Russia may have aimed to undermine alliances and sow international disorder following reports it helped spark the Qatar crisis by planting disinformation, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday.
Mattis speculated on Russian motives amid questioning on Capitol Hill by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who told the defense secretary it appeared the Kremlin is taking recent cyberattacks on the U.S. and French elections to a “whole new level.”
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states cut ties last week and launched a blockade against Qatar, where the U.S. has a key military air base, after a news report emerged claiming the country’s emir made a speech praising Iran and Israel. CNN reported that the FBI now believes the report was disinformation planted by Russia.
“If the news reports are accurate, what motive would the Russians have had for doing something like that?” Warren asked during a Senate Armed Services hearing.
Mattis said Russia is not only targeting the U.S. and Europe, but also “trying to break any kind of multilateral alliance, I think, that is a stabilizing influence in the world.”
“I think a disruption of the international order is something that Russia in a short-sighted way thinks works to their benefit,” Mattis said.
President Trump, who had just made a trip to Saudi Arabia, praised the move by Gulf states as a crackdown on Qatar for funding and supporting radical Islamic ideology.
Mattis acknowledged such support is a problem among U.S. partners in the region and said it can “undercut stability and creates the kind of ocean where the terrorists swim.
“At the same time, we’ve got to make certain we are all working together,” he said.
In the wake of the Qatar blockade, the Trump administration offered what appeared to be some conflicting comments on how military operations were being affected, especially at Al Udeid air base where U.S. Central Command wages the war against the Islamic State.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Saudi Arabia and other countries to ease the blockade this month because it was hindering operations. But Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson then said Al Udeid operations were unaffected.
On Tuesday, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, denied that military operations in the Middle East and at the air base are hindered by the ongoing crisis in Qatar.
“We’ve had good cooperation from all the parties to make sure that we can continue to move freely in and out of Qatar where we have both an important air base as well as headquarters forward of the United States Central Command,” Dunford said.
