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Thursday, September 4, 2003

US recruiting former Saddam agents to battle old boss

Agence France-Presse
Baghdad, September 4

The US-led coalition has hired former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein
as it seeks to get tough in the battle against foreign Islamists and
loyalists of the ousted dictator, a pro-US faction said.

"Theyve started recruiting ex-Mukhabarat," said Ali Abdul Amir, spokesman
for the Iraqi National Accord, a group with longstanding ties to the US
defence establishment that counts Iraq's new interim interior minister Nuri
Badran among its members.

"The coalition has been recruiting them. Iraqi parties have also been
helping recruit," said Abdul Amir.

"Many of them are ex-intelligence officers who went into exile, but others
are being tapped from the old regime, as long as it is clear they did not
commit abuses against the Iraqi people."

In particular, the coalition has been signing up Mukhabarat who spied on
Syria and Iran under Saddam, as it seeks to stem an influx of foreign
militants it believes are making common cause with old regime loyalists to
plot the spate of car bombings that have rocked Iraq in recent weeks, said
Abdul Amir.

The move is certain to anger many Iraqis for whom Saddams intelligence
network epitomized the barbarism and cruelty of life before the coalition
toppled his police state.

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) refused to confirm or deny it was
recruiting former Saddam agents. "We do not comment on any intelligence
matters," said spokeswoman Naheed Mehta.

The top field commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez,
vigorously denied that those under his command had been involved in the
recruitment of former intelligence agents. However, he limited his comments
strictly to the forces reporting directly to him and not other elements of
the CPA or US government.

"Coalition forces are not hiring any former intelligence agents," he said,
declining to elaborate.

However, both Sanchez and the top US man in Iraq, Paul Bremer, have
signalled again and again the importance of intelligence-gathering in the
wake of three massive car bombings in as many weeks.

Sanchez has repeatedly said the only way to combat the bombers, who killed
well over a hundred people in the trio of attacks on the Jordanian and UN
missions and the Shiite Muslim holy city is not through more US troops but
"better human intelligence."
Current intelligence-gathering in Iraq is highly reliant on coalition
military raids and walk-in tips to the military and Iraqi police, without
any formal network of undercover agents.

While the US forces had talked about recruiting intelligence agents before
the devastating car bombings, the campaign took on greater urgency following
the UN blast, said Abdul Amir.

"Now there are such clear signs of relations between Saddams followers and
Al-Qaeda, this is a crucial time for the Americans and Iraq," he said.

"Before, they were doing things so slowly. Now, the Americans are doing them
so fast."

The change of tactics by the US-led coalition comes amid a growing
re-evaluation of the security threat in Iraq.

Commanders had argued the threat would disappear as soon as Saddam was
killed or captured, but now speak of a mounting influx of foreign militants
turning Iraq into a "frontline in the worldwide war on terrorism".

For his part, Abdul Amir called the recruitment of former Saddam agents a
correction of Bremers decision to abolish the entirety of the old regime's
security forces with a series of executive decrees in May.

"These were bad decisions. They just converted those people into the enemy.
Now at least, the coalition is facing up to those mistakes," he said.

The efforts to win back disgruntled veterans of Saddam's security forces
also includes hiring some senior former army officers for a new civil
defence force that the coalition is training to protect neighbourhoods and
infrastructure, and counter attacks by militants, said Abdul Amir.

"They know the people, the land, the language," he said, adding that there
were also plans to set up a domestic intelligence unit under the command of
Iraq's new interior ministry led by his party colleague.

© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2003.
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