Right Blogosphere Scammed by Bogus Document Dump
Maha at Daily Kos has it right. It is falling down funny. The Right blogosphere is going crazy about this document [ pdf] in the Iraqi documents made available by the US government this week.
See also Sadly No.
The notorious liar, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard led the charge. This is just an old Western document posted to the internet in 1997.
What does the Arabic say?
"The Institutions of the Apparatus of the Intelligence Service on the Internet:
You will find enclosed information on the Apparatus that has been published on the internet. It has information on our organization, but it is clear that the information is relatively old. Otherwise, it does not do more than mention some correct and important matters . . ."
It then goes on to list the names of some agents. As an intelligence service, its main concern was with cover, apparently.
In other words, Iraqi intelligence notes the appearance of the document on the internet in 1997, and laments that it is very basic ['does not do more than'] and then notes with some amusement how out of date it is (with the implication that Western intelligence on Iraq must be pretty bad). The "out of date" comment probably refers to the Western document's preoccupation with WMD, which Iraqi Intelligence would have known was gone by then. It may also refer to personnel having been switched around. Note that the Iraqi comment does not endorse the internet document. It not only says it is "old" intelligence, which is very damning in intelligence work, but it also uses the word "some" when referring to what is accurate and important in it. "Some correct and important matters." There will be those who read this as a blanket endorsement; it obviously is not.
Yeah, that's a find, all right. Kind of makes the whole last three years worthwhile, all by itself.
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/18/2006 08:34:00 AM
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4 Comments:
Frankly, I fail to see anything exciting about
this document. Fist, it has FAS logo on it. Yes, this site has lots of interesting info, but they don't carry anything really sensitive. Next, not surprisingly, all I see there is pretty general info on Hussein's intelligence: list of departments, etc. So what?
Well, freepers are notoriously noisy and hysterical, and IMO, this Iraqi garbage case is no exception.
Unless our intelligence services have ceased operations during the last twenty years, I doubt that we had no idea of the capabilities of the previous Iraqi regime. Blaming our intel is a blatant lie. Our government deliberately falsified the available intel to lure the average American idiot into supporting this ill-fated war.
Wolfgang P. May
Intelligence Operations Officer
4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany, 1966-68
Devin:
ISGZ-2004-019920 is an APB for Zarqawi from Baath intelligence. They say with obvious alarm that they have indications that al-Qaeda personnel may have come to Iraq, and they clearly are directing that these individuals be apprehended. They provide wanted-poster style photos of Zarqawi with his real name. This document is proof that the Baath in Iraq was not working with al-Qaeda, and, indeed, was hostile to it.
cheers Juan
Many documents posted at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm#iraq will be those which either allude favorably to the Administration's pre-war arguments or which raise dust. Negroponte would not release anything else. Yet some on the Right do not appreciate his caution to avoid releasing things of dubious or fake nature.
Experienced readers of Arabic will do the world a great favor to scrutinize any images of the original documents. They cannot see all the captured materials, but might help evaluate the authenticity.
It would answer NeoCon dreams to unearth a letter from Osama to Saddam filled with thanks for solidarity, guidance, and support. Imagine a phone intercept or conference recording filled with similar fraternal praise between senior Baath and al Qaeda personnel.
Don't bet on it. Were there any real "smoking gun" on a 9/11 connection, the "Saddam's Delusions" article by Woods, Lacey, and Murray in http://www.foreignaffairs.org would at least have hinted so. Instead, it faults Saddam's obession with flattery, intolerance of bad news, and need to intimidate others as the cause of false WMD intelligence. Love of flattery and manipulation of intelligence also explain US errors. Half of the the sycophantry and delusion they attribute to Saddam was also evident here. The authors had other objectives, though: a new spin in support of the war. Since it can no longer be argued that Saddam had WMD or hid them in Syria, now the casus beli is that he was guilty of failure to tell the world he had nothing. This sort of rationale complements the case being built against Iran.
The human mind needs very little proof of things it already believes. Most conservatives believe that the Bible "proves" their own righteousness, so there is zero need to peruse Leviticus or Matthew. Divine grace absolves the rest. Equally, they will believe that the captured documents prove what they already "know." As St. Paul argued, justification is by faith.
Were the US to release the entire corpus of Iraqi documents, the bulk would probably be worthless or restate what is known: Saddam was a cutthroat and loathed or suspected nearly everyone and everything. He certainly sought contact, if not alliance, with every anti-US party in existence. Baath intelligence (like the CIA) probably had files on everything, but will illustrate no more than a vague knowledge that al Qaeda would attack the US again. Operatives of Pakistan's ISI or Egyptian and Saudi dissidents were probably people with the real "dope."
US intelligence knew in mid 2001 that al Qaeda wanted to attack. It informed Bush, who did nothing. Since this was nonspecific, a mere "blip," he gets full benefit of the doubt. No reason to upset the Crawford vacation. On the other hand, were Baath records to show that Saddam received a similar briefing, it would be proclaimed the "smoking gun," with no further need to clarify or determine the degree of materiality.
Ditto for comparisons of US support for opponents to regimes it dislikes, versus any Iraqi contact with anyone. If Iraq liaised with Abu Sayyaf, no need to ask whether Saudi charities did too or note that Iraq did not endorse the 2001 tourist kidnappings. On the other hand, if a convicted terrorist bomber (Luis Posada Carriles) gets US sanctuary, no need for the MSM or blogosphere to give a hoot. Nationalism and bias will drive how documents or facts get perceived or forgotten.
One dreads to imagine that the US would shred or obliterate Iraqi documents that suggest Iraqi advance ignorance of 9/11 or that insinuate US support of the 1980 invasion of Iran or Saddam's supression of opponents. However, would it be only natural to suspect that such documents would not become pubic any time soon? After all, the Administration has been busy reclassifying previously public, often innocuous, Cold War documents.
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