US occupation force in Iraq recruiting former Iraqi secret police

[Aidoneus]

meet your new boss, same as the.....

US occupation force in Iraq recruiting former Iraqi secret police
By Alex Lefebvre
26 August 2003

Faced with extensive terrorist and sabotage campaigns as well as growing popular anger over US military occupation and catastrophic social conditions, US officials in Iraq are reconstituting elements of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s secret police, the Mukhabarat, and integrating them into the US occupation authority.

On August 24, the Washington Post published an article by Anthony Shadid and Daniel Williams quoting extensively from interviews with unnamed Iraqi and US officials concerning US recruitment amongst Mukhabarat operatives. It wrote: “Officials are reluctant to disclose how many former agents have been recruited since the effort began. But Iraqi officials say they number anywhere from dozens to a few hundred, and US officials acknowledge that the recruitment is extensive.”

The Post added that the Mukhabarat “is not the only target for the US {recruitment} effort,” quoting another unnamed official as saying, “We’re reaching out very widely.”

The Mukhabarat was charged with surveillance of state agencies (army, secret police, government bureaucracy) and non-governmental organisations (religious, women’s, and labor movements) in Iraq, as well as foreign spying, notably on Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US. It evolved in 1973 from the Jihaz al Khas secret police, headed by Saddam Hussein between 1964 and 1966. During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, it analyzed intelligence on Iran provided by the CIA.

During the 1980s and 1990s, it carried out a number massacres and assassinations of Iraqis opposed to the Hussein regime, both in Iraq and abroad. It coordinated the suppression of anti-Hussein uprisings in the Shiite south and Kurdish north of Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the 1990-1991 Gulf war. It received Washington’s tacit support for these massacres, reflected in the decision by US forces to temporarily suspend enforcement of the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. According to the think-tank Global Security, “As a direct result of the Gulf War, the external department was reduced to less than half of its pre-1990 size, while the internal department was enlarged to deal with increasing anti-regime activities in Iraq.”

US officials interviewed by the Post recognised that the Mukhabarat was “loathed by most Iraqis and renowned across the Arab world for its casual use of torture, fear, intimidation, rape, and torture.”

--snip--

This is only one of several reported attempts by US occupation forces to preserve, rebuild, or use the Mukhabarat. On March 25, 2003, at the height of fighting in south-central Iraq during the US invasion, the Washington Times reported that US officials were trying to contact Mukhabarat headquarters in Baghdad to arrange for the preservation of the Mukhabarat’s extensive files.

--snip--

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/iraq-a26.shtml

It would seem that the occupation force is expecting to run into the same sort of opposition that Hussein did?

[mjb4]

1. and stealing the weapons

using them at the UN bombing and using their AK-47's

[bowens43]

2. Meet the new boss

same as the old boss.

[izzie]

3. In bed with the devil same as after WW2 and the Germans.

'We need them' right?