VA. FIRM HAS BIG ROLE IN OMAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201580001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: March 24, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000201580001-8
WASHINGTON POST
24 March 1986
Va. Firm Has Big Role in Oma
Fx-C,1~1 1Vlan's Company Cuides Illinistries on Culf Peninsula
By Christopher Dickey
Wnshmgton Pnst Foreign Service
KHASAB, Oman-In the late
1970s. as the worldwide oil crisis
heated uD. an Arlington. Va.. com-
pany headed by a former Central_
Intelligence Agency staffer came
hQre to h . r .mo . M tsandam P n-
uisWa.
Iran lies just 26 miles away,
across the strategic Strait of Hor-
muz, through which much of the
world's oil supply is carried by a
steady parade of tankers out of the
Persian Gulf.
The stated business of Tetra
Tech International Inc. is develop-
ment. But the power it came to
wield here is, in the words of one
employe, "a little peculiar."
On contact with the government
of Oman, TTI helped set up the
Musandam Development Commit-
tee in 1976. In that capacity, it was
given supervisory control in 1979
over the operations of 11 govern-
ment ministries.
TTI's employes have supervised
activities from road building and
port construction to minor details of
everyday life. They inspect the few
restaurants here for hygiene. They
tie up goats found wandering the
streets and fine their owners.
Oman's Sultan Qaboos, often de-
scribed as the United States' clos-
est friend on the Persian Gulf and a
man who has relied heavily on for-
eign advisers and employes in every
aspect of his country's develop-
ment, needed to secure the Musan-
dam quickly and efficiently in 1979.
The strictly military aspects of
that job were given to the Omani
Army, much of which is commanded
by British officers. At the same
time, the United States began in-
vesting hundreds of millions of dol-
lars in upgrading four Omani air
bases to handle fighter and trans-
port planes if Washington should be
called on to defend the gulf. One is
the Khasab field, where the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers replaced
the old 2,000-foot dirt strip with a
6,500-foot runway.
1~1ost of the rest of the work
done here was carried out under
TTI, whose president, .lames H.
ritchfield. serve the~I as Mid-
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die East desk officer and a national
intelligence officer for energy until
1974, according to several pub-
lished reports, including one in
The New York Times last March
26, and confirmed by Critchfield,
reached by tel~hone in ArLnQton
last week.
In the Musandam there were
special problems to which a man
with such a background might be
sensitive. As one British consultant
to the sultan put it, Qaboos had to
keep the remote peninsula from
"floating away" politically.
The Musandam, with a popula-
tion of about 11,500, is separated
from the rest of Oman by about 40
miles of territory of the United
Arab Emirates.
Many fishermen on the coast still
use the boom, a traditional wooden
boat, to bring in their catches. The
Bedouins among the crags of the
mountains carry walking sticks
topped with small stone axheads.
For generations tribal rivalries
and feuds wracked the peninsula.
Some villages until recently pro-
fessed loyalty to the sheiks of the
United Arab Emirates rather than
to the sultan of Oman.
In Khasab, the biggest settle-
ment, about 40 percent of the pop-
ulation is Iranian or of Iranian de-
scent. Little Iranian fishing
launches still move in and out of the
Khasab port.
"With twin engines on the back
you can bang across to Iran in an
hour and a half," said a foreign
worker here. Iran seems a closer
neighbor than the rest of Oman.
TTI's projects are a highly so-
phisticated example of what sol-
diers like to call civic action, aimed
at winning and holding the some-
times shaky allegiances of the pen-
insula's people. In an area such as
this, development can be seen es-
sentially as preventive medicine
against subversion.
Sultan Qaboos, a graduate of
Britain's Sandhurst military acad-
emy, is expert in the nuances of
such undertakings.
After taking power from his fa-
ther, with British encouragement,
in 1970, Qaboos spent the first five
years of his reign crushing a Com-
munist-backed rebellion in the
southern province of Dhofar. He
was aided by British forces, includ-
ing the Special Air Service and in-
telligence officers who put a pre-
mium on civic action.
"The Dhofar war was eventually
successful," said a senior British of-
ficer in Oman's capital, Muscat,
"because civil projects followed
very quickly on military success."
But while Dhofar and Muscat be-
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000201580001-8
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000201580001-8
gan to prosper, the Musandam
stood still.
There were no telephones and
virtually no roads. Most of the
Musandam's people could be
reached only by sea, by helicopter,
by donkey or on foot.
In such circumstances, "you have
to make doubly sure the population
is well cared for," said the British
officer in Muscat.
"Whether you call it psycholog-
'hearts and minds' or
al warfare
i
,
c
whatever," he said, "it's common own desalinization plants and is re-
sense." But he added that he could sponsible for filling hundreds of wa-
not comment on details. ter tanks throughout the region. It
"[t's very much a U.S.-led oper also keeps cisterns in repair where
ation, he said.
According to its employes here,
Tetra Tech International was orig-
inally part of Tetra Tech, a Pasa-
dena, Calif., company that deals
with water and energy resources as
well as underwater weapons devel-
opment.
But after Honeywell Inc ac-
quired the parent company, TTI
broke off, its employes here said.
Critchfield remains in charge at the
home office in Arlington.
In 1979 and 1980, TTI, acting
through the development commit-
tee, took over "the work and pow-
er" of several ministries here, in-
cluding agriculture and fisheries,
power, water, the post office and
telecommunications, information,
land affairs, municipalities, youth
affairs and public works, according
to an offical committee fact sheet.
One of the few ministries over Dymond appeared relaxed and
which TT[ does not have jurisdic- confident as he handled constant
tion here is defense. But military phone calls to his office asking for
activities affecting the local popu- decisions about a variety of mat-
lation are closely coordinated with ters, including laying underground
the development committee. phone lines and a ceremony for the
In addition to a sophisticated lis- governor to turn on the new street
tenin ost and military__ base on lights in Khasab.
Goat Island just west of the Musan- "It's quite an achievement that's
dam's tip,_the Omani military_re- been made here," he said with a
Gently created a new secret instal- smile.
lation at the village of Qabal, on the
Past coast, according_to _residents
fie. These sources said it was
TTI's job to relocate the residents
of the town the Army took over.
John Dymond, a TTI employe, is
director of operations for the
Musandam Development Commit-
tee. He was formerly an engineer in
the British Navy and then on the
sultan's royal yacht, and came here
in 1980.
~ denies anv direct intelligence
function but he readily acknowl-
edges that many of his projects
hs1."? basic ilm itarv value.
A computerized census he did,
for instance, "basically listed every
house, every man" in the peninsula.
The roads built under his supervi-
sion are punctuated by helicopter
pads. But the primary motive for
such undertakings is to be able to
deliver services better, Dymond
said.
One of the development commit-
tee's main activities is to distribute
water in this arid land. It has its
water delivery is impractical.
In 1985, according to the govern-
ment, about $4,700 was budgeted
for every man, woman and child on
the peninsula. The development
committee, with TTI's manage-
ment skills, claims to have accom-
plished in five years the goals of
two five-year plans.
"Fortunately, basic infrastructure
is finished now," said Dymond. "The'
pace is less frantic now."
"The people are working now,"
he added.
Tribal rivalries have been
quelled. Bukha, a town on the west
coast, had been so isolated that it
gave its allegiance to the United
Arab Emirates until four years ago.
Now a road goes there. It is the site
of another small military installa-
tion, and its people are Omanis once
again
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25 :CIA-RDP90-009658000201580001-8