cover up ever.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected the Saudis' account of Khashoggi's killing and said the dissident journalist was murdered in a pre-planned operation directed by top Saudi officials.
“Whoever thought of that idea I think is in big trouble and they should be in big trouble,” Trump said, referring to the possible plot to kill Khashoggi.
“Nobody likes what happened,” Trump said of the reaction he's heard from foreign leaders he's spoken with.
At the same time, Trump continued to offer opposition to the idea of ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
He said the U.S. would just be "hurting ourselves" if it turned away from Saudi Arabia and did not go forward with arms sales to the Middle East state.
He said he would defer to Congress, at least to an extent, on the next steps.
Lawmakers from both parties in Congress have expressed support for sanctions on Saudi Arabia in response to the killing of Khashoggi.
“In terms of what we ultimately do, I’m going to leave it very much — in conjunction with me — I’m going to leave it up to Congress,” Trump said, adding he hopes a decision will be bipartisan.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tr ... ar-BBONRNJ
"Trump calls killing at Saudi consulate 'worst cover-up ever'"
Jordan Fabian
23 OCTOBER 2018
President Trump on Tuesday ramped up his rhetoric against Saudi Arabia over the death of Jamal Khashoggi, calling the kingdom’s efforts to hide the journalist’s killing the “worst cover-up ever.”
“They had a very bad original concept, it was carried out poorly and the cover up was the worst in the history of cover ups,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“They had the worst cover up ever.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected the Saudis' account of Khashoggi's killing and said the dissident journalist was murdered in a pre-planned operation directed by top Saudi officials.
“Whoever thought of that idea I think is in big trouble and they should be in big trouble,” Trump said, referring to the possible plot to kill Khashoggi.
“Nobody likes what happened,” Trump said of the reaction he's heard from foreign leaders he's spoken with.
At the same time, Trump continued to offer opposition to the idea of ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
He said the U.S. would just be "hurting ourselves" if it turned away from Saudi Arabia and did not go forward with arms sales to the Middle East state.
He said he would defer to Congress, at least to an extent, on the next steps.
Lawmakers from both parties in Congress have expressed support for sanctions on Saudi Arabia in response to the killing of Khashoggi.
“In terms of what we ultimately do, I’m going to leave it very much — in conjunction with me — I’m going to leave it up to Congress,” Trump said, adding he hopes a decision will be bipartisan.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tr ... ar-BBONRNJ
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
MARKETWATCH
"Pompeo says Saudi visas being revoked in response to Khashoggi death"
By Steve Goldstein
Published: Oct 23, 2018 4:54 p.m. ET
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. is revoking visas for some of the Saudi officials responsible for the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
He didn't say how many visas were being revoked as he said the U.S. was looking into using its Global Magnitsky Act powers to sanction them.
Asked specifically about the role of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Pompeo replied: "We're learning the facts."
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pompe ... ewer_click
"Pompeo says Saudi visas being revoked in response to Khashoggi death"
By Steve Goldstein
Published: Oct 23, 2018 4:54 p.m. ET
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. is revoking visas for some of the Saudi officials responsible for the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
He didn't say how many visas were being revoked as he said the U.S. was looking into using its Global Magnitsky Act powers to sanction them.
Asked specifically about the role of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Pompeo replied: "We're learning the facts."
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pompe ... ewer_click
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
THE GUARDIAN
"Khashoggi killing: Donald Trump says Saudi crown prince could have been involved"
Julian Borger in Washington and Bethan McKernan in Istanbul
24 OCTOBER 2018
Donald Trump has said for the first time that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman could have been involved in the operation to kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, noting that “the prince is running things over there” in Riyadh.
The comments, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, appeared to mark a shift in the president’s view of Khashoggi’s murder on 2 October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
He has hitherto appeared to take Saudi royal denials of involvement at face value.
But on a day the state department announced it would sanction Saudi officials implicated in the writer’s death, the president appeared to give the benefit of the doubt to King Salman but not necessarily to his powerful son.
Asked about the crown prince’s possible involvement, Trump said: “Well, the prince is running things over there more so at this stage."
"He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him.”
Trump told the Wall Street Journal he had closely questioned Prince Mohammed about Khashoggi’s murder, posing questions repeatedly and “in a couple of different ways”.
“My first question to him was, ‘Did you know anything about it in terms of the initial planning’,” Trump said.
Prince Mohammed replied that he didn’t, Trump said.
“I said, ‘Where did it start?’"
"And he said it started at lower levels.”
Asked if he believed the denials, the president paused for several seconds.
“I want to believe them."
"I really want to believe them,” he said.
Twenty-one Saudis will have their US visas revoked or be made ineligible for US visas over the journalist’s killing, the state department announced, as the Trump administration struggled to regain the initiative amid the uproar over a murder that has thrown the US-Saudi alliance into question.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, said other measures were being considered, including sanctions: “These penalties will not be the last word on the matter from the United States.
“We’re making very clear that the United States does not tolerate this kind of ruthless action to silence Mr Khashoggi, a journalist, through violence,” Pompeo said.
“Neither the President nor I am happy with this situation.”
The secretary of state said the US would “continue to develop our understanding of the individuals that were responsible for this, who not only executed it but led and were involved and were connected to it”.
The visa revocations would be the first punitive measures taken by the administration against the Saudis since Khashoggi disappeared after entering the consulate on 2 October.
However, under pressure from Congress, it is likely to extract a higher price from Riyadh for the brutal killing of Khashoggi, a US resident and columnist for the Washington Post who was a critic of the crown prince.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump spoke contemptuously about the murder plot: “They had a very bad original concept."
"It was carried out poorly and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.”
Later at a dinner with military leaders, he returned to theme of how the crime was performed: “They did a bad job of execution and they did a bad job of talking about it or covering it up.”
“I’m saying they should have never thought about it,” Trump added.
“Once they thought about it, everything else they did was bad too …"
"It should have never happened.”
Trump has put out mixed messages over recent days, vowing “very severe” consequences and mentioning possible economic sanctions, but also ruling out a block on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and highlighting the country’s role as a US ally against Iran and Islamist militants.
At the weekend, the US president said he thought that Saudi claims that Khashoggi had died in a “fistfight” were credible, and termed the announcement an “important first step”.
His comments on Tuesday came after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, publicly tore down the Saudi version, making fresh allegations that Khashoggi’s “savage” murder was premeditated, and calling for an independent investigation.
Erdoğan had billed his keenly awaited address at the Turkish parliament in Ankara as the moment he would reveal the “naked truth” about what happened to Khashoggi.
He said he was not satisfied with Riyadh’s suggestion that the killing was a rogue extradition operation gone wrong, and called for the “highest ranked” of those responsible to be brought to justice.
Contrary to expectations Erdoğan’s first update on the three-week-old case did not officially reveal the existence of audio and video evidence understood to be in Turkey’s possession.
Erdoğan did reveal that on the day before Khashoggi was killed, Saudi agents arrived in Istanbul and began to scout locations, including the Belgrad forest near Istanbul and the city of Yalova to its south.
Police have subsequently searched both areas for Khashoggi’s remains.
The president did not name the powerful crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto ruler who, it is alleged, was probably aware of, and possibly even ordered, the silencing of his prominent critic, but observers were in little doubt as to whom his repeated mentions of “highest ranked” referred.
He otherwise spoke of the “sincerity” of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in the investigation.
The gaps in the speech suggested Erdoğan had more cards to play in the evolving diplomatic crisis.
Erdoğan’s speech came as the Saudi foreign ministry released extraordinary photos of Khashoggi’s son, Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi, meeting the crown prince and king in Riyadh on Tuesday.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kha ... id=HPDHP17
"Khashoggi killing: Donald Trump says Saudi crown prince could have been involved"
Julian Borger in Washington and Bethan McKernan in Istanbul
24 OCTOBER 2018
Donald Trump has said for the first time that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman could have been involved in the operation to kill dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, noting that “the prince is running things over there” in Riyadh.
The comments, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, appeared to mark a shift in the president’s view of Khashoggi’s murder on 2 October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
He has hitherto appeared to take Saudi royal denials of involvement at face value.
But on a day the state department announced it would sanction Saudi officials implicated in the writer’s death, the president appeared to give the benefit of the doubt to King Salman but not necessarily to his powerful son.
Asked about the crown prince’s possible involvement, Trump said: “Well, the prince is running things over there more so at this stage."
"He’s running things and so if anybody were going to be, it would be him.”
Trump told the Wall Street Journal he had closely questioned Prince Mohammed about Khashoggi’s murder, posing questions repeatedly and “in a couple of different ways”.
“My first question to him was, ‘Did you know anything about it in terms of the initial planning’,” Trump said.
Prince Mohammed replied that he didn’t, Trump said.
“I said, ‘Where did it start?’"
"And he said it started at lower levels.”
Asked if he believed the denials, the president paused for several seconds.
“I want to believe them."
"I really want to believe them,” he said.
Twenty-one Saudis will have their US visas revoked or be made ineligible for US visas over the journalist’s killing, the state department announced, as the Trump administration struggled to regain the initiative amid the uproar over a murder that has thrown the US-Saudi alliance into question.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, said other measures were being considered, including sanctions: “These penalties will not be the last word on the matter from the United States.
“We’re making very clear that the United States does not tolerate this kind of ruthless action to silence Mr Khashoggi, a journalist, through violence,” Pompeo said.
“Neither the President nor I am happy with this situation.”
The secretary of state said the US would “continue to develop our understanding of the individuals that were responsible for this, who not only executed it but led and were involved and were connected to it”.
The visa revocations would be the first punitive measures taken by the administration against the Saudis since Khashoggi disappeared after entering the consulate on 2 October.
However, under pressure from Congress, it is likely to extract a higher price from Riyadh for the brutal killing of Khashoggi, a US resident and columnist for the Washington Post who was a critic of the crown prince.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump spoke contemptuously about the murder plot: “They had a very bad original concept."
"It was carried out poorly and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.”
Later at a dinner with military leaders, he returned to theme of how the crime was performed: “They did a bad job of execution and they did a bad job of talking about it or covering it up.”
“I’m saying they should have never thought about it,” Trump added.
“Once they thought about it, everything else they did was bad too …"
"It should have never happened.”
Trump has put out mixed messages over recent days, vowing “very severe” consequences and mentioning possible economic sanctions, but also ruling out a block on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and highlighting the country’s role as a US ally against Iran and Islamist militants.
At the weekend, the US president said he thought that Saudi claims that Khashoggi had died in a “fistfight” were credible, and termed the announcement an “important first step”.
His comments on Tuesday came after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, publicly tore down the Saudi version, making fresh allegations that Khashoggi’s “savage” murder was premeditated, and calling for an independent investigation.
Erdoğan had billed his keenly awaited address at the Turkish parliament in Ankara as the moment he would reveal the “naked truth” about what happened to Khashoggi.
He said he was not satisfied with Riyadh’s suggestion that the killing was a rogue extradition operation gone wrong, and called for the “highest ranked” of those responsible to be brought to justice.
Contrary to expectations Erdoğan’s first update on the three-week-old case did not officially reveal the existence of audio and video evidence understood to be in Turkey’s possession.
Erdoğan did reveal that on the day before Khashoggi was killed, Saudi agents arrived in Istanbul and began to scout locations, including the Belgrad forest near Istanbul and the city of Yalova to its south.
Police have subsequently searched both areas for Khashoggi’s remains.
The president did not name the powerful crown prince, the kingdom’s de facto ruler who, it is alleged, was probably aware of, and possibly even ordered, the silencing of his prominent critic, but observers were in little doubt as to whom his repeated mentions of “highest ranked” referred.
He otherwise spoke of the “sincerity” of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in the investigation.
The gaps in the speech suggested Erdoğan had more cards to play in the evolving diplomatic crisis.
Erdoğan’s speech came as the Saudi foreign ministry released extraordinary photos of Khashoggi’s son, Salah bin Jamal Khashoggi, meeting the crown prince and king in Riyadh on Tuesday.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/kha ... id=HPDHP17
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
WITH HER MURKY BACKGROUND, SHE WOULD KNOW IF IT WAS REALLY SOMEONE GETTING TORTURED AND MURDERED …
THE WASHINGTON POST
"CIA director listens to audio of journalist’s alleged murder"
John Hudson, Souad Mekhennet, Shane Harris
25 OCTOBER 2018
CIA Director Gina Haspel listened to audio purportedly capturing the interrogation and killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, giving a key member of President Trump’s Cabinet access to the evidence used by Turkey to accuse Saudi Arabia of premeditated murder.
Haspel, who departed for a secret trip to Turkey on Monday, heard the audio during her visit, according to people familiar with her meetings.
President Trump, who has made Saudi Arabia a central pillar of his Middle East strategy, has grown increasingly skeptical of the kingdom’s claim that Khashoggi’s death was a “rogue operation” that occurred after a fistfight broke out in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
On Tuesday, Trump said Saudi officials had engaged in the “worst coverup ever” and that those behind the killing “should be in big trouble.”
A person familiar with the audio said it was “compelling” and could put more pressure on the United States to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the death of Khashoggi, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post.
“This puts the ball firmly in Washington’s court,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and scholar at the Brookings Institution.
“Not only will there be more pressure now from the media but Congress will say, ‘Gina, we would love to have you come visit and you can tell us exactly what you heard.’ ”
The Trump administration took its first concrete steps to penalize Saudi Arabia on Tuesday by revoking visas for agents implicated in the killing, a modest move considering 18 of the 21 Saudi suspects were already under arrest.
In announcing the measures, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he is working with the Treasury Department on whether to impose sanctions on those responsible for the journalist’s death.
“These penalties will not be the last word on this matter from the United States,” Pompeo said.
“We will continue to explore additional measures to hold those responsible accountable.”
Trump has reiterated that he views Saudi Arabia as a great ally and an important purchaser of U.S. tanks, bombs and planes.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, has denied having knowledge of the mission and on Wednesday promised to bring those responsible to justice.
He called the killing of Khashoggi a “heinous crime.”
Turkish officials have voiced their doubts about his intention to support a full investigation.
“How should a real investigation in Saudi Arabia work when one of the main suspects is the crown prince MBS?” said a Turkish senior official, referring to the crown prince by his initials.
“He is one of the suspects."
"Members of his royal guard were part of the killing squad."
"The U.S. nor the rest of the world should really accept this,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Riedel said it will be difficult for Haspel to resist requests by Congress for a briefing.
“It will be pretty hard for her to say no because at a minimum the intelligence committees can ask her to come in secret, but even if it’s a secret session, it will leak fast,” he said.
U.S. lawmakers have increased their pressure on the Trump administration, accusing the crown prince of ordering the killing.
“Do I think he did it?"
"Yes, I think he did it,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with CNN.
Sen. Thom Tillis, another Republican, told NBC that “in Saudi Arabia, you do not do something of this magnitude without having clearance from the top.”
john.hudson@washpost.com
souad.mekhennet@washpost.com
shane.harris@washpost.com
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cia ... id=HPDHP17
THE WASHINGTON POST
"CIA director listens to audio of journalist’s alleged murder"
John Hudson, Souad Mekhennet, Shane Harris
25 OCTOBER 2018
CIA Director Gina Haspel listened to audio purportedly capturing the interrogation and killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, giving a key member of President Trump’s Cabinet access to the evidence used by Turkey to accuse Saudi Arabia of premeditated murder.
Haspel, who departed for a secret trip to Turkey on Monday, heard the audio during her visit, according to people familiar with her meetings.
President Trump, who has made Saudi Arabia a central pillar of his Middle East strategy, has grown increasingly skeptical of the kingdom’s claim that Khashoggi’s death was a “rogue operation” that occurred after a fistfight broke out in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
On Tuesday, Trump said Saudi officials had engaged in the “worst coverup ever” and that those behind the killing “should be in big trouble.”
A person familiar with the audio said it was “compelling” and could put more pressure on the United States to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the death of Khashoggi, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post.
“This puts the ball firmly in Washington’s court,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and scholar at the Brookings Institution.
“Not only will there be more pressure now from the media but Congress will say, ‘Gina, we would love to have you come visit and you can tell us exactly what you heard.’ ”
The Trump administration took its first concrete steps to penalize Saudi Arabia on Tuesday by revoking visas for agents implicated in the killing, a modest move considering 18 of the 21 Saudi suspects were already under arrest.
In announcing the measures, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he is working with the Treasury Department on whether to impose sanctions on those responsible for the journalist’s death.
“These penalties will not be the last word on this matter from the United States,” Pompeo said.
“We will continue to explore additional measures to hold those responsible accountable.”
Trump has reiterated that he views Saudi Arabia as a great ally and an important purchaser of U.S. tanks, bombs and planes.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, has denied having knowledge of the mission and on Wednesday promised to bring those responsible to justice.
He called the killing of Khashoggi a “heinous crime.”
Turkish officials have voiced their doubts about his intention to support a full investigation.
“How should a real investigation in Saudi Arabia work when one of the main suspects is the crown prince MBS?” said a Turkish senior official, referring to the crown prince by his initials.
“He is one of the suspects."
"Members of his royal guard were part of the killing squad."
"The U.S. nor the rest of the world should really accept this,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Riedel said it will be difficult for Haspel to resist requests by Congress for a briefing.
“It will be pretty hard for her to say no because at a minimum the intelligence committees can ask her to come in secret, but even if it’s a secret session, it will leak fast,” he said.
U.S. lawmakers have increased their pressure on the Trump administration, accusing the crown prince of ordering the killing.
“Do I think he did it?"
"Yes, I think he did it,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview with CNN.
Sen. Thom Tillis, another Republican, told NBC that “in Saudi Arabia, you do not do something of this magnitude without having clearance from the top.”
john.hudson@washpost.com
souad.mekhennet@washpost.com
shane.harris@washpost.com
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cia ... id=HPDHP17
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
THE WASHINGTON POST
"CIA director briefs president on audio purportedly capturing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi"
Karen DeYoung, Tamer El-Ghobashy, Kareem Fahim
26 OCTOBER 2018
CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed President Trump on Thursday about her trip this week to Turkey, where she listened to audio purportedly capturing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, as Saudi Arabia appeared to acknowledge that its agents had murdered the dissident Saudi journalist in a “premeditated” operation.
A statement issued by the public prosecutor in Riyadh, citing shared Turkish evidence of premeditation, marked the latest reversal in the Saudi version of events and put the focus directly on the question of who ordered Khashoggi’s death.
U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers have said that the killing, in a foreign country, of a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was unlikely to have taken place without the knowledge of the kingdom’s most senior leaders.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Saudi authorities, who insisted for weeks that he had left the building after a meeting and that they had no information on his whereabouts, said Saturday that their investigators had determined he was accidentally killed there during a brawl with Saudi agents.
The authorities said the agents were there to discuss his desire to return to the kingdom, but offered no indication of who had sent them.
The Saturday statement said that 18 unnamed Saudis had been arrested and that five senior officials had been fired.
It also said that a high-level committee to restructure Saudi intelligence agencies — headed by Mohammed — had been formed and that a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation into Khashoggi’s death was underway.
Mohammed and his father, King Salman, have both repeatedly assured Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week, that they had no knowledge of a plot to kill Khashoggi.
Trump initially described the Saudi explanation Saturday as credible.
But in recent days he has expressed doubt, calling it “the worst coverup ever,” although he has not directly pointed the finger at the Saudi leadership.
Instead, Pompeo announced that visas held by the arrested Saudis were being revoked, and the White House on Monday dispatched Haspel to Turkey.
On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said publicly for the first time that there was evidence the killing had been “planned” — presumably including the audio reportedly recorded inside the consulate by Turkish intelligence.
The recording is the central piece of evidence Turkey has used to assert that the killing was planned.
After listening to it and talking with Turkish officials, Haspel returned to Washington.
The White House declined to provide details of her Thursday briefing, saying only that she had informed the president on her “findings and discussions.”
The briefing, which the State Department said Pompeo attended, coincided with the new statement by the Saudi prosecutor, which appeared designed at least in part to jump ahead of any conclusions the administration might draw from the new information.
The Saudi statement said that the preliminary results of the joint investigation with Turkey had yielded “information from the Turkish side . . . suggesting that suspects in the incident had committed their act with a premeditated intention.”
A translation of the statement, published in Arabic, was provided by the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
“The public prosecution continues its investigations with the accused in light of the information it has received and the results of its investigations to clarify the facts and complete the course of justice,” the translated statement said.
It was not immediately clear how Haspel’s report and the announcement from Riyadh would affect the administration’s thinking amid bipartisan demands from Congress for severe punishment of Saudi Arabia — the nation at the center of Trump’s Middle East policy.
Trump has publicly resisted calls to end weapons sales to the Saudis, the world’s largest purchaser of U.S. defense equipment, saying that it would cost American jobs.
But the succession of events this week has underscored the rapidly mounting pressures on Saudi Arabia to fully illuminate Khashoggi’s killing, amid increasing global skepticism.
U.S. and foreign officials and experts with knowledge of the kingdom have said that such an operation was virtually unthinkable without the knowledge and approval of the highest levels of the Saudi government, particularly the powerful and ambitious crown prince.
But Salman’s appointment of Mohammed to head the committee revamping the intelligence apparatus, and the prince’s appearance this week to host global government and industry leaders at a Riyadh investment conference, has all but ended speculation that his position was threatened.
Appearing at the conference Wednesday, Mohammed called the journalist’s killing “a heinous crime.”
In another sign that the kingdom is seeking to contain the widespread fallout, Salah Khashoggi, the eldest son of Jamal Khashoggi, has left Saudi Arabia, two people close to the family said Thursday.
The son, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who was photographed receiving condolences from Salman and Mohammed on Tuesday, had previously been restricted from leaving.
Salah Khashoggi was headed to the United States to join his three siblings, who are already here, according to one of the people.
The photos and video footage of him meeting with the king and crown prince were released by the Saudi government in an apparent effort to showcase their sympathy.
Instead, the images elicited scorn on social media, with critics accusing the leaders of exploiting a grieving son.
State Department deputy spokesman Robert J. Palladino told reporters that “we made it clear that we wanted him to be able to return [to the United States], and are pleased that he’s been able to do what he so desires.”
Asked if the son had faced obstacles in leaving Saudi Arabia, Palladino said he was “not aware” of any.
Jamal Khashoggi, 59, was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post who was living in Virginia after leaving Saudi Arabia because of fear about his safety.
He had been planning to settle in Istanbul and marry his Turkish fiancee when he was detained and killed in the Saudi Consulate.
Also Thursday, the European Union issued a fresh condemnation of Khashoggi’s killing and reiterated its skepticism that it could have been carried out without Mohammed’s knowledge.
The European Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution urging a European Union-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia in response.
The resolution came several days after Germany became the first Western government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest arms importer.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May both spoke via telephone with Salman, according to a statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry late Thursday, hours after the European Parliament’s resolution passed.
According to an Elysee Palace readout of the conversation, Macron pressed the Saudi king for more clarity on what happened to Khashoggi and told him France considers freedom of expression and freedom of the press an “essential priority.”
But Britain and France have both stopped short of suspending arms sales to the desert kingdom.
Through a steady stream of leaks to Turkish and foreign media outlets, Turkish officials have mounted a compelling case that the Saudi agents planned all along to kill Khashoggi, dismember him and dispose of his remains.
The Turks have identified a Saudi forensics specialist who is an expert in mobile autopsies and traveled to Istanbul the day Khashoggi was planning to visit the consulate.
They also photographed Saudi diplomatic vehicles scouting wooded areas in the days before Khashoggi disappeared.
In addition, the leaks have featured surveillance pictures of a Saudi agent wearing Khashoggi’s clothes and a fake beard and leaving the consulate, in what appears to be an orchestrated bid to fool investigators into thinking the journalist had safely left the diplomatic mission, as the Saudis initially claimed.
Although the Turks have mounted an extensive search of the consulate and other areas in Istanbul, they have released no information indicating his remains have been found.
karen.deyoung@washpost.com
tamer.el-ghobashy@washpost.com
kareem.fahim@washpost.com
El-Ghobashy and Fahim reported from Istanbul. John Hudson and Josh Dawsey in Washington, James McAuley in Paris and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sau ... id=HPDHP17
"CIA director briefs president on audio purportedly capturing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi"
Karen DeYoung, Tamer El-Ghobashy, Kareem Fahim
26 OCTOBER 2018
CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed President Trump on Thursday about her trip this week to Turkey, where she listened to audio purportedly capturing the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, as Saudi Arabia appeared to acknowledge that its agents had murdered the dissident Saudi journalist in a “premeditated” operation.
A statement issued by the public prosecutor in Riyadh, citing shared Turkish evidence of premeditation, marked the latest reversal in the Saudi version of events and put the focus directly on the question of who ordered Khashoggi’s death.
U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers have said that the killing, in a foreign country, of a critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was unlikely to have taken place without the knowledge of the kingdom’s most senior leaders.
Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.
Saudi authorities, who insisted for weeks that he had left the building after a meeting and that they had no information on his whereabouts, said Saturday that their investigators had determined he was accidentally killed there during a brawl with Saudi agents.
The authorities said the agents were there to discuss his desire to return to the kingdom, but offered no indication of who had sent them.
The Saturday statement said that 18 unnamed Saudis had been arrested and that five senior officials had been fired.
It also said that a high-level committee to restructure Saudi intelligence agencies — headed by Mohammed — had been formed and that a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation into Khashoggi’s death was underway.
Mohammed and his father, King Salman, have both repeatedly assured Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week, that they had no knowledge of a plot to kill Khashoggi.
Trump initially described the Saudi explanation Saturday as credible.
But in recent days he has expressed doubt, calling it “the worst coverup ever,” although he has not directly pointed the finger at the Saudi leadership.
Instead, Pompeo announced that visas held by the arrested Saudis were being revoked, and the White House on Monday dispatched Haspel to Turkey.
On Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said publicly for the first time that there was evidence the killing had been “planned” — presumably including the audio reportedly recorded inside the consulate by Turkish intelligence.
The recording is the central piece of evidence Turkey has used to assert that the killing was planned.
After listening to it and talking with Turkish officials, Haspel returned to Washington.
The White House declined to provide details of her Thursday briefing, saying only that she had informed the president on her “findings and discussions.”
The briefing, which the State Department said Pompeo attended, coincided with the new statement by the Saudi prosecutor, which appeared designed at least in part to jump ahead of any conclusions the administration might draw from the new information.
The Saudi statement said that the preliminary results of the joint investigation with Turkey had yielded “information from the Turkish side . . . suggesting that suspects in the incident had committed their act with a premeditated intention.”
A translation of the statement, published in Arabic, was provided by the Saudi Embassy in Washington.
“The public prosecution continues its investigations with the accused in light of the information it has received and the results of its investigations to clarify the facts and complete the course of justice,” the translated statement said.
It was not immediately clear how Haspel’s report and the announcement from Riyadh would affect the administration’s thinking amid bipartisan demands from Congress for severe punishment of Saudi Arabia — the nation at the center of Trump’s Middle East policy.
Trump has publicly resisted calls to end weapons sales to the Saudis, the world’s largest purchaser of U.S. defense equipment, saying that it would cost American jobs.
But the succession of events this week has underscored the rapidly mounting pressures on Saudi Arabia to fully illuminate Khashoggi’s killing, amid increasing global skepticism.
U.S. and foreign officials and experts with knowledge of the kingdom have said that such an operation was virtually unthinkable without the knowledge and approval of the highest levels of the Saudi government, particularly the powerful and ambitious crown prince.
But Salman’s appointment of Mohammed to head the committee revamping the intelligence apparatus, and the prince’s appearance this week to host global government and industry leaders at a Riyadh investment conference, has all but ended speculation that his position was threatened.
Appearing at the conference Wednesday, Mohammed called the journalist’s killing “a heinous crime.”
In another sign that the kingdom is seeking to contain the widespread fallout, Salah Khashoggi, the eldest son of Jamal Khashoggi, has left Saudi Arabia, two people close to the family said Thursday.
The son, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen who was photographed receiving condolences from Salman and Mohammed on Tuesday, had previously been restricted from leaving.
Salah Khashoggi was headed to the United States to join his three siblings, who are already here, according to one of the people.
The photos and video footage of him meeting with the king and crown prince were released by the Saudi government in an apparent effort to showcase their sympathy.
Instead, the images elicited scorn on social media, with critics accusing the leaders of exploiting a grieving son.
State Department deputy spokesman Robert J. Palladino told reporters that “we made it clear that we wanted him to be able to return [to the United States], and are pleased that he’s been able to do what he so desires.”
Asked if the son had faced obstacles in leaving Saudi Arabia, Palladino said he was “not aware” of any.
Jamal Khashoggi, 59, was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post who was living in Virginia after leaving Saudi Arabia because of fear about his safety.
He had been planning to settle in Istanbul and marry his Turkish fiancee when he was detained and killed in the Saudi Consulate.
Also Thursday, the European Union issued a fresh condemnation of Khashoggi’s killing and reiterated its skepticism that it could have been carried out without Mohammed’s knowledge.
The European Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution urging a European Union-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia in response.
The resolution came several days after Germany became the first Western government to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest arms importer.
French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May both spoke via telephone with Salman, according to a statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry late Thursday, hours after the European Parliament’s resolution passed.
According to an Elysee Palace readout of the conversation, Macron pressed the Saudi king for more clarity on what happened to Khashoggi and told him France considers freedom of expression and freedom of the press an “essential priority.”
But Britain and France have both stopped short of suspending arms sales to the desert kingdom.
Through a steady stream of leaks to Turkish and foreign media outlets, Turkish officials have mounted a compelling case that the Saudi agents planned all along to kill Khashoggi, dismember him and dispose of his remains.
The Turks have identified a Saudi forensics specialist who is an expert in mobile autopsies and traveled to Istanbul the day Khashoggi was planning to visit the consulate.
They also photographed Saudi diplomatic vehicles scouting wooded areas in the days before Khashoggi disappeared.
In addition, the leaks have featured surveillance pictures of a Saudi agent wearing Khashoggi’s clothes and a fake beard and leaving the consulate, in what appears to be an orchestrated bid to fool investigators into thinking the journalist had safely left the diplomatic mission, as the Saudis initially claimed.
Although the Turks have mounted an extensive search of the consulate and other areas in Istanbul, they have released no information indicating his remains have been found.
karen.deyoung@washpost.com
tamer.el-ghobashy@washpost.com
kareem.fahim@washpost.com
El-Ghobashy and Fahim reported from Istanbul. John Hudson and Josh Dawsey in Washington, James McAuley in Paris and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/sau ... id=HPDHP17
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
MARKETWATCH
"Opinion: Trump’s nutty views on trade are infiltrating foreign policy"
By Caroline Baum
Published: Oct 25, 2018 5:14 p.m. ET
“I love the Saudis.:
"They buy apartments from me."
"They spend $40 million, $50 million."
"Am I supposed to dislike them?"
"I like them very much.”
— Donald J. Trump, 2015
Not much has changed since Trump uttered those words — except for the fact that he is now president of the United States.
He is still a businessman at heart.
He still sees selling something to someone else as the only thing that counts.
He has never been able to make the leap from what is good for his business — sales — to what is good for the nation: access to cheap, foreign imports.
It was bad enough when Trump’s ass-backwards views on trade — selling goods to foreigners is the only thing that counts — precipitated the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from U.S. allies and a tit-for-tat trade war with China.
Now those misperceptions are starting to influence foreign policy, international relationships and even national security.
Trump’s response to the death of Washington Post opinion contributor Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi resident of the United States, is a case in point.
Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, never to be seen again.
The official Saudi explanation for his disappearance and death has been evolving for three weeks.
All evidence points to his torture, murder and dismemberment at the hands of Saudi agents, most likely under the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Pressed by Congress to sanction the Saudi regime for the gruesome murder, Trump’s first reaction was: “We don’t want to do anything to interfere with their $110 billion in arms purchases from the U.S.”
Let’s leave aside Trump’s exaggerated claims of $110 billion of arms purchases, which were memorandums of intent, not signed deals, and the ever-expanding number of jobs such a purchase would support: from 40,000 to 1 million, and increasing day by day.
“Arms should never been seen as a jobs program,” as Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace.
Even more disturbing is the president’s willingness to abdicate “America’s historic role as a global beacon of morality and human rights,” according to the Washington Post’s Phil Rucker and Josh Dawsey.
“Instead, Trump is pursuing a foreign policy shaped by commercial self-interest.”
His message to authoritarians around the world, be it Russia’s Vladimir Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, is that you can do as you please in terms of human rights.
As long as you buy goods from the U.S., it’s OK by him.
Even South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of the president, was critical of Trump’s response to Khashoggi’s murder, saying the U.S. should not allow strategic alliances to mute the nation’s “moral voice.”
“It’s equally important to understand that our values are more important than money and jobs,” Graham said.
It’s not clear that message is resonating with the president.
Trump, the businessman, thinks solely in terms of sales and profits.
Selling an entire floor in Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2001 was a lucrative transaction.
Trump, in effect, runs a trade surplus in condos with the Saudis.
For USA Inc., those condo sales represent an investment inflow.
Capital inflows are the mirror image of the trade, or current account, deficit.
A plus for Trump Inc., a minus — at least in balance-of-trade accounting terms — for USA Inc.
Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth on trade.
On the one hand, he proclaims that the U.S. is open for business, touting tax cuts and deregulation as the driver of renewed foreign investment in the U.S.
On the other hand, he declares that the U.S. is losing money — getting ripped off — on trade, citing 2017’s $807 billion trade deficit in goods (services don’t count in Trump world).
The dollars used to purchase goods and services from abroad return to the U.S. as foreign direct investment or asset purchases.
Now Trump is using trade as an excuse to prioritize his personal and commercial relationships with MBS and the Saudis over the national interest, jeopardizing America’s moral standing in the world.
He refuses to exercise his considerable leverage over the kingdom, including its dependence on U.S. defense contractors for arms, replacement parts and repair, to pressure the Saudis to come clean.
Just this year, the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest oil producer.
The U.S depends on Saudi Arabia for 9% of its petroleum imports compared with 40% from Canada.
Yes, Saudi Arabia acts as a counterweight to Iran in the Middle East and has developed a strange-bedfellow relationship with Israel.
But that doesn’t mean the U.S. should give Saudi Arabia carte blanche to crack down on dissent by murdering journalists.
So far, no amount of pressure from Congress and European allies has managed to nudge Trump from his laissez-faire approach to Khashoggi’s murder.
So here’s a new tact that might work.
Someone might want to point out to Trump that the U.S. runs a trade deficit in goods — yes, a deficit! — with Saudi Arabia.
Nothing is more likely to change the president’s foreign policy towards a country than the realization that said country is ripping the U.S. off on trade.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump ... ewer_click
"Opinion: Trump’s nutty views on trade are infiltrating foreign policy"
By Caroline Baum
Published: Oct 25, 2018 5:14 p.m. ET
“I love the Saudis.:
"They buy apartments from me."
"They spend $40 million, $50 million."
"Am I supposed to dislike them?"
"I like them very much.”
— Donald J. Trump, 2015
Not much has changed since Trump uttered those words — except for the fact that he is now president of the United States.
He is still a businessman at heart.
He still sees selling something to someone else as the only thing that counts.
He has never been able to make the leap from what is good for his business — sales — to what is good for the nation: access to cheap, foreign imports.
It was bad enough when Trump’s ass-backwards views on trade — selling goods to foreigners is the only thing that counts — precipitated the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from U.S. allies and a tit-for-tat trade war with China.
Now those misperceptions are starting to influence foreign policy, international relationships and even national security.
Trump’s response to the death of Washington Post opinion contributor Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi resident of the United States, is a case in point.
Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, never to be seen again.
The official Saudi explanation for his disappearance and death has been evolving for three weeks.
All evidence points to his torture, murder and dismemberment at the hands of Saudi agents, most likely under the direction of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Pressed by Congress to sanction the Saudi regime for the gruesome murder, Trump’s first reaction was: “We don’t want to do anything to interfere with their $110 billion in arms purchases from the U.S.”
Let’s leave aside Trump’s exaggerated claims of $110 billion of arms purchases, which were memorandums of intent, not signed deals, and the ever-expanding number of jobs such a purchase would support: from 40,000 to 1 million, and increasing day by day.
“Arms should never been seen as a jobs program,” as Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul told Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace.
Even more disturbing is the president’s willingness to abdicate “America’s historic role as a global beacon of morality and human rights,” according to the Washington Post’s Phil Rucker and Josh Dawsey.
“Instead, Trump is pursuing a foreign policy shaped by commercial self-interest.”
His message to authoritarians around the world, be it Russia’s Vladimir Putin or North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, is that you can do as you please in terms of human rights.
As long as you buy goods from the U.S., it’s OK by him.
Even South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of the president, was critical of Trump’s response to Khashoggi’s murder, saying the U.S. should not allow strategic alliances to mute the nation’s “moral voice.”
“It’s equally important to understand that our values are more important than money and jobs,” Graham said.
It’s not clear that message is resonating with the president.
Trump, the businessman, thinks solely in terms of sales and profits.
Selling an entire floor in Trump World Tower to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2001 was a lucrative transaction.
Trump, in effect, runs a trade surplus in condos with the Saudis.
For USA Inc., those condo sales represent an investment inflow.
Capital inflows are the mirror image of the trade, or current account, deficit.
A plus for Trump Inc., a minus — at least in balance-of-trade accounting terms — for USA Inc.
Trump talks out of both sides of his mouth on trade.
On the one hand, he proclaims that the U.S. is open for business, touting tax cuts and deregulation as the driver of renewed foreign investment in the U.S.
On the other hand, he declares that the U.S. is losing money — getting ripped off — on trade, citing 2017’s $807 billion trade deficit in goods (services don’t count in Trump world).
The dollars used to purchase goods and services from abroad return to the U.S. as foreign direct investment or asset purchases.
Now Trump is using trade as an excuse to prioritize his personal and commercial relationships with MBS and the Saudis over the national interest, jeopardizing America’s moral standing in the world.
He refuses to exercise his considerable leverage over the kingdom, including its dependence on U.S. defense contractors for arms, replacement parts and repair, to pressure the Saudis to come clean.
Just this year, the U.S. surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest oil producer.
The U.S depends on Saudi Arabia for 9% of its petroleum imports compared with 40% from Canada.
Yes, Saudi Arabia acts as a counterweight to Iran in the Middle East and has developed a strange-bedfellow relationship with Israel.
But that doesn’t mean the U.S. should give Saudi Arabia carte blanche to crack down on dissent by murdering journalists.
So far, no amount of pressure from Congress and European allies has managed to nudge Trump from his laissez-faire approach to Khashoggi’s murder.
So here’s a new tact that might work.
Someone might want to point out to Trump that the U.S. runs a trade deficit in goods — yes, a deficit! — with Saudi Arabia.
Nothing is more likely to change the president’s foreign policy towards a country than the realization that said country is ripping the U.S. off on trade.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump ... ewer_click
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
THE WASHINGTON POST
"Prosecutor says Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered, but fate of body still a mystery?
Kareem Fahim, Tamer El-Ghobashy, Louisa Loveluck
1 NOVEMBER 2018
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s top prosecutor on Wednesday laid out the most detailed description yet of how the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed, saying Saudi agents strangled him almost immediately after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and then dismembered his body.
But the new information did not address the question that has bedeviled investigators and been the subject of furious speculation: What happened to Khashoggi’s remains?
A senior Turkish official said in an interview that Turkish authorities are pursuing a theory that Khashoggi’s dismembered body was destroyed in acid on the grounds of the Saudi Consulate or at the nearby residence of the Saudi consul general.
Biological evidence discovered in the consulate garden supports the theory that Khashoggi’s body was disposed of close to where he was killed and dismembered, the official said.
“Khashoggi’s body was not in need of burying,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation.
While Saudi officials now acknowledge that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate on Oct. 2, all they have said about his body is that the assailants gave it to a “local collaborator” for disposal.
The senior Turkish official said Turkish investigators do not believe such a figure exists.
A second senior Turkish official said that Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, who completed a three-day visit to Istanbul on Wednesday, did not provide the location of Khashoggi’s body or identify any “local collaborator.”
Since Mojeb arrived in Turkey on Monday, “Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators,” the Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private law enforcement contacts.
“We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation.”
Turkish prosecutor Irfan Fidan issued his public description of the killing shortly after Mojeb left Istanbul, amid mounting Turkish complaints about a lack of Saudi cooperation.
Fidan said Khashoggi was “strangled as soon as he entered the consulate” in line with “premeditated plans.”
The body, “after being strangled, was subsequently destroyed by being dismembered, once again confirming the planning of the murder,” Fidan said.
The Turkish statement used the word “bogulmak,” which can also mean suffocation.
Turkish officials say members of a 15-man hit team dispatched from Saudi Arabia killed Khashoggi inside the consulate before flying out of Turkey later the same day.
The Turkish government says it has an audio recording of what transpired inside the mission.
Although Turkish officials have played the audio for CIA officials, including Director Gina Haspel, Turkish officials have not released the audio to the public.
Saudi Arabia has provided shifting explanations about what happened to Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, contributing columnist to The Washington Post and critic of the Saudi leadership, including the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
For more than two weeks, Saudi authorities repeatedly denied any knowledge of Khashoggi’s whereabouts, then abruptly changed their account, blaming the killing on agents acting outside the Saudi government’s authority.
Turkish investigators initially focused their search for Khashoggi’s body in two wooded areas outside Istanbul, guided in part by surveillance footage that Turkish authorities said showed Saudi diplomatic vehicles apparently scouting Belgrad Forest the night before the journalist was killed.
Last week, investigators suspended the search, focusing instead on the consulate’s grounds and the consul general’s residence.
The search focused in particular on a well on consular property, where the assailants could have disposed of Khashoggi’s dissolved remains, the first senior Turkish official said.
Investigators last week also inspected the sewer system near the consulate, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have repeatedly complained that Saudi Arabia is hampering the investigation by refusing to provide critical pieces of information, including the location of Khashoggi’s body.
Turkey has also requested the extradition of 18 suspects who the Saudi government says have been arrested in the case.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the suspects will be tried in domestic courts.
On Wednesday, a Saudi official said the kingdom had not officially concluded that Khashoggi’s death was premeditated.
“The public prosecutor has acknowledged seeing that information from the Turkish side."
"We have not said if that is true or not true."
"We are waiting for the results of the investigation,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media.
The journalist’s death and the inconsistent Saudi explanations of his killing have unleashed a storm of international criticism, placing President Trump in a difficult situation.
In addition to being a major purchaser of American weapons, Saudi Arabia sits at the heart of the administration’s strategy in the Middle East, in particular U.S. efforts to counter what Washington says are Iran’s expansionist policies.
Trump has said he is “not satisfied” with the Saudi explanations of Khashoggi’s death.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that the crisis could affect regional stability.
But there are few indications that Khashoggi’s death will fundamentally alter the relationship between the two nations.
On Wednesday, a group of Republican senators called on Trump to suspend negotiations for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement.
They cited Khashoggi’s death, as well as Riyadh’s policies toward Lebanon and Yemen, as cause for “serious concerns about the transparency, accountability and judgment of current decision-makers.”
Although the Turkish announcement Wednesday appeared to partly illuminate what happened to Khashoggi, several central questions remain, including who ordered his killing and whether the crown prince was aware of the operation.
While Riyadh has painted the killing as a rogue plot, Western officials say it is unlikely that something this complex could have been carried out without Mohammed’s knowledge.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that his government would take “necessary measures” against those responsible for the journalist’s death.
“So long as those who are responsible and the circumstances around the killing are not made public, released and evaluated, we will go on demanding the truth,” he said.
kareem.fahim@washpost.com
tamer.el-ghobashy@washpost.com
louisa.loveluck@washpost.com
Zeynep Karatas in Istanbul and Kevin Sullivan in Riyadh contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tur ... id=HPDHP17
"Prosecutor says Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered, but fate of body still a mystery?
Kareem Fahim, Tamer El-Ghobashy, Louisa Loveluck
1 NOVEMBER 2018
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s top prosecutor on Wednesday laid out the most detailed description yet of how the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed, saying Saudi agents strangled him almost immediately after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and then dismembered his body.
But the new information did not address the question that has bedeviled investigators and been the subject of furious speculation: What happened to Khashoggi’s remains?
A senior Turkish official said in an interview that Turkish authorities are pursuing a theory that Khashoggi’s dismembered body was destroyed in acid on the grounds of the Saudi Consulate or at the nearby residence of the Saudi consul general.
Biological evidence discovered in the consulate garden supports the theory that Khashoggi’s body was disposed of close to where he was killed and dismembered, the official said.
“Khashoggi’s body was not in need of burying,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation.
While Saudi officials now acknowledge that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate on Oct. 2, all they have said about his body is that the assailants gave it to a “local collaborator” for disposal.
The senior Turkish official said Turkish investigators do not believe such a figure exists.
A second senior Turkish official said that Saudi Arabia’s top prosecutor, Saud al-Mojeb, who completed a three-day visit to Istanbul on Wednesday, did not provide the location of Khashoggi’s body or identify any “local collaborator.”
Since Mojeb arrived in Turkey on Monday, “Saudi officials seemed primarily interested in finding out what evidence the Turkish authorities had against the perpetrators,” the Turkish official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private law enforcement contacts.
“We did not get the impression that they were keen on genuinely cooperating with the investigation.”
Turkish prosecutor Irfan Fidan issued his public description of the killing shortly after Mojeb left Istanbul, amid mounting Turkish complaints about a lack of Saudi cooperation.
Fidan said Khashoggi was “strangled as soon as he entered the consulate” in line with “premeditated plans.”
The body, “after being strangled, was subsequently destroyed by being dismembered, once again confirming the planning of the murder,” Fidan said.
The Turkish statement used the word “bogulmak,” which can also mean suffocation.
Turkish officials say members of a 15-man hit team dispatched from Saudi Arabia killed Khashoggi inside the consulate before flying out of Turkey later the same day.
The Turkish government says it has an audio recording of what transpired inside the mission.
Although Turkish officials have played the audio for CIA officials, including Director Gina Haspel, Turkish officials have not released the audio to the public.
Saudi Arabia has provided shifting explanations about what happened to Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, contributing columnist to The Washington Post and critic of the Saudi leadership, including the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
For more than two weeks, Saudi authorities repeatedly denied any knowledge of Khashoggi’s whereabouts, then abruptly changed their account, blaming the killing on agents acting outside the Saudi government’s authority.
Turkish investigators initially focused their search for Khashoggi’s body in two wooded areas outside Istanbul, guided in part by surveillance footage that Turkish authorities said showed Saudi diplomatic vehicles apparently scouting Belgrad Forest the night before the journalist was killed.
Last week, investigators suspended the search, focusing instead on the consulate’s grounds and the consul general’s residence.
The search focused in particular on a well on consular property, where the assailants could have disposed of Khashoggi’s dissolved remains, the first senior Turkish official said.
Investigators last week also inspected the sewer system near the consulate, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have repeatedly complained that Saudi Arabia is hampering the investigation by refusing to provide critical pieces of information, including the location of Khashoggi’s body.
Turkey has also requested the extradition of 18 suspects who the Saudi government says have been arrested in the case.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said the suspects will be tried in domestic courts.
On Wednesday, a Saudi official said the kingdom had not officially concluded that Khashoggi’s death was premeditated.
“The public prosecutor has acknowledged seeing that information from the Turkish side."
"We have not said if that is true or not true."
"We are waiting for the results of the investigation,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak to the media.
The journalist’s death and the inconsistent Saudi explanations of his killing have unleashed a storm of international criticism, placing President Trump in a difficult situation.
In addition to being a major purchaser of American weapons, Saudi Arabia sits at the heart of the administration’s strategy in the Middle East, in particular U.S. efforts to counter what Washington says are Iran’s expansionist policies.
Trump has said he is “not satisfied” with the Saudi explanations of Khashoggi’s death.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned that the crisis could affect regional stability.
But there are few indications that Khashoggi’s death will fundamentally alter the relationship between the two nations.
On Wednesday, a group of Republican senators called on Trump to suspend negotiations for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear agreement.
They cited Khashoggi’s death, as well as Riyadh’s policies toward Lebanon and Yemen, as cause for “serious concerns about the transparency, accountability and judgment of current decision-makers.”
Although the Turkish announcement Wednesday appeared to partly illuminate what happened to Khashoggi, several central questions remain, including who ordered his killing and whether the crown prince was aware of the operation.
While Riyadh has painted the killing as a rogue plot, Western officials say it is unlikely that something this complex could have been carried out without Mohammed’s knowledge.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday that his government would take “necessary measures” against those responsible for the journalist’s death.
“So long as those who are responsible and the circumstances around the killing are not made public, released and evaluated, we will go on demanding the truth,” he said.
kareem.fahim@washpost.com
tamer.el-ghobashy@washpost.com
louisa.loveluck@washpost.com
Zeynep Karatas in Istanbul and Kevin Sullivan in Riyadh contributed to this report.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tur ... id=HPDHP17
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"‘Tell Your Boss’: Recording Is Seen to Link Saudi Crown Prince More Strongly to Khashoggi Killing"
By JULIAN E. BARNES, ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
13 NOVEMBER 2018
WASHINGTON — Shortly after the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated last month, a member of the kill team instructed a superior over the phone to “tell your boss,” believed to be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, that the operatives had carried out their mission, according to three people familiar with a recording of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing collected by Turkish intelligence.
The recording, shared last month with the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel, is seen by intelligence officials as some of the strongest evidence linking Prince Mohammed to the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist whose death prompted an international outcry.
While the prince was not mentioned by name, American intelligence officials believe “your boss” was a reference to Prince Mohammed.
Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, one of 15 Saudis dispatched to Istanbul to confront Mr. Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate there, made the phone call and spoke in Arabic, the people said.
Turkish intelligence officers have told American officials they believe that Mr. Mutreb, a security officer who frequently traveled with Prince Mohammed, was speaking to one of the prince’s aides.
While translations of the Arabic may differ, the people briefed on the call said Mr. Mutreb also said to the aide words to the effect of “the deed was done.”
“A phone call like that is about as close to a smoking gun as you are going to get,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer now at the Brookings Institution.
“It is pretty incriminating evidence.”
Turkish officials have said that the audio does not conclusively implicate Prince Mohammed, and American intelligence and other government officials have cautioned that however compelling the recording may be, it is still not irrefutable evidence of his involvement in the death of Mr. Khashoggi.
Even if Mr. Mutreb believed the killing was ordered by the crown prince, for example, he may have had an inaccurate understanding of the origins of the order.
Prince Mohammed is not specifically named on the recording, and intelligence officials do not have ironclad certainty that Mr. Mutreb was referring to him.
In a statement on Monday, Saudi officials denied that the crown prince “had any knowledge whatsoever” of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing.
Referring to Mr. Mutreb’s instructions to “tell your boss,” the Saudi statement said that Turkey had “allowed our intelligence services to hear recordings, and at no moment was there any reference to the mentioned phrase in the such recordings.”
The Turks may possess multiple recordings, including surveillance of telephone calls, and the Turkish authorities may have shared the audio only selectively.
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.
The call was part of a recording that Turkish officials played for Ms. Haspel during her visit in October to Ankara, Turkey’s capital, but they did not allow her to bring it back to the United States.
On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey announced that his government had shared the audio with Saudi Arabia, the United States and other Western allies.
But while Turkish officials have played the recording for American and other intelligence agencies and provided transcripts, the Turks have not handed over the recording for independent analysis, according to Turkish officials.
Turkey shared evidence from the case with “a large number of friendly nations,” a spokesman for Mr. Erdogan, Fahrettin Altun, said on Monday.
Reacting to French criticism of Turkey’s handling of the case, Mr. Altun said that the Turkish government had played an audio recording for French intelligence officials and given them transcripts.
“Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey’s determined efforts,” Mr. Altun said.
The growing evidence that Prince Mohammed was involved in the killing of Mr. Khashoggi is certain to intensify pressure on the White House, which appeared intent on relying on a lack of concrete proof of his involvement to preserve its relationship with the crown prince.
Prince Mohammed has fostered a close relationship with the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and the Trump administration has turned Saudi Arabia into Washington’s most crucial Arab partner.
Some Trump advisers have argued that they would need indisputable evidence of Prince Mohammed’s involvement in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing before they would punish him or the kingdom more harshly.
Turkish officials have said the recording contains evidence of a premeditated killing, in which Saudi agents quickly strangled Mr. Khashoggi and methodically dismembered his body with a bone saw.
The administration, according to current and former officials, is hoping that making some modest moves on sanctions and curtailing support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen will satisfy critics, including those on Capitol Hill.
But the shift in power in Congress, where Democrats take control of the House in January, is also increasing pressure on the administration to take more punitive action.
The C.I.A. and other intelligence officials were set to brief Congress this week, and congressional leaders will press Ms. Haspel for her assessment of Prince Mohammed’s culpability.
Mr. Trump himself has suggested more information would be coming out.
“I’ll have a much stronger opinion on that subject over the next week,” he told reporters on Wednesday at the White House.
“I am forming a very strong opinion.”
Signs of a hardening stance within the administration are emerging.
The State Department issued a tough statement on Sunday saying that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had told Prince Mohammed in a phone call that “the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable.”
Saudi officials planned to release their own inquiry in the coming days, but Turkey’s revelation that they and Western officials also have the transcripts of the recordings could force the Saudis to scramble before any presentation they planned to make.
Even without definitive proof, intelligence agencies had already concluded that only Prince Mohammed could have ordered the operation to kill Mr. Khashoggi, given the personal character of his governance and the depth of his control over the kingdom.
Evidence from the tape also showed that Mr. Khashoggi was killed soon after he entered the room of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul where the security team was waiting for him, further proof that the killing was planned, according to people briefed on the intelligence.
Current and former intelligence officials insisted that it is rare that all of the pieces of a complex puzzle like Mr. Khashoggi’s killing would ever be available.
Intelligence, according to a former official, simply does not work like a spy thriller or television cop show where a case turns on a crystal-clear recording.
Investigators were unlikely to collect a piece of evidence that incontrovertibly links the crown prince to the killing, said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who is set to lead the House Intelligence Committee next year.
“You are not going to have any of the people who carried out the murder speak openly about who they got their orders from or who is in the loop on it,” Mr. Schiff said in an interview.
“That is not realistic to expect.”
The absence of direct evidence does not prevent the intelligence community from laying responsibility at Prince Mohammed’s feet.
An intelligence assessment includes an agency’s best judgment on what happened based on the available facts and experience of officials.
Mr. Schiff promised that when he takes charge of the Intelligence Committee, he will investigate Mr. Khashoggi’s killing and examine Saudi Arabia’s actions more broadly in the Middle East, including its military campaign in Yemen, which has prompted a humanitarian crisis.
“We need to do our own due diligence, we need to make sure we are getting good intelligence, and we need to make sure the administration doesn’t misrepresent to the country what foreign actors are doing,” Mr. Schiff said.
Nonetheless, current and former officials said they do not expect Mr. Trump to drop his support for Prince Mohammed.
“The Trump family and the president have built up such an overwhelming reliance on the crown prince that the relationship is now, in their view, too big to fail,” Mr. Schiff said.
Policymakers — not Ms. Haspel or Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence — will decide what sort of relationship to have with Prince Mohammed and what punishment Saudi Arabia should face for Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, current and former officials said.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/%e2 ... id=HPDHP17
"‘Tell Your Boss’: Recording Is Seen to Link Saudi Crown Prince More Strongly to Khashoggi Killing"
By JULIAN E. BARNES, ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
13 NOVEMBER 2018
WASHINGTON — Shortly after the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated last month, a member of the kill team instructed a superior over the phone to “tell your boss,” believed to be Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, that the operatives had carried out their mission, according to three people familiar with a recording of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing collected by Turkish intelligence.
The recording, shared last month with the C.I.A. director, Gina Haspel, is seen by intelligence officials as some of the strongest evidence linking Prince Mohammed to the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, a Virginia resident and Washington Post columnist whose death prompted an international outcry.
While the prince was not mentioned by name, American intelligence officials believe “your boss” was a reference to Prince Mohammed.
Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, one of 15 Saudis dispatched to Istanbul to confront Mr. Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate there, made the phone call and spoke in Arabic, the people said.
Turkish intelligence officers have told American officials they believe that Mr. Mutreb, a security officer who frequently traveled with Prince Mohammed, was speaking to one of the prince’s aides.
While translations of the Arabic may differ, the people briefed on the call said Mr. Mutreb also said to the aide words to the effect of “the deed was done.”
“A phone call like that is about as close to a smoking gun as you are going to get,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer now at the Brookings Institution.
“It is pretty incriminating evidence.”
Turkish officials have said that the audio does not conclusively implicate Prince Mohammed, and American intelligence and other government officials have cautioned that however compelling the recording may be, it is still not irrefutable evidence of his involvement in the death of Mr. Khashoggi.
Even if Mr. Mutreb believed the killing was ordered by the crown prince, for example, he may have had an inaccurate understanding of the origins of the order.
Prince Mohammed is not specifically named on the recording, and intelligence officials do not have ironclad certainty that Mr. Mutreb was referring to him.
In a statement on Monday, Saudi officials denied that the crown prince “had any knowledge whatsoever” of Mr. Khashoggi’s killing.
Referring to Mr. Mutreb’s instructions to “tell your boss,” the Saudi statement said that Turkey had “allowed our intelligence services to hear recordings, and at no moment was there any reference to the mentioned phrase in the such recordings.”
The Turks may possess multiple recordings, including surveillance of telephone calls, and the Turkish authorities may have shared the audio only selectively.
A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment.
The call was part of a recording that Turkish officials played for Ms. Haspel during her visit in October to Ankara, Turkey’s capital, but they did not allow her to bring it back to the United States.
On Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey announced that his government had shared the audio with Saudi Arabia, the United States and other Western allies.
But while Turkish officials have played the recording for American and other intelligence agencies and provided transcripts, the Turks have not handed over the recording for independent analysis, according to Turkish officials.
Turkey shared evidence from the case with “a large number of friendly nations,” a spokesman for Mr. Erdogan, Fahrettin Altun, said on Monday.
Reacting to French criticism of Turkey’s handling of the case, Mr. Altun said that the Turkish government had played an audio recording for French intelligence officials and given them transcripts.
“Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey’s determined efforts,” Mr. Altun said.
The growing evidence that Prince Mohammed was involved in the killing of Mr. Khashoggi is certain to intensify pressure on the White House, which appeared intent on relying on a lack of concrete proof of his involvement to preserve its relationship with the crown prince.
Prince Mohammed has fostered a close relationship with the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and the Trump administration has turned Saudi Arabia into Washington’s most crucial Arab partner.
Some Trump advisers have argued that they would need indisputable evidence of Prince Mohammed’s involvement in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing before they would punish him or the kingdom more harshly.
Turkish officials have said the recording contains evidence of a premeditated killing, in which Saudi agents quickly strangled Mr. Khashoggi and methodically dismembered his body with a bone saw.
The administration, according to current and former officials, is hoping that making some modest moves on sanctions and curtailing support for the Saudi war effort in Yemen will satisfy critics, including those on Capitol Hill.
But the shift in power in Congress, where Democrats take control of the House in January, is also increasing pressure on the administration to take more punitive action.
The C.I.A. and other intelligence officials were set to brief Congress this week, and congressional leaders will press Ms. Haspel for her assessment of Prince Mohammed’s culpability.
Mr. Trump himself has suggested more information would be coming out.
“I’ll have a much stronger opinion on that subject over the next week,” he told reporters on Wednesday at the White House.
“I am forming a very strong opinion.”
Signs of a hardening stance within the administration are emerging.
The State Department issued a tough statement on Sunday saying that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had told Prince Mohammed in a phone call that “the United States will hold all of those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi accountable.”
Saudi officials planned to release their own inquiry in the coming days, but Turkey’s revelation that they and Western officials also have the transcripts of the recordings could force the Saudis to scramble before any presentation they planned to make.
Even without definitive proof, intelligence agencies had already concluded that only Prince Mohammed could have ordered the operation to kill Mr. Khashoggi, given the personal character of his governance and the depth of his control over the kingdom.
Evidence from the tape also showed that Mr. Khashoggi was killed soon after he entered the room of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul where the security team was waiting for him, further proof that the killing was planned, according to people briefed on the intelligence.
Current and former intelligence officials insisted that it is rare that all of the pieces of a complex puzzle like Mr. Khashoggi’s killing would ever be available.
Intelligence, according to a former official, simply does not work like a spy thriller or television cop show where a case turns on a crystal-clear recording.
Investigators were unlikely to collect a piece of evidence that incontrovertibly links the crown prince to the killing, said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who is set to lead the House Intelligence Committee next year.
“You are not going to have any of the people who carried out the murder speak openly about who they got their orders from or who is in the loop on it,” Mr. Schiff said in an interview.
“That is not realistic to expect.”
The absence of direct evidence does not prevent the intelligence community from laying responsibility at Prince Mohammed’s feet.
An intelligence assessment includes an agency’s best judgment on what happened based on the available facts and experience of officials.
Mr. Schiff promised that when he takes charge of the Intelligence Committee, he will investigate Mr. Khashoggi’s killing and examine Saudi Arabia’s actions more broadly in the Middle East, including its military campaign in Yemen, which has prompted a humanitarian crisis.
“We need to do our own due diligence, we need to make sure we are getting good intelligence, and we need to make sure the administration doesn’t misrepresent to the country what foreign actors are doing,” Mr. Schiff said.
Nonetheless, current and former officials said they do not expect Mr. Trump to drop his support for Prince Mohammed.
“The Trump family and the president have built up such an overwhelming reliance on the crown prince that the relationship is now, in their view, too big to fail,” Mr. Schiff said.
Policymakers — not Ms. Haspel or Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence — will decide what sort of relationship to have with Prince Mohammed and what punishment Saudi Arabia should face for Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, current and former officials said.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/%e2 ... id=HPDHP17
Re: THE MIDDLE EAST
BUSINESS INSIDER
"America's 'war on terror' has cost the US nearly $6 trillion and killed roughly half a million people, and there's no end in sight"
John Haltiwanger
Nov. 14, 2018, 12:57 PM
Analysis
* The US will have spent nearly $6 trillion on the war on terror by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to a startling new report.
* "If the US continues on its current path, war spending will continue to grow," the Costs of War report states.
* Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States' post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - including nearly 7,000 US troops - according to the Costs of War project.
* America is conducting counterterror operations in 76 countries and US troops are fighting and dying everywhere from Afghanistan to Niger.
The US will have dished out nearly $6 trillion on the war on terror by October 2019, and there's no end in sight to the convoluted, ill-defined conflict.
According to an annual report from the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the total cost of the war on terror will reach roughly $5.9 trillion through fiscal year 2019.
This is far higher than the Pentagon's official calculation of $1.5 trillion because it goes beyond Defense Department appropriations and includes the cost of "spending across the federal government that is a consequence of these wars."
The report also factors in war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans' care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.
"If the US continues on its current path, war spending will continue to grow," the report states.
"Even if the wars are ended by 2023, the US would still be on track to spend an additional $808 billion to total at least $6.7 trillion, not including future interest costs," the report adds.
"Moreover, the costs of war will likely be greater than this because, unless the US immediately ends its deployments, the number of veterans associated with the post-9/11 wars will also grow."
'This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while'
The war on terror was born out of the 9/11 terror attacks over 17 years ago.
"This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while," former President George W. Bush said on the White House South Lawn on Sept. 16, 2001.
"And the American people must be patient."
"I'm going to be patient..."
"It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century."
This was two days after Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which essentially gave Bush and his two successors carte blanche to deploy US military personnel and assets virtually anywhere in the world for the sake of fighting terrorism.
Nearly two decades later, America is conducting counterterror operations in 76 countries and US troops are fighting and dying everywhere from Afghanistan to Niger.
At this point, it's not clear what victory would even mean in the context of this broad conflict, which the US public seems to pay less and less attention to.
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is dead.
But the Taliban seem stronger than ever in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and its affiliates are active across multiple continents, and the US is also still fighting against the Islamic State group.
It's unlikely the roughly 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan will be coming home anytime soon, and the same goes for the approximately 2,200 US troops in Syria.
The war has been accompanied by hundreds of thousands of deaths as well as violations of human rights and civil liberties, both at home and abroad.
Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States' post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - including nearly 7,000 US troops - according to the Costs of War project.
Beyond the monetary issues related to the so-called war on terror, there's a massive human cost as well.
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-war ... ?r=UK&IR=T
"America's 'war on terror' has cost the US nearly $6 trillion and killed roughly half a million people, and there's no end in sight"
John Haltiwanger
Nov. 14, 2018, 12:57 PM
Analysis
* The US will have spent nearly $6 trillion on the war on terror by the end of fiscal year 2019, according to a startling new report.
* "If the US continues on its current path, war spending will continue to grow," the Costs of War report states.
* Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States' post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - including nearly 7,000 US troops - according to the Costs of War project.
* America is conducting counterterror operations in 76 countries and US troops are fighting and dying everywhere from Afghanistan to Niger.
The US will have dished out nearly $6 trillion on the war on terror by October 2019, and there's no end in sight to the convoluted, ill-defined conflict.
According to an annual report from the Costs of War project at Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, the total cost of the war on terror will reach roughly $5.9 trillion through fiscal year 2019.
This is far higher than the Pentagon's official calculation of $1.5 trillion because it goes beyond Defense Department appropriations and includes the cost of "spending across the federal government that is a consequence of these wars."
The report also factors in war-related spending by the Department of State, past and obligated spending for war veterans' care, interest on the debt incurred to pay for the wars, and the prevention of and response to terrorism by the Department of Homeland Security.
"If the US continues on its current path, war spending will continue to grow," the report states.
"Even if the wars are ended by 2023, the US would still be on track to spend an additional $808 billion to total at least $6.7 trillion, not including future interest costs," the report adds.
"Moreover, the costs of war will likely be greater than this because, unless the US immediately ends its deployments, the number of veterans associated with the post-9/11 wars will also grow."
'This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while'
The war on terror was born out of the 9/11 terror attacks over 17 years ago.
"This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while," former President George W. Bush said on the White House South Lawn on Sept. 16, 2001.
"And the American people must be patient."
"I'm going to be patient..."
"It is time for us to win the first war of the 21st century decisively, so that our children and our grandchildren can live peacefully into the 21st century."
This was two days after Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which essentially gave Bush and his two successors carte blanche to deploy US military personnel and assets virtually anywhere in the world for the sake of fighting terrorism.
Nearly two decades later, America is conducting counterterror operations in 76 countries and US troops are fighting and dying everywhere from Afghanistan to Niger.
At this point, it's not clear what victory would even mean in the context of this broad conflict, which the US public seems to pay less and less attention to.
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is dead.
But the Taliban seem stronger than ever in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and its affiliates are active across multiple continents, and the US is also still fighting against the Islamic State group.
It's unlikely the roughly 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan will be coming home anytime soon, and the same goes for the approximately 2,200 US troops in Syria.
The war has been accompanied by hundreds of thousands of deaths as well as violations of human rights and civil liberties, both at home and abroad.
Between 480,000 and 507,000 people have been killed in the United States' post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - including nearly 7,000 US troops - according to the Costs of War project.
Beyond the monetary issues related to the so-called war on terror, there's a massive human cost as well.
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-war ... ?r=UK&IR=T