0:03

So,

0:03

general Alexander, I'll turn the podium to you and

0:05

thank you again for being with us.

0:11

In twenty thirteen, Keith Alexander

0:13

was at the height of his career in military

0:15

power.

0:16

At that point, the four star army general

0:18

was the longest serving director of the

0:20

NSA. He was also the first

0:22

head of the US cybersecurity command.

0:25

You know, the most important thing that we can

0:28

do is train our people.

0:30

The

0:30

best in the world. That's what

0:32

the American people expect of our military

0:34

and of our intelligence community. But

0:37

this isn't a story about what American generals

0:39

do at the height of their military careers.

0:41

It's about what they do after.

0:45

In the case of General Alexander, he

0:47

runs a firm that worked closely with the Saudi

0:49

government. even after the killing of

0:51

journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Its

0:54

common knowledge in the United States at many

0:56

retired military officials particularly

0:59

senior officers go to work for defense

1:01

contractors when they retire. They call it

1:03

a revolving door. You work at the Pentagon,

1:06

you retired, then you have really good

1:08

contacts with arms manufacturers and

1:10

defense contractors, so you

1:12

go to work for them. What we found

1:15

is that there's sort of a new revolving door

1:17

that's taken place over the last ten years

1:19

where you have retired military officials

1:22

going to work for foreign governments. Craig

1:25

Whitlock is an investigative reporter for

1:27

the post. He spent the last two

1:29

years uncovering this new revolving

1:31

door. from US military service

1:34

to serving foreign governments. You

1:38

may be wondering if this is legal, but

1:40

the US military has actually approved

1:42

a lot of this work.

1:45

From the newsroom of the Washington Post,

1:48

this is post reports I'm

1:50

arguing saying, it's Tuesday,

1:53

October eighteenth. Today,

1:56

the hundreds of retired US military

1:58

personnel who have taken jobs working

2:00

for foreign governments, including

2:03

some with terrible human rights

2:05

records.

2:11

Craig has been reporting for years

2:13

on the role of money in the military and

2:15

how that affects national security.

2:17

And when President Trump was in office,

2:20

something happened that caught Craig's attention

2:22

and kick started his investigation. You

2:25

Michael Flynn the retired army

2:27

general who served as Trump's first national

2:29

security adviser. He got into

2:32

trouble with the FBI for a number of things for

2:34

his dealings with Russia. Newly released documents

2:37

show Flynn received more than

2:39

sixty seven thousand dollars in fees and expenses.

2:42

Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat

2:44

on the house oversight committee believes

2:46

Flynn may have broken US and military

2:48

law. But one side

2:50

aspect of his case was that

2:53

he also had failed

2:55

to obtain clearance from the US

2:57

army and the state department before

2:59

he made a trip to Moscow back

3:02

in twenty sixteen to

3:04

attend the dinner with Vladimir Putin.

3:06

President Trump's fired national security adviser,

3:08

Michael Flynn, just a short time ago, cutting

3:10

a deal at a plea agreement hearing at federal court.

3:13

In Washington DC, General

3:14

Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the

3:16

FBI, admitting he misled

3:19

investigators about his interactions with

3:21

the former Russian ambassador, Sergei

3:23

Kislyak. When

3:24

that became news back in twenty seventeen,

3:26

twenty eighteen, at the post

3:28

we just wondered, well, this is something

3:30

we didn't even realize it hadn't occurred to

3:32

most people that retired military personnel

3:35

had to apply for before they

3:37

could accept gifts or even

3:40

travel expenses from foreign government.

3:42

So we were curious how common

3:44

this was And who were

3:46

people working for? Were there other people

3:48

working for the Russians or the Chinese

3:50

or what? So we put in some

3:52

public records requests under the

3:54

Freedom Information Act with

3:56

each of the Armed Forces, the

3:59

Army, Navy Air Force, and and

4:01

the State Department. And Long

4:03

story short, it took us a long time to

4:06

squeeze those records out of the government.

4:08

We had to file two lawsuits under

4:11

the Freedom Information Act in federal

4:13

court, and we finally compelled

4:16

the Armed Forces and the State Department

4:18

to release a whole bunch of records about four

4:20

thousand pages worth. And

4:22

that's why it took so long to get our arms

4:24

around it because the government frankly had

4:27

tried to keep this information from becoming

4:29

public. who are the people we're talking

4:31

about? Are we talking about a handful of high

4:33

profile names? Are we talking about a

4:35

couple dozen people? How

4:37

how many? Well, more than

4:39

five hundred since twenty fifteen.

4:41

And those are ones who got permission,

4:44

got approval to do this. There's

4:46

probably an equal number who

4:49

who didn't bother to get their paperwork

4:51

stamped, didn't bother to get permission. This

4:53

is a law that's not really

4:55

enforced very strictly. So --

4:57

Mhmm. -- one finding of our investigation was

4:59

that more than half of the people

5:01

who seek federal permission to work

5:03

for foreign governments who are going to

5:05

work for one country, and that's

5:07

the United Arab Emirates. That's

5:10

one of the Persian Gulf shakedowns that

5:12

their whole economy really is based

5:14

on contracting and outsourcing. to

5:17

have that number of people more than

5:19

two hundred and eighty since twenty fifteen

5:21

going to work for the Emirati government.

5:24

They're working as advisors, as

5:26

contractors, and really doing

5:28

the same thing they did for the United States. Their

5:30

helicopter mechanics, They're working

5:32

on Patriot missile batteries. You

5:34

know, they're they're teaching people how to fly

5:36

certain aircraft as

5:38

well as high ranking strategic advisers.

5:42

So the best known example of someone

5:44

going to work for the United Arab Emirates

5:46

was actually marine

5:48

general Jim Mattis who's our former

5:50

secretary of defense. Mhmm. Hi,

5:52

James Monaghan. You too solemnly

5:54

swear. Hi, James Jordan. How about

5:56

it? to call me swear, and

5:58

I will support independent

5:59

constitution of the United States, and I

6:02

will support independent

6:03

constitution of the United States.

6:05

And

6:05

we found out that he applied twice

6:08

for foreign government employment with the United

6:10

Arab Emirates. And, you know, that

6:12

he had served as the head of

6:14

all US military operations in

6:16

the Middle East, so he was very well acquainted

6:19

with the Emirati leadership. we

6:21

asked General Mattis, you know, how much did

6:23

they pay you for this? He said

6:25

he he did this as on an unpaid

6:27

basis, but it's a

6:29

little strange that you would have such

6:31

a high ranking retired

6:33

general work as a military adviser for

6:35

a foreign government what's different

6:37

in Manus' case is that after

6:40

he was working as an adviser for

6:42

the United Arab Emirates, he comes

6:44

back into US government

6:46

service as the secretary of defense.

6:48

He becomes president Trump's first

6:51

secretary of defense And this

6:53

was something that never really was made public

6:55

at the time that Mattis had

6:57

served as a military adviser. Again,

6:59

he says unpaid, but still, this was

7:01

a a role he held for a foreign government,

7:04

and then he comes back and he's in charge

7:06

of our armed forces. So

7:08

this was this was a twist in turn that we

7:10

hadn't really expected -- Mhmm. -- but sort

7:12

of opened our eyes to the extent this

7:14

is going on overseas. Well,

7:16

can you tell me a little bit, like, what are the implications

7:19

exactly of having, you

7:21

know, high ranking military officials

7:24

working for foreign governments, and then in Mattis's

7:26

case coming back to work for

7:28

the US government. You know, what is the

7:30

what is the what are the broad concerns of

7:33

having people participate in this

7:35

revolving door? So the United

7:37

Arab Emirates, even though it's a very small

7:39

country with only about a million of its own

7:41

citizens, Over the last

7:43

ten or fifteen years, it's build up a

7:45

pretty strong military force.

7:47

It's probably the best equipped and

7:50

most capable army

7:52

in the Middle East of all the Arab

7:54

countries, save for Israel, of course.

7:56

So this is a country that's built

7:58

up its military with an

7:59

awful lot of American help,

8:02

both at the strategic advice level,

8:04

but also at the grunt level. You

8:06

know, we have hundreds of people there working

8:08

as contractors. And the way that's

8:11

possibly problematic is

8:14

the Emirates have gone

8:16

from just trying to defend their own territory

8:18

till they become more aggressive in

8:20

Yemen since twenty

8:22

fifteen United Arab

8:24

Emirates, in the Saudis, and other

8:26

members of a a Middle Eastern coalition,

8:29

intervened in the Yemeni civil

8:31

war IN TENS OF THOUSANDS OF

8:33

CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN THAT AND HAS BEEN A

8:35

TERRIBLE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS, A

8:37

HUMANITARY CRISIS that

8:40

nobody's been able to resolve this war is

8:42

lingered on. Another

8:44

example is United Arab Emirates has gotten

8:46

involved in the civil war in Libya.

8:48

So here you have this small gulf country

8:50

becoming increasingly aggressive

8:52

militarily in other

8:54

conflicts in North Africa and the Middle

8:56

East. And this is something that

8:58

the US Congress has been

9:00

very critical of. You know, why are you

9:02

getting involved in these wars? And

9:04

yet at the same time, you have retired

9:07

US military personnel enabling

9:09

this kind of policy, this kind of

9:11

behavior in the part of the UAE.

9:13

So that's certainly an unforeseen consequence

9:16

of the US government allowing

9:19

its veterans to go work

9:21

for foreign governments. I think at the beginning, it

9:23

sounds good, it sounds non

9:25

problematic. These are people just looking

9:27

for a second line of work once

9:29

they retire. But, you

9:31

know, the foreign policy implications I

9:33

think US government hasn't thought through

9:35

very well, and that's certainly

9:37

something we're hoping to highlight in our

9:39

coverage.

9:39

After

9:43

the break, Craig tells us just how

9:46

deep these outside advisors have gone into

9:48

foreign militaries. and what

9:50

some of them have to say about the work they

9:52

did, we'll be right

9:54

back.

10:10

You know, we've been talking about the United

10:12

Arab Emirates, but another country

10:14

that you discovered within this investigation

10:16

that has a lot of ties with foreign military

10:18

officials is Saudi Arabia, and

10:20

that's a country that's got a very

10:22

poor human rights wreck. even

10:24

president Biden hasn't shied away from

10:26

calling that out. I made my view

10:28

crystal clear. I said

10:30

very straightforwardly. for an

10:32

American president to be silent on the issue of

10:34

human rights. Is this consistent with

10:37

inconsistent with who we are and who

10:39

I am? I'll always

10:41

stand up for our values. US

10:43

intelligence is pointed to

10:45

the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's

10:47

involvement in the assassination of

10:49

Jamal Khashoggi, did

10:52

you talk to any former military

10:54

officials who worked with the Saudi

10:56

government? Like, what was their reasoning?

10:58

or justification for working with them?

11:01

So in this case, the

11:03

defense ministry in Saudi Arabia is

11:05

headed by the crown prince, Prince Mohammed,

11:07

so he's He's not only the de

11:09

facto ruler of the country, he's also the head

11:11

of the military. And starting in

11:13

twenty fifteen, he started

11:15

asking retired US generals and

11:17

generals come to him to help him transform

11:19

the structure of the Saudi military to

11:21

sort of modernize the command

11:24

and control systems because

11:26

at that point the Saudi military was sort of

11:28

broken up into different fieftoms.

11:30

Mhmm. So I think crown prince

11:32

Mohammed was looking for American help to help

11:34

him make make his armed forces more

11:36

effective if that makes sense. But in light

11:38

of all of these things that have come out about

11:40

that, what what did the people who worked

11:42

with the Saudi government tell you why did they

11:44

feel that it didn't, you know, kind

11:46

of misaligned with US interests, if you

11:48

will. So one person I had a long

11:50

interview with was Marine

11:52

General James Jones, and General

11:55

Jones had been president Obama's national

11:57

security adviser at the White House for two

11:59

years. He was the NATO supreme

12:01

allied commander when he was on active duty,

12:03

and he was the commandant of the

12:05

Marine Corps, which means he was the top general in the

12:07

Marine Corps. So this is someone who's had

12:10

long and distinguished record in

12:12

uniform. And yet now he's in his in his

12:14

seventies and he heads up a couple of

12:16

consulting firms. and that was a question I had

12:18

for him. He, you know, he explained that

12:20

Prince Mohammed had asked him to come over to

12:22

help him, you know, come up with

12:24

vice and recommendations for revamping the

12:26

Saudi military, but what we

12:28

found is that his companies actually got

12:30

more contracts and had sent more

12:32

people to Saudi Arabia after

12:35

Qashoggi's death than before.

12:37

And his explanation for

12:39

that was that He was

12:41

worried that the Saudis might drift

12:43

away from the American orbit, that it was

12:45

very important to maintain the

12:47

strategic relationship between United States

12:49

and Saudi Arabia that he was worried

12:52

that if the United States pulled out its

12:54

involvement at his level or

12:56

at the diplomatic level or the

12:58

military level that the Saudis might

13:00

gravitate toward China and Russia. And

13:02

this is certainly something that's come up

13:04

quite a bit in public debate. You know,

13:06

is it worthwhile to maintain this

13:08

long standing strategic relationship with

13:10

Saudi Arabia or does it need to

13:12

be readressed in light of their

13:14

pretty awful human rights record?

13:16

Mhmm. And Frankly, their

13:18

intervention in Yemen, which has been a terrible

13:20

civilian disaster. What

13:24

does the US government do in that kind

13:26

of a situation are limitations

13:29

on when and

13:32

how they can go about working with these governments?

13:34

Because in one sense, that almost

13:36

sounds like General Jones was

13:38

conducting his own version of

13:40

foreign policies separate from the White

13:42

House. General Jones made it

13:44

clear that if the US government

13:46

had advised him to get out they

13:48

would have. I think he wasn't trying to

13:50

operate as some kind of rogue foreign

13:52

policy person, but Legally, there's

13:54

not really much US government can do. I

13:56

mean, once these retired military

13:58

officers have gotten permission

13:59

upfront, from

14:01

the military or from the state department,

14:03

you know, that's really the only

14:06

break they have on their involvement

14:08

with foreign governments. And even then, it's a

14:10

pretty toothless Law. The only thing the

14:12

military can do if

14:14

you go work for a foreign government

14:16

without approval is they can dock your

14:18

your military pension. there's

14:20

no jail time. It's not a criminal

14:23

penalty. You just might get fined.

14:25

And in our reporting, we

14:27

found that the US military is only

14:29

fine fewer than five people

14:31

over probably twenty years for

14:33

violating this law, so it's not

14:35

something that's enforced very much. Are there

14:37

other people that of

14:39

that stature that the public might

14:41

know, military officials who

14:43

the public might have heard of who

14:45

are also participating in this. Like, what are some of the

14:47

more well known names that you found in this

14:50

investigation? So,

14:52

there's an army general Hired now,

14:54

Forrester, named Keith Alexander

14:56

-- Mhmm. -- and his claim to

14:58

fame was that he was the head of the National

15:00

Security Agency. Right? So this

15:02

was somebody who's at the very

15:04

top of the intelligence and

15:06

military world in the United States.

15:08

He's now retired, but

15:10

General Alexander had put in for

15:12

permission to go, advise and

15:14

consult for the Saudi government. And

15:16

in particular, his company

15:18

is is a consulting firm called iron

15:20

net security, and they do consulting

15:22

on cyber security and

15:24

cyber warfare and stuff like that. But

15:26

his job in Saudi Arabia is his

15:29

company was going to advise a new

15:31

institution in Saudi Arabia

15:33

called Getthis, the Crown Prince

15:35

Mohammed College of Cyprus security.

15:38

Wow. So this was a a college that was

15:40

set up in the name of the crown prince

15:42

to train Saudi's, to

15:44

be cyber warriors. The

15:46

timing of this was really interesting

15:48

that the Saudi government announced

15:50

that it had hired General

15:52

Alexander's consulting firm in

15:54

July of twenty eighteen, three

15:56

months before Jamal Khashoggi

15:58

is killed. So general

16:00

Alexander's application with

16:02

the army and the state department to

16:04

work with the Saudis is

16:06

pending WHILE JAMAL Khashoggi

16:09

WAS KILLED. AND WHAT WE

16:11

FOUND IS THAT TWO MONTHS

16:13

AFTERWARD, THE STATE DEPARTMENT GIVE

16:15

APPROVAL for General Alexander to

16:17

work with Crown Prince Mohammed

16:19

College of Cybersecurity. The other

16:21

interesting aspect of this is

16:23

A key figure in the

16:25

cybersecurity college was an

16:27

aid of the crown prince's name,

16:30

Saad al Khatani. And al

16:32

Khatani was sort of his right hand man

16:34

in a lot of ways, the the the

16:36

prince's hatchet man. And he

16:38

was a guy literally who was assigned

16:40

to squelch descent

16:42

in the kingdom and track

16:44

down critics of the crown prince overseas.

16:47

And he was involved in orchestrating the

16:49

assassination of Jamal Khashoggi,

16:51

according to US

16:53

intelligence. So to give you a sense of

16:55

the timing on this shortly after

16:57

Khashoggi's murder, the US

17:00

treasury issued sanctions

17:02

on the crown prince's aid, this guy

17:04

Al Khattani, and yet at the same time the

17:06

state department gives approval for

17:08

general Alexander to

17:10

be an adviser to

17:12

a college of cyber in Saudi

17:14

Arabia that's essentially run by

17:16

this same guy. So you can see

17:18

this disconnect here And

17:21

I don't have a good answer for why

17:23

they're doing it. Is it just that they're

17:25

they're stamping paperwork and acting

17:27

reflexively? Or is somebody really

17:30

stepping back at senior levels in

17:32

the government and sort of weighing

17:34

the consequences of this for

17:36

US foreign policy? And it certainly

17:38

seems like no one is really paying

17:40

attention to the foreign policy

17:42

implications of this. Did

17:43

you ever reach out to Alexander? What

17:45

was his response to any of this? We

17:47

did request an interview with General

17:50

Alexander. He declined, but a spokeswoman

17:52

for his company did

17:54

respond. And she noted that General

17:56

Alexander's company stopped working in

17:58

Saudi Arabia in twenty twenty.

17:59

So two years after

18:02

Khashoggi's death, She also said

18:04

that general Alexander himself

18:06

did not personally work on this consulting

18:09

contract and that he did not help the

18:11

Saudi College of Cybersecurity. But

18:13

of course, his company did. And

18:15

Alexander's the the

18:17

founder, CEO, and chairman of the company, so

18:19

certainly he's benefiting financially from

18:21

the contract with the Saudis.

18:24

Well, let's talk about money. I mean, how

18:26

much are we talking in terms

18:28

of payments towards these

18:31

retired officials. Is it comparable to their

18:33

military salary or is it way

18:35

more? We defied a two year court

18:37

battle over this. And the military

18:39

in particular said It's not in the public's

18:41

interest to know how much people

18:43

like General Mattis or General

18:45

Jones or General Alexander earning. And what

18:47

we did find out is sort

18:49

of bizarrely the armed

18:51

forces did release documents on

18:53

how lower ranking people, how much money

18:55

they're making. So depending on the job

18:57

and depending on the country, by

18:59

and large the pay is better than what they

19:01

received when they were in uniform in the

19:03

United States. For instance, there are

19:05

a number of retired colonels AND

19:08

ARMY Colonels, MARINE Colonels,

19:10

NAVY CAPTINS WHO ARE WORKING FOR

19:12

GENERAL JONES' COMPANIES IN

19:14

Saudi Arabia. and a lot of them paid

19:16

anywhere from two hundred and fifty

19:18

thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars

19:20

a year. That's a lot higher

19:22

than than you earned in the US

19:24

military. And again, these are people

19:26

who are colonels and captains, not

19:28

generals and admirals. I think it's a safe

19:30

bet that the generals and admirals are

19:32

earning much more. And do they

19:35

always have these positions as

19:37

outside advisors or strategic

19:39

advisors? Or are there examples of

19:42

people who got much more

19:44

enmeshed in foreign militaries. So we

19:46

found a few cases of retired

19:48

navy seals. Right? You know, special

19:51

operator who are working as either

19:53

special operations advisers or

19:55

in some cases, firing

19:57

range instructors or people

19:59

who are you know, really, you

20:01

know, hands on instructors with

20:03

special operations forces in other countries.

20:05

They're not in uniform but they're teaching

20:07

them how to be special operations

20:10

forces. And in a few cases, yeah, the

20:12

the Navy's heels are making

20:14

two, three hundred thousand dollars

20:16

working for the Saudis or the

20:18

United Arab Emirates for their

20:20

militaries, which again is far more than

20:22

they made when they were in uniform in the

20:24

United States. And I guess

20:26

to help me kind of understand

20:28

some of the differences in this

20:30

kind of work, the US military will

20:34

go and send people to teach

20:36

different militaries under

20:38

US policy as an umbrella.

20:41

But these people are able to go and make

20:43

significantly more money teaching

20:45

militaries. And also,

20:47

they're not

20:48

necessarily doing it with

20:51

full government approval, more government

20:54

knowledge? That's exactly right. And that's a

20:56

question. Are they doing the same thing? What what are

20:58

they doing extra? And and

21:00

and who's benefiting how from this kind of

21:02

arrangement. It's blurring a lot of lines

21:04

in terms of duties and

21:07

responsibilities and who

21:09

has allegiance to whom in these kind of situations,

21:11

which is the public really is

21:14

unaware. What is the impact or

21:16

implications of having

21:18

this amount of private money

21:21

working within the culture of the military

21:23

in the Pentagon? This

21:25

gets at a bigger issue of people

21:27

who serve in the US military,

21:29

when they're on active duty, when

21:31

they're serving their country, they're certainly not getting

21:33

rich. These are public servants, they're

21:35

they're making a lot of sacrifices to

21:37

serve their country economically. You

21:39

know, their families go through a lot. They

21:41

put their lives on the line, obviously. So

21:44

I do think that once they retire

21:47

and they're no longer obligated

21:49

to serve the United States, there's

21:51

an understandable desire in

21:53

their part to make some money to

21:56

take care of their families and become

21:58

comfortable in retirement. And there's

21:59

certainly nothing wrong with that. I think

22:02

the question is how you do

22:04

it. Certainly, this is something

22:06

that's always kind of happened

22:08

behind closed doors that hasn't really been a

22:10

light shine on it before and that's

22:13

why we spend as much time as we did

22:15

trying to get to the bottom

22:17

of it.

22:20

Craig, thank you so much for taking the time to talk

22:22

to us today. You bet. Thanks for

22:24

your interest.

22:27

Craig Whitlock is an investigative reporter for

22:30

the post. This story was

22:32

produced by Alonocorin. That's

22:35

it for post reports. Thanks for listening.

22:37

Today's show is edited by Maggie

22:39

Penman. It was mixed by Rennie Strenovsky

22:41

and Sean Carter. Thank

22:44

you to Nate Jones David Fallas, Sarah

22:46

Childress in Wendy Galliana.

22:49

I'm Arjun Singh. The

22:51

lie Ezadi will be back tomorrow with more stories

22:53

from the Washington Post.