- WASHINGTON -- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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