Hidden Bases, Secret Raids: WikiLeaks Reveals CIA’s Iraq Ops

[SecularMotion]

Source: Wired

From the start, we all knew that Afghanistan was the CIA’s war. The spy agency spearheaded the initial push into the country after 9/11, and to this day it runs bases (and pays off strongmen) that keep the war effort running.

But in Iraq, the CIA’s role has never quite been that clear. Thanks to WikiLeaks’ release of nearly 392,000 documents from the war, we’ve now got a bit of better sense of how the Agency operated in Iraq. And it wasn’t just furtively meeting with informants, or secretively wooing enemies. The documents show an active “OGA” (an acronym for “Other Government Agency,” usually a reference to the CIA) acting as a paramilitary force — raiding insurgent hideouts, hunting for mysterious militants and getting caught up in roadside shootouts. The Agency even appeared to have its own base, near the town of Ramadi.

In early 2004, the WikiLeaked documents show, “OGA” also participated in Operation Strike Fury, a raid against a suspected safe-house in Mosul that detained “possible members of a terrorist group suspected of planning suicide-bombing attacks.” Northeast of Baghdad, the Agency participated in cordon and search operations against a suspected bomb-maker’s home, seizing cellphones and electrical equipment. In Husaybah, “OGA” agents joined a cordon in the Market Street area, looking for insurgents supporting mortar attacks.

“OGA” employees did just launch attacks — they came under attack, too. One report from 2004 recounts a platoon northeast of Tikrit encountering a car full of self-described OGA personnel carrying an individual shot in the thigh from recent small arms fire. Another document describes an “OGA” convoy which had its rear vehicle disabled by an insurgent ambush “while returning from a mission.”


Read more: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/hidden-bases-secret-raids-wikileaks-reveals-cias-iraq-ops/