Competitive Intelligence

U.S. Using Former Hussein “Mukhabarat” Intelligence Personnel in Iraq

Sunday’s Washington Post reported that, “occupation authorities have begun a (not-all-that-) covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.”

In the wake of the suicide truck bomb that hit the United Nations headquarters last week, this is seen as a growing recognition that U.S. forces must co-opt their former enemies if they are to prevail against further guerrilla activities directed against them.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

“The emphasis in recruitment appears to be on the intelligence service known as the Mukhabarat, one of four branches in Hussein's former security service, although it is not the only target for the U.S. effort. The Mukhabarat, whose name itself inspired fear in ordinary Iraqis, was the foreign intelligence service, the most sophisticated of the four. Within that service, officials have reached out to agents who once were assigned to Syria and Iran, Iraqi officials and former intelligence agents say.”

“Of the four security branches, the Mukhabarat was the best-treated and often supplied agents for the other branches. The largest was internal security, known as Amn al-Amm, which focused on domestic intelligence. The third was special security, which protected government officials. These three answered to the presidency. Only military intelligence was nominally independent of Hussein's inner circle and operated within the Defense Ministry. The Baath Party, with membership in the millions, provided a check of sorts, with its almost endless network of informers in every town and village.”

“Within the Mukhabarat, former intelligence officers say, the branches dedicated to Iran, Israel and, during the 1990s, the United Nations were the most important. One officer, a 23-year veteran who spied on the United Nations, said about 100 agents worked on Iran, between 75 and 100 on the United Nations and 50 each on Israel and Syria, in addition to their networks and contacts.”

- Arik