Practical Intelligence
CIA War in Iraq
E. R. Anders - 12/18/03The CIA role in gathering intelligence on Iraq's WMD's and what Saddam Hussein could do, or might do with such weapons remains controversial. According to press accounts an ad hoc committee called the Office of Special Plans (OSP) was established in the Department of Defense allegedly to produce intelligence more in keeping with the views of those in the Administration calling for a regime change in Iraq. The Office of Special Plans (OSP) was originally the Middle East and Gulf Affairs office in the Department of Defense before taking on its new role. The reconstituted OSP allegedly acted to intimidate analysts in the established intelligence organizations, including the CIA, to support such views (Leopold). At least one prominent analyst and historian accuses the CIA of having "buckled" on the issue of Iraq’s WMD threat as far back as 1998 (Prados). Although an internal review of prewar U.S. intelligence determined that CIA analysts did not change their views as the war approached that Iraq had been pursuing WMD’s, the controversy failed to end neither in the press nor within the corridors of power of official Washington (Washington Post, "CIA review").
Although the CIA had very little hard evidence of Iraq WMD’s after United Nations inspectors were forced to leave the Iraq in 1998, the CIA Director George Tenent continues to hold firm to findings published in the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs:
"We stand behind the judgments of the NIE as well as our analyses on Iraq’s programs over the past decade. Those outside the process over the past ten years and many of those commenting today do not know, or are misrepresenting, the facts. We have a solid, well-analyzed and carefully written account in the NIE and the numerous products before it. " (Tenet, "NIE statement").
The Director also fended off inquiries about how references to Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger made their way into President George W. Bush’s State of the Union Address. Tenet stated that perhaps such a statement should not have made it into the President speech and that it was his fault that it did. (Tenet, "Speech statement") Tenet’s statement failed to settle the matter. Further press investigations only raised new questions when veteran journalist and news columnist Robert Novak made known the name of a CIA employee whose identity some claimed was "leaked" in retaliation for criticism of the Bush Administration’s decision to go to war against Iraq based on Niger intelligence documents later found to have been forged. Although the issue seemed initially to hinge on the question of why a former member of the Clinton Administration and a staunch Democrat would be given a mission by the CIA to go to Niger, U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson’s charge that his wife’s CIA "cover" had been intentionally blown (she had recommended her husband for the mission) made front page news and prompted a Justice Department investigation and cries for appointment of a Special Prosecutor by Democrats in the Congress. (Buchanan)
While questions about what the CIA did or didn’t know about WMD’s in Iraq continues to be a cause of much public debate, a more fundamental question seems to be largely missed. According to unnamed intelligence sources in one news report, the better question may be what did the CIA know about anything going on in Iraq before the recent war against Saddam?
"The real issue isn't whether the intelligence community hyped what we had. It's how little we had. We had no significant high-level political sources inside (Iraq); we had no significant penetration of Saddam's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programs and we had no high-level agents in the Iraqi military." (Strobel, Walcott).
Clearly serious difficulties contributed to the agency’s pre-war intelligence gathering problems--particularly CIA attempts to collect Human Intelligence (HUMINT). Specific details of CIA efforts to place agents inside Iraq are not likely to be fully known anytime in the near future, if at all. What is known is such efforts were difficult in the extreme and only modestly successful. According to press accounts, hundreds of Iraqi's were murdered by Saddam in the years between 1991 and 2003 on mere suspicion of working with the CIA (Diamond, "network"); (Diamond, "purges").
CIA, INC and War Intelligence
Following the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the White House authorized the CIA to "create the conditions" that would, hopefully, lead to the overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. The CIA contracted with the Rendon Group, a Washington public relations firm, to organize and begin an anti-Saddam propaganda campaign inside Iraq. Initially backed by covert CIA funds, the Iraqi National Congress (INC) was founded as well, and included Sunni and Shiite Arabs and others opposed to the Saddam regime--bringing together, for the first time, the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Both parties claimed to represent the interests of the Kurds in Northern Iraq—but a falling out between the KDP and PUK in 1996, erupted in fighting in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Abril. The dispute prompted intervention by the Iraqi Army that resulted in the destruction of INC bases and the end to CIA backed opposition in Northern Iraq:
"In the campaign, two hundred oppositionists were executed and as many as 2,000 arrested. Six hundred fifty oppositionists (mostly INC) were evacuated and resettled in the United States under the parole authority of the U. S . Attorney General. The INC has since been plagued by the dissociation of many of its constituent groups from the INC umbrella, a cutoff of funds from its international backers (including the United States), and continued pressure from Iraqi intelligence services." (CRS Issues Brief, Katzman)
Despite debate over the credibility and reliablitity of intelligence information developed by the INC and its sources, prior to the March 2003 war, the organization remains a major player in the politics of post-war Iraq. Ahmad Chalabi, INC's founder plays a key leadership role in the newly formed Iraqi Governing Council.
The CIA's paramilitary arm, the Special Activities Division, reportedly has been deploying teams inside Iraq since June 2002. These teams along with the military’s Special Forces have proved both resourceful and effective in supporting military commander's during major ground fighting in Iraq. Currrently, CIA paramilitary teams are engaged in the hard and dangerous task of tracking down members of Saddam's inner circle in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. Operating in urban areas, these hunter-killer sniper teams are seeking out to kill (or capture), so-called, "leadership Targets" among the holdouts of the former Iraqi regime (Priest).
The FBI’s role during the Iraq war is somewhat less controversial than that of the CIA. The FBI sent agents to assist local police in investigating the deadly terrorist bombing in Najif where 125 people were killed. Shortly after the Iraq war, working with Interpol and U.S. Customs agents, the FBI assisted in tracking down stolen artifacts that had been looted from Baghdad. Along with tracking down terrorists overseas, most recently (August 2003) opening an office in Yemen for this purpose, the FBI has been doing similar foreign law enforcement assistance work over the past 12 years (Whitemore).
Works Cited
Some of the information in this paper is derived from press accounts of U.S. covert operations. The author has no way to independently confirm specific details revealed in these press accounts.
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Associated Press, Staff Writer. CIA Defends Prewar Iraq Intelligence. 28 September, 2003 29 September, 2003 < http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/6878463.htm
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E. R. Anders is a veteran Broadcast Journalist who has worked as a Reporter and News Editor for Associated Press Radio, Mutual News, and WMAL Radio in Washington DC. Mr. Anders is currently an Intelligence Analyst with Northrop-Grumman Mission Systems.
