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Round Up the Usual Suspects, Dead or Alive
January 9, 2005: For nearly two years, American intelligence units have been collecting information on Baath Party resistance inside, and outside, Iraq. It was this kind of information that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein a year ago. Actually, many intelligence officers were shocked when they saw the news stories detailing how the data on Baath Party officials, and their kinfolk, was collected and organized according to what jobs people had in Baath, or Saddam's government, and who was related to who. Letting the enemy know what you know is something you avoid doing. However, describing Baath as "one big family" had a lot of truth to it. Especially in the Middle East, family ties often reinforce political ones. It was a mistake to let the Baath Party know how well American intelligence had done in sorting out who was who in Saddam's support and security network, although the Baath Party intelligence experts were probably not surprised that the Americans were making lists and cross referencing them. This is basic police intelligence work. These thousands of intelligence troops have not been idle for the past year, but they have been more circumspect. They have shared information with the Iraqi government, which accounts for the head of Iraqi intelligence recently announcing that the anti-government resistance was being kept going by 40,000 active fighters, and 400,000 supporters. Oddly enough, this matches the number of Baath Party activists and core members of Saddam's secret police and security forces (and their extended families), based on known (and previously published) information on Baath and Saddam's government. For a brief moment a year ago, the news was full of stories of how American intelligence specialists, using pretty standard investigative techniques (and current database and analysis software), picked up the usual suspects, interrogated them (asking seemingly innocuous questions about who was related to who), and assembled the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle which, when finished, said "Saddam is right hereâŠ" The puzzle of the growing, at least in the number of people killed, anti-government attacks shows a lot of the key people, especially the money guys, operating across the border in Syria. These men can go no where else. Not Iran, because these men have much Shia blood on their hands. Even the most rabidly anti-American Iranian Islamic zealots would not want to be associated with one of Saddam's butchers. North Korea? Possibly. But first you have to get there, and then you have to realize that North Korea is a bit of hell on earth itself, and on the brink of collapse. How about Somalia? Only if you are into the "Mad Max" lifestyle, and American commandoes are just next door. Any other country presents the risk of an international arrest warrant, and a local government eager to enforce it. So Saddam's old cronies sit in Syria, paying off the Syrian Baath Party with stolen Iraqi oil money, and profuse apologies for past feuding and misunderstandings over which nations Baath Party was the senior one. Posted by: Steve 2005-01-10 |
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