President Bush early this year signed an intelligence order
directing the CIA to undertake a comprehensive, covert program
to topple Saddam Hussein, including authority to use lethal force
to capture the Iraqi president, according to informed sources.
The presidential order, an expansion of a previous presidential
finding designed to oust Hussein, directs the CIA to use all
available tools, including:
¢ Increased support to Iraqi opposition groups and forces inside
and outside Iraq including money, weapons, equipment, training
and intelligence information.
¢ Expanded efforts to collect intelligence within the Iraqi
government, military, security service and overall population
where pockets of intense anti-Hussein sentiment have been
detected.
¢ Possible use of CIA and U.S. Special Forces teams, similar to
those that have been successfully deployed in Afghanistan since
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Such forces would be authorized to
kill Hussein if they were acting in self-defense.
The administration has already allocated tens of millions of
dollars to the covert program. Nonetheless, CIA Director George
J. Tenet has told Bush and his war cabinet that the CIA effort
alone, without companion military action, economic and
diplomatic pressure, probably has only about a 10 to 20 percent
chance of succeeding, the sources said.
One source said that the CIA covert action should be viewed
largely as "preparatory" to a military strike so the agency can
identify targets, intensify intelligence gathering on the ground in
Iraq, and build relations with alternative future leaders and groups
if Hussein is ousted.
Another well-placed source said of the covert plan, "It is not a
silver bullet, but hopes are high and we could get lucky."
Yesterday afternoon, a CIA spokesman declined to comment.
Bush's intelligence order shows that the administration has begun
to put money and resources into a policy that has publicly
consisted mostly of tough rhetoric. Sources said the CIA initiative
is part of a broader Bush administration plan to remove Hussein
that includes economic pressure, diplomacy and what officials
believe will eventually include military action on a large scale.
The president has made plain in speeches and interviews his
desire to remove Hussein, by military force if necessary, but has
offered few details of how he plans to do that. The Pentagon is
considering a range of options, including an invasion that would
use 200,000 to 250,000 military personnel. Sources said such an
operation probably could not be launched until next year.
In an April 4 interview with British journalist Trevor McDonald
that was later published by the White House, Bush was asked,
"Have you made up your mind that Iraq must be attacked?"
"I made up my mind that Hussein needs to go," Bush responded.
"That's about all I'm willing to share with you." Pressed, Bush
said, "The policy of my government is that he goes."
Then two weeks ago at the U.S. Military Academy he declared
that he would take preemptive action against regimes he deemed a
threat to the United States. "If we wait for the threats to fully
materialize, we will have waited too long," Bush said.
Officials said that although military confrontation with the Iraqi
army may be inevitable under Bush's policies, it was only prudent
for the administration first to expand its efforts on all fronts,
including the diplomatic, economic, and covert.
Tenet has also argued forcefully that compared with Afghanistan,
Iraq represents a much more difficult target for the CIA. In
Afghanistan, the warlords and tribes often could easily be bought
off and were enticed to change sides and join up with the U.S.-
backed Northern Alliance forces as they began to overrun the
Taliban. There is no such tradition in Iraq, officials said, and the
standing Iraqi military is eight times the size of the military forces
that the Taliban controlled before it fell last year.
On the other hand, some intelligence reports show that contempt
for Hussein within the Iraqi leadership, military and among the
population runs very high.
On Feb. 28, USA Today quoted a former top CIA official as
saying Bush had approved a covert plan against Hussein, but the
story provided few details.
Vice President Cheney has taken an active role in the
administration's Iraq policy. A key briefing on the president's
intelligence order took place in Cheney's West Wing office.
Cheney acted as a kind of quarterback, one source said,
introducing the subject, and then turning the briefing over to
Tenet, who outlined the covert plan.
Another key player is Gen. Wayne A. Downing, the deputy
national security adviser for combating terrorism, who has a large
and expanding staff within the White House. Downing, a former
commander of U.S. Special Operations forces, and the CIA are
trying to identify individuals or groups that might fill a leadership
vacuum if Hussein is toppled, sources said.
Over the years the CIA has had a contentious relationship with the
Iraqi National Congress (INC), a leading anti-Hussein opposition
group that has been funded by the United States and is led by
Ahmed Chalabi, who is based in London.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that Downing has been
meeting with leaders of two Kurdish parties based in Northern
Iraq, an area protected by U.S. and British air patrols that try to
enforce a "no-fly" zone for Hussein's aircraft.
For at least the last six years, the CIA also has supported another
Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord.
The Iraqi operation comes at a time when CIA resources have
been vastly expanded for the war on terrorism, and the agency's
operational capacity is already stretched.
The CIA is still operating in Afghanistan, and Bush has authorized
covert action to disrupt, capture or destroy terrorists in as many as
80 countries. Worldwide terrorist targets go well beyond Osama
bin Laden's al Qaeda network and include the Iranian-supported
Hezbollah terrorist organization and other terrorist groups.
A highly classified worldwide attack matrix describes the levels
of CIA covert action in these countries, including propaganda
operations, support for internal police and foreign intelligence
services, and lethal covert action against terrorist groups or
individuals.
Several officials voiced concern that the CIA, which significantly
cut back its covert actions and clandestine intelligence gathering
in the 1990s, may be overextended.
"You can't take on the world," said one person with extensive CIA
experience over the last several decades.
Other sources said that the Iraq covert operations can be managed
and run by a small nucleus working at CIA headquarters, various
stations, bases and special facilities abroad.
In addition, a covert action necessarily results in a vast increase in
the flow of information about the target country, what some CIA
officers call "the ground truth." This not only comes from human
sources but also from communications intelligence and satellite
surveillance.
>From this, sources said, the CIA will glean much more
information about Hussein, his possible locations, his security and
travel patterns, how he communicates with his inner circle, the
command relationships with his military and security service, and
his possible vulnerabilities.
Hussein has been in power since 1979, and in 1990 had his puppet
legislature declare him president for life. He is notoriously
suspicious, elusive and unpredictable. Iraq is a police state that
exists in large measure to keep Hussein in power.
According to various intelligence reports, Hussein often travels at
night, moves among various residences, palaces and bunkers, and
deploys decoy look-alikes. Those suspected of the slightest
disloyalty are removed from his circle or killed.
"He is already totally paranoid," said one source, noting that
immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United
States, Hussein moved some of his military equipment, apparently
anticipating possible U.S. military strikes.
Hussein's staying power is remarkable. In the months after he
invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States learned of several
attempts on his life that he thwarted. "We had knowledge of at
least one," said a former senior official from the first Bush
administration. After U.S. and coalition forces defeated and drove
Hussein's forces from Kuwait in March 1991, inflicting one of the
largest and most visible military humiliations of the post-Vietnam
period, the former official said, "We thought some colonel or
brigadier general would march in and shoot him."
It didn't happen, and despite predictions from Arab leaders and the
CIA at the time, Hussein survived. He has been defiant since.
Hussein's forces regularly threaten U.S. and British aircraft
enforcing the no-fly zones created after his defeat in 1991, and the
United States has retaliated with airstrikes.
In late 1998 Hussein shut down United Nations inspections of
Iraqi facilities suspected of making weapons of mass destruction.
President Bill Clinton in December ordered operation Desert Fox,
which involved about 650 bomber and missile sorties against 100
Iraqi targets during a 70-hour period.
Hussein still did not let in the U.N. inspectors, and they have not
been there since. For nearly four years Hussein has been able to
pursue what were once robust chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons programs.
The belief that Hussein is continuing to develop weapons of mass
destruction is what has largely convinced Bush and his war
cabinet that Hussein must be toppled, officials said.
In the April interview with the British journalist, Bush said, "The
worst thing that could happen would be to allow a nation like Iraq,
run by Saddam Hussein, to develop weapons of mass destruction,
and then team up with terrorist organizations so they can
blackmail the world. I'm not going to let that happen."
"And how are you going to achieve this, Mr. President?" the
interviewer inquired.
Bush replied, "Wait and see."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Sep 22 2002 - 05:06:19 MDT