[These] Iraqi document[s] underscore not only how
misguided the CIA's assumptions can be, but also how
incomplete the media's reporting on Iraq's contacts with
al Qaeda has been....
...For too long, the public discussion of the Iraqi regime
has been colored by the U.S. Intelligence Community's
assumptions and the press's own mishandling of the topic.
This is why it is so important for the American people to
see the evidence firsthand.
Unfounded Assumptions
DOCEX challenged the assumptions of the intelligence community and the press.
by Thomas Joscelyn
The Weekly Standard
11/14/2006
IN THE WAKE OF the New York Times's November surprise, the government's release of documents captured in Iraq has come to a grinding halt. For more than one week now, the site that had published files from Saddam's archives has been offline. Unfortunately, there is a good chance that the document release project, which had published thousands of documents and other pieces of captured media since March, will never be restarted.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra has long been a champion of releasing the materials captured in Iraq, as long as they did not jeopardize national security. He had to fight a thoroughly disinterested intelligence bureaucracy to jump-start the project. But Tuesday's election results mean that Hoekstra will no longer be positioned to carry on the fight. Within just a few months he will lose his chairmanship to a Democratic replacement, who will most likely have little interest in exposing Saddam's crimes. Instead, the Committee will likely focus more attention on the Bush administration's supposed prewar intelligence abuses.
That's a shame. The documents and other captured media provide a unique window into one of the most secretive regimes in history. As a general rule, Saddam's minions did not advertise their misdeeds in public. The documents and other files released on the Internet, therefore, provided one of the best sources for exploring what the Butcher of Baghdad was really up to during his decades-long rein of terror.
But the captured materials are valuable for a variety of other reasons, not the least of which is intelligence reform. For too long, the U.S. Intelligence Community has been content in its failure to recruit human intelligence assets among our enemies. As a result, IC operatives and analysts frequently filled gaps in their knowledge with simple-minded assumptions. The Iraqi intelligence documents provide numerous examples of just how wrong-headed these assumptions can be and the necessity of good human intelligence (HUMINT) collection.
Take the issue of Iraq's contacts with al Qaeda. No informed observer disputes that the Iraqi regime was in contact with al Qaeda operatives. But the conventional wisdom inside the CIA is that these contacts did not amount to much. This judgment is not based on a deep knowledge of either al Qaeda or the Iraqi regime. The CIA failed to recruit significant assets inside either. Instead, it is based on an assumption.
Bob Baer was one the few CIA operatives to aggressively pursue intelligence collection throughout the Middle East and other terrorist hotspots in the 1990's. Both of Baer's accounts of his decades on the job (Sleeping With The Devil and See No Evil) provide valuable insights into the workings of America's shadowy spook organization. Much of Baer's writings also reflect a keen understanding of how our terrorist enemies work. There is one notable exception.
In the mid-1990s Baer was stationed in Khartoum, Sudan. At the time, Khartoum was also home to the man who would become the most wanted terrorist in the world: Osama bin Laden. In Sleeping With The Devil, Baer notes that bin Laden was frequented by many guests, including Saddam's operatives. He writes:
A lot of Arabs were making the pilgrimage to Khartoum to
see bin Laden. Iraqi intelligence had met with bin Laden
on several occasions. Although we couldn't be positive, we
assumed the emissaries were only taking bin Laden's
measure, making sure he wasn't about to turn on them.
Thus, the CIA knew that bin Laden was meeting with Iraqi Intelligence. But without good human intelligence assets inside those meetings, or reliable electronic eavesdropping on the proceedings, the CIA couldn't be sure what exactly was going on. The Agency simply assumed there was no cause for concern.
Thanks to the document release project, however, we learn that this assumption was unwarranted.
One document released on the web earlier this year is an authenticated Iraqi intelligence memorandum summarizing several Iraqi contacts with al Qaeda in the mid-1990s. The memo discusses some of the very meetings Baer dismisses in his book. Some of the contents of the document had been previously reported in the New York Times and THE WEEKLY STANDARD, but the version released by the government allowed the public to read an English translation first-hand.
The story told by the internal Iraqi memorandum does not support the CIA's assumption.
The document was apparently authored in early 1997 and Iraqi intelligence recounts two requests from bin Laden for assistance. The first was a request for the Iraqi regime to rebroadcast al Qaeda propaganda from a leading Sheikh. Saddam agreed.
Bin Laden also requested help in conducting "joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia." As for bin Laden's second request, the Iraqi document notes that Saddam was willing to explore collaboration:
Through dialogue and agreements we will leave the door
open to further develop the relationship and cooperation
between both sides. The Intelligence Director's
representative, our ambassador in Khartoum, informed the
Sudanese side of the revered Presidency's [Saddam's]
agreement.
The Iraqi memorandum does not mention any fear of bin Laden turning on Saddam, as Baer assumed. Instead, the two sides were explicitly discussing "joint operations" against American forces. It is worth noting that, at the time, al Qaeda was focused on a string of bombings against American assets in Saudi Arabia. Whether or not bin Laden's terrorists received any actual assistance from Saddam in these attacks is not known. But that Osama was willing to explore collaboration with Saddam on these attacks is troubling to say the least.
It is worth noting, too, that Baer's CIA was actively working with Iraqi opposition groups during this time with the aim of overthrowing Saddam. Saddam, therefore, had good reason to explore collaboration with terrorists.
This Iraqi document underscores not only how misguided the CIA's assumptions can be, but also how incomplete the media's reporting on Iraq's contacts with al Qaeda has been.
When the Times first reported the existence of the memo in the summer of 2004 ("Iraqis, Seeking Foes of Saudis, Contacted bin Laden, File Says"), the "Newspaper of Record" left out a number of details.
For example, the document relates that not only was Iraqi intelligence meeting with bin Laden, but it was also in contact with a prominent al Qaeda ideologue named Dr. Muhammad al-Massari. Al-Massari openly operates a web site devoted to glorifying martyrdom attacks in Saudi Arabia* from his base of operations in London.
According to the Iraqi intelligence document, a Sudanese intermediary initially acted as a liaison between al-Massari and the Iraqi regime. On behalf of al-Massari, the intermediary "raised the subject of cooperation and joint coordination with Iraq, and the possibility of implementing a mechanism and a working program with his movement."
The Iraqi regime agreed to send the Sudanese intermediary to London to meet with al-Massari to discuss his proposal further. When that intermediary could no longer do the job, the Iraqis arranged for a Saudi intermediary to manage the relationship. During two telephone calls with the Saudi, al-Massari "stated that he wishes to visit the country [Iraq] in the near future." But, due to his current legal troubles, this was impossible.
The Iraqis concluded:
We are following the issue until we reach the goal of
establishing a core Saudi Opposition in the country, and
we will use our relationship with them to serve us in our
intelligence goals.
As with the contacts with bin Laden, we cannot be sure what came of the Iraqi regime's ties to al-Massari. In a recent interview with the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, however, al-Massari confirmed that Saddam sponsored al Qaeda's relocation to Iraqi soil in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Al-Massari was, therefore, apparently keeping tabs on the Iraqi relationship with al Qaeda years after his first attempts to work with Saddam. And, as with bin Laden's contacts with Iraq, the fact that al-Massari was willing to work with the Iraqis and vice versa is deeply troubling--and contrary to the widely-held belief that Saddam's secular regime was anathema to Sunni extremists.
Yet, nowhere in the Times's account of the Iraqi intelligence memo is there any mention of al-Massari. The public would never have known that the Iraqi regime was in contact with this al Qaeda propagandist if it were not the ability to read a translation of the document.
That's the whole point of the document release project. For too long, the public discussion of the Iraqi regime has been colored by the U.S. Intelligence Community's assumptions and the press's own mishandling of the topic. This is why it is so important for the American people to see the evidence firsthand.
Thomas Joscelyn is a terrorism researcher and economist living in New York.
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* - typo - the author mistakenly had Iraq. Dr. Muhammad Al-Massari is a well-known scholar and exiled Saudi dissident now based in the UK. |
