Richard Clark… UAE most important mercenary in Washington

Documents included in a survey investigating Reuters news agency that former White House and Defense Department official Richard Clarke had helped the UAE build its espionage capabilities.

The documents show that Clark is one of the most prominent figures who defend the interests of the UAE in Washington, and he supervised an intelligence spying program for Abu Dhabi in exchange for large sums of money.

The US authorities are investigating the Emirati spy program that was supervised by Clark and focused on hacking e-mail in neglected sites such as Google, Yahoo and Hotmail, to serve the political goals of Abu Dhabi authorities and track their opponents.

The nature of Washington allows the existence of pressure groups (lobbies) of a different type and informally working for a foreign country, away from the official pressure groups. American laws do not require unofficial pressure groups to register with the Justice Department and report to them, including periodic transparent declarations, detailing all activities carried out by these lobbies.

There are many indirect ways in which the UAE has used – and is still – using this type of pressure establishment, and the most important of them is the use of influential figures who know the wheels of Washington well.

There are no legal restrictions on the work of former government officials in US or foreign companies, as long as they do not disclose the secrets they know about US national security.

The UAE has successfully exploited this loophole to use influential figures in the American capital, led by Richard Clarke, who was formerly the coordinator for national security and counterterrorism in the United States, and helped the UAE in building the secret unit that started its work in 2008 under the name “Development Department” Exploitation and research.”

Clark’s relationship with the ruler of Abu Dhabi and its crown prince, Mohammed bin Zayed, dates back to the 1990s, and the New York Times indicates that Richard Clarke – Assistant Secretary of State at the time – reassured members of the US Congress after the UAE’s desire to buy huge American military hardware.

From what Muhammad bin Zayed said, “The young Emir of Abu Dhabi will never turn into an aggressive man.” He added in a testimony before Congress: “The United Arab Emirates is not, and never will be, a source of threat to stability and peace in the region. It is very difficult to imagine the occurrence of that is, but the UAE is a force for peace. ”

Clark then worked as an adviser to former US President George W. Bush on international terrorism, and currently heads the Middle East Institute in Washington, and heads a consulting firm called “Harper Group” and the main customer of this company is the UAE government.

After the outbreak of the siege crisis in Qatar in early June 2017, Clarke wrote an article in the right-wing New York Daily News, in which he claimed that Qatar “bears part of the responsibility for the September 11 and other major terrorist attacks, given that it harbored one of the most dangerous terrorists in The world, protecting him and denying the US security services his arrest, ”referring to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad who is described as the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Clark has served for more than thirty years in several government security agencies, including the National Security Agency, the State Department, and the Pentagon. During the government of President Ronald Reagan, he also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence, then Assistant Secretary of State for Civilian Military Relations.

He served ten years on the National Security Council as an assistant to President George W. Bush on international relations, as a coordinator for counterterrorism affairs, and then served as the president’s advisor for cyber security.

Clark also sits on the boards of several technology companies interested in the cyber security sector, and was chosen to serve on the board of directors of Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.

A study released by the Center for International Policy in Washington, Richard Mintz – Clark’s right arm – describes him as the spokesperson for the Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba.

According to documents from the US Department of Justice, in 2018, Harper Group carried out 441 activities for the Abu Dhabi authorities.

The company’s customer list is limited to only two clients, the Emirates Embassy in Washington, and the Executive Affairs Authority in Abu Dhabi, which is the body authorized to provide legal, economic and strategic consultations to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed.

Clark’s last article was on an article on May 6, 2019 in the New York Daily News entitled “Are we heading to war against Iran?” Certainly yes, ”and that was his latest contribution to fueling the tone of the clash against Tehran in American circles in Washington.