General Fraser's update on Southcom
Last week, the Pentagon submitted a report to Congress on Iran's military power. This "12-page analysis of Tehran's current and future military strategy" made little mention of Latin America. However, the few sentences that did mention Latin America have been the subject of many news stories.
The report points to the growing presence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' elite Qods force in Latin America, especially Venezuela:
[The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF)] is well established in the Middle East and north Africa and recent years have witnessed an increased presence in Latin America, particularly Venezuela.... If US involvement in conflict in these regions deepens, contact with the IRGC-QF, directly or through extremist groups it supports, will be more frequent and consequential.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez immediately responded on Monday, saying that the Pentagon report was "absolutely false." "Look what they are saying," President Chávez continued, "If the U.S. applies sanctions to Iran, these forces that are here -- something that is absolutely false -- could then attack U.S. territory or U.S. interests with terrorist acts. ... Tell me this isn't an open threat by the government of the United States against Venezuela once again using infamy and lies."
General Douglas Fraser, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, responded to many reporters' questions about the Pentagon report at a breakfast meeting in Washington on Tuesday. "I don't see any arms or indications of arms coming from Iran," Fraser told the reporters. "What I see is that Iran has had, from a diplomatic and a commercial standpoint, a growing interest in Latin America. ... Our concern is their connection to Hizbollah, Hamas." He continued to note that "I haven't seen evidence of [an Iranian] military presence," however, "I'm a skeptic, and so we're watching for that. To date, we have not seen that kind of support."
On Wednesday, General Fraser held another press briefing, where he was to give an update on U.S. Southern Command's operations. Again, reporters asked for clarification about Iran's presence in Venezuela, and General Fraser's responses were almost identical to those he made on Tuesday.
What we see is a growing relationship between Iran and Venezuela. And it has been a diplomatic and a commercial activity, and that's what we see. ... My concern in the relationship with Iran in the region is their historic connection with Hamas and Hezbollah, which we define as terrorist organizations. ... I don't see any of that activity right now. But I'm a skeptical person. I'm paid to be skeptical. So I'll continue to watch.
General Fraser also noted that his views and the Pentagon's views are not different positions, explaining that "there is ... a growing relationship between Iran and Venezuela. And so when you hear that report, that is a report that talks about presence: There is a growing relationship and presence of Iran in the relationship with Venezuela. And so that's what we see. So they are the same. And so I'd ask you just not to misinterpret the 'presence' word, if you will. So we see a growing relationship."
One statement he made did seem to differ from what he was reported to say on Tuesday - and that is regarding arms. On Tuesday, as noted above, General Fraser said "I don't see any arms or indications of arms coming from Iran." However, on Wednesday General Fraser said, "There is a military connection, just from the arms sales to Venezuela. There is unmanned air vehicle capacity that Irana (sic) is supporting within Venezuela. So that is the military connection that I see between Iran and Venezuela. It's just arms -- support for arms."
The topic of Iran's presence in Venezuela definitely made up almost 50 percent of journalists' questions to General Fraser on Wednesday. But he did talk about other topics in the region important to Southcom, such as illicit trafficking -- which is Southcom's main focus in the region -- drug interdiction, the U.S. military's efforts in Haiti, and back to Venezuela on U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Below are excerpts from his statements on those topics. The full transcript and a video of the press briefing are available on Southcom's website.
Southcom's focus in the region
Our focus continues to be, support the security, stability within the region, build our partnerships with our companion militaries within the region. And that effort continues as our focus throughout the year.
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That's our sole mission within this. The reason I pay as much attention to it as I do is because of the destabilizing impact that it has potentially within countries in which drug trafficking organizations and also gangs are coming into.And I don't want it to become a military issue. And so the way to address that is to address it now, while we still can cooperate and work between all our partner agencies.
Next steps in Haiti
In the June time frame, we will plan to disestablish the Joint Task Force-Haiti. And we will then have some medical readiness training opportunities there, 10 of those throughout the hurricane season.
We will also have an exercise that provides humanitarian assistance -- roofs on schools, other medical facilities -- and just providing infrastructure support, not focused in Port-au-Prince but in the Gonaives areas where we're going to focus throughout the hurricane season.
We'll also have a ship, an amphibious ship that will be in the region, in the Caribbean during the entire hurricane season, that will be closer in case there is a hurricane that strikes Haiti; with all the numbers of displaced people who are there now, that we have an ability to respond quickly to whatever situation is there.
Illicit Trafficking
We had a very successful year last year countering illicit traffic. We were able to disrupt or seize over 229 metric tons of cocaine. We estimate that's roughly about 25 percent of the cocaine that's transiting through the maritime environments.
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We estimate that there's somewhere between 1,200 to 1,400 metric tons of cocaine that are trafficked from the northern part of South America to various parts of the world. Roughly 60 percent of that is destined for the United States, but a growing number of that, 30-some percent, is headed to Europe, a lot of it through western Africa, and then to markets also in the Middle East.
So -- it's well financed. And so as we try to stop and disrupt traffic in the maritime environments, the traffickers adjust their tactics also. We have been very successful and Colombia has been very successful at denying the air transit out of Colombia into the Caribbean, and the traffickers have just shifted to the east. And so we see more traffic emanating out of Venezuela now than we do out of Colombia.
If you look at the maritime environment, we see it coming out of both coasts, the Caribbean coast, the north coast of Colombia, the western coast, as well as further south. But they tend to now intercept in the Central American isthmus earlier and then now traffic up through the Pan American Highway through the countries in Central America in through Mexico to the United States.
Venezuelan-U.S. relations
At Joint Interagency Task Force-South in Key West, there is a liaison position that remains available for Venezuela to fill. There are 13 other nations who have liaison officers there, both from a military standpoint as well as law enforcement.
We continue to look for those opportunities. We invite the armed forces of Venezuela to conferences, to attend education opportunities. And it has been their choice not to attend those. It has not been our desire to restrict them.