Two recent stories--one in the Wash Times, based on US sources, and the
other in the Times of London, based on an interview with Abdel Aziz Hakim,
who heads the slate most likely to win the Iraqi elections--underscore a
serious problem: the new Iraqi intelligence service is penetrated by what
the US military calls Former Regime Elements, whose loyalties lie with the
former Ba'thist regime.
To a significant extent, the US military and the CIA seem to be operating on
the basis of two different views of the nature of the enemy in Iraq and
needless to say that just does not work.
January 7, 2005
Inside the Ring
By Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The CIA in Iraq
The CIA has been given a leading role in developing the Iraqi
intelligence service in Baghdad. U.S. officials say the new spy agency
reflects the same institutional weaknesses as the CIA, including poor
operational security, bad counterintelligence and an emphasis on process
over results. U.S. officials say the biggest problem is that at least 5
percent of the new intelligence agency members were recruited from the
former Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein's repressive security and intelligence
service that had about 15,000 members. . . .
January 12, 2005
London Times
Ayatollah alarms Sunnis with pledge of security force purge
By James Hider
Election favourite says that he will root out former Saddam acolytes
AN IRANIAN-BACKED Ayatollah tipped to become Iraq's first elected leader in
decades said yesterday that he would carry out a purge of Iraq's
intelligence and security structures if his party wins power.
Ayatollah Abdelaziz al-Hakim told The Times that under US occupation and the
interim administration the security forces had become infested with former
officers of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime and needed to be shaken up.
His comments are likely to worry Sunnis, who already fear that their grip on
government is slipping.
"There are major infiltrations, varying in degree from the Mukhabarat
(secret intelligence service) to Interior Ministry and to a lesser degree
the Ministry of Defence. Some of them are semi-infiltrated," he said.
"Sometimes we come across their secret reports, where they use similar
idioms and expression to those used in Saddam's time, as if Saddam's times
were still here. This is sometimes painful, but sometimes it makes you
laugh."
One of his aides told The Times that intelligence officers were still asking
Shia detainees who was behind the 1996 assassination attempt on Saddam's son
Uday, while others were asked who they had fought with in the Shia uprising
of 1991.
The Ayatollah's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (Sciri), is the main player on a Shia list endorsed by Iraq's leading
cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and including the former Pentagon
darling Ahmed Chalabi and partisans of the rebel Shia cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr.
With Grand Ayatollah al- Sistani's blessing, the United Iraqi Alliance is
expected to win at least 27 per cent of the seats in Iraq's new parliament
after the January 30 elections.
Ayatollah al-Hakim, poised to take power, already has the trappings of
leadership in calamitous Baghdad. He was speaking in his heavily guarded
headquarters - once the home of Tariq Aziz, Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister -
where he survived a suicide car bomb attempt on his life two weeks ago.
Aides say that he has not left the compound since the attack. Dozens of
armed men loiter in nearby streets, manning roadblocks that cause congestion
in the neighbourhood.
Asked if he planned a sweeping purge of the intelligence and security forces
that the Americans built up piecemeal after the war, the Ayatollah, who once
commanded Sciri's 10,000-strong militia, said: "For sure. If we want to
improve the security situation. It's natural and it's one of our
priorities."
In their place, he said he would install "loyal Iraqis and the believers (in
God), and those who believe in the process of change in Iraq". His words
caused alarm among Iraq's liberal commentators.
"If he forms the government, that will be a disaster. He'll purge the army,
purge the police and put his own men in it," said Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a
secular Shia commentator, who is trying to build bridges with the Sunni
community and defuse the uprising. "This is the road to civil war."
Mr al-Atiyyah brushed aside the Ayatollah's promise to ensure Sunni seats in
government even if turnout was too low to bring their parties into
parliament. "This is exactly what the old regime did," he said.
Tawfiq al-Yasseri, the head of the parliamentary defence committee, said
that a shake-up in the security apparatus was needed. "I agree completely
with what Abdul Aziz said about the faults of the security system. They
should be changed. All of them they are making dramatic mistakes." He
stopped short of endorsing a takeover by Sciri. "We need experienced people
with clean hands who were persecuted by the former regime."
Another commentator found it hard to believe that the Americans, having
fought hard and long for elections, would allow an Iranian-backed Ayatollah
to take control. "It will be doctored" to ensure pro-American secular
moderates take the helm and write the country's constitution, said the
observer, who asked not to be named..
