The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum

=> CIA plans new secret police in Iraq

CIA plans new secret police in Iraq
Posted by Andreas (Guest) - Monday, January 5 2004, 13:55:17 (EST)
from 80.142.253.56 - p508EFD38.dip.t-dialin.net Network - Windows 2000 - Internet Explorer
Website:
Website title:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/01/04/wirq04.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/01/04/ixnewstop.html

"The presence of a powerful secret police, loyal to the Americans, will mean
that the new Iraqi political regime will not stray outside the parameters
that the US wants to set," said Mr Pike. "To begin with, the new Iraqi
government will reign but not rule."

-----------------------

CIA plans new secret police to fight Iraq terrorism

By Julian Coman in Washington
(Filed: 04/01/2004)

Nine months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime and his feared
mukhabarat (intelligence) operatives, Iraq is to get a secret police force
again - courtesy of Washington.

The Bush administration is to fund the new agency in the latest initiative
to root out Ba'athist regime loyalists behind the continuing insurgency in
parts of Iraq.

An ICDC soldier checks an Iraqi man during a patrol in Tikrit

The force will cost up to $3 billion (£1.8 billion) over the next three
years in money allocated from the same part of the federal budget that
finances the Central Intelligence Agency.

Its ranks are to be drawn from Iraqi exile groups, Kurdish and Shi'ite
forces - in addition to former mukhabarat agents who are now working for the
Americans. CIA officers in Baghdad are expected to play a leading role in
directing their operations.
A former United States intelligence officer familiar with the plan said: "If
successfully set up, the group would work in tandem with American forces but
would have its own structure and relative independence. It could be expected
to be fairly ruthless in dealing with the remnants of Saddam."

The secret police will be the latest security force created by the US and
its Iraqi political allies in an attempt to quell the insurgency.
Although officially banned by the ruling Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA), militia groups are already patrolling cities and towns in many areas
of Iraq against the backdrop of an increasing number of extra-judicial
killings of prominent former Ba'athists.

The Pentagon and CIA hope to organise the various and sometimes competing
groups into a single force with the local knowledge, the motivation and the
authority to hunt down pro-Saddam resistance fighters. According to
officials in Washington, the new agency could eventually number 10,000.
Initially at least, salaries will be paid by the CIA, which has 275 officers
on the ground in Iraq.

Former CIA officials compare the operation to the Phoenix programme in
Vietnam, which was launched in 1967. That programme sought to destroy the
civilian infrastructure supporting the Vietcong through assassinations and
abductions secretly authorised by Washington.
Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of CIA counter-terrorism, said: "They're
clearly cooking up joint teams to do Phoenix-like things, like they did in
Vietnam." He said that small units of US special forces would work with
their Iraqi counterparts, including former senior Iraqi intelligence agents,
on covert operations.

The force is intended to take on a crucial role for Washington in
post-Saddam Iraq. The Pentagon and CIA have told the White House that the
organisation will allow America to maintain control over the direction of
the country as sovereignty is handed over to the Iraqi people during the
course of this year.

John Pike, an expert on classified military budgets at the Washington-based
Global Security organisation, told The Telegraph: "The money for this has
been buried in the 'other procurements' section of the Air Force budget. The
CIA is funded out of that category.
"The creation of a well-functioning local secret police, that in effect is a
branch of the CIA, is part of the general handover strategy. If you are in
control of the secret police in a country then you don't really have to
worry too much about who the local council appoints to collect the garbage."
In the short term, CIA officials expect that the very existence of a
strongly pro-American security force will terrify civilians who are
currently supporting the insurgency into refusing assistance and aid to
Ba'athist rebels. Despite the capture of Saddam last month, attacks on US
personnel and Iraqis co-operating with them have continued into the New
Year.

The scheme is believed to have been heavily backed by Vice-President Dick
Cheney, a key advocate of the war to oust Saddam. After deciding in November
to accelerate the handover of political power to a sovereign Iraqi
authority, Mr Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials are
anxious that Iraq should not fall under radical Islamist control or
degenerate into civil war.

"The presence of a powerful secret police, loyal to the Americans, will mean
that the new Iraqi political regime will not stray outside the parameters
that the US wants to set," said Mr Pike. "To begin with, the new Iraqi
government will reign but not rule."



---------------------


The full topic:



Accept: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, application/vnd.ms-excel, application/msword, application/x-shockwa...
Accept-encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept-language: de
Cache-control: no-cache
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-length: 5760
Content-type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Cookie: *hidded*
Host: www.insideassyria.com
Referer: http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf/rkvsf_core.php?.59FR.
User-agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9