U.S. intelligence activities in Iraq

A U.S.-supported coup in 1963 ousted the Qasim government, which was believed to be leaning toward communism. There are U.S. court records indicating the CIA militarily and monetarily assisted Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War. The Central Intelligence Agency also was involved in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein.

Intelligence played an important and generally effective role in the 1990–1991 Gulf War, but was much more controversial with respect to justifying and planning the 2003 invasion of Iraq. See the appropriate chronological entries below.

Iraq 1960

According to the Church Committee report, the CIA plotted to assassinate Iraqi dictator Abd al-Karim Qasim with a poisoned handkerchief. The report included, "In February 1960, the Near East Division [of the Directorate of Plans (i.e., Clandestine Service)] sought the endorsement of what the Division Chief called the "Health Alteration Committee" for its proposal for a "special operation: to 'incapacitate' an Iraqi Colonel believed to be 'promoting Soviet bloc political interests in Iraq'." The Division sought the Committee's advice on a technique, "which while not likely to result in total disablement would be certain to prevent the target from pursuing his usual activities for a minimum of three months," adding: "We do not consciously seek subject's permanent removal from the scene; we also do not object should this complication develop."

"In April, the [Health Alteration] Committee unanimously recommended to the DDP (Deputy Director for Plans, Richard Bissell) that a "disabling operation" be undertaken, noting that the Chief of Operations advised that it would be "highly desirable". Bissell's deputy, Tracy Barnes, approved the action on behalf of Bissell.

"The approved operation was to mail a monogrammed handkerchief containing an incapacitating agent to the colonel from an Asian country [i.e., country not yet named]. [James] Scheider [Science Advisor to Bissell] testified that, while he did not now recall the name of the recipient, he did remember mailing from the Asian country. during the period in question, a handkerchief "treated with some kind of material for the purpose of harassing that person who received it." During the course of this Committee's investigation, the CIA stated that the handkerchief was "in fact never received (if, indeed, sent)." It added that the colonel: "Suffered a terminal illness before a firing squad in Baghdad (an event we had nothing to do with) after our handkerchief proposal was considered."

Iraq 1963

In 1963, the United States backed the Ramadan Revolution coup against the government of Iraq headed by Qasim, who five years earlier had deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. The plot was carried out by a coalition of Nasserists, Iraqi nationalists, Ba'athists, members of the Arab Socialist Union, and anti-Communist members of the Iraqi armed services. Of the 16 members of Qasim's cabinet, 12 of them were Ba'ath Party members; however, the party turned against Qasim due to his refusal to join Gamel Abdel Nasser's United Arab Republic.

Writing in his memoirs of the 1963 coup, long time OSS and CIA intelligence analyst Harry Rositzke presented it as an example of one on which they had good intelligence in contrast to others that caught the agency by surprise. The overthrow "was forecast in exact detail by CIA agents." "Agents in the Ba’th Party headquarters in Baghdad had for years kept Washington au courant on the party’s personnel and organization, its secret communications and sources of funds, and its penetrations of military and civilian hierarchies in several countries....CIA sources were in a perfect position to follow each step of Ba’th preparations for the Iraqi coup, which focused on making contacts with military and civilian leaders in Baghdad. The CIA’s major source, in an ideal catbird seat, reported the exact time of the coup and provided a list of the new cabinet members....To call an upcoming coup requires the CIA to have sources within the group of plotters. Yet, from a diplomatic point of view, having secret contacts with plotters implies at least unofficial complicity in the plot."

Ed Kane, who was in charge of the Iraq Desk in Washington at the time of the coup, admitted that the CIA team led by Station Chief Art Callahan worked undercover in the Political Section of the Embassy at Baghdad in 1963. Qasim was aware of U.S. complicity in the plot and continually denounced the U.S. in public. The Department of State was worried that Qasim would harass American diplomats in Iraq because of this.

The best direct evidence that the U.S. was complicit is the memo from NSC staff member Bob Komer to President John F. Kennedy on the night of the coup, February 8, 1963. The last paragraph reads:

"We will make informal friendly noises as soon as we can find out whom to talk with, and ought to recognize as soon as we’re sure these guys are firmly in the saddle. CIA had excellent reports on the plotting, but I doubt either they or UK should claim much credit for it.

Documents show that the CIA was well aware of many plots within Iraq throughout 1962, not just the Ba'athist one.

The new government used lists, allegedly provided by the CIA, to systematically murder unknown numbers of suspected communists. The victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers and other professionals as well as military and political figures.

According to former CIA Near East Division Chief James Chritchfield, the CIA took interest in the Ba'ath Party around 1961-2, and "was better informed on the 1963 coup in Baghdad than on any other major event or change of government that took place in the whole region in those years;" however, it did not "actively support" the coup. "Several months later," the Ba'ath "staged a kind of counter-coup," which led Arif to purge the party in the November 1963 Iraqi coup d'état. The CIA "did not identify a radical movement within the Ba'ath," and was "surprised" by the power struggles that followed the Ramadan Revolution. After al-Bakr and Vice President Saddam Hussein seized power in 1968, "America slowly developed, not a hostility, but enormous reservations about the ability of the Ba'ath to constructively bring Iraq along."

Iraq 1973-75

After the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, the original Ba'ath Party split into two different parties of the same name.

After Hussein's 1972 trip to Moscow, the CIA colluded with Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran to finance and arm Kurdish rebels in the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War. When Iran and Iraq signed the Algiers Agreement in 1975, the support ceased. The Shah denied the Kurds refuge in Iran, even as many were slaughtered. The U.S. decided not to press the issue with the Shah. "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work", declared Sec. of State Henry Kissinger. Subsequently, al-Bakr attempted in 1979 to demote the Vice-President, Saddam Hussein, to a position of relative obscurity. Hussein responded with a counter-coup, forcing al-Bakr to resign, conducting a ruthless purge of hundreds of Ba'athists and naming himself President.

The American betrayal of the Kurds was investigated by the Pike Committee, which described it as cynical and self-serving. It has been argued that it tarnished America's image with one of the most pro-Western groups in the Middle East.

Iraq 1980

Beginning in 1980, the CIA militarily and monetarily assisted Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.

This was the province of the South Asia Operations Group headed by Gust Avrakotos. Author George Crile, in his book Charlie Wilson's War, writes:

There was little the Agency could do directly against Khomeini. But indirectly it was doing tremendous damage by providing covert assistance to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis for their bloody war with Iran. As explained by Ed Juchniewicz -- Avrakotos's patron and the number two man in the Operations Division at that time -- they were just leveling the playing field: "We didn't want either side to have the advantage. We just wanted them to kick the shit out of each other".

This support continued until the end of the war in 1988.

Iraq 1990

On July 19, the CIA National Intelligence Daily reported "Baghdad is Threatening Effective Sanctions against UAE and Kuwait", followed on July 24 with "Iraq has adequate forces and supplies for military operations [in Kuwait]".

On July 17th, two weeks prior to the invasion, a US KH-11 imagery intelligence reconnaissance satellite "passing over the previously empty desert area between Iraq and Kuwait spotted Iraqi troops assembling on the Iraqi side of the border." In the next week, imagery interpreters "identified over the next week a formidable Iraqi force that included 300 of Saddam Hussein's most modern T-72 tanks, an elite Republican Guard division, and about 35,000 Iraqi troops poised in a coil formation on Kuwait's northern border. Even more ominous, a long line of fuel trucks had joined the tail of the coil, indicating the force was prepared to move an extended distance."

U.S. intelligence moved to a specific attack warning on August 1. One of the indicators was satellite imagery intelligence that showed tanks and other tracked vehicles had:

• moved off the wheeled tank transporters used to protect their tracks from wear
• on many vehicles, changed to a new set of tracks, an exhausting, dirty job that may save one's life going into battle.

The Republican Guard, meanwhile, had moved several divisions south, on tank transporters, as well as a large amount of field bridge construction equipment for crossing obstacles.

Iraq 1991

CIA provided intelligence support to the military in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

Mohammed Abdullah Shawani's "saga illustrates a little-understood part of the Iraq story -- the CIA's attempt to mobilize Iraqi officers. At the center was Shahwani, a Sunni from Mosul and a charismatic commander who made his reputation in 1984 with a helicopter assault on Iranian troops atop a mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan. His popularity made him dangerous to Saddam Hussein, and he was arrested and interrogated in 1989. He fled the country in May 1990, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait.

On the US side, there was no single targeting organization for planning air campaigns at the theater level, as there is for the nuclear Single Integrated Operational Plan. "Targeting for the Gulf War air campaign encompassed the first modern joint effort to integrate and employ the joint services’ air power. While generally perceived as a doctrinal and operational success, widespread parochialism between and within service components adversely affected air campaign planning, targeting, and execution." "The national intelligence agencies are comprised of the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency. Political and economic intelligence fall under the purview of the CIA. DIA provides all-source intelligence and operational support to unified commands, while NSA provides signals and electronic intelligence. Prior to 1990, no central authority existed to coordinate interagency target intelligence and combat assessments to support unified commands’ operations.

"A critical shortfall that would impact the air campaign targeting for Operation DESERT STORM was the initial lack of a single focal point organization for providing interagency coordinated target intelligence and battle damage assessments. At the initiative of Rear Admiral "Mike" McConnell, JS-J2 [then Intelligence Director for the Joint Staff, now Director of National Intelligence], the National Military Joint Intelligence Center was established to act as a clearinghouse for all national-level intelligence support to CENTCOM. The NMJIC was manned by CIA, DIA, and NSA personnel with the intent to coordinate and pass all-source intelligence to CENTCOM J2. What actually happened was that these same organizations bypassed CENTCOM J2 and forwarded--via direct communications links--uncoordinated target intelligence to CENTAF. Resulting uncoordinated national intelligence efforts caused the emergence of conflicting and erroneous targeting data. This, in turn, would later lead to contradictory battle damage assessment reports that impaired CINCCENT’s decision-making processes, causing a 3-day delay in the ground forces offensive.

Iraq 1992

After the Gulf War, CIA took steps to correct the shortcomings identified during the Gulf War and improve its support to the US military, beginning improved communications with major US military commands. In 1992, CIA created the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) to enhance cooperation and increase information flow between the CIA and the military. OMA is subordinate to the Associate Director of Central Intelligence for Military Support and is jointly staffed by CIA officers from all directorates and military personnel from all the services.

According to former U.S. intelligence officials interviewed by The New York Times, the CIA indirectly supported a bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq conducted by the Iraqi National Accord insurgents, led by Iyad Allawi. The campaign had no apparent effect in toppling Saddam Hussein's rule.

According to former CIA officer Robert Baer, various rebel groups were attempting to oust Hussein at the time. No public records of the CIA campaign are known to exist, and former U.S. officials said their recollections were in many cases sketchy, and in some cases contradictory. "But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former CIA official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then." In 1996, Amneh al-Khadami, who described himself as the chief bomb maker for the Iraqi National Accord, recorded a videotape in which he talked of the bombing campaign and complained that he was being shortchanged money and supplies. Two former intelligence officers confirmed the existence of the videotape. Mr. Khadami said that "we blew up a car, and we were supposed to get $2,000" but got only $1,000, as reported in 1997 by the British newspaper The Independent, which had obtained a copy of the videotape. The campaign was directed by CIA asset Dr. Iyad Allawi, later installed as interim prime minister by the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003.

Iraq 1993

Funding Kurdish organizations, the CIA worked to create a new Kurdish-led intelligence agency in Iraq called Asayesh (Kurdish for "security".

Iraq 1994

U.S. and Iraqi sources provided an account of the unsuccessful strategy of deposing Saddam by a coup d'état during the 1990s, an effort reportedly known within CIA by the cryptonym "DBACHILLES" . The failed coup efforts carry some important lessons. They show that Iraqi intelligence penetrated the Iraqi exile-based operations. And they illustrate the damage caused by a long-running feud between Iraqi exile groups and their patrons in Washington. A media-based report follows.

According to the Washington Post, the CIA appointed a new head of its Near East Division, Stephen Richter, who assumed that large parts of the Iraqi army might support a coup. A team met with Gen. Mohammed Abdullah Shawania former commander of Iraqi Special Forces, and a Turkmen from Mosul. As the CIA was drafting its plans, the British encouraged the agency to contact an experienced Iraqi exile named Ayad Alawi, who headed a network of current and former Iraqi military officers and Baath Party operatives known as wifaq, the Arabic word for "trust."

Iraq 1995

The AFIO notes that an Iraqi source says that by late 1995, some of Shawani's and Alawi's operatives were already controlled by Iraqi intelligence.

The CIA was attempting two coups, the wifaq and a similar effort in northern Iraq by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress; an officer sent to Iraq to coordinate the efforts had no success. Chalabi launched his coup attempt in March 1995, but it was unsuccessful.

Iraq 1996

The CIA was involved in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein.

Chalabi was convinced that the military-coup plan had been compromised and traveled to Washington in March 1996 to see the new CIA director, John Deutch, and his deputy, George Tenet. He told them the Iraqis had captured an Egyptian courier who was carrying an Inmarsat satellite phone to Shawani's sons in Baghdad. When the CIA officials seemed unconvinced, Chalabi then went to his friend Richard Perle. Perle is said to have called Tenet and urged that an outside committee review the Iraq situation.

But the coup planning went ahead. DBACHILLES succeeded in reaching a number of senior Iraqi military officers, but was compromised and collapsed in June 1996. The Iraqis began arresting the coup plotters on June 26. At least 200 officers were seized and more than 80 were executed, including Shawani's sons. Top CIA officials reportedly blamed Chalabi for exposing the plot, and the recrimination has persisted ever since.

As a follow-on to the coup plotting, in the run-up to, and during the invasion, both Alawi and Shawani played important roles in the US/UK effort to encourage Iraqi officers to surrender or defect. It did not quite work out that way. The Iraqi military did not defect or surrender, they just went home.

Iraq 2002

CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary teams were the first teams in Iraq arriving in July 2002. Once on the ground they prepared the battle space for the subsequent arrival of US military forces. SAD teams then combined with US Army Special Forces (on a team called the Northern Iraq Liaison Element or NILE). This team organized the Kurdish Peshmerga for the subsequent US-led invasion. They combined to defeat Ansar al-Islam, an ally of Al-Qaeda. If this battle had not been as successful as it was, there would have been a considerable hostile force behind the US/Kurdish force in the subsequent assault on Saddam's Army. The US side was carried out by Paramilitary Operations Officers from SAD/SOG and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group.

SAD teams also conducted high risk special reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines to identify senior leadership targets. These missions led to the initial strikes against Saddam Hussein and his key generals. Although the initial strike against Hussein was unsuccessful in killing the dictator, it was successful in effectively ending his ability to command and control his forces. Other strikes against key generals were successful and significantly degraded the command's ability to react to and maneuver against the US-led invasion force.

NATO member Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used by the US Army's 4th Infantry Division for the invasion. As a result, the SAD, US Army Special Forces joint teams and the Kurdish Peshmerga were the entire northern force against Saddam's Army during the invasion. Their efforts kept the 1st and 5th Corps of the Iraqi Army in place to defend against the Kurds rather than their moving to contest the coalition force coming from the south. This combined US Special Operations and Kurdish force soundly defeated Saddam's Army, a major military success, similar to the victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan. Four members of the SAD/SOG team received CIA's rare Intelligence Star for their "heroic actions".

Iraq 2003

Prior to the overt 2003 invasion, an anonymous source, quoted in The Washington Post, says the CIA was authorized to execute a covert operation, if necessary with help of the Special Forces, that could serve as a preparation for a full military attack against Iraq.

U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction(WMD) had been the focus of intense scrutiny in the U.S. See Iran Intelligence Commission for after-the-fact analysis of this threat. Successive chronological entries deal with the resistance in Iraq.

Richard Kerr, a 32-year CIA veteran who served three years as deputy director for intelligence, was commissioned to lead a review of agency analysis of Iraqi WMD claims, and produced a series of reports, one of which is unclassified. Kerr told journalist Robert Dreyfuss that CIA analysts felt intimidated by the Bush administration, saying,

A lot of analysts believed that they were being pressured to come to certain conclusions … . I talked to a lot of people who said, 'There was a lot of repetitive questioning. We were being asked to justify what we were saying again and again.' There were certainly people who felt they were being pushed beyond the evidence they had.

In a January 26, 2006 interview, Kerr acknowledged this had resulted in open antagonism between some in the CIA and the Bush White House, saying, "There have been more leaks and discussions outside what I would consider to be the appropriate level than I've ever seen before. And I think that lack of discipline is a real problem. I don't think an intelligence organization can kind of take up arms against politics, or a policy-maker. I think that will not work, and it won't stand."

Evidence against Iraq having a WMD program included information from CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson, who, in a newspaper column by Robert Novak, was identified publicly as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV had been sent by CIA to the African nation of Niger to investigate claims that Iraq intended to purchase uranium yellowcake from that country, which was incorporated in President George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address to support waging a preventive war against Iraq. See Iraq 2007 investigations for the aftermath of this claims and disclosures about them.

Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, who generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told Seymour Hersh that what the Bush administration did was

"... dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership.... They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information," Pollack said.

Some of the information used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq came from a discredited informant codenamed Curveball by CIA, who falsely claimed that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program. Despite warnings to CIA from the German Federal Intelligence Service regarding the authenticity of his claims, they were incorporated into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address and Colin Powell's subsequent presentation to the UN Security Council.

Capture of Saddam Hussein

The mission that captured Saddam Hussein was called "Operation Red Dawn". It was planned and carried out by the JSOC's Delta Force and SAD/SOG teams (together called Task Force 121). The operation eventually included around 600 soldiers from the 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division. Special operations troops probably numbered around 40. Much of the publicity and credit for the capture went to the 4th Infantry Division soldiers, but CIA and JSOC were the driving force. "Task Force 121 were actually the ones who pulled Saddam out of the hole" said Robert Andrews, former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. "They can't be denied a role anymore."

Iraq 2004

In 2004, the lack of finding WMD, the continuing armed resistance against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, and the widely-perceived need for a systematic review of the respective roles of the CIA, the FBI, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. On July 9, 2004, the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq of the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that the CIA exaggerated the danger presented by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, largely unsupported by the available intelligence.

Abu Ghraib

Also in 2004, reports of Abu Ghraib prison abuse surfaced. In the subsequent investigation by MG Antonio Taguba, he stated "I find that contrary to the provision of AR 190-8, and the findings found in MG Ryder's Report, Military Intelligence (MI) interrogators and Other US Government Agency's (OGA) interrogators actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." OGA is a common euphemism for the CIA. Further, "The various detention facilities operated by the 800th MP Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by Other Government Agencies (OGAs) without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention. The Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib called these detainees "ghost detainees." On at least one occasion, the 320th MP Battalion at Abu Ghraib held a handful of "ghost detainees" (6-8) for OGAs that they moved around within the facility to hide them from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) survey team. This maneuver was deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine, and in violation of international law."

At the Abu Ghraib prison, while CIA interrogator Mark Swanner was supervising a prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi, the prisoner died. Apparently, al-Jamadi was suspended from his wrists until he choked to death. Swanner was not charged with any crime.

Iraq 2006

Tyler Drumheller, a 26-year CIA veteran and former head of covert operations in Europe, told CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley in an April 23, 2006 interview that there was widespread disbelief within the agency about the Bush administration's public claims regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. According to Drumheller, the CIA had penetrated Saddam Hussein's inner circle in the fall of 2002, and this high-level source told CIA "they had no active weapons of mass destruction program." Asked by Bradley about the apparent contradiction with Bush administration statements regarding Iraqi WMDs at that time, Drumheller said, "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Iraq 2007

As of June 2007, "Shahwani is now in the United States. Unless he receives assurances of support from Maliki's government, he is likely to resign, which would plunge the INIS into turmoil and could bring about its collapse.

Iraq 2007 investigations

The disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's then-still-classified covert CIA identity as "Valerie Plame" led to a grand jury investigation and the subsequent indictment and conviction of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr. on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators.

"The Surge"

CIA paramilitary units continued to team up with the JSOC in Iraq and in 2007 the combination created a lethal force many credit with having a major impact in the success of "the Surge". They did this by killing or capturing many of the key al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq. In a CBS 60 Minutes interview, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward described a new special operations capability that allowed for this success. This capability was developed by the joint teams of CIA and JSOC. Several senior U.S. officials stated that the "joint efforts of JSOC and CIA paramilitary units was the most significant contributor to the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq".

On October 26, 2008, SAD/SOG and JSOC conducted an operation in Syria targeting the "foreign fighter logistics network" bringing al-Qaeda operatives into Iraq (See 2008 Abu Kamal raid). A U.S. source told CBS News that "the leader of the foreign fighters, an al-Qaeda officer, was the target of Sunday's cross-border raid." He said the attack was successful, but did not say whether or not the al-Qaeda officer was killed. Fox News later reported that Abu Ghadiya, "al-Qa'ida's senior coordinator operating in Syria", was killed in the attack. The New York Times reported that during the raid U.S. forces killed several armed males who "posed a threat".