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| Iraq | |
| U.S. Said to Seek Help of Ex-Iraqi Spies on Iran | |
| 2003-07-22 | |
| EFL Relying on the help of an Iraqi political party, the United States has moved to resurrect parts of the Iraqi intelligence service, with the branch that monitors Iran among the top priorities, former Iraqi agents and politicians say. The Iraqi National Congress, which is led by Ahmad Chalabi, the longtime exile who is now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, says its senior officials have met with senior members of the so-called Iran and Turkey branch of the Mukhabarat, or Iraqi intelligence, over the last several weeks. The party has received documents from the intelligence officers and recruited them into a reconstituted version of the unit, said Abdulaziz Kubaisi, the Iraqi National Congress official responsible for the recruiting effort. This is traditional, you always co-opt your defeated enemies intelligence service. Just keep them on a very short leash.
As long as it’s not the State Department. But some Middle East experts said trying to revive the branch before a sovereign government was in place and working through a political party could backfire. The effort to reach out to former Iraqi intelligence officials also appears hard to harmonize with the American drive to "de-Baathify" Iraqi society, given the prominence of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein in his government. You use the tools you have at hand. The CIA’s HUMINT program went into the toilet after congress made us promise not to work with anyone except Boy Scouts. A senior American official said concern about Iran was driving some of the discussion about moving quickly to re-establish an intelligence service. The official said the United States recognized that Iraq had a good intelligence apparatus focused on Iran because activities in the neighboring country might affect Iraqi security at home. Yup. People close to the Iran branch said the Americans had also expressed interest in reviving the intelligence service’s Syria branch. Oh, I’d really like to go through those files. Mr. Kubaisi also said the possibility that Iran might try to interfere in Iraq’s affairs made the revival of the Mukhabarat’s Iran branch a top priority. "There are political parties — not the main seven ones — who have alliances with Iran, who are flirting with it," he said. "I think the Iranians are interfering in Iraq’s affairs. They’ve been meddling here for years." Still are. American officials in Washington and Baghdad maintained that reviving the Iran branch was only being discussed now. Senior United States government officials in Washington said the question of when and how to re-establish Iraq’s intelligence service was under active consideration at the highest levels of the government. They said that it was discussed recently by the Deputies Committee, which represents the second-ranking official at national security agencies, and that the C.I.A. had been designated the lead agency in the process. "There’s been a lot of discussion, but I haven’t seen anything that has developed into concrete thinking," one official said. Asked whether the Defense Department was working through the Iraqi National Congress to recruit former Iraqi intelligence officers, the official declined to comment. Humm, is Rummy setting up his own Iraqi intel agency? But people close to the Iraqi members of the Iran branch say recruitment efforts began two months ago, when the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program flared, and continue now. Sabi al-Hamed, a former Iran branch member in Zubayr, in southern Iraq, said two of his former colleagues made contact with him two week ago and told him that they had been working with Americans. The old "enemy of my enemy" routine works both ways. Mr. Hamed, a Mukhabarat officer since 1976, said he refused to join the revived unit when former co-workers told him that it would be cooperating with the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, an Iranian opposition group that is on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Mr. Hamed said he had worked with the group during the Iran-Iraq war and called them butchers, adding that he had seen bodies of people they had executed. A person close to the Iran branch members says the currently coalescing intelligence service has been in touch not only with former Iran branch officers in Iraq, but also with those in Iran and with former People’s Mujahedeen members. Mr. Kubaisi denied that a future intelligence arm in Iraq would work with the People’s Mujahedeen, and a spokesman in Paris for the group did not return e-mail messages seeking comment. Mr. Kubaisi said the Iran unit would begin working once the Governing Council settled in and the ministries were fully functioning. But the former Iraqi agents who had discussions with the Iraqi National Congress and with members of the Iran branch say the unit is already working in a building in central Baghdad. Mr. Kubaisi said Iran branch members were being vetted before being signed up. He and others close to the branch said none of the officers had been paid yet. "These are people we should attract and make use of," he said. "But they shouldn’t be bad people. They should not have a criminal past, and they shouldn’t be stained with people’s blood." I believe the OSS/CIS requited many of the German Army intel types after WW2. The SS and Gestapo were too dirty. The officials said it was unclear to whom a new Iraqi intelligence service would report. But they said the C.I.A. now had a sizable operation in Iraq, with at least several dozen officers on the ground. They work for us or they don’t work at all. | |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 We used the Abwehr personnel and networks after WWII. The "peace at any cost" left will make hay of this now that it has hit the mainstream press. We've all noticed that the left has not tackled the issue of the mass graves and torture chambers yet. Now the accusations of how the Bushitler is betraying the victims of Saddam's oppression will fly. I'm sure groups of far left operatives are sitting down at this moment to formulate the sound bites and positioning statements. Was it Eisenhower that said, "A party with no ideals is nothing more than a conspiracy to seize power"? |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-7-22 1:03:29 PM |
| #1 The thing about doubles is you can never be really sure where their primary loyalty lies. Make use of them, but definitely put keepers on 'em too. |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-7-22 12:31:21 PM |