This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 KUWAIT 004380 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARPI, LONDON FOR TSOU, PARIS FOR ZEYA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/09/2015 
TAGS: PTER PREL IZ IR KU KUWAIT IRAQ RELATIONS
SUBJECT: A VIEW FROM THE KUWAIT/IRAQ BORDER, FROM NAVISTAR 
TO UMM QASR 
 
REF: A. KUWAIT 3331 
     ¶B. PHOTOS ON EMBASSY KUWAIT WEBSITE 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Richard LeBaron for reasons 1.4 (a), (b), and 
 (d) 
 
¶1.  (U) Please see para 10 for action request of all 
addressees. 
 
¶2.  (U) The references in this cable are photographs which 
are posted on Embassy Kuwait's classified website.  Please 
visit http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/kuwait/ and click on 
the "Kuwait/Iraq Border Pictures" link in the Picture Gallery 
box on the left hand side of the page in order to view photos. 
 
¶3.  (C) Summary and Comment. On September 18, a five member 
party of Embassy staff, joined by State's visiting Kuwait 
desk officer, traveled to the Kuwait-Iraq border for a 
first-hand look at the Kuwaiti construction of a border 
barrier pipe which led to a violent Iraqi demonstration at 
Umm Qasr on July 25 (ref A).  The trip took place with 
Ministry of the Interior (MOI) border police escorts using 
advance and follow vehicles with machine guns in modified 
turrets in the beds of the trucks.  The Assistant Manager for 
Northern Borders, Lt. Col. Fahed Salem Al-Ajmi, gave 
Political officer and the Office of Military Cooperation 
Kuwait (OMC-K) Joint Intelligence advisor a personal brief of 
the contentious areas between the 87th border pillar to the 
105th border pillar, as demarcated by the United Nations. 
While Iraqi farms clearly extend into Kuwaiti territory, no 
obvious attempts have been made to harvest any crop and the 
land, for the most part, lies fallow and dry (photos 11 and 
12).  According to Al-Ajmi, the farmers have said they would 
rather lose their heads than their land.  There have been no 
fruitful negotiations between the border police elements and 
the local Iraqi populace on the topic of compensation for 
lost lands, although the GOK has repeatedly stated that they 
have funds available (deposited with the U.N.) for the 
express purpose of compensating Iraqis for lands lost when 
the area was last demarcated in 1992.  Even though the Basrah 
province has been relatively calm, tensions in the area have 
begun to rise and Post is keeping a close eye to see if the 
border will, once again, become a point of violent contention 
in the near future.  (Note. Post will deliver border maps of 
the entire border region, to both the U.N. and the GOK 
shortly.  The border maps, produced within the past 45 days, 
are in response to a request by the U.N. for an overview of 
the area before a U.N. team visits the border later this 
month.  End Summary and Comment. 
 
----------------- 
Looking Into Iraq 
----------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Two political officers, accompanied by DOS desk 
officer for Kuwait, OMC-K's operations officer, and OMC-K's 
joint intelligence advisor, traveled to the Kuwait-Iraq 
border at the Navistar Coalition crossing to observe the 
current Kuwaiti construction of a border pipe marker (photos 
7 and 17).  The pipe marker is being built parallel to the 
border pillars (photos 13 and 16), offset southward by 2 
meters, and when finished will extend from marker 106 at the 
old harbor, south of Umm Qasr, traveling westward around to 
the southern border with Saudi Arabia.  The Embassy party met 
up with Lt. Col. Fahed Al-Ajmi, Assistant Manager for 
Northern Borders, who has had several postings along the 
northern border since 1992.  His accompanying aide has been 
in the area since 1993.  The party traveled with armed escort 
which included two machine guns mounted in pickup trucks, two 
camouflage SUVs running lead and follow and a Criminal 
Investigative Department vehicle which joined us for the 
portion closest to Umm Qasr. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The border itself is delineated on the Kuwaiti side 
by a double set of electrical fencing with barbed wire atop, 
followed a kilometer later by a 4X4 meter dry trench (photos 
1 and 2), and finally with the pipe border marker two meters 
from the border pillars themselves.  Additionally, Al-Ajmi 
pointed out what he called "witnesses", short pieces of pipe, 
less than a meter high, located on either side of the border 
pillars at a distance of 10 meters, designed to show which 
direction the border lay (photo 22).  Between border pillars 
87 and 105, a number of these "witnesses" were either missing 
or unseen as they were buried under sand and dirt.  The 
construction of the pipe has raised rumors in the border 
region of Iraq that it is actually a pipeline, removing oil 
from Iraqi lands.  The pipe is hollow and is cut into 
segments.  Each segment is 5 meters long and has a gap of a 
few centimeters between one and the next.  This was done, 
according to Al-Ajmi, to accommodate the expansion and 
contraction of the metal under different climatic conditions. 
¶6. (C) The trip began just west of the Navistar Coalition 
crossing, adjacent to border pillar 89 (photo 3).  Within a 
minute's drive west along the border, the outline of an Iraqi 
farm could be clearly seen from the Kuwaiti access road, 
jutting south into Kuwait (photos 5 and 7).  The farm in 
question is on either side of pillar 88 and Lt. Col. Al Ajmi 
stated that the Iraqi farmer often verbally harassed his men 
while the farmer's teenage son threw rocks at the convoy 
trucks parked on the other side of the trench, near Navistar. 
 The farmhouse itself was extremely run-down  but it did 
have, as many others we saw, a satellite dish on its roof. 
 
¶7.  (C) Fifty meters before the farm house jutted out into 
the access road, the Iraqi farmer had laid down a row of 
large rocks in an attempt to block further access to the road 
(photo 6).  Again, Al-Ajmi commented that this was common but 
at least "they are not mortars" this time around.  According 
to Al-Ajmi, in the spring of 2004 the border police lost an 
officer on the same stretch of road to a mortar round (shell) 
which had been placed there, in open sight, by Iraqis.  The 
officer in question was part of an EOD team trying to disarm 
it when it suddenly exploded, killing him on the spot.  There 
had been no other fatalities or injuries since that incident. 
 
---------------------------- 
Border Markers and Witnesses 
---------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) At marker 88, the plaques identifying which side 
faces the Republic of Iraq and the State of Kuwait had been 
pried off, leaving a hole in their place.  The witness, or 
directional marker, was partially visible on one side but was 
missing entirely on the other.  Going on to 89, the border 
marker is protected by barbed wire laid down by U.S. forces 
and has plaques attached (photos 13 and 14) but no witnesses 
to be seen. Marker 90 actually has an Iraqi immigration 
building jutting all around it, with a concrete foundation 
that spills three meters into Kuwait.  Marker 91 is at the 
Al-Abdaly civilian crossing point, inches from the Iraqi 
border chain link fence (photos 15 and 16).  Al-Ajmi confided 
that the British authorities had advised the Iraqis to build 
their border fence "on the borderline itself", making it 
impossible for the Iraqis to have any neutral ground to work 
in, should they need to investigate any activity without 
immediately walking onto Kuwaiti territory.  In the same 
sector the Iraqi border fence was less than two kilometers 
long and only covers the area used by the Iraqis for 
immigration and customs on the Al-Abdaly crossing.  The 
chainlink fence is topped by barbed wire but since it ends 
abruptly less than a kilometer from either side of the 
crossing, it is not effective at stopping movement in and out 
of Kuwait, especially compared to the Kuwaiti system of 
fencing, trenches, and patrols in the same sector. 
 
---------- 
Camp Bucca 
---------- 
 
¶9.  (S) There are two more farms that sit on both Iraqi and 
Kuwaiti soil, between markers 91 and 95 (photos 19 and 20). 
Again, the farms have been edged with mini-berms to delineate 
their borders but there are no crops visible in the soil 
within Kuwait.  One of the farms was growing tomatoes on the 
Iraqi side, but closer to the farmhouse and away from the 
access road and border.  Al-Ajmi commented that he always saw 
the Iraqi women working the fields (photo 8) but never the 
men.  "The women do all the work and they (the men) sit, 
that's all," stated Al-Ajmi.  The drive continued eastward 
and we could clearly see Camp Bucca, the U.S. military 
detention center, less than 3 kilometers from the border. 
Al-Ajmi recounted an incident the year before, in November 
2004, when shots were fired by U.S. forces from Camp Bucca 
into the berm on the Kuwaiti side of the border.  He said 
that he got hold of an officer at Camp Bucca and asked if the 
shooting could stop.  The American officer (NFI) apparently 
responded that "they weren't shooting into Kuwait, they were 
recalibrating their 50 caliber machine guns by firing at the 
berm."  Al-Ajmi pointed out that it was lucky there were no 
injuries as tracer fire showed the shots going over the berm 
and in the direction of a Kuwaiti border police post. 
 
¶10.  (S) Action Request.  Camp Bucca is within sight of the 
Kuwait border.  For reporting purposes, we ask that Embassy 
Kuwait be included on all traffic (military and non-military) 
as an info addressee for issues relating to Camp Bucca.  The 
GOK is aware of its existence but does not have a clear 
understanding of its size and population.  In order to ensure 
that incidents at Camp Bucca do not impact on border 
security, we would ask to be kept informed of any/any 
relevant traffic. 
 
--------- 
Smuggling 
--------- 
¶11.  (S) The land between markers 95 and 100, Al-Ajmi 
claimed, held the most concentrated traffic in smuggling that 
occurred on the northern border.  Hashish smugglers, human 
traffickers, and small-time gun runners criss-cross the 
border even though there are countermeasures in place.  The 
border police at Al Azmiya police post, 1.5 kilometers south 
of border marker 97, use thermal imagery technology to combat 
night smuggling.  According to Al-Ajmi, the smugglers are 
allowed to get one kilometer into Kuwait before they send a 
patrol out to pick them up.  "It lessens the chance that they 
can run back into Iraq," said Al-Ajmi.  He reported that the 
largest group of border infiltrators are Iranian, followed by 
Iraqis.  He added that he believed "most of them" to be 
economic refugees but added that the police are constantly on 
the lookout for border infiltrators, regardless of their 
reason to travel.  (Note: Local press reports that Iranians 
illegally enter Kuwait via land and sea.  Smugglers often 
'drop' their human cargo on Bubiyan Island or close enough to 
a beach so that they can swim in.  The Iranians are almost 
exclusively male and are routinely deported back to Iran 
after the police pick them up.  End Note.) 
 
------------------ 
Iraqi Farm Workers 
------------------ 
 
¶12.  (C) From border markers 98 to 104, there are another two 
farms which impact Kuwait but, again, they are not being used 
for harvesting any crop visible to the naked eye.  The Iraqi 
population on the border is Shi'a and during our visit all 
farms had the distinctive green flags of the Shi'a attached 
to poles surrounding the Iraqi side of the farmland, to mark 
an upcoming Shi'a holy day.  The women we saw were fully 
covered in abayas and all wore headscarves (hijabs).  There 
were no cars at the farms within sight of the border but car 
traffic was evident in Safwan and by the Umm Qasr crossing. 
 
------------------------------ 
Umm Qasr and Border Pillar 105 
------------------------------ 
 
¶13.  (C) The area where the July 25 incident took place lies 
between marker 104 and 105 (ref A and photos 23, 25).  The 
GOK stopped construction of the border pipeline in that area 
since that date and Al-Ajmi stated that they are waiting for 
the UN to return so that they can proceed.  According to 
Al-Ajmi and his aide, the demonstrators filled in the three 
pipeline foundation holes where they breached the border 
(photos 25 and 26) with material, "possibly mortar (rounds)." 
 Al-Ajmi said that the border police removed nothing from the 
area and left it as the demonstrators had left it, in order 
to show the UN what the Iraqis had done. 
 
¶14.  (C) Less than half a kilometer east, we arrived at the 
end of the Kuwaiti access road, where cement blocks lay 
across the road traveling towards the gulf (photo 24). 
Al-Ajmi pointed to three houses farther down the road, worn 
down with sizable yards and vegetation surrounding them. 
"Those three houses lie next to and inside our border", 
according to Al-Ajmi, "and it is the residents of those 
houses that cause problems for us."  As he spoke, six 
individuals, all in a line, began walking towards us as we 
stood and took photographs of the area.  The six, both men 
and women, were speaking loudly and gesturing in our 
direction as they approached so we left the area at that 
point.  Marker 105 is within the backyard of the third 
farthest house, not visible without binoculars.  (Note: 
Marker 106 cannot be visited due to continuing tensions along 
that stretch of land. End note.) 
 
¶15.  (C) As we left to return to Navistar, Al-Ajmi drove us 
across a sand bridge just west of marker 105.  As his vehicle 
and the embassy vehicle passed onto the secondary access road 
on the south side of the trench, Al-Ajmi gave the order to 
take out the bridge and remove that trench crossing, using a 
bulldozer.  He explained that reestablishing the trench would 
ensure the Iraqis would not use that particular site to 
cross, noting that they would have to go wherever it was 
easier, perhaps closer to his police border posts where he 
could monitor them. 
 
---------- 
PostScript 
---------- 
 
¶16.  (SBU) At 1100 on September 29, four masked gunmen fired 
gunshots into Kuwait from their vehicle.  The SUV was 
traveling between Al-Abdaly and Navistar, heading west, when 
it opened fire.  There were no injuries reported from the 
incident.  However, the attack came at the same time an IED 
went off outside of Safwan, killing two American soldiers. 
No arrests have been made. 
 
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http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/kuwait/ 
 
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LEBARON