INC Intel Program, NY Sun
The New York Sun March 1, 2004, p. 1 Jockeying Begins for Control of Iraqi Intelligence Agency By ELI LAKE Staff Reporter of the Sun BAGHDAD, Iraq One of the most significant battles going on here is one that hasn't yet hit the newspapers--the maneuvering over who is going to inherit the intelligence agency run by the Free Iraqi movement under Ahmad Chalabi. The intelligence operation, known as the Information Collection Program, was founded by the Iraqi National Congress and the State Department. In subsequent years it has been largely funded by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency and has racked up a string of intelligence successes. The CIA station here has started negotiations with Mr. Chalabi's group in a bid to take over the operation, which has come under scrutiny from Senator Clinton, a Democrat of New York, and others for peddling false information to the Bush administration before the war. But the intelligence unit, known as the Information Collection Program, has also led to the capture of U.S. Central Command's 55 most wanted Baathists, uncovered Saddam Hussein¹s illegal intelligence stations, and captured documents that uncover the role of foreign corporations in busting United Nations sanctions and trading with Iraq's military, according to a draft summary of the program's activities, obtained by The New York Sun. That summary says that between May 2003 and January 2004 the INC's operatives provided more than 1,300 intelligence reports to the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Human Sources unit. Today, the ICP has evolved from its modest beginnings in the fall of 2000 as a State Department program to document war crimes against Kurds to an embryonic intelligence agency and counterterrorism strike force. Funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency at $340,000 a month since the fall of 2002 and before that by the State Department, the ICP has absorbed intelligence officers from the two major Kurdish parties, the Iraqi National Accord and the Iran-funded Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Last week, Mrs. Clinton said she hoped,this administration will strongly repudiate the statements recently reported by Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi. She cited a recent interview with the London Daily Telegraph, which Mr. Chalabi claimed he never granted and in which he was quoted as saying the intelligence his organization provided before the war was unimportant. Questions surrounding Mr. Chalabi¹s intelligence arose last month after the Knight Ridder newspaper chain published a story claiming that the DIA had determined a defector made available to American intelligence agencies in 2002 had lied about his knowledge of mobile biological weapons labs. That defector was cited as one of four human sources on the mobile labs in Secretary of State Powell¹s February 5, 2003, testimony to the United Nations Security Council, but the primary source of the information was a defector residing in a third country made available before the ICP even existed. A Washington adviser to the INC and ICP official, Francis Brooke, told the Sun last week that the information on weapons of mass destruction provided by ICP defectors was only part of a larger program to provide military intelligence to the Pentagon before the war. One of the things they were concerned about was weapons of mass destruction, he said.But we were also giving information on the order of battle and the physical lay out of Uday's home. Since the war, the task of the program has focused more on counterinsurgency. The summary of the program's activities says, Specifically, the mission of the office is to provide precise, timely, sensitive, actionable information to Coalition Forces. The Information Collection Program has saved American lives, one Pentagon official told the Sun last week. They have worked closely with the military. At a tour of the ICP bureau in Baghdad Thursday, uniformed Army officers were meeting with members of the bureau. Since May of 2003, the ICP has cooperated with the 1st Armored Division of the Army, the 82nd Airborne Division and special forces units in Baghdad to exchange intelligence information regarding the security issue in Iraq, according to the summary. The ICP arranged for coalition forces to first contact General Kamal Mustafa Abdullah Sultan al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, where he was first interrogated at the INC¹s compound at the Hunting Club in May. The INC's Free Iraqi Forces, which worked on ICP intelligence, also arrested Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, Saddam's former deputy prime minister and member of the Baath regional command. ICP operatives also helped arrange for the surrender of the governor of Basra, Walid Hamid Tawfiq al-Tikriti, on April 29. To be sure, a number of Iraqis have provided coalition forces with information on former Baathists. It is rumored still in Iraq that the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan came up with the tip that led to the capture
WSJ Editors, Breakthrough: Iraq's Interim Constitution
The Wall Street Journal REVIEW OUTLOOK Breakthrough in Baghdad Iraqis agree to a remarkably liberal interim constitution. Tuesday, March 2, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST A paradox of post-Saddam Iraq is that American elites keep asserting that it's a quagmire even as progress keeps being made in Baghdad. The latest example is the unanimous weekend agreement by the 25 members of Iraq's Governing Council on the draft of an interim constitution. Yes, there will be further violence, as the Baathist and jihadi enemies of Iraqi democracy make a desperate stand to break American will. But with the unanimous vote of the Governing Council--including Kurdish and fundamentalist Shiite leaders--there is now an Iraqi national consensus on the timing and shape of future self-rule. What's more, that consensus is a remarkably liberal one. We've heard a lot of nonsense over the past two years that Muslims aren't ready for self-government, and that the Bush Administration was imperial in trying to impose it. But Iraqis of all stripes didn't need a lot of prodding to draft what is far and away the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, including what a senior coalition official calls an extraordinary bill of rights. Those include the rights to free speech and assembly, the free exercise of religion, habeas corpus and a fair and open trial. There will be gender equality and civilian control of the military. The interim government to be elected by next January will be parliamentary in nature, with a weak executive composed of a president and two deputies. The role of Islam and the extent of federalism were understandably the most contentious issues. In the end it was agreed that Islam would be a source of legislation among many, not the principal source some Council members had wanted. They were mollified by the addition of another clause saying legislation could not contravene the tenets of Islam. This is admittedly something of a fudge, and Iraqi liberals will have to be on guard lest judges interpret that provision overbroadly in the future, but the bill of rights should offer protection here. As for federalism, the Kurds won recognition that the future Iraq would be built around strong regional governments. They did not get the inclusion of oil-rich Kirkuk in their area for the time being, but they do get to keep their peshmerga militias for now. A big unresolved issue is the shape of the caretaker government that will serve between the June 30 sovereignty handover and the elections. Here U.S. regent L. Paul Bremer will be playing catch-up. It's been clear for well over a month that the Byzantine U.S. caucus proposal for selecting a transitional government lacked enough Iraqi support. But rather than figuring out how to hold elections as early as possible, Mr. Bremer and his staff continued to peddle overblown worries about the lack of voter rolls while hoping U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi would salvage their plan. This was obviously a stalling tactic, which needlessly risked the goodwill of Shiite leader Ayatollah Sistani. Fortunately, the Ayatollah's forceful advocacy of democracy has been tempered by a spirit of compromise. We are told he has signaled his acceptance of the emerging election timetable, as well as of an unelected caretaker government so long as its powers are limited. The simplest solution is to continue with the current Governing Council, since changes would likely become a source of needless contention. We also wish Mr. Bremer and his team showed more concern regarding the mechanics that will govern the coming Iraqi vote. Perhaps the worst idea in this interim constitution is its 25% target for female representation in parliament. This arbitrary threshold isn't attained by many mature democracies--e.g., Congress. And a serious effort at meeting it would likely require a system of proportional representation like those found in Israel or in continental Europe. A proportional system--with voters choosing among lists of candidates fielded by powerful party bosses--would likely empower Islamist groups, as well as make it possible for the radical fringe (say neo-Baathists) to win seats. The better idea is an Anglo-American constituency-based system, which would take advantage of Iraq's already evolving institutions of local democracy. Here voters in each district would choose a single deputy on a first-past-the-post basis. This would force candidates to run on centrist platforms, and best ensure that Iraq's many secular, middle-class neighborhoods would have like-minded representatives. Electoral mechanics are one of those crucial details that will play an outsized role in determining whether President Bush's vision of a democratic Iraq becomes a permanent reality. Mr. Bremer would be smart not to leave this one to the U.N., but to seal a deal on a process that maximizes liberals' chances before June 30 arrives. Meantime, he and the Governing Council deserve congratulations on their progress toward
