Yemen deputy Prime Minister admits lying to Parliament on US involvement of bombings

In a meeting (see cable 10SANAA4) between David Petraeus and President Saleh of Yemen the US involvement in Yemen’s fight against terrorism was discussed:

President Obama has approved providing U.S.  intelligence in support of ROYG ground operations against AQAP targets, General Petraeus informed Saleh.  Saleh reacted  coolly, however, to the General’s proposal to place USG  personnel inside the area of operations armed with real-time,  direct feed intelligence from U.S. ISR platforms overhead.  “You cannot enter the operations area and you must stay in  the joint operations center,” Saleh responded.  Any U.S.  casualties in strikes against AQAP would harm future efforts,  Saleh asserted.  Saleh did not have any objection, however,  to General Petraeus’ proposal to move away from the use of  cruise missiles and instead have U.S. fixed-wing bombers  circle outside Yemeni territory, “out of sight,” and engage  AQAP targets when actionable intelligence became available.  Saleh amented the use of cruise missiles that are “not very  accurate” and
welcomed the use of aircraft-deployed  precision-guided bombs instead.  “We’ll continue saying the  bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh said, prompting Deputy  Prime Minister Alimi to joke that he had just “lied” by  telling Parliament that the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa  were American-made but deployed by the ROYG.