Iraqi MI5 in the Works, funded at $3 bn

According to the Telegraph Dick Cheney has managed to put through a plan to have the US CIA train an Iraqi secret police (mukhabarat) and fund it at $3 bn., as part of the "black" CIA budget. The article claims that this secret police apparatus will allow the US to continue to control Iraq even after a civilian Iraqi government is supposedly installed on July 1. I have to say that this plan worries me. At a time when the CIA is all that stands between al-Qaeda and several tall US buildings, I think the Agency should be concentrating its efforts on tracking down Bin Laden and other persons of similar mindset. Does it have a spare $3 bn. in its budget for that?

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Iraq's anti-democratic SOFA

Wright and Chandrasekaran, writing in today's WaPo, have a piece that outlines Colin's Powell's plans for the six-month transition to (the appearance of) Iraqi self-rule. The plans include an inappropriately early deadline for conclusion of a "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA). Hence the headline here.

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Can the US keep Iraqi Shiites happy for long?
by Juan Cole

British officials publicly worried recently that the United States-led coalition occupying Iraq had only about a year before the Shiites of Iraq turned against it. Shiites, the majority in the country, so far have been more welcoming of the coalition military and civilian presence than have the Sunni Arabs. But the Shiite community, which is more religious than most outside observers had anticipated, is deeply ambivalent about the occupation. Like most Iraqis, Shiites dislike the idea of occupation, but most also want the security provided by coalition troops, at least for now. If very many Shiites turn hostile, they might begin listening to radical voices. This would make Iraq ungovernable for the coalition.

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Saddam’s Capture: Was a Deal Brokered Behind the Scenes?
When it emerged that the Kurds had captured the Iraqi dictator, the US celebrations evaporated. David Pratt asks whether a secret political trade-off has been engineered

For a story that three weeks ago gripped the world's imagination, it has now all but dropped off the radar Peculiar really, for if one thing might have been expected in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's capture, it was the endless political and media mileage that the Bush administration would get out of it . After all, for 249 days Saddam's elusiveness had been a symbol of America's ineptitude in Iraq, and, at last, with his capture came the long-awaited chance to return some flak to the Pentagon's critics. It also afforded the opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of America's elite covert and intelligence units such as Task Force 20 and Greyfox . And it was a terrific chance for the perfect photo-op showing the American soldier, and Time magazine's "Person of the Year", hauling "High Value Target Number One" out of his filthy spiderhole in the village of al-Dwar. Then along came that story: the one about the Kurds beating the US Army in the race to find Saddam first, and details of Operation Red Dawn suddenly began to evaporate.

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