After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States disbanded Saddam Hussein's military and security services, the Mukhabarat. The following year, Paul Bremer, former administrator of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, announced the formation of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, which was funded from secret funds set aside within the Iraq appropriation approved by the U.S. Congress. The secret funds, totaling $3 billion over three years, were aimed at carrying out covert CIA operations within Iraq (as well as, to a small extent, Afghanistan).
Now, Iraq’s government wants to establish an independent intelligence agency, raising U.S. concerns that Baghdad is trying to blunt Washington’s influence and bring intelligence gathering under the control of a Shia-dominated government close to Iran, which the U.S. allegedly accuses of backing attacks against American forces.
Under the proposal, the new agency would be controlled by National Security Minister Shirwan al-Waili, a Shia. Iraq also has intelligence departments in the interior ministry and the military. The move could deal a blow to the U.S. at a critical time as it is stepping up rhetoric against Iran, and trying to curb its influence in the region.
Officials in Iraq’s government, such as national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a Shia, dismisses U.S. claims about Iran and says that Iraq needs to have its own intelligence agency.
Iraq agrees with Washington on most issues, but sometimes disagrees over Tehran’s role, he says.
Iraq is gradually taking "ownership" of its intelligence network, said al-Rubaie. “It should be Iraqi, not American," he said, while acknowledging that Washington has helped build and pay for Iraq's intelligence network.
Although the proposal to set up another intelligence organization is still being debated in parliament, the head of the U.S.-backed intelligence agency, Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, a Sunni with ties to the Americans, says forming an agency outside his control would be "unconstitutional" and would damage the country's ability to independently collect and analyze intelligence. "We believe that all the security forces have to be neutral," he said, according to USA Today.
Ironically, Shawani, a longtime U.S. ally, says all security forces “should work for the government, without any religious or party influence.
Shahwani’s ties to the United States go back to 1991 when he became one of America's "critical partners" in opposing Saddam, former CIA director George Tenet wrote in his new memoir.
"He's well-liked across the administration," according to Bob Baer, a former CIA officer with experience in the region. "They invested in Shahwani."
Shahwani’s appointment to the sensitive post suggests that the United States doesn’t want to lose control over Iraq, even as the Bush administration pretends to be pressing Baghdad to meet certain “political benchmarks” that could eventually lead to a U.S. withdrawal and pave the way for the Iraqi government to work on its own.
One of the declared goals of President Bush’s invasion of Iraq was to spread democracy in the Middle East, something that somehow has been bypassed in the past four years. In a speech on the occasion of his second inauguration, President Bush pledged that the U.S. would "seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
And so, the world thought that post-war Iraq would become a democratic touchstone for other Arab states. But now the war-torn country can’t even establish its own intelligence agency. Isn’t Iraq considered to be sovereign? Why can’t a sovereign country control its own security institutions?
Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) authority over a geographic region. Iraq will not be truly sovereign until its people form their own future.
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