WASHINGTON, 6 April 2003 — With US forces poised for a dangerous assault on Baghdad, Iraq, military and other officials say there is a distressing lack of intelligence on the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, his inner circle and the regime’s suspected stores of banned weapons.
Saddam’s appearance on Friday on Iraqi television underscored the level of uncertainty, providing the first credible indication that he might have survived airstrikes some believed had killed him at the outset of the war.
That attack raised hopes that the war might end before it had fully begun, or at least that US intelligence might have a good bead on the Iraqi ruler. But officials said intelligence out of Baghdad since that attack largely has dried up, despite expectations that the enormous military pressure bearing down on Saddam’s regime would prompt a wave of defections and a flood of information by this point in the war.
Pentagon officials this week expressed concern that intelligence on the Iraqi leadership is “weak’’ despite the daring work of CIA informants and operatives inside the capital city.
One Pentagon official struck a blind pose — eyes closed, arms extended — when asked about the quality of intelligence war planners are getting.
“Nobody can tell us where anybody is,’’ the official said. “Nobody can tell us what buildings they’re in so that we can bomb them. I’d call that weak.’’
Intelligence officials dispute that characterization, but acknowledge they have had limited success in locating Saddam and other high-interest officials inside Baghdad. They also stressed it is an exceedingly difficult assignment.
The spy community’s most sensitive information is coming from a small number — perhaps a dozen or fewer — of Iraqi informants operating inside Baghdad on behalf of the CIA and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency.
The operatives were sent into Baghdad before the war started with high-speed communications gear that enables them to send sensitive information through encoded satellite transmissions and other means to CIA and DIA officers positioned elsewhere in the country, according to an intelligence official familiar with the operation.
The operatives scavenge for information on the whereabouts of the Iraqi leadership, serve as spotters at key locations in the city where Saddam and other members of his inner circle might surface, and have directed US airstrikes on a number of key targets.
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised the work of the operatives, saying, “The assets we have (in Baghdad) in regard to military targets have been excellent.’’
But he and others acknowledged that reliable, specific information on Saddam, his two powerful sons, Uday and Qusay, and others in the senior leadership has been scant to nonexistent.
“We’ve been making every effort,’’ Roberts said. “But it’s easier said than done. His modus operandi is that he’s constantly on the move, using doubles,’’ and relying on layers of security to prevent outsiders from getting close to him.
Indeed, the best piece of intelligence produced so far — the tip that led to the initial strike on Saddam — came from Iraqi sources who subsequently were whisked out of the city to safety, several officials said. The officials added that it is not clear whether or when the operatives would be reinserted.
Intelligence officials described the Baghdad assignments as perhaps the most dangerous missions under CIA control. They said the effort has emphasized intelligence collection, and several denied published reports that the United States has paramilitary teams hunting Saddam inside Baghdad or engaged in assassination operations.
One US official familiar with the latest intelligence on Iraq said there are indications there was a crackdown within Saddam’s regime following the first strike and that some members of his inner security ring were killed.
Outside Baghdad, CIA case officers and members of its paramilitary Special Activities Division have been linking up with Iraqi tribal leaders. Former agency officials said it is almost certain these operatives are doling out cash much the way they did in Afghanistan.
“I’m sure we’ve got guys with 80-pound rucksacks full of $100 bills,’’ said a former CIA station chief. “I’m sure we’re buying up some folks.’’
Another former CIA officer with extensive experience in Iraq said Sunni tribes “are heavily represented in the security establishment’’ in Baghdad, and securing their loyalties could help coax forces close to Saddam to sit out the end of the war.
But other officials said the tribal leaders are just as likely to side with Saddam, if they feel he can survive, and pocket whatever CIA money they get. CIA officials declined to comment on operations inside Iraq.
The operations inside Baghdad are just part of a massive effort that has so strained resources that dozens of CIA retirees have been brought back to the agency in recent months to shore up exhausted and overloaded ranks of analysts and clandestine officers.
“Just about everybody who wants a green badge is getting a green badge,’’ said an agency veteran, referring to the colored ID tags given to retirees who come back to Langley for contract work.
Much of that analytical energy has gone into preparing maps and demographic analysis of every sector of Baghdad, in expectation of block-by-block urban fighting.
The CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon and other US government agencies have compiled a list of several thousand Iraqi government officials, security and intelligence officials, military officers and others who will be sought after the regime collapses.
In the top tier are Saddam and his nine closest aides, including his two powerful sons, Uday and Qusai. None of the top nine is known to have been captured or killed so far. At least some are likely to be charged with war crimes for using chemical weapons in the 1980s.
Below them are tiers of officials who might be arrested on other charges, removed from the post-Saddam government in Baghdad, or investigated further.
Those groups include senior Baath Party leaders, Republican Guard and other military chiefs, heads of government ministries and intelligence agencies, political commissars and key members of Saddam’s numerous secret police agencies and death squads.
How reliable the lists are is unclear, however. Iraq has a vast web of overlapping security and spy services that were modeled on East Germany’s infamous Stasi. US officials broadly estimate that at least 20,000 people are active officers in those agencies, including the Al-Mukhabarat, the chief security agency.
One reliable intelligence source said there are credible reports that some members of Saddam’s family left Iraq before the war started.
Absent another intelligence breakthrough on a par with the tip that triggered the first strike on Saddam, many officials said the outcome in Baghdad will depend on the military’s ability to seize control of city sectors, and shake loose information from detainees or defectors.
After the first Gulf War, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf was harshly critical of the CIA’s performance, chiding the agency for consistently overestimating enemy troop and tank counts, among other things.
The agency got a great deal of credit, however, for its prominent role in Afghanistan. Officials said the Pentagon and the agency have cooperated smoothly on Iraq, but acknowledged new frictions in recent weeks.
Intelligence officials say they remain convinced that Saddam was in the Dora Farms compound that was reduced to rubble by cruise missiles and bunker-busting bombs early on March 20.
But Saddam’s television appearances on Friday, by raising the distinct possibility that he escaped the barrage, diminished the impact of the CIA’s highest-profile contribution to the war so far.
Speaking in front of a white sheet to obscure his location, Saddam praised an Iraqi peasant for bringing down a US helicopter with an old rifle.
“Perhaps you remember the valiant Iraqi peasant and how he shot down an American Apache with an old weapon,’’ Saddam said, according to transcripts of the speech.
The reference matched Iraqi officials’ claims that a single shot had downed an AH-64 Apache Longbow that the US military acknowledges it lost in Iraq on March 24, five days after the decapitation strike.
Other footage showed Saddam wading into a crowd of supporters against a backdrop of rubble and darkened skies that seemed to fit with recent pictures of Baghdad.
The CIA says it is still not fully convinced that Saddam is alive despite the new tapes. “We flat don’t know,’’ said an intelligence official.
