WP: U.S. Recruiting Hussein's Spies

[kskiska]

Occupation Forces Hope Covert Campaign Will Help Identify Resistance

Sunday, August 24, 2003; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 -- U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a 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.

The extraordinary move to recruit agents of former president Saddam Hussein's security services underscores a growing recognition among U.S. officials that American military forces -- already stretched thin -- cannot alone prevent attacks like the devastating truck bombing of the U.N. headquarters this past week, they said.

Authorities have stepped up the recruitment over the past two weeks, one senior U.S. official said, despite sometimes adamant objections by members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, who complain that they have too little control over the pool of recruits. While U.S. officials acknowledge the sensitivity of cooperating with a force that embodied the ruthlessness of Hussein's rule, they assert that an urgent need for better and more precise intelligence has forced unusual compromises.

"The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence," the senior official said. "It's the only way you're going to stop these people from doing what they're doing." He added: "Without Iraqi input, that's not going to work."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37331-2003Aug23.html

[shockandawed]

1. Well, why not, we hired em to begin with

What I love is that no one is pointing out that Rummy and Co installed Saddam. The fact that we should cozy up to Iraqi intel should not suprise us. They are not unlike our own CIA in that they both bumble, both have too much power, both kill people, both torture. Peas in a pod really.

[QuietStorm]

12. it is not surprising

OBL is part of the crew too, yet few seem to acknowledge that either.

[huckleberry]

2. If the King of Clubs, nine of hearts, three of spades, etc.

aren't telling us where the WMD are, why would Saddam's spies tell us anything?

[htuttle]

9. Oh, they'll tell us lots of stuff

...problem is, most of it won't be true.

[rooboy]

3. Wouldn't be surprised...

if the Iraqi resistance were picking guys to volunteer to work with the US. What a wonderful opportunity to get access to US plans and money.

[QuietStorm]

11. homeland security

it seems to me was compromised a while back.

[bvar22]

4. Another brilliant idea from the bush*/republicans

Let's hire the murderous thugs we were trying to kill last week. I'm sure we can trust them.

Instead of Saddam's murderous, psychopathic, rapist thugs , they will be bush*s murderous, psychopathic, rapist thugs, and the US Taxpayers (us) will be paying their blood money.

bizarre...just bizarre...and unclean. These people DISGUST me!

[Rose Siding]

5. Stoopid with a capital Stoo

We are even muscling over our own puppet govt to do this? Won't these new spies have plenty of motivation to LIE when they finger someone? We couldn't *find* anyone with greater motivation to lie.

[Kahuna]

6. What idiots. They will send us in the opposite direction just...

like they did in Afghanistan. George Tenet has repeatedly warned them that you can't take anything those people say as gospel. They all have their own agenda and will say anything to accomplish their own goals.

Part of dumbya's justification for war was based upon information given by "spies." They told the US what they wanted to hear, got their "rewards" and we ended up going to war based upon their lies.

[OldCurmudgeon]

7. putting the lie to the reasons why

ShrubCo invaded Iraq.

No WMDs? "Oh, it was to free the Iraqi people from the horrible
repressive Saddam regime!"

U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service

So let's just bring back the nasty elements of that regime, hmm? Worrying about how the Iraqi people were treated under Saddam is like SO last week.

[IndianaGreen]

8. Let's bring Saddam back and put him on the US payroll, again

I am sure that once the Iraqis find out that the US is using the dreaded Mukhabarat, that they will come to their senses and stop being so contrary to American occupation of their country.

What's next for the US military? Will we use poison gas in the Sunni Triangle?

[QuietStorm]

10. Hussein's spies

Are these the only spies on the job, besides the CIA and british spies?

[IndianaGreen]

15. Using the Mukhabarat will win America lots of new enemies

and increase the number of recruits for the resistance. The Mukhabarat was Saddam's Gestapo, and our use of them as our agents lays bare another American lie: that we came to Iraq as liberators.

This is like having the British use former Nazi concentration camp guards to assist them in tracking down Jewish resistance groups in Palestine during the British Mandate.

[lumpy]

13. "The only way you can combat terrorism is through intelligence".

according to a senior US official. He neglected to say that the recruited Saddam supporters will be going about assassinating Shiites who stand in the way of US control. Of course, the US military will claim innocence of any complicity in bombing/killing of Shiites.

[PurityOfEssence]

14. But...aren't we so sure these are the guys behind all of this?

Another badly cloaked sign that we're just brazenly lying. We've said repeatedly that all of the activities are from "Dead Enders" (think Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall in bernuses) fighting for Saddam. Now we're saying that foreign terrorists are working with these guys.

The truth?

The truth is that we obviously don't know dick. If we knew that it was Saddam's old cadre, then the last people we'd be going to are his security people. The right wingers just make things up and pronounce them with pompous certitude. They think that their utterances become fact because they've gotten away with everything so far, so they're obviously going to get away with this...