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OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDM #0019 0021349
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 021349Z JAN 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6406
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0566
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000019 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
PARIS FOR ZEYA; LONDON FOR TSOU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015 
TAGS: PGOV PREL SY
SUBJECT: KHADDAM INTERVIEW CONTINUES TO PROVOKE ANGRY 
REACTION IN SYRIA 
 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Stephen A. Seche, per 1.4 b,d. 
 
¶1.  (SBU) The December 30 interview that former Syrian VP 
Abdul Halim Khaddam granted to the al-Arabiyya TV network has 
provoked a torrent of denunciation and anger in Damascus. 
The People's Assembly held a special session the following 
day -- televised live on Syrian TV -- to allow a parade of 
parliamentarians to criticize Khaddam's disloyalty and to 
call for his trial in absentia on charges of treason.  MP's 
also accused him and his family of corruption.  (Note: 
Syrian media used voice-over commentary to effectively censor 
a call by moderate Islamist MP Mohammed Habash for the 
government to release imprisoned Damascus Spring detainees, 
including MP's Riyad Seif and Ma'moum Homsi.  Habash accused 
Khaddam of having been instrumental in the decision to have 
them imprisoned.) 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Media accounts report that the National Command of 
the Ba'ath Party voted January 1 to expel Khaddam from its 
ranks.  There were also reports that an angry mob tried to 
burn down Khaddam's hometown residence in the coastal city of 
Banyas and that security forces raided the offices of his 
son, Jihad Khaddam, in the Damascus suburb of Mezzeh.  (Note: 
 All three of Khaddam's sons are now in Paris, the last one 
having departed Syria three days before the interview, 
according to media contacts.) 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A statement in the official Syrian Press Agency 
(SANA) January 2 called Khaddam "a joiner to the chorus of 
those hostile to Syria," noting that his remarks made him a 
part of the "U.S.-Israeli scheme that aims at striking 
Syria's steadfastness." The statement also accused Khaddam -- 
contradicting his own assertions to the contrary -- of having 
been an Old Guard obstructionist, consistently opposing 
reform and modernization in Syria when he was in power. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The privately run Syrian news websites Champress 
and Syrianews, both generally pro-SARG, posted scores of 
anonymous commentaries, most of them fulminating against 
Khaddam's hypocrisy, corruption, and feeble attempts to 
portray himself as a political and economic reformer thwarted 
by others, including Bashar al-Asad.  A few accounts stated 
that Khaddam had said the right things for the wrong reasons. 
 
 
¶5.  (C) Comment:  Khaddam's controversial interview certainly 
caught the regime's attention and became the talk of the town 
over the long holiday weekend.  Many debated his motives for 
making what are viewed here as extremely provocative 
comments, wondering if he is trying to re-position himself 
for some kind of unlikely political comeback.  While much of 
the interview is in fact balled up in long historical asides 
typical of Ba'athist politicians, Khaddam grated on regime 
raw nerves in saying that Bashar al-Asad had addressed 
Lebanese PM Hariri in a highly threatening manner months 
earlier than previously thought.  He also likely angered the 
SARG with his crafty hints of Syrian involvement in the 
killing, even as he repeatedly insisted that he did not want 
to make accusations while the investigation was ongoing.  His 
pointed remarks on inner circle, Asad family corruption also 
pressed very hard on an extremely sensitive nerve.  Finally, 
his efforts to portray Asad as an overly emotional and 
incompetent decision-maker (for his "wrong assessments of 
U.S. policy" and his mistakes in Lebanon) and as the real 
obstructionist to reforms (that Khaddam says he tried 
repeatedly to champion) must have infuriated and embarrassed 
the regime.  It is unclear if his interview is somehow 
connected to UNIIIC's reported request to question Khaddam, 
FM Shara'a, and, according to a Reuters account, Asad 
himself. 
SECHE