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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (19486)	12/11/2003 6:19:57 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794497

Belmont Club Blog The Dark Sword Two different sources with synoptic views of the same event. The first, an article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh called Moving Targets asserts that the US is embarking on a manhunt strategy of targeted assassinations of enemy personnel, not just the top, but at the middle level of the Ba'ath structure. (Hat tip: a Belmont Club reader) Hersh casts his assertion in dark, foreboding terms, comparing it of course, to Operation Phoenix in Vietnam. But the key factual claim, which may contain a grain of truth is that an unconventional force consisting of American Special Forces and Iraqi intelligence agents is taking the field to crush the insurgency and perhaps do much else. That assertion has some collateral confirmation from the BBC, which asserts that top Iraqi intelligence officials from the new government are working hand-in-glove with the CIA at Langley to establish a new internal security service. Both articles are larded with conspiratorial suggestions. Hersh suggests that the manhunt approach is the evil product of Israeli intelligence and Lieutenant General William (Jerry) Boykin, while the BBC is emphasizing that possible recruitment may include ex-members of the Ba'ath secret service, who may not be so ex. The two articles may not refer to the same thing; it is hard to think of Army operations like Task Force 121 being run out of Langley. So it is much more likely that the two are different parts of a larger picture. The BBC quotes the Washington Post as saying that the clandestine efforts, which probably contain both intelligence and operations components, are funded from classified items in the US budget. This is probably the first glimpse of the post-Operation Iraqi Freedom of the War on Terror. The Belmont Club was at first horrified to learn that Saudi Arabia was eligible to subcontract for Iraqi reconstruction projects. But on further reflection, why not? The involvement of Jordan in training the new Iraqi internal security service in possible cooperation with Israel (if both the BBC and Hersh are to be believed), suggests that America is responding to radical Islamic infiltration of the West with some counter-infiltration of its own. And what better way to suborn the enemy but with a pot of gold that is the Iraqi reconstruction fund, ready to hand? belmontclub.blogspot.com