Yousef Al Otaiba

Early life

Otaiba was born 1974 in Abu Dhabi into a wealthy merchant family. His father was the UAE's first Minister of Petroleum, Mana Saeed Al Otaiba, one of the country's key non-royal founding members as well as a close confidant to the late UAE founder and President Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1918–2004). His father had at least 12 children with 4 wives, including Otaiba's Egyptian mother. Otaiba was raised in Cairo by his mother, from whom he is the only child. Although he got a first-rate liberal arts high school education (at the time the premier Cairo American College), and, while there, introduced himself to Frank G. Wisner, then the US ambassador to Egypt, Otaiba likes to reflect on his "modest upbringing".

After completing high school in 1991, Yousef studied international relations at Georgetown University, it was Wisner, one of Otaiba’s mentors, who encouraged the young Al Otaiba to go to Washington, D.C.. The UAE embassy claims that Otaiba obtained a degree in international relations from Georgetown University. However in 2017, The Intercept reported Georgetown University's office of the registrar claims he never graduated.

Otaiba subsequently spent the next three years working for the automotive division of his family's firm, the Al Otaiba Group. His father's firm lost of the prestigious General Motors/Cadillac agency in Abu Dhabi after a bitter 11-year dispute over non-performance. Otaiba was then selected to attend the International Fellow at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) at the National Defense University in Washington, in preparation for an assignment to join the immediate staff of then UAE Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a position he assumed upon graduating from ICAF in 2000. The former CENTCOM Commander, General Anthony Zinni was another of Otaiba’s mentors.

Otaiba and his wife, Abeer, founder of a luxury fashion company, have one son, Omar, and one daughter, Samia.

Government career

At age 26, Otaiba became senior adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and, until his new posting, as director of international affairs for the court of the crown prince, he also served as the country's principal security, anti-terrorism and defence liaison with other governments. Bin Zayed was deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, so in effect Otaiba worked for the UAE’s defense minister for eight years.

In 2006 and 2007 Otaiba's role was described by Kristofer Harrison, a Defense and State Department advisor during the George W. Bush administration who worked closely with Otaiba, as "crucial helping to talk other countries in the region into backing President George W. Bush’s troop surge in the Iraq War". A role that was confirmed by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr. Otaiba's most significant contribution was "persuading other Gulfies to support the political components of the surge (e.g. the Anbar Awakening), and helping 'translate' the general strategy into something they would support".

June 22, 2008 Otaiba was elevated to UAE ambassador to the United States. He succeeded Saqr Ghobash, who had served as ambassador since March 2006. Upon his arriving in the capital, Otaiba hired Amy Little-Thomas, a former State Department staffermin the Bush administration, who became the UAE embassy's chief of protocol and he created the nonprofit ″Oasis Foundation″, his private foundation in connection with his work as ambassador "to advance positive relations between the UAE, a significant American ally (particularly in the Middle East), and the United States.” Court documents later disclosed deposits of millions of dollars to Oasis accounts, which were by turns frozen or shut down for suspicious activity. Otaiba worked closely with Howard Berman, then the Democratic chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on an agreement that would allow the UAE to obtain nuclear materials from the US for a civilian program.

In July 2010, remarks made by Otaiba, were interpreted as supporting a United States military strike on nuclear reactors in Iran. Otaiba’s remarks are reported to be the standard position of many Arab states.

From 2015 onwards Otaiba was a leading voice in Washington for the War in Yemen, where the UAE operated torture warehouses and funded death squads. The conflict has left more than 10,000 dead, millions starving (Famine in Yemen) and a cholera epidemic of historic proportions.

The UAE was the first nation to obtain the US military’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system - the first batch of UAE officers and airmen graduated from training on the system in December 2015.

In the run-up to President Trump’s Riyadh Summit with Islamic leaders on 20-21 May 2017 strong bonds reportedly formed between Otaiba and President Trump’s advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and minister of defense Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Otaiba and Kushner first met June 2017 at the behest of Thomas Barrack, a billionaire investor and Trump backer.

Hacked emails

In early June 2017, a hacker group calling itself “GlobalLeaks” began distributing hacked emails stolen from the inbox of Otaiba. The leaked emails revealed how Otaiba was living a double life which allegedly led to the exploitation of trafficked girls and the payment of $10,000-a-night prostitutes. The hackers reached out to The Daily Beast in email to offer a sample of the messages. Among other websites, the hackers provided Huffington Post with another batch of leaked emails from Otaiba, ranging between 2014 to 2017, mostly showing that the UAE supported a major effort to spread skepticism about Qatar in the United States. Some commentators expressed that "all they reveal is an envoy who has Arab interests at heart" and criticizes countries that support extremism. The New York Times further reported how the US had allegedly supported Abu Dhabi in hosting a Taliban embassy, which can be referenced to separate leaked email dated January 28, 2012. The hacked email allegedly contains a message written by Otaiba to another American official about an angry call from his foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed who was unhappy they were not able to host the Taliban embassy. Otaiba along with the support of the US government, said the UAE would only host a Taliban Embassy if the Taliban denounced its founder Osama Bin Laden, recognized the Afghan Constitution, and renounced violence and lay down their weapons. The Taliban refused these conditions and the UAE rescinded their offer to host the Taliban Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

The hacked emails appeared to benefit Qatar while trying to embarrass the United Arab Emirates, so it's widely believed to be the work of hackers working for Qatar. Part of the emails leaked included claims that Al Otaiba personally provided ex-Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy with a sum of $250,000 to allegedly cover his legal fees in his $100 million lawsuit against the Qatari news organization.

The hacked Emails revealed how Otaiba bought UAE influence in Washington. As of 2013, the UAE spent more money on lobbying than any other foreign government, in 2015, the UAE paid the US lobbying firms $13.5 million, with $6,5 million going to the Camstoll Group, that was operated by former US Treasury officials who had been responsible for relations with Gulf state and Israel as well as countering funding of terrorism, and $4.5 million to Harbor Group.

In another leaked email correspondence with Robert Malley, an ex-chief adviser on the Middle East, Otaiba criticized Donald Trump's election victory, remarking "On what planet can Trump be a president".

Leaked documents to The Wall Street Journal implicate Otaiba in the multibillion-dollar corruption scandal surrounding the Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB1) (1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal). The WSJ reported that Otaiba’s leaked emails included descriptions of meetings between Shaher M. Awartani, Otaiba`s an Abu Dhabi-based business partner, and "Jho Low, the Malaysian financier the [US] justice department says was the central conspirator in the alleged $4.5 billion 1MDB fraud." Companies connected to Otaiba received $66 million (£50.6m, €57.7m) from offshore accounts that contained money allegedly embezzled from 1MDB. They include ″Densmore Investments Ltd.″ in the tax haven British Virgin Islands and ″Silver Coast Construction & Boring″ in the UAE.

One of the documents obtained by The Intercept was an invoice from the Center for a New American Security, an influential national security think tank founded in 2007 by alumni from the Clinton administration. The invoice, dated July 12, 2016, billed the UAE embassy $250,000 for a paper on the legal regime governing the export of military-grade drones.

Al Otaiba ridiculed UAE's Gulf ally Saudi Arabia in email exchange, betraying years of frustration at Riyadh old guard that coalesced into efforts to change it. He mentioned Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan more experienced than Mohammed bin Salman and wrote that Emirates is frustrated with orthodox neighbour Saudi recalling 200 year old fights over Wahabbism.