Al-Marashi, Ibrahim. "An Insight into the Mindset of Iraq's Security Apparatus." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 1-23.Click on the desired link for other materials relating to Iraq:
Covert Action;
Military Intelligence - Desert Shield/Storm;
Iraqi Chemical Weapons;
UNSCOM; and
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Al-Marashi, Ibrahim. "An Insight into the Mindset of Iraq's Security Apparatus." Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 1-23.
Working from documents captured in the 1991 Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq and transferred to the United States, the author concludes that "the mindset of the Iraqi security apparatus is preoccupied with justifying its actions, through a discourse designed to discredit enemies of the state and their activities, at the same time to glorify the actions of the regime against its foes."
Al-Marashi, Ibrahim. "The Family, Clan, and Tribal Dynamics of Saddam's Security and Intelligence Network." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 16, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 202-211.
This article reviews the "five primary agencies making up the Iraqi security apparatus.... Along with the Special Republican Guard, they form a vast, complex, and wide-ranging labyrinth of security organizations, with mutually independent intelligence and military units."
Al-Marashi, Ibrahim. "Saddam’s Security Apparatus during the Invasion of Kuwait and the Kuwaiti Resistance." Journal of Intelligence History 3, no. 2 (Winter 2003). [http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/previous.html]
From abstract: When Iraq prepared to invade Kuwait in August 1990, the Iraqi security apparatus was "assigned to infiltrate every layer of Kuwaiti society. Hussein tasked these agencies with protecting the regime and state from internal threats posed by the Kuwaiti resistance. The existence of a local resistance posed a tactical military threat as well as a symbolic one."
Coughlin,
Con. "Iraq Executes Espionage Chief." Electronic Telegraph,
17 Oct. 1999. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]
Rafa al-Tikriti, Iraq's head of intelligence since 1996, was executed on 11 October 1999 "for leaking information about Iraq's secret arms deals with Russia."
Con Coughlin, "Iraq Execution Blamed on Feud over Succession," Electronic Telegraph, 17 Oct. 1999, quotes "Iraqi opposition groups in London" for the view that the reason for "al-Tikriti's execution was the bitter rivalry between the intelligence chief and Saddam's eldest son Uday."
Coughlin, Con. "Russian Space Pictures Enable Saddam to Target Gulf States." Electronic Telegraph, 10 Oct. 1999. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]
"Iraq has signed an agreement to buy satellite intelligence photographs from Russian firms that will enable Saddam Hussein to target his missiles at neighbouring oil-rich Gulf states."
Francona, Rick. Ally
to Adversary: An Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace. Annapolis,
MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1999.
From advertisement: The author is "a Gulf war veteran and retired intelligence officer. The book provides an insider's perspective of the foreign policy implications of our cooperative relationship with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and how that relationship later deteriorated into Desert Storm. The author traveled extensively through Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, later served as Gen. Schwarzkopf's Arabic interpreter during Desert Shield/Storm, and then became a principal author for DoD's after-action report to Congress on the conduct of the Gulf war."
According to Loeb, "Back Channels," Washington Post, 13 Nov. 2000, 25, Francona was a member of the CIA team that rescued the family of former Iraqi nuclear weapons scientist Khidhir Hamza from northern Iraq in 1995.
Jonkers, AFIO WIN 34-99, 27 Aug. 1999, comments that Francona writes in a forthright and very readable fashion, weaving in anecdotes with policy perspectives and situation descriptions. His book contributes to understanding a recent past that is relevant to the present and future. Highly recommended reading."
Francona has a Website at http://www.francona.com.
Myers, Steven Lee.
"U.S. to Aid Iraqi Opposition to Develop a Military
Cadre." New York Times, 28 Oct. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
According to senior U.S. officials, the Clinton Administration "has authorized the first direct military training for opponents of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.... [F]our Iraqi rebel leaders, including two former officers in Iraq's armed forces, will attend a 10-day training course at the Air Force's special-operations headquarters in Florida, where American officials will school them on how to organize a military in an emerging state."
Smith,
Michael. "Fate of Iraqi Mole Led to Spy Clash." Electronic
Telegraph, 4 Feb. 1999. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]
"The row that led to the naming of the MI6 head of station in Prague began with what should have been a major success story for British intelligence. MI6 had been running an agent in the heart of the Iraqi intelligence service, giving detailed information on Saddam Hussein's attempts to obtain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology.
"Jabir Salim, the 43-year-old head of Mukhabarrat operations in Eastern Europe, whose cover was as Iraqi consul in Prague, was an 'agent-in-place', an invaluable source for British intelligence. But just over a month ago, he was 'brought in from the cold' and, according to intelligence sources, is currently being debriefed at a safe house in the Home Counties.'"
Sumaida,
Hussein Ali, with Carole Jerome. Circle of Fear: From the Mossad to Iraq's
Secret Service. Toronto: Stoddart, 1991. London: Robert Hale, 1992.
Circle of Fear: My Life as an Israeli and Iraqi Spy. Washington,
DC: Brassey's, 1994.
According to RJB, Surveillant 1.6/2.6, the author, whose father was a high-ranking official and an intimate of Saddam Hussein, claims to have worked with Mossad in Europe and later with the Iraqis. "Despite an occasional tendency toward glib generalization, this would seem to be a powerful and informative book; its many plausible, but unsupported, assertions should be carefully evaluated."
Ashton, I&NS 9.4, sees Sumaida as "more concerned to vindicate his own actions than to dwell in any detail on intelligence structures and methods.... [Some] sections seem to have been sensationalized ... [and] his evidence is little more than hearsay." It would be "difficult to show" that his "claims could be relied on."
Karl, WIR 15.2, says that "there is something not quite right in th[is] story." There is no way "to confirm or verify [Sumaida's] stories regarding his frequent encounters with the Mukhabarat, the CIA, or Canadian intelligence officials." There is also some "questions about who actually wrote this book, and when and why it was written."
United States Information
Agency. Iraqi Disinformation: Allegations and Facts (Fact Sheet).
Washington, DC: 4 February 1991.
Click for text of this document.
Wren, Christopher S.
"U.S. Gives Its Backing, and Cash, to Anti-Hussein
Groups." New York Times, 2 Nov. 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com]
Speaking on 1 November 1999 at a conference held by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in New York, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas R. Pickering "made clear" that U.S. "support for Iraqi dissidents would be channeled through the Iraqi National Congress."
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