From Today’s Front Page at Military.com:
The top American official responsible for training the new Iraqi intelligence services said Tuesday that country’s spies could be ready to go it alone by the end of next year.
After years of fits and starts, the Iraqi military and ministry of defense intel services are up and running, and, with coalition help, scoring some significant wins against insurgent groups, bombers and cross-border infiltrators.
“I would say by this time next year they would be likely self-sufficient to the extent that within the capability they have, both technical and human, that they can, in fact, collect, analyze and disseminate information to provide support to the Iraqi ground forces,” said Dan Maguire, the senior American trainer for Iraqi intelligence services, in an interview with military bloggers Nov. 27.
Read the entire transcript of the interview with Dan Maguire.
Maguire said in and around Baghdad the number of targets Iraqi intelligence personnel develop has jumped from less than a dozen per week before this year’s troop buildup to an average of 50 to 60 targets per week.
Moreover, Iraqi intel services are now able to go after about 90 percent of the bad guys they finger, where before the surge few targets had hard enough intelligence to nab.
Check out more intel news at Norman Polmar’s Spy Corner.
The new intel services have been able to develop their own information, analyze it and grab insurgents using Iraqi military and police forces about 30 percent of the time, “so they are right now on par in terms of going after targets and having success on that with the rest of the coalition forces,” Maguire said.
But that doesn’t mean Iraqi intelligence services don’t have some work to do before the U.S. can cut the cord.
Maguire said his pupils are short on basic signals intelligence technology that can help them intercept enemy communications, there are too few Arabic-language intelligence analysis software options — which hampers the exploitation of the information gained from sources — and there’s a lasting suspicion among military commanders that their intelligence personnel are simply spying on them.
“Many commanders view the tactical intelligence organizations in a division as being there to spy on the commanders, because that’s their experience or their knowledgeability from the Saddam era days,” Maguire explained. “We are working very hard to rectify that by direct interface with division commanders, by recruiting and putting in place G-2s at each of those division levels and working closely with them so that the commander and the G-2 build a bond and a trust so that they can, in fact, utilizes the resources effectively.”
At the higher levels, however, Maguire likes what he sees.
“Their joint staff [intelligence officer], and his staff are a very, very competent group of individuals,” Maguire said. “We have a new [chief intelligence officer] that’s only been in place now for about a month and a half, who is a former officer in the Saddam era, was an instructor at their National War College equivalent institution, a very, very balanced individual, very knowledgeable, very, very good at leading and mentoring his staff. And they are really starting to get it and put it together.”
Developing intelligence services from scratch is no easy task, especially with a tough counterinsurgency roiling the country. That’s led to an over emphasis on tactical intelligence gathering and exploitation at the expense of strategic spooking.
“They really don’t have any resources external to the country that they can rely on to give them what we would expect in our intelligence community, a strategic view of what’s going on around them.” Maguire said, adding that they have a hard time focusing on how tactical events can have strategic implications.
Maguire said he’s put in place a rigorous vetting process, including polygraphs, to make sure no militia or terrorist elements infiltrate the services, and he’s working hard to banish the practices of Saddam’s dreaded Mukhabarrat from ever returning.
“Our focus has primarily been on developing the tools to collect and analyze, and at the same time taking away or not allowing the tools of suppression to be part of the intelligence institutions,” Maguire said. “Now I can’t say there’s a guarantee. But I think that as we have developed and worked with them over the years now, and we see both the leadership that they have and the manner in which they’re conducting the business, that we have a high degree of insurance that they’re not going to fall back to their old ways.”
Is it just me or maybe we should not be helping to set up organizations like this?
The government is still unstable and may just use these people to crush internal dissent.
It reminds me of all the US trained military people who end up overthrowing their government or using their learned skills not to suppress leftist gorillas, but to suppress everyone.…
Seems to me that we *may* be seeing the Iraqi state getting it together. I can’t help but compare and contrast the evolution of post-Saddam Iraq with the post-Nazi Germany. After such a bloody, bloddy war with the Germany (qua Nazis) they turned the corner toward real democracy pretty fast — the Bear growling on the other side of the Fulda Gap no doubt sped that along.
As the future is known but to the Father, we’d be a bit chuff to predict what it will bring. However, it would seem that the threat to the Iraqi nation from Islamic fascism ought to catalyze things the way the Soviet threat did for the German nation.
The question which now comes to mind is whether the Iraqi nation has the gumption to follow through as did the Germans. If they do, they have the great potential to be as valuable a strategic partner as have been the Germans.
I think that they can pull it off with our help.
Of course, we made sure that we’d actually won WWII before we started trying to rebuild; unlike the present conflict where we’ve got the Seabees and civil affairs weenies out trying to rebuild with RPGs whizzing around them. I can’t quite imagine the Allies trying to get Gasthauses up and running while the Nazis were still shooting at us. And, of course, we invaded the continent with absolutely everything we could muster to ensure victory and a “hard kill.“
If we can keep the fifth column saboteurs of the fourth estate at bay we will get the hard kill on our and Iraq’s enemies in Iraq. That the Iraqi security organs have begun to breathe on their own is a good sign that we’re making progress to that end. I’ve no doubt that a competent, organic, and well-resourced Iraqi intelligence service will be far more effective at rooting out her enemies than we can ever hope to be.
Having the Iraqis conduct their own ISR should come as a sweet sop to the Moveon.org crowd: No longer will they have lie awake at night worrying about “militants” and “freedom fighters” being trundled off the Gitmo to be waterboarded, bullied, forced to receive comprehensive medical and dental care, and otherwise have their feelings hurt at the hands of Americans. The Iraqis no doubt will take care of that themselves.
Cheers,
Chief B.
Re: Dennis
One can either light a candle or curse the darkness.
It is possible that the nascent Iraqi intel service will morph into something ugly.
It is equally possible that it will not.
Perhaps the controlling factor will be our committment to the Iraqi nation in bringing them along and out of the Saddamite darkness.
As for overthrowing the government or crushing internal dissent, it seems reasonable to me that sometimes the government is in need of overthrow and that dissent is the sheep’s clothing for the wolf of sedition. Its all a matter of perspective… and whether the government or seditionist is on my side or not.
It ain’t a pretty world. More to the point, its a fairly damned cruel and ugly one that does not respond well to dialogue, mutual respect, reason, kittens, puppies, and fluffy bunny rabbits. Their response to UN resolutions, stern warnings, peace initiatives, and Hollywood hyperbole is even less responsive.
They do respond well to these things when they are supported by our willingness to kick the snot out of them as required. Repeating as necessary. This is the best way to keep governments, armies, and other security organs playing nice with everyone else.
How soon we forget that kid who picked on you, took your lunch money, and generally did whatever sadistic bit of mischief that popped into his head did not respond well to reason, dialogue, or stern warnings. He did however respond splendidly to when the Poindexter gave him a few loose teeth, a busted lip, and some sore ribs. It did not substantively change the bully, but it damned sure modified his behavior around Poindexter.
Cheers,
Chief B.
P.S.: I don’t understand what anyone has against some poor gorillas, be they leftist, rightist, or centrist.
I think Churchill said something about a “bodyguard of lies”, and, in my limited experience, things spooky are rarely what they seem. So, I’m not sure how to take this story.
I mean, if the new Iraqi spooks are “right now on par in terms of going after targets and having success on that with the rest of the coalition forces”, I suppose that’s progress, but, given that they speak the language, know the culture, and can blend in with impunity, shouldn’t they be even better?
I mean, it would seem they’d be a few strokes under par. But I suppose it doesn’t serve our purposes, or theirs, to reveal how good they are.
Sort of off topic, does anybody know what happened to the former Mukhabarat’s files? They would have been a treasure trove of information. Assuming they weren’t all bombed or looted into oblivion, Job 1 for the new Iraqi services (or, us) would seem to be mining those for intel.
I mean, chances are the Mukhabarat, Fedayeen, Baathists, etc., etc. had themselves a few shredding parties before we burned their house down, but even the gaps in the records would tell you a lot about what they held near and dear.
I really haven’t heard squat about the Mukh files since the invasion. Again, bodyguard of lies — if we had them, we’d want to pretend we didn’t — but it would seem something about them would filter out, 4 years later.
Or maybe not. I mean, IIRC, we just declassified stuff about the USS Liberty incident, and that was 40 years ago.
It’s just you Dennis, looking for the worst under every rock.
In order for any gov’t to function, it has to have an efficient intelligence apparatus that can shine the light on it’s enemies. Whether or not YOU think they are truly the enemy makes no difference. The best and worst governments have only one ambition and that is to survive.
This Agnostic Atheist says: Sure sounds like Dennis is just another one of the Clueless Clods of the Loony Left!
google: we got nuked on 9/11
I know for a fact this intel unit stuff will fail!
It doesn’t it work good when our people are there
babby sitting etc…The real networks will pop-up
again…It’s all do we feel it crap
Government intell lacks logic especially on realistic basics of natural thoughts of sin and righteousness…You leave God out,then you will lie about everything…Plus,Intell=Greek for Goal.
They probably have less goals than winning…
Here’s a thought for ya:is anyone studying any captured computer systems of the actual enemy???
I bet not,its too,tooo, logical…Colleges should
have the right to do so also…