[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
12 YEARS OF TERROR: ASSAD'S WAR
CRIMES AND U.S. POLICY FOR
SEEKING ACCOUNTABILITY
IN SYRIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST, NORTH
AFRICA, AND CENTRAL ASIA
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 18, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-12
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55-920PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GREGORY MEEKS, New York, Ranking
JOE WILSON, South Carolina Member
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania BRAD SHERMAN, California
DARRELL ISSA, California GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ANN WAGNER, Missouri WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
BRIAN MAST, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
KEN BUCK, Colorado AMI BERA, California
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee DINA TITUS, Nevada
ANDY BARR, Kentucky TED LIEU, California
RONNY JACKSON, Texas SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
YOUNG KIM, California DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida COLIN ALLRED, Texas
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan ANDY KIM, New Jersey
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, SARA JACOBS, California
American Samoa KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio Florida
JIM BAIRD, Indiana GREG STANTON, Arizona
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
CORY MILLS, Florida SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia JIM COSTA, California
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas JASON CROW, Colorado
JOHN JAMES, Michigan BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
KEITH SELF, Texas
Brendan Shields, Staff Director
Sophia Lafargue, Staff Director
------
The Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia
JOE WILSON, Chair
BRIAN MAST, Florida DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota, Ranking
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee Member
RONNY JACKSON, Texas BRAD SHERMAN, California
JIM BAIRD, Indiana GERALD CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
Gabriella Zach, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.................... 6
The Century Foundation........................................... 14
Al Majalla....................................................... 24
WITNESSES
The Gravedigger, Witness to Mass Graves in Syria................. 43
Rayburn, Joel, Former Special Envoy for Syria, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 52
Lord, Jonathan, Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Security
Program, Center for a New American Strategy.................... 63
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 88
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 90
Hearing Attendance............................................... 91
STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD FROM REPRESENTATIVE CONNOLLY
Statement submitted for the record from Representative Connolly.. 92
12 YEARS OF TERROR: ASSAD'S WAR
CRIMES AND U.S. POLICY FOR
SEEKING ACCOUNTABILITY
IN SYRIA
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Middle East, North
Africa and Central Asia,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in
room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Wilson. The Subcommittee on the Middle East, North
Africa, and Central Asia will come to order.
The purpose of this hearing is to discuss U.S. policy
toward Syria, including the need for robust implementation
enforcement of the Caesar Act, Sanctions as a tool to deter
normalization with the Assad regime and promote justice and
accountability for the Syrian people.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Good morning. Thank you all for being here today. And thank
you for the witnesses who are going to make such a difference.
It's been 12 years since the pro-democratic protesters gathered
to demonstrate against the kleptocratic and murderous regime of
dictator Bashar Al-Assad. These protests were largely prompted
by the arrest and torture of miners who express anti-regime
sentiments. Protesters shouting ``peaceful'' were met with
unspeakable brutality by Assad's forces. This was the beginning
of what we now know as the Syrian revolution of those opposing
Assad's brutal dictatorship.
Syrian opposition was recognized internationally and made
significant territorial gains over the regime. Following the
evidence of a litany of war crimes and human rights violations,
including the use of chemical weapons against civilians, the
Obama Administration promised action but, sadly, failed to
deliver.
What we have witnessed from the Biden Administration is
similar failure to act and enforce laws like the bipartisan
Caesar Act, which is critical to choking off Assad's ability to
continue the torture and mass murder of civilians.
The Administration maintains that its policy is no
normalization with the Assad regime but its actions reveal a
policy of implicitly greenlighting for normalization with the
regime.
Sadly, we have seen--recently witnessed Arab allies that we
appreciate so much reestablishing diplomatic ties with the
regime, even hosting war criminal Putin in their countries.
Recently, mass murderer Assad visited the very valued ally of
America, the United Arab Emirates, at a time of the anniversary
of the Syrian revolution, receiving a 21-gun salute.
The Biden Administration, when asked, declined to condemn
it. Additionally, Barbara Leaf, United States Assistant
Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, is quoted as saying, quote,
``Our basic message has been that if you're going to engage
with the Assad regime get something for that,'' end of quote.
The tragic earthquake has given cover for countries to
normalize under the guise of humanitarian aid and provided an
opportunity for Assad to rebound and rebrand on the
international stage. As he posed for photos Assad continued
bombing areas hardest hit by the earthquake and has continued
to refuse aid to opposition areas held in the northwest,
effectively starving civilians. Reports indicate that since the
earthquake Assad has bombed northwest Syria 84 times. The
issuance of General License 23, a blanket license that opens
the door for sanctions evasion and funneling of money to the
Assad regime, will do nothing to alleviate the suffering of the
Syrian people. In fact, it's likely to do the opposite.
Assad has not acted alone. His ability to quash opposition
and regain territory was made possible by support from like-
minded war criminals and kleptocrats like war criminal Putin
and the Iranian regime, both of which benefits strategically
from an alliance with Assad.
Putin's establishment of a permanent base in Tartus is used
to fuel its destabilization proxy wars in the region,
furthering Putin's expansionist goals in the Mediterranean. The
same atrocities committed by Putin's terrorist proxy group, the
Wagner Group, in Syria are being repeated in Putin's murderous
invasion of Ukraine. Putin's murderous--murder of civilians in
Aleppo, Syria, has been replicated with the mass murder in
Mariupol, Ukraine, a criminal act of total destruction.
America supports the people of Russia oppressed by war
criminal Putin, as seen by our support of Vladimir Kara-Murza,
who yesterday was sentenced to jail and has been exposed in a
very thoughtful editorial today in the Washington Post as to
the implications of the Kara-Murza imprisonment.
The Iranian regime also continues to be a weapons lifeline
for Assad and provides training to Assad's murderous forces. In
exchange, the regime in Tehran has strategic use of territory
to attack Israel and other regional partners through its
terrorist proxies and deployment of drones and missiles.
Just last week Iran used earthquake relief flights to bring
weapons and equipment into Syria, threatening Israel. In
addition to its crimes against humanity and proliferation of
terrorism the regime, through the Assad family, runs an
industrial scale narco trafficking operation of Captagon.
Billions of dollars' worth of narcotics have made their way
into the Gulf countries, enriching the Assad family.
The list of criminal and corrupt activity by this regime is
endless. It is of critical interest to national security and
stability of our allies that American policy is one of
nonnormalization.
I'm grateful to be working on bipartisan legislation will
underscore a policy of nonnormalization with the Assad regime
and clarify that countries choosing to engage with the Assad
regime against their own interests will be subject to
sanctions.
At least half a million people have been murdered by the
regime and the number increases daily. These people are
doctors, teachers, business owners, parents, and children. I've
met with their families and friends.
I've met with survivors of torture at the hands of the
Assad regime. Their stories are unthinkable. Normalizing
dictator Bashar Al-Assad is normalizing absolute inhumanity and
depravity.
I'm grateful for our witnesses, particularly Joel Rayburn,
the former Syria envoy under President Donald Trump and the man
known as the Gravedigger, who uses a code name due to the
ongoing threats of his life.
Please be advised that the testimony you hear from
Gravedigger is sobering and graphic. Unfortunately, the State
Department failed to secure him a visa to testify before us in
person despite his repeated efforts to help the United States
so we will have him here virtually.
The people of Syria continue to suffer under butcher Assad.
There is no solution so long as the Assad regime remains in
power. We are in a global conflict between authoritarians with
rule of gun opposing democracy, rule of law. History will judge
harshly those who choose to be on the side of dictators.
I will yield now 5 minutes to Ranking Member Dean Phillips
for his opening remarks.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I was out of the
country during your first chairmanship of this subcommittee
meeting and I want to thank you and congratulate you.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you.
Mr. Phillips. You're a man I respect, a friend, a
colleague, and I look forward to showing this country and the
world, frankly, how we can operate in a bipartisan manner to
encourage the United States foreign policy overseas.
And I also want to thank our distinguished witnesses for
joining us and, as the chairman said, especially the
Gravedigger who testifies today at great risk to himself to
share his personal experience of Assad's brutality. It is not
an easy thing to hear for any of us but it is necessary to
ensure that these years of death and displacement are never
forgotten.
Last month marked 12 years--yes, 12 years--since the Syrian
revolution began, 12 painful years of conflict, displacement,
and hardship.
What started with the Syrian people rising up to demand
dignity and freedom and a voice in shaping their own government
was met with a brutal crackdown by Bashar Al-Assad, who, with
the help of outside support from Iran and Russia, ushered in
over a decade of violence and human rights abuses that have
killed at least half a million people--half a million people--
displaced many millions more and dramatically destabilized the
region.
While fighting in many areas across the country has now
ceased the current environment is extremely challenging and
does not support U.S. national security interests or improve
the lives of the Syrian people.
Achieving a political resolution in Syria has bedeviled the
previous two Administrations and only reaffirms how important
it is that we create a comprehensive and effective Syria
strategy.
Russia has used its foothold in Syria to expand its
political, military, and economic influence, including through
its naval base and Tartus, the only Mediterranean port that
Russia has access to.
Iran, too, uses Syria as its own personal playground to
recruit proxy forces and smuggle weapons to Hezbollah in
Lebanon. Iranian-backed forces not only target our ally Israel
but also U.S. service members that are working to ensure the
enduring defeat of the Islamic State.
The Assad regime plays hosts to all these bad actors and
continues to enrich itself at the expense of its own citizens.
The Syrian government is one of the most sanctioned countries
in the entire world for issues ranging from terrorism and
nonproliferation to corruption and human rights violations.
As a result, the Assad regime has resorted to other methods
of financial profiteering including aid diversion, currency
manipulation, and narcotics trafficking. These tactics restrict
humanitarian aid and spread further instability throughout the
country and the entire region.
As we all know, just 6 weeks ago in northwest Syria was hit
by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that killed over 7,000 people and
injured over 10,000. This in conjunction with years of
compounding of humanitarian crises from the civil war to the
COVID-19 pandemic has created massive deficits in education,
safe drinking water, shelter, and much more.
The United States remains the largest humanitarian
assistance donor to the Syrian people, and I'll say that once
again. The United States of America remains the largest
humanitarian assistance donor to the Syrian people. But others
in the international community have continuously failed to meet
their obligations.
What was merely a single border crossing at Bab al-Hawa
between Turkiye and Syria that allowed U.N. agencies to deliver
desperately needed aid the earthquake created a renewed sense
of urgency and allowed for two additional border crossings to
be temporarily opened at Bab al-Salam and Al Ra'ee.
These lifelines cannot be subject to continuous
reauthorizations based on the whims of Assad's backers. We must
work to strengthen humanitarian access through these points to
ensure that all of these crossings are kept open for the
future.
Ensuring that existing sanctions are smart, coordinated,
and targeted is essential to isolating the Assad regime. But we
must also ensure that the humanitarian crisis is not
exacerbated because of our policies.
That is why following the horrific earthquake the Biden
Administration issued a General License for the humanitarian
situation in Syria, which authorized the provision of
earthquake relief efforts.
This temporary authorization does not lift any sanctions
and was necessary to address both perceived and real gaps in
Syria-related humanitarian authorizations to allow actors,
including foreign governments and NGO's, to provide rapid
response to earthquake victims.
In addition to these challenges, there are currently over
6.8 million Syrian refugees living primarily in Jordan,
Lebanon, and Turkiye facing increasingly hostile communities
and harsh economic conditions.
In northwest Syria, U.S. partner forces are working
tirelessly to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS and support
IDP camps such as Al-Hol, which was built for 10,000 people but
now houses more than 60,000 women and children and is becoming
a breeding ground for radicalization.
That is why the United States needs a holistic,
comprehensive, serious strategy that is realistic based on U.S.
national security priorities and rooted in a commitment to the
Syrian people.
With a clear strategy, the U.S. can work with the
international community on a common approach to the conflict
that prioritizes strengthening humanitarian assistance and
increasing access to vulnerable populations.
It can reinvigorate the Geneva process under U.N. Security
Council Resolution 2254 in a way that gives all Syrians a voice
to determine their future.
It can work to implement U.N. mechanisms to address the
thousands of Syrians that were detained and disappeared by the
Assad regime and support indictments under universal
jurisdiction laws to hold individuals accountable for war
crimes and other atrocities that have been committed.
This is a challenging environment to develop such a policy.
But as we mark the 12 years of devastating conflict in Syria we
must encourage and support the Biden Administration in creating
and executing a strategy that will advance United States'
national interests and support the Syrian people in their quest
for dignity, freedom, opportunity, and peace.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Dean
Phillips, and look forward to working with you and, as you can
see, this committee--subcommittee has a tradition with former
chairman David Cicilline of working together and I--of both
political parties as we, indeed, have great affection for the
people of Syria and we want the best for the people of Syria
that's why we're here today.
We welcome the gentleman from Arkansas, Congressman French
Hill, and the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman Brad
Schneider, who will be joining us later today and they will
participate following all other members in today's hearing,
which is indication of how important this hearing is that other
members would like to participate.
I ask unanimous consent to submit a report from the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy entitled ``Power to
the People'' scrutinizing the U.S.-Arab effort to supply energy
to Lebanon via Syria; an article from Al Majalla entitled,
``Don't throw good Arab money after bad in Syria;'' and an
article entitled, quote, ``A strategy to end the systemic
threat of humanitarian aid and Israel from the FDD.''
Without objection, it's so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wilson. We are pleased have a distinguished panel of
witnesses here today on this important topic. The Gravedigger
is a firsthand witness to the war crimes committed by the Assad
regime and the many horrors faced by the Syrian people. You
will note that we are using a translator, Mr. Mouaz Moustafa.
Very grateful for his service.
Additionally, we have Mr. Joel Rayburn, a specialist of
national security, foreign policy, and Middle East affairs. He
served as the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria from 2018 to 2021.
And Mr. Jonathan Lord is a senior fellow and director at
the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New
Americans Security.
So thank each of you for being here today and we will have
full statements made part of the record and I'll ask each of
you to keep your spoken remarks to 5 minutes in order to allow
time for member questions.
I now recognize Gravedigger for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE GRAVEDIGGER, WITNESS TO MASS GRAVES IN SYRIA
[The following statement and answers were delivered through
an interpreter.]
Gravedigger. Thank you, Chairman Wilson and Ranking Member
Phillips, for your dedication to ending the suffering of the
Syrian people and pursuing accountability for millions of
civilians.
Despite my best efforts, I was not granted a visa in time
to make it here today but I would be here every single day if
I'm able to give the messages of the Syrian people. Thank you
for allowing me to share my testimony with you and the American
people you represent.
I cannot share my face or my name with you today because
doing so would be too dangerous for me and my family. I am
known as the Gravedigger because I have been a witness to mass
graves in Syria from 2011 to 2018.
Men, women, children, and elderly were tortured in the most
sadistic ways and executed by the Assad regime, Iran, and
Russia and then carelessly thrown into trenches, their fate
unknown to their loved ones. Their lives have been lost. They
cannot be saved and they demand justice, while tens of
thousands of others await liberation as they languish in
Assad's dungeons.
I'm a civilian. Before the war I was an administrative
employee of the Damascus municipality. In early 2011 at the
beginning of the revolution my office was visited by regime
intelligence officials and I was ordered to work for them. When
the regime asks for something you do not say no. I was not
prepared for the horror of my new duties.
Every week twice a week three trailer trucks arrived packed
with 300 to 600 bodies of victims of torture, starvation, and
execution from military hospitals and intelligence branches
around Damascus. Twice a week we received three to four pickup
trucks with 30 to 40 bodies still warm of civilians that had
been executed in Sednaya Prison.
After 7 years of bearing witness to these atrocities I was
able to escape Syria and follow my family to Europe. There it
was my duty to testify in the Koblenz trial in Germany and seek
some semblance of justice by holding two war criminals
accountable for atrocities in Syria.
I have dedicated my life to expose the evil of the Assad
regime and its allies and there are no words that can capture
the scene that I was subjected to every day--men, women,
children, babies, elderly, all, countless civilians with marks
on their bodies that tell the story of an excruciatingly
painful death.
I found myself wondering how much each person suffered
before they were finally allowed to die. The signs of torture
on their bodies is something I will never forget.
I want to share with you just one of the stories that keep
me up at night. One day one of the trailer trucks dumped its
contents of several hundred mangled corpses into the trenches
in front of us.
Sometimes bodies would fall on the ledge of the mass grave
and I was taken aback when I saw that a young mother's lifeless
body with clear signs of torture was still holding on to her
infant baby, hugging him close to her chest.
I was--I did not want her to be buried with the mass of
mostly male bodies in the trench and I wanted her and her baby
to at least be buried to the side or the top of the mass grave.
I tried to ask the Assad regime's intelligence officer if it
would be OK to bury her alone next to the grave. He quickly
scolded me and ordered that she be thrown into the mass grave.
And 1 day as the trailer trucks were unloading hundreds of
bodies again unexpectedly we saw a flicker of movement. There
was a man near death, using his last reserve of energy to
signal to us that somehow he was still alive. One of the
civilian workers with me in my workshop crying said that we had
to do something.
The intelligence officers supervising us quickly ordered
the murder of the man, and as for the young man who dared shed
tears over the victims of the Assad regime we never saw him
again.
You see, my colleagues and I--you see, my colleagues and I
charged with burying the innocent in mass graves are--were
expendable. If we showed any sympathy it meant certain death.
If we were late or missed a day it meant arrest in the very
same dungeons that produced these tortured bodies that we put
to rest.
Every single week on multiple days for years the drivers of
the excavators and bulldozers would dig trenches 23 feet deep,
nine to 10 feet wide, 400 to 600 feet long in parallel lines to
each other and every week we filled these massive trenches with
bodies of countless civilians.
The systematic machinery of death continues to this day.
This is the same regime that some countries have shamefully
decided to normalize with, a regime the U.S. Government
continues to recognize. The only recognition of Assad should be
as a genocidal war criminal reminiscent of the worst people in
human history.
It is vital that the United States, including this
Administration or any future Administration, not recognize the
Assad regime as the legitimate government of Syria and that it
never normalizes relations with this awful dictator.
There can never be accountability for the tens of thousands
of innocent civilians that lay in mass graves in Syria if those
responsible for their brutal torture, murder, and inhumane
burial are admitted back into the international community.
The Syrian people look to the United States to ensure that
there are consequences for those who normalize with the
criminal regime. Allowing Assad to get away with what he has
been getting away with sends a message to other dictators and
tyrants that they can also gas, displace, and torture their own
people in order to retain power or quell genuine calls for
democracy.
When the United Arab Emirates invites the Assad regime to
their capital and welcomes him with a 21-gun salute on the 12th
anniversary of the revolution it sets a dangerous precedent.
When Saudi Arabia decides to allow Syrian Arab Airlines,
which is sanctioned under the Caesar Act, to land in their
airports it sets a dangerous precedent. When a country like
Denmark decides to undermine the unity of the efforts of the
U.S. in the EU to isolate Assad it sets a dangerous precedent.
I saw on the news that Mr. McGurk from the White House was
in Saudi Arabia very recently within days of the Syrian--the
war criminal foreign minister being there and today, as opposed
to us condemning that visit of the foreign minister to Saudi
Arabia we see that the Saudi Arabian minister is now in
Damascus.
The United States must ensure that every--in each attempt
to recognize the Assad regime or to normalize relations with it
is met with clear public and private condemnation and real
consequences.
The Caesar Act is one of the most valuable tools in the
hands of the United States to make sure the Assad regime cannot
benefit economically from a vast array of business
transactions.
It is vital that the law is implemented to its fullest
extent to hinder the regime's chances of benefiting from things
like the Arab gas pipeline.
Under President Biden's Administration we have yet to see
any real implementation of the Caesar Act. It is Congress that
we as Syrian witnesses, survivors, and civilians beseech to
pressure the Biden Administration to implement the Caesar Act
in order to stop the normalization and financing of the Assad
regime.
If the Caesar Act as it stands is not sufficient then we
plead with you for new sanctions legislation or revisions of
the Caesar Act that targets this evil regime and all those
seeking to empower it.
I watched as the Assad regime exploited the devastating
earthquake which tore through southern Turkiye and northwest
Syria to smuggle Iranian fighters and weapons to kill Syrians
claiming they're aid caravans.
The regime in Damascus received tons of aid from the United
Nations and other governments that he then looted instead of
providing to those in need. I saw my people suffer immensely in
liberated areas of northwest Syria and I have witnessed the
shameful response of the United Nations, which allowed the
Assad regime to block the provision of life-saving critical aid
through border points he does not even control.
It is time for a smart and moral aid policy that benefits
the Syrian--the people of Syria, not the Assad regime, one with
no General Licenses or aid delivered through U.N. Damascus
office solely but through a permanent cross border mechanism
that allows the unfettered and continuous provision of strictly
humanitarian aid through all four border crossings in northern
Syria.
Many people may say there's nothing we can do, that Syria
is a lost cause, that we must accept Assad. This is simply not
true. If a municipal employee from Damascus forced to bury
hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians such as myself can
find a way to get my message in front of members like you,
members of the most powerful legislative body in the world, and
share with you the horrors that I witnessed then there is hope.
If Caesar, an ordinary man, can take such personal risks to
show the world what is happening in Syria through his
photographs then there is hope. If the Syrian people continue
to come out every day, continue to stand to demand justice,
freedom, and democracy in spite of Iran, Assad, Russia, and
China, then there is hope.
Those who normalize with the Assad regime are complicit and
accomplices in Assad's war crimes. We ask your committee to
remind the Biden Administration that it must not veer away from
the policies of previous Republican and Democratic
Administrations that publicly condemn the normalization of the
Assad regime and actively work to prevent it.
Today, the Administration's statement on normalization with
a genocidal dictator that threatens the world order is that,
and I quote, ``We hope that those who normalize with the Assad
regime get something in return.''
Today, the Administration says the United States will not
normalize with the Assad regime yet. I am the here because,
like many of my Syrian brothers and sisters, we know that the
United States is better than this.
I am here because you are the most democratic branch of the
American government. You represent the American people, who
value justice, freedom, and liberty. I am here because for 12
years of the worst atrocities of the 21st century so many
Syrians still believe in an American people.
We believe in the words ``never again'' should not be empty
slogan but it should be a sacred promise that ensures that
Syrians and many other nations can live with freedom, justice,
and dignity.
After 12 years of the worst atrocities of the 21st century
we yet to have--we do not have an actual envoy on behalf of the
U.S. Government and I'm here speaking about mass graves.
We have buried hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians
but just as many are still detained in Assad's dungeons and
millions still living under regime, Iranian, and Russian
bombardment. We must stand with them, not their butcher.
What I have testified to you today is a burden that I place
on your shoulders as Members of Congress, as Americans, as
human beings.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gravedigger follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you. Thank you very much, Gravedigger,
for your courage and persistence.
I now recognize Mr. Rayburn for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOEL RAYBURN, FORMER SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SYRIA, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Rayburn. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member
Phillips, and distinguished members of the--of the committee.
What a tragedy for the entire Syrian nation but also for
American interests and it pains me to say that it did not and
does not have to be this way. U.S. policy toward Syria is in
crisis.
President Biden and his Administration have avoided
formulating a coherent Syria strategy but it's clear now their
approach has put important American interests at risk. Syria
still holds unacceptable dangers--international terrorism, the
worst refugee crisis in decades, weapons of mass destruction,
the threat of regional war created by Iran, great power
competition with Russia and China, the Turkiye PKK conflict
and, more recently, the Assad regime's emergence as a major
narco State.
In the face of these threats the Administration has lost
many opportunities to act. To name just a few, the
Administration could have restored economic pressure against
Damascus by fully enforcing the Caesar Act and they should have
levied sanctions on Russia's defense sector and military as the
act envisioned, which could have had a powerful impact in both
Syria and Ukraine by now.
It was welcome news yesterday that the Justice Department
is investigating the Assad regime's execution of American
citizen Layla Shweikani in 2016. But the Administration should
be doing more to support Europeans prosecuting the Assad regime
for war crimes.
Ambassador Stephen Rapp has noted that evidence of Assad's
war crimes far exceeds the evidence presented against Nazi
leaders at Nuremberg. I personally have seen internal Assad
regime documents collected by the Commission for International
Justice and Accountability that show Bashar Al-Assad's direct
ordering of war crimes by his regime.
The Administration also chose not to appoint a U.S. Special
Envoy for Syria for the first time since 2014, which our allies
and our adversaries took as a sign of neglect. In our absence
on Syria policy events concerning Syria are moving rapidly to
our detriment.
The region is closer to general war than at any time since
2006 with the Iranian regime attacking Israel from Syria,
Lebanon, and Gaza simultaneously while also targeting U.S.
troops in eastern Syria.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration's mixed messaging has
encouraged Arab capitals to explore normalization deals with
Assad. Administration officials urged Assad's neighbors to
include him in a regional energy deal and claimed the Caesar
Act was no hindrance.
After the February 6 earthquake they issued the hasty
overbroad General License 23, undermining the Caesar Act by
allowing transactions with the regime's financial system with
no guard rails.
Regional sources say that when Arab officials asked how the
U.S. might react to this normalization outreach senior
Administration officials gave a tacit green light and said they
prefer that Arab capitals normalized with Assad than for Russia
to broker a Damascus-Ankara deal that might lead to Turkish
attacks against our Syrian Democratic Forces partners.
For months, Administration officials have quietly created
the impression they favor Assad's normalization, encouraging
others to take the lead and create a situation that will reach
Washington as a fait accompli.
U.S. policy on Syria, therefore, has reached a crucial
point at which Congress must reassert its intent and ensure the
enforcement of U.S. law. The Caesar Act should be updated and
expanded in ways that I've detailed in my written testimony.
Congress should also pass the No U.N. Aid for Assad Act
introduced by you, Chairman Wilson, in the 116th Congress, or a
similar bill redirecting U.N. aid to areas outside Assad's
control until the U.N. can enforce standards to prevent aid
from being diverted to the regime.
Congress must also pass a bill to deter countries from
normalizing relations with Assad. To clear up the
Administration's damaging mixed signals Congress should
explicitly block the Arab gas pipeline deal the Administration
misguidedly endorsed and should also pass the provision
Congressman Wilson sponsored in last year's NDAA prohibiting
the U.S. Government from recognizing Assad as president of
Syria.
Congress should use his oversight power to examine the
Administration's lack of enforcement of mandatory Caesar Act
sanctions and other related sanctions, as well as its tacit
approval of normalization.
Congress should also oversee the Administration's
implementation of the Captagon Act, authored by Congressman
French Hill, and go further to designate Syria as a major narco
trafficking country and impose narco trafficking and
transnational criminal organization sanctions against the
regime.
Normalization with Assad is not just against our interests.
It also has no chance of working. The United States has major
problems with the Assad regime's behavior, as does the rest of
the world, and most of these predate 2011: State sponsorship of
terrorism, human rights abuses, proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction, wrongful detention of Americans, material
support to the Iranian regime, and Assad's warlike hostility to
all its regional neighbors.
The world has seen enough of the Assad regime to know it
will never change its behavior inside or outside Syria unless
under irresistible pressure. We have also seen enough of the
Syrian people to know that those who oppose Assad will never
accept his rule again.
After 12 years of conflict Assad has failed to defeat the
opposition and the fundamental reality is that he can never
win. To Syrian eyes this reality warrants the world powers
revising policies in favor of an approach that might actually
work.
Congress should lead the way by restoring, enhancing, and
compelling implementation of the pressure policy encapsulated
in the Caesar Act. It is quite literally the only possible
solution to the Syrian tragedy.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rayburn follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wilson. Mr. Rayburn, thank you very much for your
testimony.
We now recognize Mr. Lord for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN LORD, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR, MIDDLE
EAST SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR A NEW AMERICAN STRATEGY
Mr. Lord. Chairman Wilson, Ranking Member Phillips,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you today. I'd like to
congratulate Ranking Member Phillips on his new role on the
subcommittee.
It is in the same spirit of service and bipartisanship by
which this committee does its business that I carry on my work
as the Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Security
Program at the Center for a New American Security.
As a policy, CNAS does not take any institutional position
so my testimony today reflects my personal perspectives.
Before joining CNAS last summer I proudly served as a
professional staff member of the House Armed Services Committee
for three and a half years. From just down the stairs I worked
closely with the members and staff of this committee in a
bipartisan fashion to pass three National Defense Authorization
Acts, which Congress reauthorized support to train and equip
America's partners in northeast Syria to defeat ISIS, required
comprehensive strategy documents on Syria policy from two
Presidential Administrations, and carried the Caesar Syria
Protection Act of 2019.
Today, I'm honored to testify alongside Joel Rayburn, with
whom I had the privilege of serving in government. Joel has a
long and distinguished record of service to this country both
in and out of uniform.
I must also acknowledge the gentleman that joins us
virtually today. The Gravedigger has borne witness to the
unspeakable horrors that Assad unleashed upon the men, women,
and children of Syria.
He shoulders the burden of reliving these horrors so the
world can know and hold Assad accountable for the crimes he has
perpetrated. I am humbled to testify beside him today.
Throughout the Syrian conflict Assad and his forces,
abetted by Russia and Iran, plumbed the depths of the formerly
unimaginable to terrorize, brutalize, and murder hundreds of
thousands of Syrians. Thirteen million Syrians have fled beyond
Syria's borders or are internally displaced within Syria
itself.
These many Syrian refugees and IDPs live in terrible
conditions without consistent access to basic services. As if
fate had not dealt the Syrian people a cruel enough hand the
earthquake on February 6th left 50,000 dead in Turkiye and over
7,000 Dead in Syria. Over 10,000 more Syrians were injured.
Thousands of children--thousands of children--were left
homeless in February in winter. The earthquake immediately
elevated Syria's urgent humanitarian crisis to unprecedented
levels. The chaos and devastation in Turkiye worsened the
situation further as the primary avenue for humanitarian aid
into Syria was itself now a disaster zone. To rush assistance
to the Syrian people on February 9th the Biden Administration
issued Syria General License 23, which authorized for 180 days
support related to the earthquake that would have otherwise
been forbidden under U.S. sanctions.
GL23 enabled private entities and foreign governments to
engage in disaster assistance and provided assurance to
financial institutions that in over compliance might have
avoided supporting or underwriting humanitarian efforts that
are otherwise exempted from sanctions.
GL23 has reportedly had a positive impact on efforts to
support disaster relief in Syria by, in one example, enabling
crowdfunding sites to support relief efforts, an activity that
was previously precluded by U.S. sanctions policy.
The Assad regime for decades has persisted under an array
of withering U.S. sanctions. Undeterred and unwilling to cede
power, Assad has sought new avenues of illicit income to
support his patronage networks and to prop up his regime.
Over the last 5 years, Assad has transformed his regime
into one of the world's most prolific producers and
distributors of the methamphetamine Captagon. It is estimated
that in 2022 alone Assad's narco trafficking was worth $10
billion.
The U.S. and European partners continue to identify and
sanction those involved with Assad's narcotics business with
the United States and United Kingdom having designated new
culprits just last month.
Assad has flooded the Middle East with Captagon, causing
havoc throughout the region. Having been the arsonist, he now
seeks to play the role of firefighter by holding Captagon
distribution as a coercive tool over the governments of Jordan,
UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others in an effort to compel them to
restore relations with him. His strategy has begun to bear
fruit.
This all begs the question what is the U.S. government's
vision for the future of Syria. The challenge of Syria policy
is that the prioritization of any one U.S. objective seems to
come at the perceived expense of others.
That alone would make the process of strategy development
challenging but there's an added complication here in
Washington--politics. Any policy decision that advances one
priority at the perceived cost of another is met with almost
reflexive criticism.
Politicization of the policy debate leads to the
ossification of policy and risk avoidance to the detriment of
responsive, realistic, and effective U.S. foreign policy. To
end the paralysis of U.S. strategy on Syria and to best serve
the American and Syrian people the U.S. Government needs a
vision and strategy for Syria that transcends partisanship.
Legislators and policymakers must come together to make
hard but necessary choices to prioritize objectives and then
match those objectives with the appropriate authorities,
activities, and resources--in essence, join hands and jump
together.
My written testimony includes some framing principles that
might help clarify U.S. objectives for Syria and enable
policymakers and legislators to chart a new course. The region
is thirsty for a comprehensive vision for Syria from
Washington.
If it can provide that I suspect we'll begin to see
America's regional partners fall in line behind us. Working
together, our elected officials can hold Bashar Al-Assad
accountable for his crimes, reduce the presence and capacity of
the U.S.' global and regional adversaries, provide critical
support and opportunity to the current and future generations
of Syrians, neutralize the recurring threat of violent
extremism that festers and thrives through instability, and
restore the United States' role as a leader and partner of
choice in the Middle East region, all in service to the
American people.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lord follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Lord.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning, and
for the benefit of my colleagues I will stick with 5 minutes.
So please begin because I cannot wait to hear.
I'm so grateful to have the participation we have today.
This is very meaningful to have as many Members of Congress
come. That shows affection, truly, for the people of Syria, and
my appreciation of the people of Syria is personal.
I'm very grateful that in my home community of South
Carolina we have a very dynamic Syrian-Lebanese community and
they are so appreciated and they've been so successful. Also,
one of the most meaningful experiences of my service in
Congress was to visit a refugee camp of Syrians who fled
oppression.
It was inspiring to meet with enterprising and talented
men, women, and children who want to be free. And Mr. Rayburn
is correct that the people of Syria will prevail and we have a
circumstance with almost half of the people of Syria being
displaced, over 4 million refugees. The American people need to
know that, how the people truly have responded, sadly, by
having to leave their country.
With that, Gravedigger, how does the Assad regime continue
to intimidate Syrians who fled Syria?
Gravedigger. Bashar Al-Assad continues to terrorize those
that have fled Syria and those that are internally displaced by
ensuring that he constantly shows that by arresting their loved
ones, by not giving them any information about what's happened
to them, by Syrians--by putting out laws as well that
confiscate their properties if they left the country and by the
fact that everyone in the world from the Syrians that have
escaped know what happens to those that are arrested by the
Assad regime.
And so the pictures of torture and the machinery of death
that goes on there is exactly what the Syrian people know can
happen to them if they go back in. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. And as I mentioned in my opening remarks
comments made by Barbara Leaf that if Arab countries intend to
normalize with the Assad regime they should, quote, ``Get
something for that,'' end of quote, having been a witness to
the extraordinary atrocities committed by the regime how do
comments like that mean to you? Additionally, how is the Arab
world's normalization with the Assad regime viewed by the
people of Syria?
Gravedigger. But I had the honor of meeting Assistant
Secretary Barbara Leaf on my last visit here and during my time
with her I expressed to her and showed her what the Assad
regime has done and she was very supportive. She actually cried
in that meeting with us and we--and I cried as well because we
were recounting some horrific things.
But the statement that the--this Administration has said is
different from the previous both Republican and Democratic
Administrations in terms of saying that we would normalize with
Assad if there's a political advancement or not condemning
publicly the--not condemning publicly the normalization with
the Assad regime, and as far as the Syrian people are concerned
they see it as a betrayal of the Syrian people, of the
countless lives lost and the millions displaced and the
millions injured and in prison, and a betrayal by the
leadership of these Arab countries.
But they believe in these Arab countries that they can come
back and stand with the Syrian people as they've done before,
not normalize with their dictator.
Mr. Wilson. And that's certainly encouraging.
Mr. Rayburn, the recent broad, quote, ``General Licenses''
issued for earthquake relief impaired the Administration's
ability to ensure humanitarian assistance reaches the intended
people who are in need and does not intentionally support the
Assad regime.
What is your view about that?
Mr. Rayburn. Well, I think General License 23 issued after
the earthquake was hasty. It was too broad. It was a solution
in search of a problem because we already have a robust
humanitarian license process that could have been used.
It needlessly punched a hole in the Caesar Act enforcement
and for 6 months, way too--far too long a period for immediate
recovery from immediate earthquake relief.
The Administration did it without a proper examination of
the risks involved in opening up financial transactions to
Assad's financial system without any guard rails such as the
repatriation of Captagon revenues, which could be happening now
under cover of earthquake relief.
There was no definition of what constitutes earthquake
relief so it could be anything. It was a self-activating
license, which means that anyone who asserts that they have the
right to do it can go ahead and do it without any
preauthorization or vetting.
There also wasn't an explanation--it was too broad in that
it covered all of Syria when only a small corner, mostly of
opposition-held Syria, was affected and there was no
explanation of how sending--wiring money to the Assad regime's
financial system was going to benefit the victims of an
earthquake that are in opposition-held territories where not a
single one of the regimes banks or financial institutions
operates.
It was also done without any consultation with the Syrian-
American community or the Syrian opposition who were shocked at
what happened.
Mr. Wilson. Well, your clarity is shocking itself. So thank
you for bringing that to attention.
And, additionally, Mr. Rayburn, the Biden Administration
appears hesitant to fully implement and enforce the sanctions
required under the Caesar Act.
This hesitancy extends to both primary sanctions targeting
the Assad regime and secondary sanctions targeting foreign
entities that support the regime. Has the Administration's
failure to enforce the act had a negative impact on the
potential for justice and accountability in Syria?
Mr. Rayburn. It absolutely has because it signaled to the
region and to Syrians and to the rest of the world that the
United States is not serious about imposing costs on the Assad
regime for its behavior.
It's also undermined the major leverage that the United
States and our allies have had, the economic pressure that we
should have been imposing.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
We now proceed to the ranking member, Dean Phillips.
Mr. Burchett. Mr. Chairman, could I make a parliamentary
inquiry?
Mr. Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Burchett. There was a little bit of delay because of
the translator and I was wondering if maybe my dear friend, Mr.
Phillips, would allow you--you could have a minute of my time.
Mr. Wilson. No. No. Yes. No. No. No. No.
Mr. Burchett. OK.
Mr. Wilson. I'm very----
Mr. Burchett. OK. I'm sorry. All right.
Mr. Wilson. No. No. You--hey, you see, people from
Tennessee are very thoughtful. It's hard to--it's hard to
imagine, but no, hey--no, no, no. Hey, I'll be happy to
proceed. OK.
Mr. Phillips. And people from Minnesota are passive
aggressive.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Wilson. Well, we--well, hey--hey--hey, they're having a
blizzard there today so be understanding.
Mr. Phillips. Exactly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lord, I appreciated your words about the call for all
of us to apply a lens of pragmatism, not politics, to these
questions and I think--I just want to make a statement. I do
not think any of us on this panel and this Congress wish to
support or enrich Assad in any way, shape, or form.
All of us wish to support the Syrian people and these
questions--and I'm grateful for all of you, our witnesses and
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, to look at it through
this lens.
You know, Mr. Rayburn, I listened to your words about GL23
and I respect your perspective. You used the word hasty and
over broad, a solution in search of a problem.
Just to clarify, though, is your objection to the GL itself
or is it the way that it was contemplated and, you know,
designed and implemented?
Mr. Rayburn. Having been involved in the implementation of
the Caesar Act and our other sanctions authorities on Syria I
would much have preferred to see the Administration ramp up the
licensing process that we already have through OFAC and be
really smart about it because the Assad regime is one of the
most cynical regimes in the world and they already manipulate
all financial transactions going into Damascus to enrich
themselves.
So this just opened the floodgates for that. The risk was
enormous and I really would have preferred to see us field
out--really ramp up the number of people that we have working
on evaluating licenses and working with the NGO community. We
already have that kind of mechanism in place and we just sort
of threw it out to let the toxic waste kind of go into the
river.
Mr. Phillips. OK.
Mr. Lord, I'd love your response to that perspective.
Mr. Lord. Now, ultimately, what we're doing here is we're
debating the temperature of the brimstone. Hell is hot, OK.
Fundamentally, we're in a situation in Syria after the
earthquake where thousands and thousands of people need
assistance. They need it fast.
Having worked both in the executive branch and this
legislative branch I think we can all agree in a bipartisan way
government policy does not move particularly quickly. The type
of ramp up that my friend and colleague is describing, weeks,
months at best.
So under the circumstances in which you have a list of
pretty terrible options I think this represents a pretty good
one if our priority in the moment is saving Syrian lives.
Mr. Phillips. I appreciate it. Let me turn to the same
issue relative to normalization, which I know troubles all of
us. None of us believe from a moral perspective that we should
be--anybody should be normalizing relations with Assad and his
regime.
So with that, again, starting with you, Mr. Rayburn, what
would a realistic, pragmatic solution or at least a policy be
for the United States as it relates to our--the Arab world
increasingly taking steps to normalize with this regime?
Mr. Rayburn. I think we should have maintained the policy
that we had until 2021 of enforcing the isolation of the Assad
regime in concert with all of the European countries and the EU
and most of the Arab capitals at that time to maintain an
international front in order to keep the political and economic
pressure on the Assad regime to force it into the U.N.-
supervised peace process as well as to compel it to stop the
war.
Even today the Assad regime is continuing to wage war on
opposition-held territories. As soon as that stops then we can
entertain--we can entertain other options. But in the absence
of that pressure the war is simply not going to stop.
Mr. Phillips. Mr. Lord, same question. What would a
comprehensive pragmatic solution and policy look like as it
relates to the normalization moves by the Arab world?
Mr. Lord. Well, I think there are a few options here for us
to consider.
One, if we open the aperture, as an intellectual exercise
think about Syria in the context of our National Defense
Strategy, what's salient about Syria? It's a huge strategic
asset for Russia in terms of geography.
So we might think a little bit about how we frame our
positions to put pressure on Russia and the relationship with
Damascus. We can make it harder and impose costs on the Russian
military presence, and try to drive a wedge between Assad and
Putin with the understanding that a lot of the intractable
problems start to get a little easier if Putin does not support
Assad the way that he does.
So I would consider that. I think over the course of three
Administrations there has been a challenge in connecting a de-
ISIS policy with the greater Syria strategy. And, furthermore,
there's always been this dissonance over the course of three
Administrations about our objectives for holding Assad
accountable and the tools that we can bring to do that.
Mr. Phillips. Very quickly, what do you think the Saudis'
objective is relative to their steps toward normalization right
now? Yes, to you.
Mr. Lord. The Saudis are in a position where they're trying
to reestablish and strengthen their general influence in the
region. They're opening up relations with everyone, and in the
case of Assad I think it's important to remember that Assad
really has a gun to their head in terms of Captagon as he does
to Jordan, and the UAE.
Millions and millions of these pills are flooding into
these countries and it's wreaking havoc on the borders and
really creating both a criminal and a drug threat and,
ultimately, this is new territory and a new ability for him to
twist the knife. So they're responding the best way that they
can absent a vision and leadership from the West.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you, Ranking Member Dean Phillips.
We now proceed with Congressman Michael Lawler of New York.
Mr. Lawler. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Rayburn, since Assad has waged his war on the Syrian
people how many Syrians have died?
Mr. Rayburn. There are estimates of up to a million.
Mr. Lawler. Which I would note, to put in context, is far
greater than American casualties in World War II.
He has waged an unholy war on his own people, just death
and destruction and carnage for over 12 years now. Why is it
that the Arab League, which suspended the Assad government's
membership, has met to talk about potentially bringing him back
into the Arab League?
Mr. Rayburn. There started--there's always been the
influence within the Arab League of Arab countries that are
aligned with the Iranian regime, which has been trying to push
to rehabilitate Assad politically in the region.
But that's picked up steam when the--when the Emirates sort
of joined that trend at the end of 2018 and since then, I think
in 2019 or 2020 you saw that being held more at bay, especially
as the U.S. formulated a policy that was pretty coherent in--
against normalization.
I think since then what you're seeing as reflected is
frustration of the Arab capitals with the--with sort of the
absence of U.S. assertiveness on the political track and on the
economic pressure track concerning the Assad regime.
In addition, you're also seeing, I think, that there's a
hedging in Saudi Arabia and other places that the United States
is disengaging with the region, that China is going to come in
and take our place, that the Russians are going to have more
permanent and expanding level of influence. And so they're
beginning to hedge in the direction of that coalition of China,
Russia, and the Iranian regime in the region.
Mr. Lawler. So you see growing influence between Iran,
Russia, and China in the Middle East and waning influence of
the American government?
Mr. Rayburn. One hundred percent. That's the strong
perception. This could easily be arrested if we were to
reassert ourselves. But right now, the whole region sees us as
a stock that's declining in value and the Chinese, Russians,
the Iranian regime, Assad, Hezbollah, Hamas, as a stock that's
rising in value.
Mr. Lawler. So you put this squarely on the Biden
Administration?
Mr. Rayburn. I think that their lack of assertiveness here
has been extremely damaging. I think that there was some
momentum at the end of 2020 that was allowed to dissipate.
I think it's the responsibility of all of Washington. I do
not see that this should--I really--it's been puzzling to me
both as the envoy and now as sort of an out of government
expert how the treatment of the Assad regime became a partisan
issue. I do not--I do not understand that. It seems a no
brainer, pretty clear cut to me that that regime's behavior in
nature is sharply against U.S. interests.
Mr. Lawler. I agree a hundred percent.
So what would you like to see the U.S. Government and
Congress do? I note in your testimony you call for Congress to
move quickly to pass the chairman's bill, the No U.N. Aid for
Assad Act.
What would you like to see Congress do to move our response
and, hopefully, therefore, the White House's response in the
right direction and re-strengthen our relationships within the
region so that Assad and his regime do not continue to
normalize relations with other countries?
Mr. Rayburn. I think the entire region is waiting to see if
Congress is going to reassert, update, and expand the Caesar
Act and if Congress is going to take action against the massive
narco trafficking of Captagon that is benefiting the Assad
regime and Hezbollah.
Those are the two most significant things that could turn
this around, could turn this trend around and reassert U.S.
leadership. I would have liked for the executive branch, the
Administration, to be doing this over the last 2 years but they
are not going to do it.
They've been quietly--they've been drifting in the opposite
direction. I think it's time that Congress needs to reassert
its intent on this question in the ways I've mentioned. The
Caesar Act, the No U.N. aid for Assad Act, the Captagon Act,
these would be--these would have a massive political difference
in the region immediately.
Mr. Lawler. Thank you for that last question. As part of
this context, obviously, you have a major humanitarian crisis
with the earthquakes and anytime we have that situation, of
course, the urge is to help and to support.
Have you seen that aid that has come in and the response
by, you know, other countries in the region has that helped
Assad rebuild relationships in the region?
Mr. Rayburn. Well, it's helped Assad rebuild relationships
in the region. More specifically, it's enriched the Assad
regime because the international aid that has come through the
regime is forcing it to go through either Bashar Al-Assad's
wife's kleptocratic NGO or through the Syrian Arab Red
Crescent, which is an arm of the Syrian secret police.
So this is funding that's going to directly into the Assad
regime's pockets and none of it will cross the line between
Assad regime territory and the opposition territory where the
earthquake actually did all the damage.
The international aid--the only international aid that's
going to help the Syrian people who are most affected by the
earthquake is going to have to come in through Turkiye and
Assad has nothing to do with that. So everything that's gone
through Damascus and including any funds that went into
Damascus under General License 23, a large chunk of that is
going straight into the Assad regime's pockets.
That's the problem with the hasty response that we and the
international community had in the wake of the earthquake.
Mr. Lawler. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman Michael Lawler.
We now proceed to former chairman David Cicilline of Rhode
Island.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Chairman Wilson, and thank you to
you and Ranking Member Phillips for calling this important
hearing, and thank you to our witness for their testimony.
We have--the world has really witnessed for the last 12
years the horrors carried out by the Assad regime against the
Syrian people, including the deployment of chemical weapons
against its own citizens, the widespread use of torture, which
we heard about this morning, and extrajudicial killings.
The humanitarian toll has been catastrophic as hundreds of
thousands have been killed and millions more have become
refugees and, as we all know, the humanitarian situation in
Syria remains incredibly dire. In 2022, 14.6 million Syrians
needed some form of humanitarian assistance, up 1.2 million
from 2021, and that does not even include for those impacted by
the earthquake.
And so my first question is as we think about humanitarian
assistance, the United States is the largest humanitarian
donor, allocating more than $15.8 billion since Fiscal Year
2012.
But we have continued to have difficulties in attracting
support for this effort in the international community. In
fact, the United Nations' humanitarian appeals for Syria just a
few weeks ago--the U.N. special envoy for Syria said that the
2023 humanitarian response plan for Syria is only funded at 6
percent. So this is a catastrophic problem.
How can the United States leverage international support to
assist in the humanitarian response, particularly from some of
these countries that are contemplating resuming or normalizing
relations? What can we do? What is the strength of the Arab
countries in terms of humanitarian assistance?
Mr. Lord or Mr. Rayburn?
Mr. Rayburn. Thank you, Congressman.
One thing that can be done is I think we need to revisit
having essentially outsourced all of our humanitarian
assistance to Syria to the U.N. agencies because the Russians
have collapsed their access to Syria down to only the Bab al-
Hawa border crossing and any cross line aid that would have an
infinitesimal chance of going from Damascus or some other
Syrian regime city into the northwest, which is where really
the most vulnerable population is.
I think that the earthquake and the Russians' manipulation
of the UNSC authorizations of U.N. agencies tells us that the
United States and other major donors and Turkiye need to
explore large-scale national aid in a continuum outside the
U.S. system so that it's not subject to Russian blackmail and
so that all the border crossings from Turkiye into Syria can be
used and then we wouldn't have to play this game every 6 months
with the Russians at the Security Council extorting us on
behalf of Assad and the Iranians or whatever.
And we would also show them that we have a plan B and we'd
actually probably make it more likely that they would
relinquish their constraints on the U.N. agencies and we would
get more human aid going across, having dealt with this process
in the--as the Syria envoy and I think it's long overdue for us
to do that.
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Lord?
Mr. Lord. I largely agree. I think we can be doing more in
coordination with our partners to advance aid through other
areas. It currently does flow through the U.S. and others
beyond the U.N. mechanism.
But, we sort of lost a critical foothold around 2019 with
the reduction of START, which was, the State Department's tool
for advancing and coordinating aid in Syria itself. It was
withdrawn after the Turkish advance.
We need to have a stronger Title 22 State Department
foothold in the northeast. We need more on the ground in the
Title 2 capacity to advance aid and we need to be able to have
hard conversations about areas in which we can build greater
resilience so shocks like this earthquake do not have such an
immediate devastating effect that requires such, you know, a
crashing of policy to advance aid. So I'd start there.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you. And, finally, I just want to--you
know, we passed the Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act last
Congress, a bill I worked on with Senators Grassley and Durbin
and Leahy and Congresswoman Spartz here in the House, to make
sure that we had additional ways to hold war criminals
accountable.
So this is for Gravedigger. What else can we do to be sure
that the members of the Assad regime and Assad himself are
accountable for their war crimes?
Do you have suggestions, and, I guess for the other
witnesses as well, what the United States can do to make sure
there's some accountability for this horrific new genocide of
the Syrian people?
Gravedigger. The United States is a great power. The United
States is a power that can--that can take public positions that
shows how it views the Assad regime and how no one should
normalize by it because that also helps in holding them
accountable.
Very recently there's been some news about civil and
criminal cases in the United States. An increase in these cases
on a national level is very important but also pressuring for
an international mechanism, an international court, since the
ICC is not available to us, that can help hold these criminals
responsible not just for the killing of hundreds of thousands
of Syrians that I buried but also Americans and Europeans, some
of which I buried as well.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you very much, Chairman--former
Chairman David Cicilline.
Now we proceed to Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members, Ranking
Member, my brother. Probably close to you as anybody up here.
So it's good seeing you, brother.
I'm glad you're in this leadership position. I'm not much
of a diplomat. I do not--I did not get up here about being
that. So Assad, I think he's a dirtbag. I do not know what that
translates into your language but I suspect you got something
close to it.
I'm wondering about the Arab countries. If they normalize
their relationship with--or relations or whatever with Syria
what effect is that going to have on folks like our friends in
Israel and some of the others?
Mr. Rayburn. I can--I can take a stab at that one,
Congressman. It's going to make----
Mr. Burchett. And do me a favor. Just give me a quick good
answer. You do not have to give me all the diplomatic stuff.
Mr. Rayburn. It's going to make life worse for the Israelis
because it's going to give Assad a freer hand to allow the
Iranian regime and Hezbollah and Hamas to use Syrian territory
as a launchpad for attacking Israel, plain and simple.
Mr. Burchett. You got anything on that, Mr. Lord?
Mr. Lord. Thank you for the question, sir. So I think the
Saudis in particular and a lot of others are really two
tracking here.
You know, they're reaching out to the Iranians to mollify
them, to reduce the level of provocations and threat to
themselves, while at the same time reaching out both to the
West, even to Israel, to buildup their military capabilities to
defend against the very threat that Iran poses.
But it's true that at the very least Iran is working to
build what the Israelis call a ring of fire around it where
Iranian proxies can attack into Israel from southern Lebanon,
now from southern Syria, and, of course, from Iran directly. So
it's a real problem.
Mr. Burchett. Is the Assad regime stopping progress on the
Abraham Accords? Everybody says historical Abraham Accords.
I'll just say Abraham Accords.
Mr. Rayburn. The normalization--the Gulf countries have one
of two ways to go. They could continue in the direction of the
Abraham Accords or they could normalize with the Iranian
regime, the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and they are
moving away from the Abraham Accords and toward this,
essentially, coalition of America and Israelis--and Israel's
enemies.
Mr. Lord. Here I differ a little bit with my friend and
colleague. I think there's opportunity here, and while there is
hedging it is very clear that the Gulf partners want a
relationship with the U.S., with Israel, and we can play a more
robust role.
They haven't been unclear with the U.S. about what it's
looking for. They're looking for security guarantees. They're
looking for security assistance. We have been less willing to
provide that for a host of reasons. But, as a result they are
hedging and seeking to make accommodations with their bad
neighbors just in case.
Mr. Burchett. Has our involvement in Ukraine had any effect
whatsoever on the civil war in Syria?
Mr. Rayburn. I would say it's the other way around. The war
in Syria has had a very negative effect on the conflict in
Ukraine because it gave Vladimir Putin the sense that he could
act with--since he acted with impunity with Assad and the
Iranians in Syria he thought he could do something similar in
Ukraine.
The Russian military--and the same generals who did it to
Syria are doing that to Ukraine: indiscriminate bombing, war
crimes, mass murder, et cetera. Syria was the--was the warmup
for what the Russians are doing in Ukraine.
Mr. Lord. Sir, we have seen a significantly reduced
military presence in Syria as it has all flooded back for the--
for the Ukraine war and it's creating really an interesting
moment here where we're seeing Iranian and Russian interests
begin to coalesce together as they're pushed into a corner.
So as the Israelis pursue what they call
[speaks in Hebrew]--the war between the wars--and how they
target the Iranians in Syria oftentimes they've, sort of
tiptoed past the Russians to do it.
But if we see greater and greater confluence between the
Iranians and the Russians someone's going to have to, perhaps,
you know, jump off the fence here and start making a choice as
they begin to help each other in each of their conflicts.
Mr. Burchett. Real quickly, the war has gone on for 12
years. What has the U.S. involvement accomplished from a
military perspective?
Mr. Rayburn. Right now it's keeping--it's keeping our foot
on the neck of ISIS. Having lived through this in Iraq, the
minute you release the pressure they begin to regenerate
because they take their oxygen from the political conflict
that's raging all around them. So you have to have a second
track to try to solve those political conflicts or else you'd
just be killing ISIS ad infinitum.
Mr. Burchett. Mr. Lord?
Mr. Lord. Sir, if we were to withdraw those forces today
ISIS will resurge and we'd be back to where we were in no time,
2014-2015. We need a strategy that leads to a status quo that's
sustainable, ultimately, without the presence of U.S. forces.
Mr. Burchett. And I do not have anything for the
Gravedigger and I've run over but I will just say that I will
remember you in my prayers and thank you, brother, for what
you----
Mr. Moustafa. He says thank you from--God bless you, sir.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman Tim Burchett, for your
insight.
And we now proceed to Congresswoman Kathy Manning of North
Carolina.
Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank our witnesses today, especially the brave
Gravedigger, who has shared his horrific experience of
witnessing war crimes committed by Bashar Al-Assad and his
henchmen.
There is no doubt that Assad will go down in history as one
of the most appalling and cruel leaders who has masterminded
unforgivable death and destruction of his country and caused a
refugee crisis of epic proportions in order to hold on to power
to the detriment of the people he is supposed to serve.
Mr. Lord, I'll start with you. We are concerned with the
increasingly effective role Iran is playing in providing
weaponry to bad actors around the world and, first, I'd like to
ask what we can be doing to limit Iran's influence and activity
specifically in Syria, which we know poses a direct threat to
the security of our ally Israel.
Mr. Lord. Well, if we wanted to look at the entire toolkit,
Ms. Manning, on the one end, as of now this nor any previous
Administration has any authorities to actively target Iran.
So if we were going to have that conversation I'm sitting
before the committee that has the jurisdiction to authorize the
use of military force. So that, on one end, certainly is an
option.
The Israelis are under no such constraint and have actively
targeted the Iranians' IRGC Quds Forces and their proxies. So
there are opportunities to be working in cooperation with the
Israelis for them to make sure that they see all the targets,
that we can be helpful to them as they are the ones that are
most directly under threat.
It's important to also note, I think, we might be seeing a
bit of a change in Iranian activity in Syria where historically
they might be changing their rules of engagement with us where
if the Israelis target something that is Iranian it's quite
possible now that in an effort to try to mirror this war
between the wars they might target us and so we need to be
aware of that as well. That's a real risk that is actually
happening.
Ms. Manning. So to what extent has Russia's presence in
Syria prevented Iran from taking action against Israel?
Mr. Lord. It has not. The Russians and the Iranians have
really acted in parallel. They have some interests which
converge, which is to see the Assad regime continue. But Russia
really wants to maintain its warm water port access and the
Iranians their ring of fire, as we previously discussed.
Ms. Manning. And we know that there was recently a missile
shot from Syria into Israel. What do we know about who was
behind that attack and what message did it send?
Mr. Lord. This does happen occasionally and more and more
frequently. There was a recent UAV that flew from southern
Syria from, I think, the Daraa area, into the Golan Heights,
then northern Israel.
The Iranians are seeking to buildup a similar threat that
exists from Lebanese Hezbollah from southern Lebanon now from
the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border. So I think while
the capacity--while the organization, the history of the
infrastructure isn't there, they are trying to create that
threat that encircles geographically Israel.
Ms. Manning. OK. Mr. Rayburn, you suggested compelling
Assad into a U.N.-sponsored peace negotiation. What do you see
as the best possible outcome in Syria?
Mr. Rayburn. I think--I always stuck to the logic of U.N.
Security Council Resolution 2254, which has a cease-fire--a
nationwide cease-fire--which is followed by a political process
that includes revising the Syrian constitution, having an
interim government authority, a transitional authority, and
then elections where the Syrian people can decide their own
fate.
I still think that is the only way that you're going to get
to a stable political outcome in Syria and Assad will resist
that and his allies will resist that with all their might. So
we have to use our pressure and have an international front to
compel them into that route.
Ms. Manning. Thank you. I have a question for the
Gravedigger. What more can we be doing to help the Syrian
refugees, those who are still in Syria and those who are
displaced into other countries?
Gravedigger. The United States--the refugees in Syria are
now about 14 million between internally displaced and people
outside. As far as the refugees outside the country, the United
States must stand to ensure that countries that are hosting
them do not forcibly repatriate them to Syria because they will
face certain death. I've seen what happens to people if they
are returned.
And as far as those that are internally displaced they're
mostly in northwest Syria and in Rukban in the south. It is
important for the United States to say that it's a red line to
kill, further displace, or detain these people, which is what
Assad regime wants to do in order to get his military victory.
Ms. Manning. Gentlemen, anyone else have thoughts about
what we can be doing to help the Syrian refugees?
Mr. Rayburn. One thing, ma'am, is the Syrian expatriates
refugees or nonrefugees, in order to travel internationally and
try to get residency in the places where they fled to still
have to go to the Assad regime to renew their passports and
their travel documents and to register vital documents.
I think the United States should lead the way in getting an
international agency. There are precedents under the--under the
U.N. to be able to issue valid travel documents and vital
documents registration to enable these people to delink from
the Assad regime's control and monitoring and also they pay
exorbitant bribes and fees to the Assad regime.
It's a huge cash cow in the billions to the Assad regime,
and this is something that we could just do administratively if
we could organize international support for it.
Ms. Manning. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. And
my time has expired. I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you very much, Congresswoman Kathy
Manning. And we now proceed to Congressman Rich McCormick of
Georgia.
Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's come to my attention from recent reports that Iran has
utilized relief flights intended for earthquake aid to
transport military equipment and weapons to Syria. The aim
behind this was to reinforce the defenses of Iran against
Israel within Syria as well as to bolster the position of
Syrian President Al-Assad.
While Russia and China are engaged in covert discussions
with Iran with the purpose of providing the Nation with a
crucial chemical compound that is utilized to fuel ballistic
missiles this move would significantly breach the U.N.
sanctions and has potential to aid Moscow in refilling their
dwindling missile stockpile. Furthermore, there is a
possibility that the missiles could end up being deployed
against Ukrainian forces.
Mr. Lord, what is the potential danger of Iran deploying
ballistic missile systems in Syria or Israel or supporting
Russia's war against Ukraine?
Mr. Lord. The danger is real. I think a lot of the strikes
that Israel has conducted in Syria has been to throttle and
reduce the capacity of Iran to build an exogenous threat to
allow its proxies to target Israel from Syria but then also to
reduce the capacity of those proxies to build those missiles
and weapons closer to Israel's borders.
Mr. McCormick. OK. Just for followup, is the Biden
Administration considering any potential consequences for
Russia and China if they supply Iran with that chemical
compound that is not allowed?
Mr. Lord. I would refer you to them. I do not have the
answer to that. I'm not in the Administration. But what I can
tell you is that in February a colleague and I wrote an op-ed
in The Washington Post suggesting that the many thousands of
tons of weapons that the U.S. has interdicted coming from Iran
on the way to Yemen be used to support our partners in Ukraine
and it does appear that in that case the Department of Justice
has taken steps in civil asset forfeiture to then make those
U.S. stocks, which would then otherwise allow those to be drawn
down as U.S. stocks for use in Ukraine.
So there's some movement there, I believe, but I would
defer you to the Administration on that.
Mr. McCormick. OK. So, obviously, we have a concern with it
being used against Ukraine. But also how would you assess the
risk of escalation between Iran and Israel in Syria?
Mr. Lord. Ultimately, I think what we're seeing now is
basically what we're going to see where the Iranians use Syria
as a pipeline to Lebanon, increasingly using southern Syria as
a hub and a platform and the Israelis are targeting that threat
quite regularly.
But if you ask them even they will admit that this is
ultimately not a solution. They're fundamentally mowing the
grass here and, ultimately, we have seen Iran buildup
Hezbollah's weapons capability well beyond where it was even
before the last war between Hezbollah and Israel. So there's
truly a threat on Israel's border.
Mr. McCormick. So I will just point out one inconsistency
of your statement, which I agree with, by the way, is that you
said what you see is what you're going to see.
But you also said increasingly and you also said built up
well beyond their current capabilities. So there is a buildup
and a progression toward destabilization and escalation, based
on your statement?
Mr. Lord. Just to clarify, what we're seeing in terms of
what the Israelis can do to stop it that's pretty status quo.
Of course, if this breaks out into open warfare between
Hezbollah and Israel that will look different.
Mr. McCormick. Got it. I think due to the current
Administration's failed Middle Eastern foreign policy the CCP
has been able to broker deals between Iran and Saudi Arabia as
well as Syria's reconciliation of the Gulf. As a result, Iran
and Syria have become emboldened to confront the U.S.
militarily and, of course, continue with humanitarian
atrocities.
The Secretary of Defense testified to Congress that the
Iran-backed militias have launched 83 attacks on American
forces in Iraq and Syria since Biden took office while the
United States has responded militarily just four times.
Apart from the efforts to address the Islamic State threat
in northeast Syria, U.S. policy since 2011 has been
unsuccessful in achieving favorable outcomes. Since the
beginning of the Biden Administration there has been a lack of
coherent and all-encompassing Syria policy implemented by the
U.S. Administration.
The current Administration lacks clear understanding of the
objective of Syria and lacks the cohesive plan for an end game
so we can put an end to the atrocities, the end to the buildup,
the end to the instability.
Mr. Rayburn, what are the American strategic long-term
goals in Syria that justify maintaining long-term U.S. military
engagement there?
Mr. Rayburn. First and foremost is international terrorism
is a continuing threat from ISIS, Al-Qaeda, an associated
groups like that.
In a larger sense, beyond just the military presence, our
political leverage, our economic leverage, and so on should be
put in the service of trying to get to the root cause of the
problem, which is the Assad regime, its nature, its behavior,
its alliance with the Iranian regime and all of the Iranian
regime's militant proxies.
Mr. McCormick. I concur. With that, I yield. I'm over time.
Thank you.
Mr. Wilson. No, thank you very much for your insight,
Congressman Rich McCormick.
And we now proceed to Congressman Brad Sherman of
California.
Mr. Sherman. I hate to say something nonpartisan but our
policy in the Middle East is remarkably similar to what it was
under the prior Administration and not all that different to
what it was in the Administration prior to that.
Of course, we're so dedicated to partisanship that we'll
find just changes in style as if they're changes in substance.
I'd also point out that none of my 434 colleagues has produced
a plan that would bring peace to Syria, democracy to Syria, or
peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
To scream partisan invectives because nobody can solve the
world's most intractable problems at a reasonable cost does not
seem to make a lot of sense.
I'll ask Mr. Lord--Putin has pushed for regional
normalization with the Assad regime and we're beginning to see
Arab states open to that possibility. Last week, diplomats from
nine Arab countries met in the Saudi city of Jeddah to discuss
a possible return of Syria to the 22-member Arab League, which
you know was suspended in 2011.
I think today's visit of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince
Faisal bin Farhan to meet with Assad in Damascus is a
disappointing sign that we may see such a normalization with
the Arab world.
What are the steps that the U.S. can take to discourage our
regional partners and others in the Middle East from
normalizing relations with Assad?
It's been reported that some Arab nations are resisting
Saudis' attempt to include Assad in the upcoming Arab League
meeting until--and we do not expect this to happen soon--the
Syrian--the Syrian government under Assad engages with the
political opposition in a way that could give the Syrians a
real voice in determining their future.
So what can we do to discourage normalization of Assad as
long as Assad continues acting like Assad?
Mr. Lord. Thank you for the question, Mr. Sherman.
I think, largely, when countries in the region seem to act
out of interests that are inimical to our own almost
reflexively we seek to coerce.
You know, there's a cathartic response that comes from that
that I think we're prone to. But in this case we might want to
take a strategic look at what it is that Assad holds over their
heads and let's start to address the problems with these
partners that will create more space for us. In the case of
Captagon----
Mr. Sherman. I've got a question on Captagon.
Mr. Lord. OK.
Mr. Sherman. You've put forward this image that Captagon is
the scourge of Middle East countries--certain Middle East
countries, and it is and Assad is creating it. But Assad isn't
a major player in the drug situation here the United States and
we face a huge problem. It may be one pill in one place,
another pill in another place.
So let's say Assad promises to stop sending the Captagon.
Wouldn't other merchants of death be shipping Captagon if
that's popular, or fentanyl, into these Arab countries as long
as there's a market for it?
Mr. Lord. Well, he created----
Mr. Sherman. Can--so the answer is can Assad deliver a
drug-free Jordan or a drug-free Saudi Arabia?
Mr. Lord. Well, having aligned himself on the side of drugs
in the war of drugs I grant that it's a hard fight. But at the
same time, the geography does suggest that as the source of the
region's drug woes there's a lot more that could be done to try
to interdict and reduce and support the partners in a way that
creates more opportunity.
Mr. Sherman. Clearly, we should be helping our friends in
the Middle East interdict drugs just as we have drug prevention
and interdiction programs all over the world. We need to do
more to help both the people who are refugees and those that
are inside Syria but not under government control without
sending the aid through Damascus.
I think it was you, it might have been Mr. Rayburn, who was
concerned about the possibility that host countries would
deport these refugees, God forbid, back to the clutches of
Assad and I would just point out that if we do not provide the
aid to these refugees and they become a bigger burden that's
exactly what some of these countries might do.
Mr. Rayburn, do I have it right?
Mr. Rayburn. You're 100 percent correct. Hosting the
refugees is a very heavy burden on Syria's neighbors and I
think that's something that we have to take into account and
make sure that those refugees are getting--that we're helping
to mitigate that problem to the extent that we can.
Mr. Sherman. My time has expired.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Congressman Sherman.
We now proceed to Congressman French Hill of Arkansas.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
allowing me to attend this important subcommittee hearing.
To my friend Mouaz Moustafa, it's always great to see you.
I was the first Member of Congress to meet with the Gravedigger
when Mouaz brought him to the Capitol for the first time and
hear his sad and grave--no pun intended--testimony firsthand
about Assad's regime.
As we have heard today, the Gravedigger's revelations are
shocking and, in my view, on par and maybe perhaps exceed the
significance of the Caesar photos. I've seen the aerial photos
and the hundreds of yards of lined mass graves, and my meeting
with the Gravedigger from back in December 2021 is something I
still think about on a weekly basis.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had a full committee
hearing that included the Gravedigger in June of last year yet
today it's the first time we're hearing from the Gravedigger
here in the House.
For the past two under this Administration and under
Democratic control of this committee U.S. policy on Syria has
only deteriorated. The Biden Administration has not enforced
sanctions and Syria has now become a narco State, and the
murder of innocents continues with near impunity.
It took me nearly 2 years to get a bill signed into law to
get a strategy to be put in place to stop the proliferation of
the drug Captagon.
Despite the well-known and public sources about Assad's
role in Captagon, it took until last month for the Biden
Administration to finally issue some sanctions against the
Syrian regime for the production and trafficking of Captagon.
Late last month Secretary Blinken testified before the full
Foreign Affairs Committee and told me that not only does the
U.S. not support normalizing relations with Assad but that
we're actively discouraging regional states from normalizing
relations with Assad.
In fact, the Secretary said he had personally demarched the
foreign ministers in the region. However, on March 9th, 2023,
Al-Monitor interview of U.S. Assistant Secretary for State for
Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf--Barbara Leaf's quote says,
``Our basic message has been that if you're going to engage
with the regime you ought to get something for it.''
Mr. Chair, that's a quote. That seems in direct conflict
with Secretary Blinken's testimony before our committee. So I
find that very concerning.
Colonel Rayburn, when you were special envoy for Syria did
the Gulf states approach you or the Trump Administration about
normalizing relations with Assad?
Mr. Rayburn. The UAE did, and Secretary Pompeo and
Ambassador Jim Jeffrey and I went round and round with the
Emirates for more than 2 years to discourage them from that
path.
The rest of the Gulf states were strongly with us because I
think they recognize that the U.S. was asserting itself in a
leadership role to maintain the isolation of Assad and they
wanted to be on our side in that.
Mr. Hill. So you agree it's deteriorated in the past 2
years?
Mr. Rayburn. Absolutely. That was the thrust of my written
and my oral testimony and I think it's a major problem.
Mr. Hill. In spite of U.S. policy on normalization are
statements like Secretary Leaf's seen as, quote, ``green
lights'' for Gulf countries to normalize relations?
Mr. Rayburn. Yes, I think that's true. Not only that but
other actions such as the Administration's endorsement of an
Arab gas pipeline deal that would involve Assad as well as
General License 23 as well as just the conversations that they
have with Arab counterparts where they say in private before
Barbara Leaf's statement the same thing that Barbara Leaf said
in public.
Mr. Hill. Thank you. My office has heard from a few sources
that many states are now elevating Captagon as a key card for
normalization rather than a reason to isolate the Assad regime
and help coordinate with Western nations to coordinate a
strategy to defeat Captagon. I find that shocking.
I appreciate my friend, Mr. Sherman, raising this issue.
But if this Administration was so firm on this they would have
named Assad a narco State last fall and in our testimony before
the full Committee Secretary Blinken wasn't even aware that
decision had been made last fall.
Do you think that the Syrians should be a narco state--the
transnational drug State named by the State Department?
Mr. Rayburn. Absolutely. It's long overdue. We have seen
this Captagon problem on a massive scale since 2020 so I think
there could have been action taken under existing authorities
before now.
Mr. Hill. As I said, a couple of weeks ago this
Administration did sanction Syria using the Caesar sanctions.
Mr. Rayburn--I should say Colonel Rayburn and congratulate you
for being a Texas Aggie, too--but should the--when was the last
time that Caesar sanctions were used?
Mr. Rayburn. There have been a handful of instances under
the Biden Administration. I think there have been too--it's
been too slow a pace.
From the time of the Caesar Act going active in June 2020
until December 2020 in the previous Administration we were able
to roll out more than 110 sanctions. Under the Caesar Act and
other associated Syria-related authorities that dropped off to
a trickle, unfortunately, in 2021.
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Congressman French Hill.
I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony
and the members for their questions. The members of the
subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses
and we will ask you to respond to those in writing.
Pursuant to committee rules all members may have 5 days to
submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for
record, subject to the length limitations.
And then I--in appreciation of the witnesses, I would like
you to stay in place as the members of the subcommittee would
like to join you in a group picture, and without objection, the
subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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