Over at Whiskey Bar, Billmon objects to the U.S. hiring of former Iraqi intelligence agents on the grounds that it may be ineffective and could be counter-productive. "[W]e still don't know for sure if Al Qaeda is behind the recent bombings, or whether the blame should more properly be directed at the very unemployed security thugs the coalition now proposes to rehire. ... [E]ven if some kind of workable security service can patched together from the remains of Saddam's Mukhabaret, it's likely to be thoroughly penetrated almost instantly by agents still working for the old, not the new, boss." Atrios picks up on the objection (link bloggered, scroll to "Mukhabaret's Back"). Commenters have focused on the moral problems in hiring such thugs.
Although I appreciate the moral objection to hiring Saddam's secret policemen, as a policy objection, I think it lacks seriousness. Of course we need to hire them. They're the ones who have been running the intelligence services inside Iraq for the past 30 years. {sarcasm} Contrary to popular belief, the CIA is not infallible and can't just walk in and start running a spy network. {/sarcasm} The U.S. needs such a network in order to protect itself and to have any chance whatsoever of running the country. The moral necessity of having such a spy agency outweighs the distastefulness of hiring thugs.
The U.S. (and others) have done this countless times in other places. The key to doing it successfully is to vet the people you hire so you make sure you're not actually hiring someone else's agent. Presumably, this is being done, and the investigation into whether the terror attack on the U.N. compound is an "inside job" is just the usual post-mortem that you need to do to make sure you haven't missed anything. Both Billmon and Atrios imply that CIA has not been doing a good job of that vetting, but have no evidence for that proposition other than that (1) there was a successful attack and (2) the Iraqis working for the U.N. are being investigated.
Personally, I find it unlikely that the truck bombing is the result of a group of Iraqi double agents working inside the compound. I think it far more likely that the Western civilian U.N. employees themselves have no sense of security, and talked freely of where people's offices are, what the schedule is, where meetings are held, etc. Little pieces of information like that combined with data gathered by agents posing as delivery people and other outside visitors probably was the basis for this attack.
Yuo actually made sense on this post.
Posted by: Gordon the Magnificent | August 26, 2003 at 11:01 AM
Don't sound so surprised.
Posted by: Mithras | August 26, 2003 at 11:22 AM