INC and blowback

July 23, 2003

Warbaby says:

The intelligence fiasco leading to the Iraq war has all the earmarks of "blowback" -- the use of the Iraqi National Congress to manipulate national policy and public opinion. The bad intelligence on Iraq is not limited to some crude forgeries regarding uranium from Niger. The misinformation is the result of a decade-long relationship between domestic political factions, Iraqi exiles and the covert warfare establishment.

The delusions about war in Iraq that are now coming back to haunt the Bush administration are a lovely stew of lies, falsehoods, misperceptions and error. The problem with Bush's war is not the "sixteen words" in the State of the Union address. No, the real problem is not an "intelligence failure" -- it's a counter-intelligence failure. The war was a product of blowback.

Blowback is espiocrat slang for a foreign operation that boomerangs and affects policy in nefarious and often illegal ways. The Iran-Contra scandal is the current prime example of blowback, but nearly every foreign policy disaster since the start of the Cold War has elements of blowback in it. The worst cases of blowback (such as the Noriega/BCCI scandal that precipitated the invasion of Panama) almost always involve hiring agents who turn around and rob the paymaster.

Let's look at the fundamental assumptions Bush relied on in formulating pushing the United States into war:

Saddam Hussein's government was riddled with potential defectors who would immediately switch sides as soon as attacked.
The Baathist regime could be easily "decapitated" and state institutions -- army, interior ministry, police, oil ministry, etc. -- would remain intact as a new leadership was installed by outside powers.
Iraq possessed sufficient quantities of both battlefield-ready and stockpiled biological, chemical and perhaps crude nuclear weapons to be a clear and present danger not only to its neighbors in the Mid-East, but also to the continental United States.
The Iraqi people would greet a U.S. invasion as "liberation."
The Baathist regime would not offer protracted resistance.
Exiles, particularly the Iraqi National Congress, would be immediately accepted as legitimate national leaders.
No indigenous political or religious groups would contend the "head transplant" of an externally-chosen government to replace the "decapitated" Baath regime.
"Regime change" in Iraq could be accomplished without reference to or the cooperation of the United Nations.

All of these assumptions were false. Several of them -- particularly the ones with the greatest impact on the military operations of invasion and occupation -- were not only provably false but widely known to be false.

Much has been made of the Neo-conservative faction of the national political establishment. It has been broadly trumpeted that the drive for war was largely conducted by the small circle of professional bureaucrats and officeholders collected around such institutions as the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The "neo-cons" around Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Pearle who have gravitated to the Department of Defense are all known to have been promoting an invasion of Iraq since at least 1998 and in several cases since the late 1970's.

What has not been widely discussed is the central role the Iraqi National Congress (INC) played in the road to war-- not as puppet but instigator. The role of the INC in generating unreliable "intelligence" on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD - meaning nuclear, chemical and biological weapons) has been mentioned in passing in the media since the occupation started to go sour. Once the investigations move beyond the ability of some as-yet unidentified foreign operation to plant childishly crude forgeries in the State of the Union address, the INC's steady stream of questionable intelligence will deserve more scrutiny.

And that's where the afore-mentioned list of bogus assumptions in the Bush war plan become very interesting. You see, all of them trace back to a single source. If you guessed the Iraqi National Congress, you win the exploding cigar!

'Way back in 1993, Ahmed Chalabi was building a new career for himself in London as the ostensible leader of the Iraqi government in exile. He had recently retired from the banking business in Jordan over a little accounting problem that had him convicted in absentia. In his new role as leader of Free Iraq, he went to Washington DC to sell a plan for installing himself as the new president of Iraq. The plan was titled "The End Game." It involved arming the Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in the South. The plan was rejected by the U.S. but Chalabi made some allies among the out-of-power conservatives inside the Beltway.

All the same, the INC gained recognition as an umbrella group of exiles based in London. In Iraq, the INC had little to no presence or support. Still they began to coordinate with the CIA in the autonomous Kurdish areas in the north. It appears likely that the INC's role consisted of providing fronts for the CIA who were not entangled in the fierce in-fighting between rival Kurdish resistance groups. The Kurdish intramural battles persisted as a low-intensity civil war through the mid-1990s. The "End Game" coup plan was not viewed as a serious effort, and was known among the CIA agents in northern Iraq as "Chalabi's rolling coup." (An interesting foreshadowing of Paul Wolfowitz's recent statement about "rolling victory" in Iraq.)

Then in 1996, Chalabi and the INC attempted a coup in Iraq. It was a complete and unmitigated disaster. The promised defections from the Baathists never materialized. No INC group mustered any military force in either the northern or southern no-fly zones. The only military action was by a handful of Kurdish fighters who were soundly defeated by Baathist troops. The post-attack reaction by Saddam Hussein's forces resulted in hundreds of arrests and executions. It also accelerated the dispossession of Kurds and Turkmen in northern Iraq by relocated Arabs from the central region.

One of the INC factions, the Iraqi National Accord, composed almost entirely of defectors from the Iraqi military and intelligence, was virtually destroyed in the aftermath. It has been reported that the failure of the INC defector recruitment (a central feature of the coup plan) was due to thorough penetration by Baathist double agents. At any rate, the long-term result of the failed coup was to strengthen Saddam Hussein's grip on Iraq and to weaken the opposition forces. The curious upshot was an increase in the stature and influence of the INC with pro-intervention allies in the U.S.

Immediately after the failure of the INC-inspired 1996 revolt, the CIA increased its contact and support for Chalabi and the INC. The setback in Iraq was a bonus in London for the INC. They were now, for better or worse, the Iraqi leadership in exile. That this came about as the logical consequence of a political and military disaster seems ironic.

One of the benefits of the failure of the 1996 attempted revolt was an increase in U.S. support for the INC. This was particularly true among the Cold War ideologues and hardliners who had been out of power since the end of the Reagan regime. The election of George Bush I to the presidency removed most of the roll-back fire-breathers and replaced them with relatively more moderate proponents of internationalist realpolitik. As a result, the meta-political organizations like the Committee on the Present Danger, the American Enterprise Institute, and various other advocates of an aggressive military posture in foreign affairs were very receptive to promoting Iraq as the new enemy and national security threat.

The INC was a perfect vehicle for these interests. And the abject failure of the INC to overthrow the Baathist regime in Baghdad provided an opportunity for increased support -- on the principle that failure was a problem of resources and execution, rather than a fundamental flaw in political analysis. The support was more political than monetary, but it included increased contacts between the INC, State and the CIA.

This completed a circle of influence that was lacking prior to the abortive 1996 revolt. Previously, the INC was merely watched by the CIA as one of several Iraqi opposition groups whose goals overlapped those of the United States. It was now in the position of being an instrument of American policy. Before it had tried and failed to build a bilateral relationship with the United States. Now it had advocates and supporters in the policy establishment, received aid and reported back on the progress of its actions as both a client and instrument of policy. Like all clients, it gained access to policymaking that it lacked as a supplicant. The Kurds, for instance, have never been seen as either clients or allies of the U.S., but rather as independent actors to whom the U.S. owed no allegiance or durable commitment.

The change in the relationship with the CIA and unofficial players in the world of intelligence was profound. When the CIA's role was to observe, they could not enforce advice or guidance. Now, there was an expectation that the INC would not only listen, but would occasionally obey.

The first fruit of this new relationship was the insertion of American advisors, some official, some not. Two of the unofficial advisors were Duane "Dewey" Clarridge and Gen. Wayne Downing (ret.) Clarridge was the highest ranking CIA officer indicted for lying to Congress about his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. He was one of six beneficiaries of George H. W. Bush's last-minute pardons of indicted and convicted Iran-Contra figures that effectively halted the special prosecutor's investigation. Downing, a retired four-star general, had commanded special forces during Gulf War I and later oversaw military assistance to Iraqi opposition groups in northern Iraq. According to a UPI story on the INC web site, Downing worked as "volunteer" (in other words, his paymaster was concealed from public knowledge) with the INC for three years. Clarridge has been similarly described as "volunteer" with the INC.

Downing and Clarridge took Chalabi's assumptions and recast them into "Pentagonese." The resulting plan was used in 1998 by another para-political front group (which included Downing, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and ) to drum up support for "regime change" in Iraq. This temporary group comprised the usual cast of Iraq hawks and existed solely to promote the INC through an "open letter" to President Clinton. The upshot of this INC lobbying plan was the passage in late 1998 of the Iraq Liberation Act which earmarked $8 million for the INC. This now completed the cycle of establishing a foreign front group for a domestic political organization, lobbying for support and funds for the foreign group and finally providing funding to enable further efforts influence U.S. policy by their domestic sponsors. This circular arrangement is the hallmark of blowback.

All of the hawks in the Bush adminstration participated in one or more groups like the "open letter" cabal, the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century -- all of which promoted the INC and in turn had their policies regarding a war with Iraq promoted by the INC.

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the long-running INC program of hyping the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction increased in shrillness and tempo. During the period between 1996 and the expulsion of UNSCOM following charges of their providing cover for CIA spying in 1998, the INC was very active in promoting "intelligence" and defectors with stories about Iraqi concealment of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs. The outstanding feature of the INC WMD "intelligence" was its utter worthlessness. It is very likely that the INC was simply promoting worthless "intelligence" as a form of unconventional warfare against the Baathist regime.

After the anthrax attacks of September and October 2001, the INC and their domestic allies actively promoted the view that Iraq bore responsibility for these attacks, either directly or by supplying the materials to Al Qaeda. There was no evidence whatsoever to support the anthrax-Iraq-Al Qaeda conspiracy theories, but they were nevertheless influential in shaping public opinion and also strongly shaped views inside the White House.

In Bob Woodward's book, Bush At War, CIA director George Tennant is quoted [pg. 248-9] as saying at an October 17 National Security Council meeting: "I think it [the anthrax attack] is AQ [Al Qaeda]. I think there's a state sponsor involved. It's too well thought out, the powder's too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist," perhaps from Iraq or Russia. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, agreed with Tenant about the state sponsorship of the attacks, but wondered if Al Qaeda was accused of the attacks the state sponsor "will have a bye." The upshot of the meeting was an agreement not to publicly discuss the suspicions. Yet at the same time, numerous leaks from the Bush administration convinced a majority of the public that there was a connection of some kind between Iraq, Al Qaeda and the 9/11 and anthrax attacks. No evidence supporting such a claim has ever surfaced and the FBI has publicly stated the anthrax attacks were domestic in nature and linked to U.S. biological weapons programs.

Ari Fleischer confirmed President Bush thought Al Qaeda was behind the anthrax attacks in a final interview with veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas. "He thought it was a biological epidemic strike on the United States," Fleischer explained. The White House allowed the false information to circulate through the echo chamber of the media. The hawks made baseless allegations that would move America closer to war, the INC dutifully provided the "intelligence" selected to reinforce their masters' views, the media uncritically echoed the leaks and statements by "unnamed officials" -- and the public was manipulated.

The intentions of the parties involved may be arguable, but the effect is indistinguishable from psychological warfare against the national interest.

The debate over whether the misinformation was a product of intentional deceit or incompetent gullability misses one important point: the United States government needs to be protected from bad intelligence and particularly needs to be defended against external manipulation. In this case, the counter-intelligence apparatus failed to defend the integrity of the intelligence process and the country has been manipulated by misinformation disguised as "intelligence."

	INC and blowback