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Published time: March 22, 2013 11:51 Iraqi soldiers inspect the wreckage
of an old Iraqi tank destroyed during the 2003 US-led invasion in the
southern city of Basra.(AFP Photo / Essam Al-Sudani)
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media, Politics, USA, War
The US used every possibility to prove that Iraq was reluctant to
cooperate in the war against terror, while it wasn’t, argues Salim
Khalaf al-Jumayli, a former Iraqi intelligence officer, who made the
revelation to RT.
Ten years after Iraq was occupied by the US, RT Arabic channel Rusiya
Al-Yaum talked with a man who played a key role in getting intelligence
to the Iraqi government right before the invasion. Their guest was
General Salim Khalaf al-Jumayli, an Iraqi intelligence officer, former
chief of the American desk of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
RT: Mr. Salim, as an officer you destroyed all documents after the war
was over. You burned them in a safe house near Baghdad. But I am sure
there is still a lot of information that you committed to memory. Let’s
start with the pretext that the US used to justify the invasion. They
claimed that Iraq had ties with Al-Qaeda. Is it true or was it just a
pretext?
Salim Khalaf al-Jumayli: Of course, America did everything to prepare
public opinion inside the US and internationally for the war against
Iraq. There were two major parts to this work: the US tried to convince
everyone that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that it had close
ties with Al-Qaeda and terrorists in general. In the 1980s, we did have
certain relations with some organizations. But in the 1990s, we received
orders to stop all contact with any organization that had terrorist
connections. Talking about ties with Al-Qaeda, George Bush said that
President Saddam Hussein had sent his envoys to meet with Osama bin
Laden, but he never mentioned what the result of that meeting was. In
1992, after the war with Kuwait, Iraq was trying to restore relations
with Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. At that moment, Saudi
Arabia was very anti-Iraq, and the President ordered to put all our
efforts into changing that situation. We had to gather intelligence that
could help us reach that goal. So we put more personnel in the Gulf
countries department, and focused on Saudi Arabia. I was responsible for
Syria at the time. We had connections with the Muslim Brotherhood in
Syria, Adnan Uqla’s group. They had connections with Osama Bin
Laden who was in Sudan at the time. That group offered to establish
contacts with Bin Laden in order to work against Saudi Arabia. We got
permission to establish that contact through the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood, namely through a brother of Adnan Uqla, who was in an Arab
country bordering with Iraq. We invited him to Baghdad, and I met with
him at the Mansour Milia Hotel. I told him to get our message to Osama
bin Laden. We all were against the American presence in Saudi Arabia. We
had the same enemy, therefore we could work together undermining the
Saudi regime and pressuring it to remove Americans from the Arabian
Peninsula. This person went to Sudan with our message, there he met with
Osama bin Laden. Then we got a reply from bin Laden – he said the Ba’ath
regime in Iraq was apostate, and that it was because of the Iraqi regime
that the Americans came to the Middle East, therefore he couldn’t have
any contacts with this regime. There were other attempts to establish a
connection, through Hassan al-Turabi for example. But Osama bin Laden’s
position never changed. All of this happened before 1995, when he moved
to Afghanistan and began to work against the Russian presence.
RT: Against the Najibullah regime…
SHJ: Americans also contacted bin Laden, they were the ones who
transferred him to Afghanistan to fight against the Russians.
RT: If bin Laden refused to work with Saddam Hussein, does it then mean
that it was the US who cooperated with al-Qaeda and not Iraq?
SHJ: I would not define it as cooperation though as it was later
revealed they did have contacts. They coordinated their actions and
supported al-Qaeda’s fight against the Russians in the Soviet Union.
When Bush said that Saddam Hussein sent an envoy to bin Laden, he didn’t
talk of the results of that mission. So formally his statement was true
but in terms of the meaning he was wrong.
RT: So that’s about Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Now let’s talk a
little bit about the weapons of mass destruction. Did Iraq really have
these weapons as America claimed when it invaded the country?
SHJ: One more thing about Al-Qaeda. Before the war against Iraq, the US
media talked a lot about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who allegedly was in Iraq
and had connections with the Iraqi regime. I didn’t have any information
about that. And since al-Zarqawi was from Jordan, I asked my colleague
at the Jordan desk about that. He said that they had received reports
from Jordan’s intelligence about Musab al-Zarqawi being sick and getting
treatment at a hospital in Baghdad. He even told me that this hospital
was in Bataween. We searched the area, but didn’t find Musab al-Zarqawi.
So we had no connections with Musab al-Zarqawi or Al-Qaeda. There was an
attempt to establish a connection with the Taliban through one of the
ministers, who was in Pakistan. Iraqi intelligence proposed this, but
Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said that it was an unstable regime and it
wouldn’t benefit Iraq to have relations with it.
US soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 22nd Regiment of the 4th Infantry
Division, ride on a military vehicle as they leave their base on a
mission in Tikrit, 180 Kilometers (110 miles) north of Iraqi capital
Baghdad.(AFP Photo / Jewel Samad)
RT: What about weapons of mass destruction? Did Iraq actually have WMD
that could threaten the entire world or the region?
SHJ: They fabricated a certain problem, analyzed it and drew their
conclusions based on that. The data they received from various sources
wasn’t true. This was their attempt of swaying public opinion. In terms
of the intelligence operation, Iraq was a closed country, and they
obviously had no sources within the country that would’ve told them the
truth. So they relied on other sources that fed them lies such as, for
instance, photos of trucks, portable labs which according to their
allegations were used for producing chemical weapons. They were actually
used for checking food products supplied for the government. But they
took photos of those labs and presented them as units for producing WMD.
RT: Mr. Salim, could you tell us as a counter-intelligence agent whether
Iraq actually benefited from this powerful secrecy wall around it?
Perhaps, had there been more transparency, and had the opponents known
more about it and drew their conclusions based on that, there would not
be such a perception of Iraq as an unknown power, like a dreadful black
box?
SHJ: Certainly, a counter-intelligence agent’s work implies providing
certain data to the opponents but you’re the one who should have it
under control. From my experience, I am absolutely convinced, had the
Americans had an Iraqi source that was telling them truth they wouldn’t
have done what they did, in spite of having problems between the CIA and
the National Security Advisor [Condoleezza Rice], who wanted to impose
her opinion by making certain changes in the CIA reports. If only the
CIA had a trustworthy and truthful information source within Iraq. So
I’d like to stress again that in the counter-intelligence operation you
should let the opponent have its sources inside your country, who you
keep under control. You should ensure there’s a certain information leak
to the extent you want to have it. Even if this source gets certain
information, as it happened in our case, it’s better to let them learn
it as the real situation meets our statements. We’ve always insisted
that we didn’t have WMD.
Indeed, the Inspection Commissions lost their trust after particular
documents were discovered at a fowl farm in a small area called Salman.
They were the only ones we had but they didn’t believe it. Before the
war, in our secret communication we confirmed that: they convinced the
world in the need of entering Iraq in order to resolve two major issues,
WMD and ties with Al-Qaeda. But what would they tell the world if they
invaded Iraq and didn’t find WMD or ties with Al-Qaeda? You may have
noticed that the entire talk was held in a different key. After a while,
they changed the entire plan and said they were pursuing democratic
goals in Iraq. And once chaos began in Iraq they called it
‘constructive’. Chaos seized the entire Arabic region. In their strategy
they believed that America would rule this whole area once they
overthrew Saddam Hussein; but it actually worked out the opposite way
when chaos seized the entire area.
RT: As I understand, you had contacts or cooperation with the US
political bodies or Intelligence?
SHJ: No, we had contacts in the US Administration via American
intermediaries of Lebanese origin. We exchanged letters. So we had no
contacts with the US political bodies or intelligence services. We
wanted to have a meeting with the CIA or anyone in the US administration
to explain the situation to them explicitly but we never succeeded.
RT: Were you prepared for cooperation with the international community,
for instance, with Europe or the US in then counter-terrorism area?
SHJ: We were, and we sent a number of letters on that matter. In
1993, a truck full of explosives drove into the World Trade Center. That
attack was developed and executed by an Iraqi American who came from
Samarra, Iraq. This man fled back to Iraq following the attack. The US
intelligence followed him and reported that he arrived at Iraq so we
started looking for him. It took us six months before we found him
working at a car workshop. The Iraqi intelligence detained him and put
him to jail. We delivered a letter saying that we had crucial
information on the executor of the WTC attack, and Iraqi American, and
that we were willing to cooperate in order to pass this information over
to them. Their reply was that we should pass this information to them in
writing, and refused to meet with us. At the same time, they promised a
$25mln reward to anyone who’d inform them of that individual or his
whereabouts. They realized we had him, and that we informed them about
it.
Following the 9/11 attack, they tried to act as intermediaries between
us and the US intelligence via the Egyptian intelligence in order to
arrange for this man’s extradition. The Egyptians and the relevant US
forces had a number of meetings. We were willing to extradite him. He
was an American and we had no right to keep him. But we wanted to have
guarantees that the extradition would take place within the official
framework. The US intelligence wanted to fly over for him on a special
aircraft, however, our President didn’t approve it. He said it would be
unacceptable to come over and pick up that man, as we had our own
aircraft and we could send him over in an Iraqi aircraft. The Americans
didn’t’ agree to that. Just imagine how persistent they were in this
matter. They didn’t want Iraq to prove that it was against terrorism and
that it was willing to cooperate in this matter. Following that the
intelligence authorities persuaded our President to fly this man over by
an Egyptian aircraft. When handing such a man over both sides were
supposed to sign statements of transfer and acceptance, in presence of
an intermediary. We drew up those statements which were very explicit,
and the Americans refused to sign the acceptance statement.
RT: And the only reason they did that was to claim that Iraq was
reluctant to cooperate in the war with terror?
SHJ: That’s right.
RT: So what happened to that person?
SHJ: He stayed behind bars until the day the intervention started,
and the prisoners were set free. He walked off and to date, no one knows
where he is. The only reason why the Americans declined the deal was
that they wanted to avoid confirming officially that they had got the
guy. And we needed some guarantees! We kept this guy detained after his
arrest in 1992, but we held those talks with the US in 2002. We had held
him under arrest for ten years.
RT: Do you remember his name?
SHJ: We gave him an alias and used it all the way. We called him
Aboud – at least, that was his name in our database. Even in his
personal file he is registered as “Aboud”. But I think I remember his
original name: it was Saied, I believe. Saied from Samarra.
RT: Was he one of the Islamic fundamentalists? I’m talking of Al-Qaeda,
for instance…
SHJ: He had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. He had perpetrated that
attack as an act of revenge for the First Gulf War. He had two
accomplices: one from Egypt, the other from Pakistan.
Three Iraqi detainees await inside a Humvee military vehicle during a
raid in the area by US troops, on outskirts of Tikrit, 180 kms (110
miles) north of Iraq's capital Baghdad.(AFP Photo / Mauricio Lima)
RT: You’ve mentioned a “security belt” in Iraq. In this regard I recall
my conversation with the late head of the Soviet intelligence Leonid
Shebarshin, who died a year ago. When talking about capturing Kuwait, he
told me that US intelligence had failed to penetrate into Iraq and gain
information from the inside of the country. They tried recruiting
officers of the Soviet intelligence service who were dealing with Iraq.
Soviet counter-intelligence revealed their intentions and disrupted the
plan. What lessons did Soviet counter-intelligence teach the Iraqi
security services?
SHJ: Our counter-intelligence is based on principles borrowed from
Russia. The beginning of our work dates back to 1975 – the days of the
late Barzan al-Tikriti, an early golden age of intelligence apparatus,
which started growing stronger at the time. During the period of Fadhil
al-Barak as the head of Iraqi intelligence, from 1984 to 1989, the
development of the apparatus was making great strides: the procedure of
information processing was formed, the structure of state security and
procedure of contacting secret services and sources were shaped.
Overall, all our procedures have been adopted from Russia, and all our
counter-intelligence “pundits” have been educated in Russia.
They were our first highly qualified specialists. Then we organized
training within the state security apparatus, supplementing the process
of education with the experience of Germany and Greece. The Russian
method of approaching your goal is multi-step, thus the process is long
and successive. In the late 90’s we decided to change this strategy of
work and began to reduce the number of stages in the recruiting process.
The reason for this was that we had to work under huge pressure, which
required great commitment and efforts from us. Moreover, the aggression
towards Iraq was really serious. We were short of time and couldn’t
afford to spend a whole year recruiting a person, so we had to make our
decision within one month. Still we stayed subtle and tried not to come
out too soon, just in case the person was not inclined to cooperate with
us.
RT: You’ve recruited a number of people. It is said that you’ve even
penetrated into the US Department of Defense!
SHJ: Our penetrating into the US Department of Defense was
something that even Russia failed to implement. We have recruited a
high-ranking officer from the National Security Agency of the United
States Department of Defense. We managed to leak a great deal of
information, and I studied this information twice. However, not all of
this information was genuine – a part of it was supposed to mislead us.
This officer even unveiled the general scenario of the war with Iraq,
the US military strength in Turkey, information about troops and
counter-intelligence in countries neighboring Iraq such as Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf Arab states. He was the one who confirmed there would be no
attacking from Turkey. Guided by this information we relocated the Adnan
division from the Mosul region closer to Baghdad, thus fortifying
positions of the troops around the city. The US counter-intelligence
suspected we had a source in the Department of Defense and was
deliberately exposing tons of all sorts of information. But we knew
which of the information was true.
RT: So the information was selected, right?
SHJ: Yes, misleading information was easy to identify, and so was
the true. We knew everything.
RT: So you had reasons to be certain that an invasion was imminent. Did
you share these findings with the leadership of Iraq, particularly
President Saddam Hussein?
SHJ: Our job was to gather information on American presence in the
region, and locate CIA presence in Iraq, identifying their strategy and
plans, the targets they might be looking for in Iraq, and their proxies
in our country. Most CIA lairs in Iraq were located in the north. We had
information that the Americans would invade as soon as they amassed
75,000 troops in the Gulf. On February 24, which was about a month ahead
of the invasion, we sent a report to the command staff, informing them
that the American forces stationed in the Gulf had swollen to 73,000 in
strength, coming close to the benchmark for launching an invasion. At
the same time, the Americans were feinting leaks to make us believe the
invasion would start somewhere in April or May. But we were certain that
it would kick off any day now.
RT: Does that mean that the leaders of Iraq actually had a chance of
avoiding the war? Or was the war predetermined, and the United States
was going to invade Iraq regardless of whether it did or didn’t have
weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda?
SHJ: We were positive that there would be war. The American media
propaganda machine had been blatantly manipulating public opinion
internationally and inside the United States. It was already too late
for them to call off the war effort. And for us, it was difficult to
sway public opinion after 9/11. There was a missed opportunity here:
prior to the 9/11 attacks, it was still possible for us to come to terms
with Washington by making some serious concessions. But after 9/11, with
the US administration, and especially the Department of Defense,
becoming dominated by hardliners, we found it increasingly difficult to
deal with the Americans. We had the American Jewish lobby to thank for
that, as they were investing serious efforts in toppling “the Iraqi
regime.” For your information, all five of the senior policy advisers in
the US Department of Defense at the time were Jewish. All those people
who masterminded this war were Jewish. They all subsequently went below
the radar, and today, it’s impossible to trace them.
An Iraqi Kurdish boy holds up a green flag behind US soldiers during a
demonstration in Kirkuk, 255 kilometres (155 miles) north of
Baghdad.(AFP Photo / Abdelhak Senna)
RT: What about the high-profile decision makers – the group of
neo-conservative decision makers who are responsible for starting this
war?
SHJ: I have already mentioned those who were officially in charge
of the war: Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and on top of them all, Dick
Cheney and President Bush. But the policy advisers I’m referring to were
a group within the DoD, who effectively assumed the role of
intelligence, national security community, the State Department, and so
on. Throughout history, decision making powers are normally shared
rather than concentrated in a single office. In the United States, the
national security agenda is usually shaped collectively by the CIA, the
National Security Council, presidential advisors, foreign policy think
tanks, mass media, etc. And the Pentagon certainly has a say, too. But
during the period in question, strategic decision were made exclusively
by a single institution: the Department of Defense. The Department of
State objected to their war plan, and so did the CIA.
The CIA told the Pentagon, “Toppling the Iraqi regime is the easy part,
but what are your scenarios for Iraq once you remove Saddam Hussein?”
The DoD replied, “Just let us overthrow him, and then everything will
stabilize.”
That’s the kind of mind frame that dominated the American war effort.
There was no sustainable, long-term strategy, and that’s why it all
ended in chaos. Of course, any sensible individual who would care to
take a good look at the situation in Iraq back then would have realized
that “the regime” was actually a secular government that opposed
religious extremism. Up until 2003, there wasn’t a single Iraqi citizen
who would be a member of Al Qaeda. There was one report – just one
report that we received – fingering an individual named Ali al-Jaburi as
an operative with Al Qaeda’s financial arm. We did a search and came up
with thousands of Iraqis by that name, but we never found the al-Jaburi
we were looking for.
Now look what happened to Iraq after 2003. We had warned the Americans
that if the regime would fall, Iraq would devolve into a jihadist
stronghold, and Iran would expand its area of influence across the Gulf
region. It was us who had checked terrorist activity and contained
Iran’s quest for regional domination. I am sure that all of our messages
and information did reach US decision makers, up to the very top.
RT: Did the Iraqi leadership believe that America would stop short of
starting the war because of its pragmatic policy and little interest in
wreaking havoc and endangering its allies in the Persian Gulf?
SHJ: I think our leadership believed that the US administration
could foresee the implications of toppling the Iraq regime, that they
knew this could tear the country apart under the influence of sectarian
extremists, and enable Iran’s influence to reach the Gulf. That the
American administration would do something as stupid as letting the Iraq
regime fall and allowing Al-Qaeda and Iran to spread their influence
across the region was totally inconceivable. Our authorities thought
that the war wouldn’t last long and that afterwards the US would put
forward certain conditions and we would say yes. But no one had expected
Americans not only to crush the regime but the whole country as well in
such a brutal manner. They even went as far as damaging their own
country! They lost people and money. It’s those wars that sparked the
economic crisis they are going through now. No one had thought that
Americans would act so irrationally.
RT: What happened to your sources in the US?
SHJ: We had three types of sources. Two of them can be
characterized as military sources. One at the Incirlik Air Base in
Turkey, another in the Gulf, one more in the Pentagon. Those were the
military sources. Besides, we had our informants in the Congress and the
National Security Council. Another category is the so-called “hostile
diaspora” or the Iraqi opposition activists abroad who worked to knock
down the ruling regime in Iraq. These include people who live in the US
and who cooperate with our special department. This department is
responsible for our connections in the White House, the State
Department, the Pentagon, and the UN. In order to be able to accuse
somebody of being our informant in the States, there must be proof that
they cooperated with the Iraqi intelligence and were paid for that. The
Prosecutor General’s Office should have enough grounds to press charges
– in other words, a case should be started either in the FBI or here in
Iraq. But we have destroyed all our files on the US, and Americans have
failed to submit sufficient proof to take any of those people to court.
As for our sources on the American side – they are gone and that’s all
we know about them.
RT: You may refuse to answer this question, but I will still try and ask
it. A few days after the attack, you were arrested by American soldiers.
Did they try to make you speak or find out about your sources in the US?
SHJ: On April 9, Baghdad fell. On April 12, I set on fire all the
archives we kept on the US, Western Europe and Asian countries.
RT: How long did it take you to burn them?
SHJ: A total of four days after I took the decision and ordered to
burn these files – there were tons of documents. But I made sure they
were all destroyed. On April 22, I was arrested. Those guys wanted to
make me speak. (In his book, the CIA director wrote that they had
successfully located an important informant in the intelligence. The
pilots were told to get ready for an air strike. We insisted that we
needed him alive. That was important for us….) They broke into my house
at five in the evening.
RT: Did you consider attempting an escape?
SHJ: No. I was sure I would get caught no matter where I go. I was
responsible for the archive on the US, I had all the information. I
wasn’t worried, because the archive had been burned. And words are just
words. Then they started investigating me. About 37 investigation teams
were assigned to my case. The FBI wanted to know about our sources in
the US. The CIA tried to find out the identities of double agents who
worked for both Iraq and the US and whether or not we controlled “Sureyya”.
I was investigated for 9 months. And a special team from the Pentagon
assigned to the Ministry of Defence case also opened a criminal case
against me and investigated me for a week, for 8 hours daily. Just in
connection with that case.
RT: With no results?
SHJ: No. They asked me about our source in the Pentagon.
RT: Did you try not to reveal your sources?
SHJ: As much as I could, but I couldn’t deny everything. They had
some information of their own as for our contacts and sources among the
population. The important thing is that none of them talked.
RT: Let’s talk about a sensitive subject – did you really try to bribe
Mr El Baradei?
SHJ: I work for intelligence, and 90% of intelligence work is
illegal! It’s true for all intelligence services around the world. If
you always observe the law, you won’t be able to work for intelligence.
We encouraged El Baradei to tell the truth, in which case the Americans
would have tried to get rid of him. If they had tried to do that, we
were ready to take his side and support him. All he had to do is tell
the truth, and there would have been no need to worry about his position
or financial security. He started to waver at the meeting that took
place on January, 19th, but he didn’t voice support for the use of force
against Iraq. We didn’t have a way to contact him directly, only through
intermediaries. There were two of them, both Egyptians. One has recently
passed away, and the other is in good health. The money was to be
delivered to the Egyptian ambassador in Vienna or Geneva, I can’t recall
which. My Schengen visa was ready. The person who was in charge of
transporting the money is still alive, by the way. I was carrying a
letter that I was to deliver to Mr El Baradei. We weren’t going to ask
him to sign for the delivery or anything of the sort, of course. I
couldn’t say that this money was for him. The deal was to take place in
a park on the territory of the Egyptian Embassy, without a word spoken
in the process. Eventually this plan was discarded. We wanted to deliver
the money before January, 19th, since that was when the decisive meeting
was to take place. After that there was no point in going through with
the plan.
US soldiers of the 82nd Airborne division take position during a search
for a weapons cache in Fallujah, 50 kms (30 miles) west of Baghdad.(AFP
Photo / Patrick Baz)
RT: So you’re not even sure whether Mr El Baradei knew about this deal?
SHJ: No, I don’t know that for sure.
RT: And where did all the experienced, skilled staff of the intelligence
service go? It’s like it disappeared after the occupation.
SHJ: After the occupation 600 experienced officers made up the core of
a new intelligence service. Neither the head of the intelligence service
nor the top officials came back to work there, except maybe one or two.
The people who returned were heads of the departments and such. And so
the new intelligence service was created. Then the government turned
against these people, fired them and made their names public. Their
families were banished from the Sunni regions they lived in because they
returned to work in the intelligence service. Most of them left Iraq and
moved to Dubai, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and other
countries.
RT: And my last question. Were there any cases of treason within senior
military command?
SHJ: As far as I know, there were no such cases. I am absolutely
sure of it. The military command remained united. But last-minute
changes to our battle plans led to the destruction of three Republican
Guard divisions that were moving to cut into the rolling American
columns as they stretched along the western bank of the Euphrates. Of
course, we had no support from the air.
They were able to tap into our communications, so they focused on that.
They managed to recruit a communications expert from special services
who knew how the communications system of the President’s backup
residencies worked.
RT: Was he an Iraqi?
SHJ: Yes, he was an Iraqi. When the Dora neighborhood in Baghdad
got hit this person vanished without a trace.
So, the country was occupied. After that the resistance started. I
sincerely hope that Iraq will see stability once again.
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