Just how intelligent is US intelligence in Iraq? Eight months after the invasion, it remains extraordinary that Washington seems to have little idea of whom it is fighting.
US informants and spy satellites ought to have discovered what were clearly elaborate preparations to continue to resist the Americans, after their inevitable victory on the battlefield.
But US intelligence chiefs appear to have been wildly optimistic in their thinking — almost to the point of fantasy. They assumed that once Saddam had been turfed out of his luxury palaces and his Baathists driven from office, their power would collapse and Washington could remodel Iraq in any image that suited it. They imagined that, once overthrown, Saddam and his henchmen would become frightened fugitives who would quickly fall into Coalition hands.
The awful evidence piles up with every daily attack upon the occupation forces; the men who were supposed to have become the hunted, have become the hunters.
Thus far, it seems that US successes have come largely from tip-offs from Iraqis anxious to secure the multi-million dollar bounties that Washington has placed on the heads of the 52 top Baathist leaders. Twenty-nine have been captured and four have surrendered. However it appears that little information has been gleaned from these individuals about the location and organization of post-invasion resistance. Saddam himself and Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri, the man who is now thought to be leading the resistance remain at large.
The Americans clearly hoped to catch Al-Douri this week in the Kirkuk raid but failed. Though they have killed both his sons Qusay and Uday, Saddam himself, the real prize, remains at large and it seems that the Americans have no clue where he is. Nor does it seem that they have any idea of the location of the ample munitions to which the resistance fighters have access. As to the identity of the foot soldiers themselves who are ambushing them, the Americans have little to say except, as with the Sunday attack on the bank note convoy at Samara, these are “fedayeen fanatics.”
The truth may be that some at least, of the gunmen are ordinary Iraqis enraged by increasing US heavy-handedness in their angry attempts to crush opposition. If this is the case, then every heavily-armed US sortie to root out the enemy, just leaves new enemies in its wake. It will be another serious failure of US intelligence, if Washington denies the extent to which its occupation is alienating a significant proportion of Iraqis.
Clearly, the difference between Saddam and Bush is that Saddam planned an endgame. Bush did not. Will their immense intelligence efforts ever allow them to catch up?
