June 29,
2008: The United States now has
thousands of spies inside Iraq. This didn't happen overnight. For the last five
years, the U.S. has been building an informant network there. This sort of
thing takes time, and knowledge of how Arab culture works, and how to work it.
The U.S. Army Special Forces, the CIA, reservist cops and Israel were key
components. The results (mostly
classified) have been impressive. For example, last year, tips from Iraqis led
to the discovery of 6,963 weapons caches, plus similar information on safe
houses and terrorists themselves. During the first half of 2009, tips led to
finding nearly 5,000 weapons caches.
Back in
2003, the Special Forces and CIA already knew about the tradecraft of
developing local informants. The Special Forces were always practicing this,
but were now so damn busy chasing terrorists and taking care of so many special
jobs no one else could handle, that spy networks were not something they could
concentrate on. The CIA also had a shortage of people with practical experience
in setting up informant networks. That's mainly because media and Congressional
pressure in the late 1970s caused the CIA to largely get out of the spy
business. Too dangerous because of the nasty people you have to deal with while
recruiting quality informants. Thus the reservist cops and Israel became two of
the major sources of expertise in this area.
In the
United States, it's quite common for police to join the reserves. They don't
always end up doing police work, but they have their experience with them
always. In Iraq, reservists who were detectives and police commanders quickly
saw the need for databases and developing informant networks. That led to the
Israeli connection. Israel had been at war with Palestinian terrorists since
2000, and had cranked up their already extensive informant network in the Palestinian
territories, and throughout the Arab world. Israeli advise turned out to be
critical. But one bit of Israeli wisdom was decidedly unwelcome. Setting up a
reliable informant network in Iraq would take time, and there was no way to
rush it.
The "surge
offensive" of last year was largely possible because the informant network had
grown to the point where commanders were confident that many Sunni Arab tribes
were ready to switch sides. They knew this because the Special Forces had
taught so many officers how to "drink tea" (sit down and talk with local Iraqi
big shots). Israeli intel experts advised on how to work an Iraqi neighborhood
to find people willing to talk, and how to persuade them to do it even in the
face of terrorist threats.
U.S. intel
troops, mainly U.S. Army, persevered, and now that's paying off. You can tell
by the confident pronouncements from U.S. generals about success in Iraq. It's
career suicide to make such statements, unless you are very confident with your
resources, especially your intelligence capabilities. Naturally, no one will
talk openly about this stuff. Can't risk giving the enemy anything. But in a
decade or so, if not sooner, lots of details will come out. It's quite an epic
adventure.