http://www.nwherald.com/MainSection/local/365328443365358.php
Reports: U.S. has 'serious' intelligence problems [published on Fri, Dec 24, 2004] THE WASHINGTON POST WASHINGTON - While insurgents in Iraq have placed informants inside the Iraqi government, the U.S. and Iraqi military, coalition contractors and international news organizations, the United States is having serious intelligence problems in Iraq, said sources inside and outside the U.S. government. The CIA and the U.S. military were slow to start creating intelligence networks in Iraq and have had trouble developing informants because of death threats to any Iraqis or their families should they get involved, those sources said. "The insurgents have good sources in the Iraqi interim government and sometimes in local U.S. and coalition [military] commands," according to Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and a former Pentagon official, who this week published a study titled "Strengthening Iraqi Military and Security Forces." "As in most insurgencies," writes Cordesman, "'sympathizers' within the Iraqi government and Iraqi forces, as well as the Iraqis working for the coalition, media and NGOs [non-government organizations], often provide excellent human intelligence without violently taking part in the insurgency." Two recent events illustrate the problem. Last week, U.S. military and Iraqi forces raided the Baghdad offices of Iraqna, a mobile telephone service company, and seized the computers of two Egyptian security managers suspected of aiding the insurgents. On Wednesday, the Pentagon disclosed that the blast that killed 22 people at a U.S. military base outside Mosul was most likely set off by an insurgent who had penetrated the base. In preparing his study, Cordesman, who specializes in the Middle East, has visited Iraq and the Gulf area repeatedly in the past two years and talked to U.S. intelligence experts, military officers and embassy officials, some within the last two weeks. He and others point out that the intelligence situation in Iraq is similar to what occurred almost 40 years ago in Vietnam, in that, as Cordesman puts it, local residents "are often pushed into providing data (to the insurgents) because of family ties, fear of being on (the) losing side, (and) direct and indirect threats." The United States, he says, "faces a repetition of its experience in Vietnam in the sense that as various insurgent factions organize, they steadily improve their intelligence and penetration of (coalition) organizations." Those same pressures hamper the U.S. effort to gain intelligence. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted to reporters Wednesday, "The enemy's got a brain. ... As things happen on the ground, they see what we do to respond to it. They then change their tactics. And intimidation is the kind of thing that can prevent people from providing intelligence" to coalition forces. In Iraq, the CIA has the main responsibility for collecting intelligence on broad questions such as the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition and where its support comes from, while the U.S. military is primarily concerned with protecting troops, their equipment and facilities. The Iraq Survey Group, a Pentagon unit that originally was directed primarily at finding weapons of mass destruction under direction of the CIA director's representative, is now primarily looking into the insurgency problem, according to a Pentagon intelligence official. The Pentagon's intelligence operations are primarily directed at what is termed "force protection," and have used such battlefield tools as remotely piloted vehicles, like the Predator, or devices that pick up signals intelligence. These were quickly countered by the insurgents, who began using couriers and the internet instead of cell phones. They also halted bank transfers and charities and turned to drug sales and theft for funding, Cordesman and other sources said. "U.S. intelligence is optimized around characterizing, counting and targeting things rather than people," Cordesman says. "U.S. dependence on Iraqi translators and intelligence sources is a key area of U.S. vulnerability and one the insurgents have learned to focus on." Although Cordesman concludes that "U.S. human intelligence is improving," he says it is "hurt badly" by the rapid turnover and rotation of CIA case officers and military personnel, commonly after less than a year in-country. In addition, he finds that there are "serious quality and loyalty problems" among the Iraqi informants the U.S. has recruited, as some have been found to "use their positions to settle scores or misinform coalition troops." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
