THE FUTURE IRAQ DESERVES (by Ahmed Chalabi)
The Iraq Liberation Act,voted in Congress in November 1998 and hence set as part of U.S. law,clearly states that the pursuit of democracy was a primary motive for regime change in Iraq.The war of liberation in the spring of 2003 was understood by the majority of Iraqis,yearning to be free of Saddam's yoke of tyranny,as liberation.Doubt and distrust set in when liberation became occupation.
Nevertheless,an important trajectory has been set in motion with the removal of the Baathist dictatorship.Political freedom is moving forward despite the obstacles,delays and great losses,primarily to the Iraqi people but also to the U.S. and coalition forces.This momentum cannot be reversed.
The Iraqi political landscape is now dominated by three concerns that must be addressed:first,elections in January and their outcome;second,a status-of-forces agreement with the coalition forces;and third,the writing of a permanent constitution.
Despite the lack of security in Iraq today,a democratic,pluralistic Iraq is the only acceptable outcome.Iraq's unity can best be secured through the involvement of all groups in the political process.The concerns being voiced in the international community,of the fear of Sunni marginalization and Shiite dominanation,were the concerns that allowed Saddam to last as long as he did.Those arguments are reappearing today,to close the door of hope and opportunity to the Iraqi people.But Saddamism without Saddam is simply not an option.
Iraq's people are already realizing their objective of free elections by mobilizing themselves electorally for the first time in 45 years.There are 30 blocks of lists of individuals that have already registered to take part.The number of registered voters is increasing by the day.This is a clear expression by the Iraqi people of their wish to participate in a legitimate political process and to assure that their voices will not be silenced like the were under Saddam.
The United Iraqi Alliance list,consisting of most of the Shiite groups,is an important achievement for this new Iraq.This is a long way from the Shiite rejectionist position back in the early days of the Iraqi state,a position that Shiites have paid for ever since.Today they are learning that their participation can only be ensured through a legitimate political process,not a subversion of elections for the sake of a theocratic Islamic state.It is wrong to assume that this process will be subverted by a pro-Iranian Islamic government.Iraq's Shiites are well aware that it was the U.S. and it's allies that rid them of Saddam.That will remain the basis of a pragmatic relationship that dictates their interaction with Washington.They risk losing,rather than gaining,by doing otherwise.
Iraqi Shiites are proud Arabs.They have deep roots in,and are committed to Iraq.They are members of a diverse community with differing political,social and cultural orientations.Their Shiism has been the first call for persecution.That is the very identity that has cost them so much.To rally along that identity as a first expression of their political voice is but natural.It is the first building block for a reasonably balanced state, as well as the first impediment to be overcome toward a non-sectarian future
The first task of a newly elected provisional parliament must be to reach an agreement with the U.S. to determine to determine the status of heir forces in Iraq and agree to a timetable for a phased withdrawal.This is a very important task in addressing the security situation.By having a clearly defined legal status in Iraq,U.S. and coalition forces remove any legitimacy of terrorist attacks against them.Nonetheless,there is no desire among the majority of Iraqis,including those on the United Iraqi Alliance list,to call for a sudden and irresponsible withdrawl of American forces from Iraq.
Iraq is not the new fronteir in a holy war.The terrorists,hiding under an Islamic banner,ar the real perpetrators of sectarianism in Iraq.They are seriosly undermining everyone,particularly the Sunni community that they claim to represent.Their ideological drive is distinctly Baathist.Saddam's regime excelled at sectarianism and ethnic discrimination,and that is what the insurgents desire today-to push Iraq into a sectarian civil war.
They are the ones attacking mosques and churches and hospitals.They do not stand for the rights of Sunni Iraqis,but merely their own interests of absolute totalitarian rule.Using a manipulative language of skewed political metaphors and nationalist symbols,they lobby Iraq's Sunnis to join them in their violence.Co-existance and consensus-building are abhorrent to Baathists.Their logic is very simple,if they are not in power,then Iraq should not exist.Those still fighting for a return to Saddam's Iraq are incapable of practicing healthy competitive politics,of participating in a legitimate process of nation-building.
The Sunnis of Iraq were also among Saddam's victims and have as much at stake as other Iraqis.They are part and parcel to Iraq's democratic future.The Sunni community will not be cannon fodder for the resatoration of the odious Saddamist state,nor for the continuation or the continuation of the lucrative corrupt practises benifiting some in neighboring countries and around the world.They stand to gain as much ina egalitarian representational system that respects the welfare and dignity of all it's citizens.
Finally,a permanent Iraqi constitution ratified by the people is the pillar that will uphold democracyThe path toward full representational democracy has just started with the first indespensible step towards elections next month.The culmination of this process lies in the writing of a permanent constitution and the holding of elections for a permanent government.The permanent Iraqi constitution is the basis of a social contract for the Iraqi people.Through a political concensus of all Iraq's communities,the primacy of individual rights and citizenship must be protected above any other consideration,whether communitarian or geographic.That is the future Iraq deserves,and the future Iraq can have.
(Ahmed Chalabi is the president of the Iraqi National Congress,the first president of the Iraqi Governing Council and is a current member of the national assembly.)
BLOODY LEGACY-A REVIEW OF HAMAS
Since the Bush administration has decided to pursue the peace plan that originated under the auspices of the Clinton administration and evolved into the current administrations "Roadmap to Peace",I think that it is appropriate to examine the group that so far constitutes the biggest road block-the militant Palestinian faction Hamas.This article is an examination of this groups origins,leadership and sponsors.
Hamas has it's roots in an initially Egyptian movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood.This organization eventually spread from Egypt throughout the Arab Levant by the 1950's.The Muslim Brotherhood preached that "internal jihad" should take precedence over "external jihad",argueing that any armed struggle against Israel would be fruitless until the Arabs had purged the evil from within.
In the Gaza Strip,the Muslim Brotherhood administered a large network of religious,educational and social welfare institutions under the authority of al'Mujamaa al'Islami (the Islamic Center) headed by Sheik Ahmad Yassin.The Islamic Center leadership largely adhered to the Brotherhood's "internal jihad" doctrine until the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada of 1987,which demonstrated an overwhelming degree of public support for armed confrontation with Israel and the depth of popular disillusionment with the secular PLO.Yassin and other Islamic Center leaders decided that their goal of Islamizing Palestinian society mandated a violent challenge to Israeli authority.
In an attempt to avoid any official link between the Islamic Center and the intifada,in February 1988 Yassin and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders established an independent organization,Harakat al'Muqawamah al'Islami (Islamic Resistance Movement),commonly known by it's acronym Hamas,to carry out armed activities against Israel.Instead of confining itself to civil disobedience and stone throwing,the group began carrying out attacks using knives,guns and homemade explosives.These attacks were initially confined to accused collaborators,but swiftly evolved into attacks on Israeli soldiers,policemen and eventually civilians.Over the next five years,according to Israeli sources,Hamas was responsible for the deaths of more than 20 Israelis and over 100 Palestinians.
Israeli reaction to Hamas was swift.By the summer of 1989 Hamas was outlawed in Israel.The Israelis arrested most of the Hamas leadership,including Ahmad Yassin,and detained hundreds of Hamas activists.As a result of these Israeli countermeasures,the groups military apparatus (reorganized as the Izz al'Din al'Qassam Battalions in 1991) adopted a compartmented organizational structure,with individual cells operating secretly and in isolation from one another under the directives of local commanders who remained out of the public eye.
Hamas also abandoned it's centralized hierarchical leadership structure.Because Yassin had maintained tight control over all aspects of Hamas political and military activity,Israeli intelligence was able to ascertain quite easily who was calling the shots.After Yassin's arrest,leadership of the movement was diffused among nearly a dozen figures.Although some of Yassin's authority in Gaza passed to Abdulaziz Rantisi,most of the groups collective leadership lived outside of the territories.The head of the Hamas political committee lived in the United States and Jordan in the 1990's.The head of the groups interior committee,Imad al'Alami,took up residence in Amman before moving to Tehran and eventually to Damascus.
The exiled Hamas leadership was also stregnthened by the movements increasing dependence on foreign resources.Hamas developed a semi-clandestine fundraising network spanning the Middle East,Western Europe and the United States.Hamas sought alliances with foreign governments to obtain additional resources,logistical support and training.Hamas officials who administered these financial networks held the "power of the purse",while those who forged alliances with rogue states exerted control over military cells trained and equiped by the outside.
The September 1993 Declaration of Principles signed by Israel and the PLO and the beginning of Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho the following year created a fundamental conflict of interest between the internal and external leadership factions.The former,while firmly opposed to the Oslo Peace Process,often pursued accomodation with the PA in order to preserve the integrity of the groups civil infrastructure and remained responsive to Palestinian public opinion,favoring the use of terrorism only when it believed that the escalation of violence would draw public support.The latter remained adamantly opposed to the PA's authority and far more inclined toward the use of terror,irrespective of the economic hardships incurred by the local population.While Qassam Brigade cells in Gaza tended to operate under orders from the internal leadership,cells in the West Bank answered directly to the external leadership.Since it is much more difficult to infiltrate Israel from Gaza than from the West Bank,the external leadership has exerted more control over the timing and frequency of Hamas terror attacks.
Until the mid-1990's the two most significant sponsors of Hamas were Iran and Jordan.Although the Shi'ite muslim clerical establishment in Iran had once been reluctant to sponsor authentic Sunni Muslim fundamentalist movements,the revival of the Middle East peace process after the 1991 Gulf War generated a willingness to back virtually any group that had demonstrated a success at striking Israel.In October 1992,a Hamas delegation headed by Abu Marzouk arrived in Iran and held legnthy meetings with it's senior leadership,culminating in a pledge by Teheran to provide the group with an annual subsidy of $30 million,training at Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) facilities and weapons.
Because Iran is both non-Sunni and non-Arab,however,the country could not serve as a political home away from home for Hamas.Moreover,since Iran is away from the territories,the movement has long sought to establish a strong prescence in countries bordering Israel.
Jordan offered an equally important range of benefits.King Hussein,who had established an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood early in his rule and had long supported Islamic institutions in the West Bank as a means of asserting influence vis-a-vis the PLO,allowed the group to establish it's main headquarters in Amman.Although Hamas officials in the Kingdom were ostensibly prohibited from engaging in illegal activities and closely monitored by Jordanian intelligence,the movements activities in Jordan were increasingly curtailed during the latter half of the decade.
Although Hamas opened an office at the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus in 1991,teher was little evidence of substantial cooperation between Hamas and the Assad regime until after the signing of the 1993 Declaration of Principles.Shortly thereafter,Assad invited Hamas to join other Syrian sponsored Palestinian groups in a new Damascus based rejectionist coalition (the Palestinian National Salvation Front,established under Syrian auspices in 1984,had been strictly limited to secular nationalist factions).
despite the presence of Syrian and Iranian officials eager to cement a unified opposition front against Arafat,the negotiations between Hamas and various leftist factions in attendance dragged on for over a month and frequently degenerated into vitriolic exchanges.A senior official from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine later recalled that Hamas activists kept shouting slogans like,"...the people of the Book are closer to us than the Reds...".Although the factions eventually concluded an agreement that led to the official establishment of The Alliance of Palestinian Forces in December and Hamas political committee member Mustafa Kanua tootk up residence in Damascus,The radical Islamist movement hardly seemed like a nautral fit in the Syrian capitol.
The first clear indication of a bilatteral alliance between Syria and Hamas came in the summer of 1994,as preparations for theestablishment of a Palestinian Authority in Gaza and Jericho were underway and King Hussein began hinting that he would sign a seperate peace treaty with Israel (a reversal of his long standing pledge to wait for a comprehensive settlement).On June 19,while Hussein was meeting with Clinton admiinistration officials in Washington,a Hamas delegation led by Ibrahim Gosheh arrived in Damascus and met with Syrian vice president Abdul-Halim Khaddam,Foreign Minister Farouk al'Sharaa and other top Syrian officials.Upon his return to Amman,Gosheh said that the meeting inaugurated a "new era of relations" between Hamas and Syria,"marked by mutual consideration and understanding.In October,the Syrians permitted a Hamas delagetion to travel to Lebanon and meet with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.
Around the same time a senior Qassam Brigades commander,Sheik Izz al'Din Khalil,arrived in Damascus and established an operational headquarters for the Hamas military wing.Khalil,who was among the hundreds of Hamas members deported from Gaza to southern Lebanon in 1992 (but one of the few who opted not to return) worked closely in conjunction with Syrian intelligence.Authorization of terror attacks was relayed from the political leadership in Amman to the operational command in Syria,which sent instructions to Qassam Brigade celles in the West Bank by telephone or fax (usually after being routed through Cyprus to obscure the origin).After Alami arrived in 1995,Damascus became the center of all terrorist functions from strategic planning to command and control.
As the only countries bordering Israel that remained officially at war with the Jewish state,Syria and Syrian occupied Lebanon would prove to be a much more attractive setting for Alami.Not only were they geographically proximate to the Palestinian territories,but the Assad regime imposed far fewer restrictions on it's activities than the Jordanian government.Dmascus was also an ideal place to maintain contacts with Iranian officials-no other arab country maintained such close relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That the Damascus office had become the operational nerve center of the Hamas military wing was readily apparent by 1995.Acording to Israeli media reports,orders for the suicide bombings in Ramat Gan and Jerusalem in July and August 1995 came from a Qassam Brigades commander in Syria.Shortly thereafter,Ehud Yaari,the Arab affairs corespondant for Israel's Channel 1 News,explained why Syria allowed these commanders to operate in Damascus: "Assad is telling us-Look,I hold the strings of terror in Lebanon-Hezbollah- as well as the strings of terror in the West Bank.Give me more-talk to me differently." (to be continued)
WAR BY PROXY-SYRIA'S FORCES IN IRAQ
Although the rapid demise of Saddam Hussein's regime and the deployment of American forces along the Syria-Iraq border may have led to a suspension of Syrian assistance to the Iraqi war effort,the effects of Syria's most decisive contribution to the Iraqi war effort will likely be felt for months to come.Efforts by Syrian president Bashir Assad to mobilize thousands of non-Iraqi volunteers to fight the United States and facilitate their entry into the Iraqi theater have a striking historical precedent-his fathers unsuccessful war by proxy against the United States and European peacekeepers in Lebanon during the early eighties.The goal of that campaign-to prevent the restoration of Lebanese democracy-bears an eerie resemblance to Syria's objective today
In early March,Iraqi intelligence opened a training camp for Arab "martyrs" near the town of al'Khalis,40 miles north of Baghdad.Over the next few weeks,Syrian-backed political and terrorist organizations undertook a massive mobilization campaign in Syria ans Syrian-occupied Lebanon.
In late March,the Nazareth-based Palestinian weekly 'Assennara' quoted a Syrian-backed Palestinian leader in Ain al'Hilweh as saying that "hundreds" of volunteer Palestinian fighters in the camp had been sent to Iraq to carry out suicide bombings against US and coalition forces."Resisiting the American aggression on Iraq supports the Palestinian people and the intifada,"said Col. Munir Maqdah,a dissident commander of Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement in Lebanon."What is happening in Iraq is the battle of the Palestinian people first and the Arab and Muslim nation second."
After his remarks were quoted by the English language Jerusalem Post,Maqdah denied that he himself had dispatched the suicide bombers,saying that they had traveled independently to Baghdad from camps in Lebanon.However,he acknowledged that he had encouraged Palestinians in the camps to fight in Iraq."We wish we were all in Iraq fighting the Americans"he said."Why fight Israel when you can fight their boss (the Americans) in Iraq."
It is doubtful that any substantial mobilization of Palestinaian fighters to fight in Iraq could have taken place without Maqdah's direct involvement,and it is virtually inconceivable that the dissident Palestinian leader would undertake such a mission without approval from Damascus.Although he is officially a member of Fatah,Maqdah owes his influence in Ain al'Hilweh almost entirely to Syrian patronage.Because of his strong ties to Syrian intelligence,most of the competing factions in the camp respect his de facto authority and he often mediates dispute between rival Palestinaian groups in much the same way that Syrian officials referee Lebanese politics In September 2000,Maqdah was convicted in absentia by Jordan's State Security Court of providing military training to an al'Qaeda cell that planned to carry out terrorist attacks against western targets in the kingdom.Despite persistent Jordanian demands for Maqdah's extradition,Assad refused to allow Lebanese security forces to enter Ain al'Hilweh and arrest him.During the past two years,Maqdah has reportedly funded and directed suicide attacks in Israel by members of the al'Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
On March 30th the Palestinaian Islamic Jihad announced that a force of "martyrs" from it's military wing had arrived in Baghdad "to fulfill the holy duty of defending Arab and Muslim land."Althought Islamic Jihad officials declined to specify the origin of these "martyrs" or how they entered the Iraqi theater,there are only two possibilities:they either came from the West Bank and entered Iraq through Jordan,or they came from training camps in Lebanon and Syria and entered Iraq through Syria.Islamic Jihad's Lebanon representative,Abu Imad al'Rifai,later said that the suicide squad had not come from the Palestinian territories.The Palestinian group Hamas,which is less influenced by Damascus,has not launched any similr initiatives.
Syria's closest Lebanese allies have also participated enthusiastically in the mobilization of "martyrs" for Iraq.The Lebanese branch of Syria's ruling Ba'ath Party,headed by MP Assem Qanso launched a major recruitment drive in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek.According to sources in the Lebanese press,around two hundred young men from the village of Arsal,35 from the village of Nahleh,and a few others from in and around Baalbek have travelled to Baghdad.
IRAQ WATCH UNCOVERS SECRET MESSAGE FROM JAMES BAKER TO TARIQ AZIZ:
Iraq Watch has been provided with a document including a text of a secret message from former SECRETtary of State Jim Baker to Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz dated 21OCT89(just 13 months after Saddam gassed the Kurds in northern Iraq).The text of the message is as follows:
Dear Mr. Minister:
I appreciated the opportunity to meet you.I found our meeting extremely useful.My hope is that it has laid the basis for a frank and direct relationship between us.In that spirit,I want to respond to the concerns you raised with me.As I said in our meeting the United States seeks a broadened and deepened relationship with Iraq on the basis of mutual respect.That is the policy of the president.In this regard the President has asked me to say to you and through you to president Hussein inthe most direct way possible,that the United States is not involved in any effort to weaken or destabalize Iraq.Having looked into the matter,and having discussed it with the president,I can say with the highest authority such an action would be completely contrary to the presidents policy,which is to work to stregnthen the relationship between the United States and Iraq whenever possible.If you are in a position to provide me with more detailed information,I hope you will do so.I want to be sure that there is no doubt in the mind of the Iraqi leadership.
Mr.Minister you asked me to look into issue of the CCC credit guarantees.I am doing so on an urgent basis and will give you a final response as soon as I can.An investigation is underway,and in all candor,there are some serious allegations that need to be examined further.I can assure you that our actions in conection with the CCC program are not in any way motivated by political considerations.The government of Iraq has set a high standard on the issues of integrety of public officials and corruption and I am sure you will understand the determination of my government to be thorough.At the same time i very much hope that it will be posible to resolve the problems which have arisen quickly and to continue with this importatnt program,as you requested.Will continue to give this matter my personal attention[document ends]
THE IRAQI NATIONAL CONGRESS-A CASE STUDY IN BETRAYAL
It was never a big secret in the small predominately Christian suberb of Erbil that the little gray house at #23-7 Ain Kawa Street was the headquarters for the American CIA case officers that advised and assisted members of the Iraqi National Congress in a diverse series of operations aimed at weakening and destabalizing Saddam Hussein's regime.The CIA case officers provided members of the INC in Erbil with computers,sattelite phones and scramblers,money,a variety of small arms,equipment for a TV and radio station that broadcast anti-Saddam messages into Iraq 11 hours a day,but most importantly-an implicit guarantee that the INC would not be left to fend for themselves in the event that anything went wrong the INC now says.But in the early morning hours of August 31,1996 as Saddam's troops mounted an all-out armored offensive against this tiny community,the Americans dissappeared as quickly as they came, leaving behind all of their equipment-and their brothers in arms from the Iraqi opposition.
As Iraqi troops began pouring into the streets of Erbil,senior INC military commander Colonel Mukkadam Abu Khadim and his men quite literally headed for the hills to seek sanctuary in the mountain town of Salahudin,which ironically happened to be the stronghold of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.It was later discovered that it was in fact Barzani that opened the door for this massacre by inviting Saddam's troops into northern Iraq.About 250 INC members escaped with Colonel Khadim,but of the remaining 200 or so resistance fighters that did not escape from Erbil,practically all were tourtured and killed."The Mukabarat(Iraqi secret police)had names and addresses,"Khadim said,"those who didn't get away were seized."Colonel Khadim says that he interviewed an eyewitness who watched the execution of about 30 people,"The Iraqis arrived at 4 P.M.,interrogated his comrades,and then shot them around 5 P.M.".
Since 1992 the CIA has been running a low-budget operation to unite the various factions of Kurdish and Iraqi dissidents into a united opposition group to fight Saddam Hussein,but when the Iraqi Army rolled into northern Iraq,that mission was destroyed-along with the credibility of the United States in the eyes of the Iraqi opposition.
When the U.S. established a safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq after the Gulf War,the primary goal was to establish a base in that territory from which the opposition could confront Saddam.The U.S. refused to support clandestine guerilla operations,but the White House and Congress did support a CIA budget of between 10 and 15 million dollars a year to fund two clandestine political operations-Wifaq,or the Iraqi National Accord(based in Jordan)and the Iraqi National Congress(based in Erbil).
The Iraqi National Accord's objective was to penetrate the Republican Guard,but the group was infiltrated by some of Saddam's agents.When Saddam learned the details of the INA coup plan in June 96,he ordered all of the participants in Baghdad to be seized.By July,several dozen coup plotters had been executed and over 2,000 suspects were held and tortured before some were released.
The INC's main tasks were to gather information,distribute propaganda,and recruit dissadents.The INC was expected to form the basis of a new political system in Iraq after Saddam was removed from power.The INC has recieved significant diplomatic backing from the U.S.(especially in the past month or so),but this backing appears to be merely symbolic due to the fact that the total amount of financial support that the U.S. is wiiling to provide amounts to just 5 million dollars.One INC official calls that fiscal figure"a joke" and says that it constitutes less than 5% of the funds that he estimates is needed to overthrow Saddam-who after all is commander-in-chief of the 5th largest standing army in the world!
I say that it is high time that the United States gets serious about supporting an effective opposition against a tyrant who posseses a chemical and biological arsenal sufficient to destroy the entire planet twice over.In order for the INC to be effective against Saddam Hussein they will need sufficient funding,sufficient armament(particularly anti-tank weaponry),logistical and intelligence support,and most importantly-the United States to back up it's commitment to the establishment of a secure and safe haven north of the 36th parallel.If the U.S. refuses to do this,I'm afraid that we are going to turn on our TV sets one evening to find out that the entire population of New York City has been wiped out by one form of weapons of mass destruction or another.If the removal of Saddam Hussein doesn't constitute a national security imperative-then I don't know what does!----------Terry Teague(3APR98)
"BUDAPEST RULES":
"Budapest Rules"-this is the operational guidelines by the CIA that permit the U.S. government to participate in a covert effort to destabalize a totalitarian regime as long as no explicit guarantee is given for "active" U.S. support to the opposition.This operational moniker springs from the botched coup that was formulated and promoted by the Eisenhower administration in Hungary in 1956.This anti-communist uprising was smashed by the Soviets after Eisenhower emphatically announced that United States forces would not intervene.The policy of the United States toward the Iraqi opposition in the wake of Desert Storm bears a ghostly resemblance to the policy that produced the abortive Hungarian coup of 1956.
The first step toward the betryal of the Iraqi opposition was taken on Feb.15,1991.During the heat of Desert Storm's air campaign,president Bush called for"...the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein,the dictator to step down."This statement was taken by the Shi'ites in the south and the Kurds in the north as a guarantee of U.S. support.By March of 1991, 14 of the 18 Iraqi provinces were in open rebellion and the opposition had the Iraqi Army on the run. General Wafiq Samarii,former chief-of-staff of Iraqi military intelligence stated to ABC News that"...the uprising almost succeeded...at the very end we only had two days worth of Kalashnikov bullets left in the warehouses of the Iraqi Army."
In the end it appears that Saddam was saved by a very unlikely ally-the United States government.For reasons that are still not adequately explained,Saddam was permitted to maintain his fleet of helicopter gunships after the Gulf War cease-fire.This gave the Iraqi military a decisive tactical advantage when Saddam launched his counteroffensive against the rebels in earnest on March 28.
Two days before Saddam was able to effectively put down the rebellion,White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater issued an official statement declaring,"...it is good for the stability of the region that Iraq maintains it's territorial integrity..."-a statement precluding support for the anti-Saddam opposition.It appears that this statement provided enough cohesion within the Iraqi Army to maintain it's operational capacity long enough to put down the rebellion.
To add injury to insult,the White House allowed Saddam's forces unrestrained access to Shi'ite dominated southern Iraq(including the helicopter gunships) drawing the line at fixed wing aircraft and chemical weapons.Protests against this policy in Washington were muffled by the celebration of the overwhelming victory in the ground campaign.
In an ABC News interview,Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi charged that U.S. officials"...deflected the uprising and they permitted the helicopters to fly and kill people and shoot them.They were the most significant factor in the suppression of the uprising.They made it possible for Saddam to regroup his forces and launch a devastating counterattack with massive firepower on the people."
Shortly after the end of the Gulf War,Iraqi opposition leader Jalal Talbani arrived in Washington to seek support from the Bush Administration.When Peter Galbraith,staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee tried to arrange ameeting between Talbani and the White House,he was, to quote Galbraith,"angrily rebuffed".
Why was Talbani ignored?ABC News Peter Jennings points out that"Until the Gulf War,Saddam Hussein was an ally of the United States,and American officials were not allowed to talk to his enemies,somehow that policy has not been changed."
Why would the U.S. coddle a dictator who has commited atrocities on the magnitude of Hitler and Stalin?The U.S. foreign policy establisment seemed determined to leave Saddam in charge of Iraq."We recognized that the semingly attractive goal of getting rid of Saddam would not necessarily solve the problem or even serve our interests,"Brent Scowcroft stated in a 1996 Newsweek column,"so we pursued the kind of inelegant messy alternative policy that is all too often the only one available in the real world."-That is containing Saddam's foreign adventurism while controlling his domestic opposition.According to Bush Administration officials,they assumed that the humiliated Iraqi Army would finish the job they started by overthrowing Saddam.When this did not happen President Bush signed a "lethal finding" and ordered the CIA to create conditions that would lead to a change in regime in Iraq.
Lethal findings-under which the CIA can,with two exceptions,undertake whatever action is needed,even if those actions lead to fatalities are rare.Under U.S. law the CIA cannot directly participate in an assasination plot,and they cannot suggest in their dialogue that the United States will support a public uprising against an entrenched regime-"Budapest Rules".
The initial funding for the Iraqi operation was set at $40 million dollars.But the Iraqi opposition was told that"...under Bush-that could grow..."In the Summer of 1992 the Bush Administration and the CIA organized the Iraqi National Congress-an umbrella organization of the various Kurdish opposition factions from which they would work together to undermine the Hussein Regime.The White House established a CIA task force known as the Iraq Operations Group.Between the years of 1992 and 1994 the IOG organized military training camps,ran a pipeline of small arms to the Kurdish guerillas,assisted the opposition in intelligence operations aimed at penetrating the Republican Guard,and most importantly,stregnthening the liberated zone for a planned 1995 offensive that was designed to deliver the crushing blow to the Hussein regime.
Iraq Watch has published part of the story of that failed offensive in a previous article,among the newly disclosed details of the operation,which absorbed at least $100 million dollars in U.S. funds and costs are these:A top CIA operative-known to the Iraqis as "Bob" and not further Identified in this article because he is still involved in covert operations within the U.S. intelligence community-designed what the Iraqis called the "Bob plan".The "Bob plan" called for direct action against the Iraqi army in March 1995.The objective was to demonstrate the rebel's stregnth,and hopefully, demonstrate the unwillingness of the Iraqi army to fight for Saddam."Bob" and Warren Marik were the two principle CIA agents working with the resistance at the time.
According to Ahmed Chalabi,the Bob plan included a secret contact with Iran,seeking Iranian complicity in the rebel attack, but the White House was quick to rebuke the young operative for making that suggestion.
As a first step in the campaign,the CIA hired the Rendon Group in Washington to develop a worldwide propaganda campaign.Then after the operation was in full swing the Senate Intelligence Committee sent two staff aides on a fact finding mission to northern Iraq.After this mission,the committee gave full support to this operation."In Northern Iraq we ran a political program designed to eventually reduce Saddam's control over Iraq and make him nothing more than the mayor of Baghdad-that kind of slow salami slicing operation that worked so well for us in Afghanistan and against the Soviets in the Cold War.",says "Bob", a young,but salty intelligence operative in his early thirties,but who has spent at least half of his life working with the intelligence community,"But then came the pressure from the top for the quick kill-for a coup deadline-and we lost our way."
In 1992 Ahmed Chalabi and others within the INC leadership decided to accept covert support(which would eventually grow to $326,000 a month).In Washington, Warren Marik,who was appointed director to the Iraq Operation Group in 1993,began shifting money from the Rendon Group to direct support for the INC hoping to establish hoping to establish a sophisticated intelligence network in northern Iraq to support the planned 1995 coup.
In 1994 Senate Intelligence Committee staff aides accompanied "Bob",who was then deputy director of the IOG,into northern Iraq.Shortly thereafter, the committee cleared the CIA to establish a clandestine,semi-permanent team in northern Iraq.Over the next two years a total of about 50 U.S. agents rotated in and out,living in a fortified compound in the opposition controlled town of Salahudin.The teams were composed of four to ten agents with an average stay of six weeks.Their formal mission was to monitor the INC's increasigly independent operations and to gather intelligence,but under the maverick leadership of "Bob" and Marik-they did much more.Warren Marik puts it this way-"Nobody said that we should provide weapons and military training to the(INC)force,but when we did that,and reported it back to Washington,nobody said stop it either."
Tragically,in late 1994,control of the IOG was taken away from the veterans who had worked out the long term political program with Chalabi.After that the CIA-under the new leadership of DCI John Deutch,embarked on a compartmentalized"special channel"operation to prepare a quick-strike coup against Saddam.This was to be organized by former army officers and political cronies of Saddam that the CIA claimed they were in touch with and could be counted on to overthrow Saddam.
Eventually,the "Bob plan" came into existance with a final target date of March 4 1995.This was to consist of a coordinated strike against the Republican Guard garrisons of Mosul and Kirkuk by 20,000 Kurdish guerillas,1,000 INC soldiers,and 1,000 members of the Iraqi Communist Party."We wanted Saddam to go on full alert,to try to fight back,and see that his troops would not fight for him."Chalabi says.
According to Chalabi,on February 27 "Bob" asked him to use his contacts with Iran's ruling Ayatollahs to pass a message from Washington saying that it would look with favor on Iran moving it's troops along it's border to distract Saddam as the offensive began."Bob" could not meet the Iranians himself,but Chalabi says that "Bob" stood in the hallway of the Khandra Hotel in Salahudin as the Iranian representatives filed in to recieve a message that they had been told was from the White House."They had to see an American or they wouldn't believe it,"says Chalabi,"their eyes were popping out of their head when they saw the six foot tall American."
At this point the Bob plan was apparently in full swing,but on March 3rd "Bob" and another agent showed up with a three point message for Chalabi from the White House:1.Your operation has been penetrated and there is a risk of failure.2.If you proceede it will be without U.S.support or involvement.3.There is only one place for contact between Iran and the United States- and it is not in northern Iraq.
The effect of this message was to split the Kurds(who had recieved separate briefings on it). Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani would not commit his troops-and the offensive failed.
After that the White House and the CIA withdrew it's support for the INC in favor of the Iraqi National Accord for the quick-fix palace coup detailed in the previous article."I know other people in the agency disagree with me and saw the accord operation as a prudent hedge,"says Marik,"but I feel that we got too impatient with installing genuine democracy in Iraq and turned instead to fighting Saddam with incompetent Saddams that are headed for the dust heap of history."-------TERRY TEAGUE (19APR)98
ISRAEL REPORTS MEETING BETWEEN IRANIAN AND IRAQI MILITARY:On Sunday morning February 1 Israel's radio Kol Y'Israel broadcast a report that is fascinating for two reasons.First,it detailed cooperation between Israel and Iran and second,it reported that Israelis had observed a meeting between senior Iranian and Iraqi military officers in Iran.Both parts of the story are important,revealing as they do the complexity and ambiguity of the realignment process in the Middle East.
According to KolY'Israel a group of eight Israeli agricultural advisers traveled to Iran on December 3,1997 they traveled from Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport to Cyprus.From Cyprus they flew to a country which appeared to be Khazakstan,where they surrendered their passports and were issued special passes that permitted them to visit Iran and stay there for an unlimited period of time.They were officially representing an unnamed Geneva based agricultural organization. The reason of the visit was to maintain and upgrade obsolete agricultural equipment that had been supplied to Iran by Israel during the era of the Shah.One of the members of the group carried a message from an Israeli rabbi to Iranian spiritual leader Ali Khomeini,but the message was rebuffed.While this group was in Iran they personally observed a meeting between Iranian and Iraqi military officers.Moreover,a member of the group reported that Israel must not permit the isolation of Iran,as this would drive Iran into Iraq's arms.
There are several obvious questions raised by this report.First,is any of it true?Second,if it is true,why would Iran permit Israeli agricultural experts to travel to Iran?Third,how in the world were Israeli agricultural experts permitted to observe a meeting between Iranian and Iraqi officers?Fourth,why would such ameeting take place?Finally,and most importantly,why is Kol Y'Israel broadcasting this report regardless of it's authenticity?
In a very real sense,it is only the last question that matters.It has been widely reported that Iran is engaged in an effort to become the swing party in the region,playing the U.S.,Israel, Iraq,Russia and China against each other with increasing success and sophistication.Iranian manipulation of the balance of power is completely consistant with the idea of simultaneous visits of Israeli agricultural experts,if that is what they were,and Iraqi military officers.Indeed,it it might well have suited the Iranians to let the Israelis and Iraqis know of each others presence.Iran wants to be wooed. Letting suitors know of the presence of rivals is quite logical.More important,however,is why Israel is sounding the alarm on Iran's isolation,it might join Iraq.
I have been tracking the realignment of the middle east for quite some time,with Israel and Turkey on one side,Greece,Syria,and Iraq on the other.Egypt has flirted with the latter alignment,but Iran has been the prize everyone has been competing for.On September 30,1997,Iranian aircraft struck at anti-Iranian bases inside Iraq(and inside the U.S. no-fly zone).I conclude from this that Iran and the United States have taken another step toward healing their long standing rift because all of the information that I have reviewed regarding this attack implies that the U.S. and Iran coordinated this attack together.Iran appears to be extending an olive branch to the U.S.,but the price is clearly permitting Iran a free hand to deal with Iraq.At the same time,in making conciliatory gestures toward Iraq,Iran is signaling the U.S. not to take Iran for granted,showing that Iran has not locked itself into an anti-Iraqi stance and it retains both flexibility and options.
During the last Persian Gulf showdown,Israel was trying very hard to manuever the U.S. into taking action against Iraq.Whenever the United States moves into a confrontation with the Iraqis,it's dependence on Israel increases.This is particularly the case nowadays when support for the U.S. position is so weak both inside and outside of the region.Thus,Israel tried to make a persuasive case for an American strike on Iraq.Their argument was a plausible one-the U.S. should strike Iraq in order to demonstrate American power to Iran and thereby persuade Iran that the U.S. can be a reliable partner in the region.Put a bit differently,by striking Iraq,the United States moves closer to Iran as well as Israel.The Israeli message is that Iran is quite capable of making a deal with Iraq,completely undermining the U.S. position in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East,unless the U.S. acts decisively.
I was never convinced that the U.S. would strike Iraq.With just two carrier groups in our arsenal,and the 20th TACCOM at such a logistical strain from the Bosnia operation.I could not see the U.S. initiating any kind of sustained airstrike,and at the present time the U.S. could not support any form of ground operations.Israel would have very much liked to have seen the crisis come to a head,which is why it's radio service is trumpeting meetings between Iranian and Iraqi officers.But the coalition is not there any longer,and Iran is not going to abandon their flexibility to throw in with Iraq.Nevertheless,the Israelis will continue to do whatever they can to draw closer to Iran and create tension between Washington and the Arab world.(Terry Teague-(1MAY98)
THE DEFECTION
When Khadir Hamza,one of Iraq's top nuclear scientists defected in 1994,he expected the United States to welcome him with open arms.But American intelligence officials had no idea who he was.Hamza's flight from Iraq,recounted by Iraqi opposition figures and current American officials,was a potential intelligence coup for the United States that almost turned into an intelligence bonanza for Lybian leader Muammar Qadaffi.
According to United States intelligence officials and Iraqi dissident leaders familiar with Hamza's case,he fled Baghdad in September 1994 by hiring a Kurdish smuggler to get him to the Kurdish haven in northern Iraq.There he sought out Ahmed Chalabi,a fellow graduate of MIT,who was working with the CIA at the time as head of the Iraqi National Congress.After Hamza was put in touch with the CIA,the scientist was astonished and furiated that the agency was not interested in helping him defect to the United States.
A former American intelligence official who was involved in the CIA's initial negotiations with Hamza now acknowledges that the agency erred in it's initial handling of the Iraqi scientist."We did stange things iin this case,"said Warren Marik,who was director of the CIA's Iraq Operation Group at the time,"we acted to quickly on this guy and brushed him off too quickly."
Marik arranged for a CIA scientist and another official at the agency's headquarters in Langley,VA. to talk to Hamza by satellite telephone to determine whether or not he was credible,but the telephone negotiations quickly broke down.The CIA officials wanted Hamza to provide sensitive information immediately over the phone,but Hamza insisted that he would only talk after the agency had arranged for his defection to the United States. "We dickered back and forth for about 45 minutes and the agency dismissed him,"said Marik,"but it's not supposed to be done by phone like that.We were two days short of what it takes to determine a defector's value."
Frustrated and eager to find a safe haven,Hamza fled first to Turkey.He then landed a job in another country with nuclear ambitions-Lybia.Teaching physics at Alzawiyah University,Hamza says,he was approached to work in Lybia's fledgling nuclear program,but refused.
Saddam Hussein finally caught up with him in 1995,when Iraqi secret police sent Hamza's eldest son to Tripoli,urging him to return to his nuclear job in Baghdad.His son said that Iraqi agents tried to kill him twice,underscoring the consequences of refusing the invitation to return.His son had arrived just after the Sunday Times of London had repoted that Hamza was presumed to have been kidnapped and assasinated by Iraqi agents in Greece.
The tale was an elaborate fabrication,but Hamza said the article and a third attempt on his son's life had promted him to leave Lybia.Hamza then fled to Tunisia and then to Hungary,intelligence officials said.From there,Hamza made contact with Ahmed Chalabi and an official from another Iraqi opposition group,the Iraqi National Accord,which had connections to both British and U.S. intelligence.Finally,he arranged to meet with the CIA's station chief at the U.S. embassy in Budapest and was soon on his way to Washington.
Meanwhile the CIA arranged to extract his family from his home in Baghdad.Another smuggler brought his family to northern Iraq,where a CIA team met them.They were shortly thereafter reunited with Hamza in the United States.But Hamza's life is still far from ordinary.He now works for a Washington based research center directed by David Albright,a leading U.S. expert on Iraq's nuclear (Terry Teague 1-29-01)
The following is an Iraq Watch editorial from July 4,2001:
When most Americans are asked about the subject of liberating Iraq they generally say something like,"Oh,you mean we're gonna go back and knock off Saddam?"The fact is most Americans have never heard of the INC or know about such a program.The word has got to get out to the American public (and the American establishment for that matter) that there is an alternative to leaving the Ba'athist regime intact in Iraq and Saddam at the helm to perpetrate terrorist acts around the globe and threaten his neighbors and the rest of the world until he manages to start World War III. First we need to make known the avenues and resources that are available to start engaging the problem right now.Francis Brooke of the ILAC did an excellent job of doing this when he was interviewed by Brit Hume of FOX News last week.
ROLLBACK WILL WORK
This has already been demonstrated numerous times already.Every time that opposition forces set out to engage Regime forces half of Saddams forces defect and the other half turns tail and runs back toward Baghdad.Is there anyone who really believes that these "Feyadin Saddam" that "His Excellency" likes to surround himself with in Baghdad because he is troubled by the prospect that His own elite Republican Guard divisions,given half the chance,will roll right over Baghdad and crush Saddam underneath their tank treads, will fight to the last man for him? The American people just do not know or understand the situation here.If they did,they would clammer for the swift removal of Saddam.He is not exactly a national hero in the US ya' know.
There are no doubt serious political issues that must be addressed before the ILA can be implemented in the way it was intended to be,but at least Mr.Clinton and Miss Albright aren't around to spend money that Congress intended to be spent primarily in the form of military aid on such urgent necessities as flower arrangements for Massoud Barzani and sending the cadre of the Iraqi National Congress to anger management classes like a bunch of juvenile delinquents!!!!!
When R. James Woolsey was director of the Central Intelligence Agency,there was a mantra that he liked to repeat ad nauseum that went something like,"The end of the cold war is like a video game.We have slain the dragon,now a thousand snakes have popped up to be rounded up and fought."The same analogy applies to the Liberation of Iraq-but in reverse.There are many regional obstacles to be overcome before the U.S. can unabashedly unleash the ILA.A few of them are:
TURKEY who is going to have to be dragged into the scheme of things kicking and screaming because they are paranoid that,given a significant degree of autonomy,the Iraqi Kurdish enclave will join in and support a pan-Kurdish insurrection within the Turkish border.I do not at the present time see anything to indicate that either the KDP or the PUK would even consider supporting a pan-Kurdish anything with the PKK.
THE SAUDIS I think that the Saudi royal family is terrified at the notion of democracy anywhere in the middle east,fearing that one day their subjects may find the desire to become citizens and depose their regime.
JORDAN.The bottom line here is that Saddam excercises enough control over the deeply entrenched Baathist Party in Jordan that he could easily stir up enough political turmoil to destabilize the Jordanian government-and Abdullah understands this implicitly.
As we all know all too well,one of the primary promises of George W. Bush was to aggressively seek the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.All of the information that I had received and reviewed early on in this administration indicated that it was ready to pursue this policy come what may.I observed some very encouraging signs earlier this year that led me to believe that the administration was ready to do just that.I was very glad to see the U.S. provide military training at Ft. Hood for INC soldiers.I also had high expectations for the foray of INC paratroopers into regime controlled territory to establish a communications network for future missions.
All of the sudden this type of activity seemed to come to an abrupt halt.Then the State Department applied sufficient pressure on the president to curtail all ILA drawdown funds that were appropriated for direct action inside of Iraq.The green light had definately been given for military operations initially.The Department of Defense,under the leadership of our longtime friend Don Rumsfeld,was placed in charge of Iraq planning and the execution of the Iraq Liberation Act.The State Department,along with Colon Powell's goofball rhetoric on "Smart Sanctions" was placed on the back burner.
SO WHAT HAPPENED!!!!!!!!
One can only speculate,but I suspect that the so called foreign policy establishment attacked the president from every conceivable angle under the auspices of Powell and the State Department singing that old faulted siren's song of "dual containment".The darkest fear of all of the corporate entities with economic interests in the Gulf region is that without a strong Sunni-Iraqi military prescence in southern Iraq,Iran will sweep across the Shaat al' Arab and establish a hegemony of it's own over the Shaat.Either that,or the population of southern Iraq, which are Shi'ite, will form a confederacy with Iran giving Iran control over everything that passes through the Shaat into the gulf,which includes a very significant portion of the world's oil supply.
Iran has done very little to allay this fear.At the present time,Iran is in the process of constructing the biggest air defense system in the world on it's side of the Shaat al' Arab.No one can interpret this build-up as anything but an aggressive posture.It is easy to see how a group of "experts" can present this argument to Bush,and preying upon the fear of the unknown and unforseen events of the future,paint a stark and vivid picture for the president portraying a strong Iraqi military prescence in the south as the only safe and sound defense against the Iranian boogie-man.This is also the same train of thought that made Clinton to try to strike a back-channel deal with Saddam (see stratfor.com) agreeing to leave Saddam in power if he would allow the U.S. to build two military bases in southern Iraq to protect U.S. interests in the Shaat al' Arab.
To rely on Saddam to provide a hedge against Iranian aggression in the Shaat al' Arab is not only a wreckless policy,but sheer fantasy when one assesses the situation inside of the current context,casting aside the rose colored glasses of an antiquated and out-moded Cold War mentality.In reality,it is the Hussein regime,that is likely through some kind of beligerence or aggression of it's own, to trigger an Iranian military challenge for control over the Shaat al' Arab simply to protect Iranian economic interests.
Saddam has been engaging in a campaign of provocation and subterfuge against Iran for quite some time.Recently he triggered an Iranian military response by his financial and logistical support for the anti-Iranian MKO opposition group.It is reported that Iran launched between 50 to 60 SCUD missiles at MKO bases inside of Iraq in retaliation for raids inside of Iran originating from MKO bases in Iraq.There is some contention within the U.S. intelligence community on whether or not Iran actually used SCUDs in these attacks,the implication being that if in fact SCUDs were used,the U.S. has drastically underestimated the size of Iran's ballistic missile arsenal.If this is indeed the case,it will not have been the first time that U.S. experts have miscalculated intentions and capabilities in the Persian Gulf region.
REFORMING THE CIA
To fight America's enemies,the US government needs good intelligence.Our current war on terrorism is only the latest instance in which the CIA's ineptitude,incompetence,gullibility,prejudice,corruption and self-serving nature have made it a net detriment to US national security.Hence getting good intelligence must begin with the firing of most people now employed at the CIA headquarters in Langley,VA,starting with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet.
Through the years the CIA has done little but fail spectacularly.It underestimated Soviet strategic forces and overestimated economic and political viability.It missed the invasions of Afghanistan and Kuwait,the advent of every nuclear power,the development of ballistic missiles by rogue states and every terrorist act against Americans.The few outsiders that are privy to the CIA's record know that it is not a trove of necessarily unsung successes,but rather that it's work is on par with that of the Immigration and Naturalization Service,which certified Mohammed Atta for flight training six months after he killed 2,830 people in New York City.Only secrecy prevents the agency from being known as a national embarrassment.
The CIA is lucky that the officials who are supposed to oversee it are either like House Select Committee Chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida),former employees who confuse patriotism with agency loyalty,or are intellectually unequipped,such as Brent Scowcroft,chairman of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.Hence,the high level commission announced on Feb.14 to investigate the CIA's performance regarding Sept.11 will surely turn out like all other such commissions convened after previous intelligence failures.It will recommend some changes at the CIA (including personnel) and will claim that many are already underway.Above all it will declare that the people who are already running the agency are just the right folks to implement these changes.
How do we know?Because this commission,which will spend $2.6 million,is yet another one of the CIA's sweetheart arrangements.It is headed by Brit Snider,another former CIA inspector general and Tenet protege.Who would bet that Snider will recommend undoing his own work and firing his friends?
A serious examination of the CIA's fitness for the war on terrorism would find that it's many failures in collecting information about terrorism,checking that information for fraud (i.e. counterintelligence),analyzing it's significance and conducting covert influence exhibit the agency's congenital defects.
The agency has successfully fought for a monopoly of clandestine human intelligence collection.But it is an old story that the CIA's "case officers",the recruiters and handlers of spies,are not clandestine at all and live abroad as well known US embassy personnel,at best stumble in foreign languages and are truly foreign to foreign cultures.This has always handicapped them for any serious espionage.But it disqualifies them from even pretending that they could get close to anyone who knows about the inner workings of terrorism.This is basic ineptitude.The CIA defends it's operatives incapacities by asking rhetorically how even the most linguistically talented and well disguised collectors could get inside six-man terrorist cells.
But the question wrongly presupposes that all terrorism consists of autonomous (and hence spontaneous) cells.In fact the autonomy and spontaneity of terrorists,the "loose network" theory,is largely the self-serving invention of US government officials who don't want to look into the role of Arab governments in terrorism.The CIA is somewhat more equipped to gather intelligence from such sources,but does a lousy job of it.This incompetence amounts to malfeasance.Perhaps the clearest example of malfeasance is the heavy use the CIA makes of "liasons" with Arab government's intelligence services.That is lacking it's own sources close to terrorists,the CIA uncritically takes what it can get from Egyptian,Jordanian ,Saudi,Emirate and even Palestinian and Syrian intelligence services.These outfits' "unbiased" reporting has helped build for the CIA a picture of terrorism in which shadowy individuals slip in and out of the region's jurisdictions,and in which Arab rulers are responsible for nothing more than insufficient capacity and perhaps lack of zeal in controlling them. Thus,the CIA accepted the Saudi's self-serving report that al'Qaeda was responsible for the bombing of US military barracks in 1996-the Saudis conveniently beheaded the accused terrorists before they could be interviewed by US officials.
Who is responsible for terrorism?According to this picture,terrorism rises spontaneously under the impulse of radical Islam in general and is organized by this thing called al'Qaeda,headed by the renegade Ossama bin Laden-no Arab government is responsible.
By relying on such sources the CIA sometimes makes US government officials look stupid.Thus the CIA was convinced that the Tora Bora area of northeastern Afghanistan was honeycombed with caves housing sophisticated complexes filled with modern conveniences.Don Rumsfeld confirmed this on national television.But when US troops reached the area they found that such things never existed.Similarly,soon after Sept.11,top officials from the president on down pledged that they would make public US intelligence data showing evidence of al'Qaeda's culpability.They never did,because it seems that the "evidence" amounts to the hearsay of unreliable sources.The highest US officials seem to have a high embarrassment threshold.
Perhaps because of the poverty of it's sources,the CIA has never been keen to check the validity of those sources or the voracity of it's data.Hence,throughout the Cold War it accepted as true reports from agent networks in the Soviet Union,East Germany and Cuba that had been discovered and "turned" by hostile intelligence and were feeding us disinformation that confirmed what the agency wanted to believe.IN 1975 the CIA disestablished it's independent counterintelligence staff because it had raised uncomfortable questions about the reliability of it's sources.Since that time,it has institutionalized something akin to self-serving gullibility.
In the war on terrorism,the CIA rushed to validate as proof of bin Laden's responsibility for the Sept.11 attacks the now famous "confession" video miraculously found in Afghanistan in November 2001.Never mind that the video and audio were blurred,making impossible any physical idetification.Never mind also that neither the taped meeting nor the tape had any apparent purpose,and that bin Laden's lead-in to his self-incrimination-his question as to how folks back home had reacted to events two months earlier was implausible for a man with instant communication.The CIA was sure it was genuine.But the CIA can reach outrageous conclusions even without disinformation.
The CIA's analysis is prejudiced to the point of dishonesty.Often,regardless of the information available,the agency sees only what it wishes to see.How else would it have concluded in 1987 that East Germany's per capita gross domestic product was roughly equal to West Germany's,or mistakenly judged 13 years in a row (1964-76) that the latest Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile deployed would be the last?From the agency's inception,CIA analyst have seen their mission as counteracting the bellicose tendencies of other parts of the US government.As regards for terrorism,the CIA has focused on discouraging the US government from making war on Saddam Hussein.
Consider the question of who is responsible for Sept.11.The CIA had paid no attention to Atta prior to that fateful day,despite the fact that Czech intelligence had passed his name along because of his contact in Prague with the notorious Iraqi handler of terrorists Ahmed al' Ani (before his coming to the United States) and again on Apr. 9 2001.The CIA had later learned that two weeks following the first meeting with al'Ani,Atta received the $100,000 dollar wire transfer that financed his mission,and that two weeks after his second meeting,the thirteen "soldiers" in the hijacking left Saudi Arabia with new passports (scrubbed of previous travel and perhaps altered with new identities) and visas to join him in the United States.The Agency found that the United Arab Emirates account from which the money had come had been professionally scrubbed of the owners identity.It learned from communications aboard the hijacked planes that the hijackers used sophisticated chemical sprays and methods of rapid entry into the cockpits,they had mastered navigation techniques way beyond what had been taught them at their US flight schools and they had turned off the planes transponders-another skill that had not been taught to them at the flight schools.
A reasonable person might have concluded from all this that the operation bore the marks of a professional intelligence service.If that person kept in mind that a professional intelligence handler who met twice with Atta is an Iraqi operative,and that,as the CIA knows Iraq has a facility where terrorist train to take over Boeing aircraft,such a person might conclude that Sept.11 had been organized by Iraq. But the CIA paid less attention to the trails that the hijackers had tried to cover than the one they had left for it to follow.The CIA noted that on Sept.9th,Atta wired $15,000 backto a different account in the UAE.This one had a hidden owner-an associate of bin Laden.This was enough for the CIA to be certain that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept.11-even though Saddam Hussein has used al'Qaeda for alot of his dirty work in the past.Moreover,the hijackers were amatuers,they had learned all of their skills at US flight schools (had they not conveniently and uselessly rented cars with their own cards and left flight manuals in them?) and the whole thing had been planned in one of those famous Afghani caves!
The myth that the CIA is the bane of America's enemies abroad and the reliable upholder of our friends is just about the reverse in reality.Seeing itself as the promoter of "true revolution" in the world,the CIA has helped bring to power such wonderful progressives as Gamal Nasser,Fidel Castro and Manuel Noriega.It sponsored the granddaddy of Third-World anti-Americanism,Franz Fanon (because agency elites liked his ideas),and has been the chief advocate within the US government for Yassir Arafat's Palestinian Authority.The catch phrase at the CIA is "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".The CIA's real specialty since the 1950's has been supporting pro-American forces long enough to get them in trouble with local dictators and then abandoning them to slaughter.
What covert activities can the CIA contribute to a war on terrorism?It's greatest contribution has been that it has spared the opposition to Saddam Hussein,the Iraqi National Congress,the burden of it's support.It's greatest disservice has been it's work within the US government to shield Saddam Hussein and to promote the Palestinian leaders with whom Tenet has developed much closer personal ties than any other previous director.That is,the CIA's most effective covert actions are inside US policymaking.The notion that the CIA might help by going around the world fingering or assasinating terrorists is credible only to movie goers.
None of this is to deny that there are some useful people at the George Bush Center for Intelligence who do useful work.The entire Foreign Broadcast Information Service is worth every penny,as are any number of archival functions.Everywhere there are pockets of talent.The next director of central intelligence should arrive on the job with plans for new,worthy intelligence agency.This would include a small,diverse, truly clandestine corps of human intelligence collectors,a truly independent counterintelligence service dedicated to quality control and a structure for the production of competetive all-source analysis.But those plans would see the light of day only if the new director arrived with a truckload of pink slips.
DE OPPRESSO LIBER
Hot Links:
Hoover Institution on War,Revolution and Peace
the American Enterprise Institute
Iraqnet Information Network
Congressional Report:Russian Plans for Sabotage Against the U.S.(a must see!!!)
softwar.net
Joint Military Intelligence College
