Violence, Turnover Blunt CIA Effort in Iraq
Agency struggles to penetrate resistance
by Dana Priset
The Washington Post
Relatives carry coffins containing bodies of bombing victims after claiming them from the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad, Thursday.
The CIA has rushed to Iraq four times as many clandestine officers as it had planned on, but it has had little success penetrating the resistance and identifying foreign terrorists involved in the insurgency, according to senior intelligence officials and intelligence experts recently briefed on Iraq.
The CIA mission in Iraq, originally slated to have 85 officers, has grown to more than 300 full-time case officers and close to 500 personnel in total, including contractors and people on temporary assignment. It is widely known among agency officials to be the largest station in the world, and the biggest since Saigon during the Vietnam War 30 years ago.
Despite the size of the contingent, the agency's efforts to penetrate Iraq's ethnic factions and gain intelligence about the insurgency have been hampered by continued violence, the use of temporary and short-term personnel, and the pressing demands of military commanders for tactical intelligence they can use in daily confrontations with armed insurgents.
In December, the CIA station chief was replaced with a more experienced officer to handle the unexpected challenges, according to intelligence officials.
The CIA's role in Iraq is considered crucial to the Bush administration's hopes for stabilizing the country as it heads toward a June 30 deadline for handing sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government. U.S. military forces are counting on intelligence agents to help identify the leaders and networks behind the flaring insurgency. Intelligence analysts say the insurgents, believed to include foreign fighters and Baathists loyal to former president Saddam Hussein, aim to incite factional violence and sabotage the U.S.-led political transition.
On Tuesday, simultaneous suicide bombings of Shiite Muslim worshipers in Baghdad and Karbala left at least 117 people dead, U.S. officials said. The Iraqi Governing Council put the number at 271, in addition to 400 injured.
'Stretched beyond their limits'
With the Bush administration's war on terrorism spread over five continents, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden intensifying as spring approaches, the agency "is stretched beyond their limits," even as it makes a historic drive for recruits, one senior CIA veteran said.
The violence is making it far more difficult for the CIA to operate. A CIA directive requires case officers to travel only with armed bodyguards, making it nearly impossible to conduct discreet meetings with Iraqis on their own turf, according to intelligence experts briefed on the Iraq mission. The agency operates from more than half a dozen bases around the country.
"How do you do your job that way? You can't," said one former CIA official recently returned from Iraq. "They don't know what's going on out there." The agency is training a private security firm that employs former Special Forces troops to be less conspicuous when they accompany CIA officers.
As an additional safeguard, and because of a shortage of CIA paramilitary personnel, the agency also has hired private security firms to protect bases and personnel. "We don't have enough people with skills required," one senior intelligence official said.
To meet the demand for additional personnel, the CIA has turned to its reserves -- retirees who are willing to come back full time on short notice -- to fill many positions. To coax more people into the dangerous assignment, many officers and support staff are being rotated out of Iraq after 90-day stints.
The temporary assignments have made the core task of developing Iraqi sources more difficult, several intelligence experts said.
Some Iraqi regional leaders have complained to American officials of being frustrated because they are unable to find or meet with CIA liaison officers. "Some [Iraqi leaders] say they don't have effective liaison relations," said another former senior official who has dealings in Iraq. "Just when he's getting to know people, they leave. That's a huge potential problem. Developing a strong set of relationships would be enormously important."
'No shortages of volunteers'
The CIA says that Iraq is a choice assignment for case officers. "There are no shortages of volunteers for the Iraq assignment," said CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, who declined to comment further.
Deputy Director of Operations James L. Pavitt, who oversees the agency's case officer staff, told the workforce recently to expect that many officers will serve in Iraq and in countries that are the focus of the U.S.-led war on terrorism in the near future.
The CIA's tasks in Iraq are unusually numerous.
In addition to its traditional role in recruiting Iraqis for information that cannot be gleaned elsewhere, the agency is responsible for interrogating Hussein and other Iraqi captives. The CIA remains a key component in the continuing hunt for weapons of mass destruction, and is helping to train a new Iraqi intelligence service that will be responsible for internal intelligence collection and analysis.
"They just have so much to do," a senior CIA official said.
In December, the station chief in Iraq, who previously managed a smaller station in the Middle East, was removed and replaced with a more experienced officer who had recently managed CIA operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. His removal was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. "There were management problems," another intelligence official said.
"The requirements are a lot more complex" than a regular CIA station, the senior intelligence official said. "That requires more experience."
Agency struggles to penetrate resistance
by Dana Priset
The Washington Post
Relatives carry coffins containing bodies of bombing victims after claiming them from the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad, Thursday.
The CIA has rushed to Iraq four times as many clandestine officers as it had planned on, but it has had little success penetrating the resistance and identifying foreign terrorists involved in the insurgency, according to senior intelligence officials and intelligence experts recently briefed on Iraq.
The CIA mission in Iraq, originally slated to have 85 officers, has grown to more than 300 full-time case officers and close to 500 personnel in total, including contractors and people on temporary assignment. It is widely known among agency officials to be the largest station in the world, and the biggest since Saigon during the Vietnam War 30 years ago.
Despite the size of the contingent, the agency's efforts to penetrate Iraq's ethnic factions and gain intelligence about the insurgency have been hampered by continued violence, the use of temporary and short-term personnel, and the pressing demands of military commanders for tactical intelligence they can use in daily confrontations with armed insurgents.
In December, the CIA station chief was replaced with a more experienced officer to handle the unexpected challenges, according to intelligence officials.
The CIA's role in Iraq is considered crucial to the Bush administration's hopes for stabilizing the country as it heads toward a June 30 deadline for handing sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government. U.S. military forces are counting on intelligence agents to help identify the leaders and networks behind the flaring insurgency. Intelligence analysts say the insurgents, believed to include foreign fighters and Baathists loyal to former president Saddam Hussein, aim to incite factional violence and sabotage the U.S.-led political transition.
On Tuesday, simultaneous suicide bombings of Shiite Muslim worshipers in Baghdad and Karbala left at least 117 people dead, U.S. officials said. The Iraqi Governing Council put the number at 271, in addition to 400 injured.
'Stretched beyond their limits'
With the Bush administration's war on terrorism spread over five continents, and the hunt for Osama bin Laden intensifying as spring approaches, the agency "is stretched beyond their limits," even as it makes a historic drive for recruits, one senior CIA veteran said.
The violence is making it far more difficult for the CIA to operate. A CIA directive requires case officers to travel only with armed bodyguards, making it nearly impossible to conduct discreet meetings with Iraqis on their own turf, according to intelligence experts briefed on the Iraq mission. The agency operates from more than half a dozen bases around the country.
"How do you do your job that way? You can't," said one former CIA official recently returned from Iraq. "They don't know what's going on out there." The agency is training a private security firm that employs former Special Forces troops to be less conspicuous when they accompany CIA officers.
As an additional safeguard, and because of a shortage of CIA paramilitary personnel, the agency also has hired private security firms to protect bases and personnel. "We don't have enough people with skills required," one senior intelligence official said.
To meet the demand for additional personnel, the CIA has turned to its reserves -- retirees who are willing to come back full time on short notice -- to fill many positions. To coax more people into the dangerous assignment, many officers and support staff are being rotated out of Iraq after 90-day stints.
The temporary assignments have made the core task of developing Iraqi sources more difficult, several intelligence experts said.
Some Iraqi regional leaders have complained to American officials of being frustrated because they are unable to find or meet with CIA liaison officers. "Some [Iraqi leaders] say they don't have effective liaison relations," said another former senior official who has dealings in Iraq. "Just when he's getting to know people, they leave. That's a huge potential problem. Developing a strong set of relationships would be enormously important."
'No shortages of volunteers'
The CIA says that Iraq is a choice assignment for case officers. "There are no shortages of volunteers for the Iraq assignment," said CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, who declined to comment further.
Deputy Director of Operations James L. Pavitt, who oversees the agency's case officer staff, told the workforce recently to expect that many officers will serve in Iraq and in countries that are the focus of the U.S.-led war on terrorism in the near future.
The CIA's tasks in Iraq are unusually numerous.
In addition to its traditional role in recruiting Iraqis for information that cannot be gleaned elsewhere, the agency is responsible for interrogating Hussein and other Iraqi captives. The CIA remains a key component in the continuing hunt for weapons of mass destruction, and is helping to train a new Iraqi intelligence service that will be responsible for internal intelligence collection and analysis.
"They just have so much to do," a senior CIA official said.
In December, the station chief in Iraq, who previously managed a smaller station in the Middle East, was removed and replaced with a more experienced officer who had recently managed CIA operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. His removal was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. "There were management problems," another intelligence official said.
"The requirements are a lot more complex" than a regular CIA station, the senior intelligence official said. "That requires more experience."
