Is the Bush administration taking my advice?


If so, STOP THAT!!! Yes, I said back in April that you should get the civil administration of Iraq back up and running, and do it by using former officials, even if they were Ba'ath party members. But this is not what I had in mind:

U.S. Recruiting Hussein's Spies
Occupation Forces Hope Covert Campaign Will Help Identify Resistance

By Anthony Shadid and Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 24, 2003; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Aug. 23 -- U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

(snip)

Hussein's security forces were a suffocating presence in Iraq and still cast a long shadow.

Of the four security branches, the Mukhabarat was the best-treated and often supplied agents for the other branches. The largest was internal security, known as Amn al-Amm, which focused on domestic intelligence. The third was special security, which protected government officials. These three answered to the presidency. Only military intelligence was nominally independent of Hussein's inner circle and operated within the Defense Ministry. The Baath Party, with membership in the millions, provided a check of sorts, with its almost endless network of informers in every town and village.


We're recruiting spies from the bad old Mukhabarat? Well, at least they weren't the domestic side, although they apparently dabbled in that as well. But still, get the public works commissioners busy restoring electricity, water, and sewers. Don't do something like this that will make the people of Iraq wonder about your motives even more than they already do.

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