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Allawi's Muscle: The CIA-Controlled Iraqi National Intelligence Service
Alleged billion dollar thief Hazem Shaalan isn't Ayad Allawi's only infamous friend. Allawi is also a close ally of the head of Iraq's largest intelligence service -- a man who takes his billions from Washington, not Baghdad.
On the ground in Baghdad is a sprawling intelligence operation called the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, or INIS. Only INIS isn't really "National" at all. To the great chagrin of the Maliki government, it's financed and controlled by the CIA. And its boss is a longtime Allawi friend and CIA asset, Muhammed Shahwani.
Who's Muhammed Shahwani? He's a former Iraqi military officer who, along with Allawi, helped plot a botched coup against Saddam Hussein in 1996. Despite the failure, the CIA considered him a valuable asset, largely on the strength of his considerable knowledge of Saddam's military apparatus. In his memoir, ex-CIA Director George Tenet writes that when Shahwani returned to Iraq as part of "the Agency-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary group known as 'the Scorpions'" he became "key to developing a strong network inside Iraq for the Agency."
As a result, Shahwani, a member of Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party, was an obvious choice to lead the CIA-created INIS. Throughout the Coalition Provisional Authority era and the Allawi regime that followed it, Shahwani was a reliable fixture -- so much so that when the 2005 election saw Allawi's government replaced by a Shiite coalition known as the United Iraqi Alliance, the agency decided that INIS was too valuable to hand over to the less-reliable UIA. (Concerns about sovereignty have their exceptions.) INIS had control over extensive files on Iraqis tied to the insurgency -- and many others not suspected of crimes -- and the UIA bristled when unable to get access to what it considered the rightful spoils of its electoral victory. "I prefer to call it the American Intelligence of Iraq, not the Iraqi Intelligence Service," a Shiite parliamentarian and militia commander told reporters Hannah Allam and Warren Strobel.
INIS's estrangement from the Shiite-led government deepened under Nouri al-Maliki's administration. Maliki's attempts to control INIS led Shahwani to tell the CIA that Maliki was way too close to the Iranians, which lead the agency to increase its investment in its longtime ally. Ned Parker of The Los Angeles Times quoted an anonymous U.S. military official who said "U.S. funding for the INIS amounts to $3 billion over a three-year period that started in 2004." With money independent from Baghdad, Maliki has no power to remove Shahwani, so he did the next best thing: he started an alternative, primarily Shiite intelligence service, run by a functionary named Sherwan al-Waili. As a result, Iraq now has two competing intelligence services, with INIS intimating that al-Waili's outfit is a hive of Iranian infiltration.
It's unknown how large the INIS is, or what its capabilities truly are. But INIS provides Shahwani with an enviable platform, and he apparently remains dominant over Waili in the fractious Iraqi national-security apparatus. Just this week, he was part of an official delegation that visited Amman to discuss deepening Iraqi-Jordanian counterterrorism ties.
Shahwani's U.S.-funded independence from the Iraqi government helps contextualize the recent push for Allawi. Unlike most alternatives to Maliki, Allawi has at least something resembling a security apparatus that he can call upon. Of course, whether it can actually take control of fractious, chaotic Iraq is a dubious proposition -- and Allawi has never called for an outright coup. But when Maliki opens his newspaper and reads about Allawi's push in Washington to become premier again, he has reason to look to INIS and see a threat to his administration.
Comments (28)
Punchy wrote on August 24, 2007 2:52 PM:A change of leadership in Iraq automatically guarantees that politicians must give another 6-12 months to "give him a chance at succeeding". Anything short of that support, of course, and Dems will be labeled "unfair", "defeatists", ad nauseam.
In 12 months, they'll switch him out again, and repeat. And if they can't actually remove the Iraqi guy, they'll just change US lead Generals, and make the same argument.
It's as sure-fire as it gets.
wow wrote on August 24, 2007 3:04 PM:Now, there's an apparatus that is large, stunningly well-funded, led by someone with a shady past, and with an open channel to US intelligence. It has a strong incentive to stir up trouble between the US and Iran. I wonder what that means about documents that might emerge in the upcoming debate about action against Iran...
ursus wrote on August 24, 2007 3:10 PM:So....what are the odds that the big fee Allawi is paying to GOP lobbyists is actually cash that came directly from INIS and indirectly from the CIA?
jeffgee wrote on August 24, 2007 3:17 PM:Can Chalabi be far behind?
Michael Lafferty wrote on August 24, 2007 3:25 PM:Say, is that South Vietnamese Premier Ngo Dinh Diem calling out to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from under the bus?
If I were Maliki, I would be very wary of being offered a ride in an armored personnel carrier…
Anonymous wrote on August 24, 2007 3:53 PM:Lafferty
I agree. The president made the Vietnam reference earlier this week. Is Allawi the Duong Van Minh of Iraq? We know what happened after the second time Duong Van Minh led Vietnam.
Brian Schmidt wrote on August 24, 2007 3:58 PM:It's not all that surprising - controlling the secret police is how Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky, and the neocons might consider a secret-police coup to be an appropriate way to remember their martyred leader.
Anonymous wrote on August 24, 2007 4:23 PM:Okay...
This makes sense.
First, we attack a country with a dictator who has WMDs. Second, we turn it into a democracy. Third, we overthrow the democratic leader and install our own guy.
Fourth, we wait awhile, then declare our guy a dictator with WMDs. Fifth, we attack this country with a dictator who has WMDs...
We really ARE monsters....
bmaz wrote on August 24, 2007 4:51 PM:Well this ought to work out wonderfully then; the Iraqis should welcome this with open arms!
Nelly Bly wrote on August 24, 2007 5:15 PM:I recently read that Petraeus and Maliki don't get along which probably means that a CIA-sponsored coup will have the support of the DOD.
1970cs wrote on August 24, 2007 5:18 PM:Or maybe the DOD initiated the plan to overthrow Maliki's government.
Certainly the view of the INIS would be favorable to a new Iraqi oil sharing plan that is right in line with Exxon/Mobil and Shell.
Nelly Bly wrote on August 24, 2007 5:21 PM:Hey, wait a minute! Maybe Mailiki has to be overthrown because we are going to attack Iraq. Maliki's Shite government is way to close to Iran and I bet that makes the Bush administraton very unhappy.
If I am not mistaken, Allawi is a Sunni.
Bombs away!
Nelly Bly wrote on August 24, 2007 5:24 PM:Ugh! I, of course, meant to say that Maliki has to go because we are going to attack Iran and Maliki's government is too close to Iran.
Anonymous wrote on August 24, 2007 5:28 PM:We're going to attack Iraq?!? Uh-oh...
Anonymous wrote on August 24, 2007 5:35 PM:Question for you guys with expertise in Constitutional/civil law.
We are in the middle of a war, supporting one side of a conflict (ie... Maliki)...
A group here in the Unites States decides to disrupt the United States (actually, the President's) efforts by monetarily and influencially supporting another entity, subverting the effort by the President.
Would this historically be classified as treason, or can treason only be considered reasonable if it is an action taken by folks who are not really that important or influential...
Hmmm. wrote on August 24, 2007 7:43 PM:The Shah of Iraq.
Joseph Conrad wrote on August 25, 2007 2:00 AM:Bush-Cheney and Allawi are so blatantly corrupt, immoral, medacious, insidious and evil, it's a wonder Americans are just damn blind to see the very Nazi/Fascist behaviors Bush is manifesting.
The US has instigated a coup in EVERY NATION in Latin America, South America; Africa (except S. Africa), Central Asia and Southeast Asia. So why not a COUP in America (Grandpa & Uncle did in '34.
johnnydoughey wrote on August 25, 2007 3:13 AM:Luckily the Military stayed loyal)& Iraq (Again!).
I just finished reading Glenn Greenwald's indepth report:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
concerniing the ties between Allawi, BG&R, and the Bush Administration.
The article pretty much discloses the upcoming administration's overthrow of the present Maliki puppet government, with the new Allawi puppet government. What I see, beyond, of course, the fact that we just as nonchalantly overthrow democracies as dictatorships, is the blatantly foolishness of the administration's reasoning for keeping any documents whatsoever, hidden behind secrecy laws.
This new ploy is so open and flagrant that any moron anywhere in the world can easily see what is going on. It is driven by publicly known Bush State Department and CIA people who even have their names on the letterheads!
Isn't an attempted overthrow (even in a farsical upcoming election) of a leader we are supporting (Bush just said yesterday he supports Makiki) during a time of war, an act of treason? Isn't this flagrant disregard for a democracy (Bush has said it was and is a democracy) a flagrant disregard for the entire so called reason we have lost close to 4000 troops?
Bush has now decided to overthrow an ally of ours. Yes, he is incapable of performing the tasks (getting our oil for us, etc.), but nontheless, our Congress did not, as far as I can tell, permit Bush in any way, to overthrow a democratic leader.
If attempting to overthrow an elected democratic leader... especially during a time of war... is not an impeachable offense, there is no crime in this world that IS impeachable. No democracy on this earth has the right, legally, morally, or ethically, to attempt to do what Bush has now begun.
The end result, of course will be another dictator... openly predicted by most experts before we dicided to "save the Iraqi people" by killing them all.
Back to the "State Secret" concept. Will someone please give an example of ANY documents, operations, plans, ideas, weapons... anything more damaging to this nation and needed to be kept hidden... than this flagrant disregard for what "We the People" have historically believed in which is now being broadcast to the entire world?
Not one Senator or Congressman in Washington should be allowed to ever again walk freely on this earth if they do not care enough for humanity to put a stop to this latest fiasco. Our cemetaries have about 4 million markers reminding us that we are actually willing to die in order to stop this kind of behavior.
As of this week we will be sending our troops into a foreign country so they can die for....well, $2,079,358.94
blogamator wrote on August 25, 2007 3:35 AM:Allawi has effectively resigned from the Maliki government.
Anonymous wrote on August 25, 2007 3:57 AM:Re: August 25, 2007 3:13 AM
john nihau wrote on August 25, 2007 7:22 AM:$2,079,358.94 is BGRs cut for the carnage...
"If attempting to overthrow an elected democratic leader... especially during a time of war... is not an impeachable offense, there is no crime in this world that IS impeachable."
no, you wrong.
gettin' blowed is impeachable.
kentuck wrote on August 25, 2007 8:59 AM:Democracy in action. Put the CIA in place and set up a puppet government. Overthrow the supposedly elected leader and put in a more friendly leader via a coup. Just like we overthrew Mossadegh government in Iran and put in the Shah. History is repeating itself?
Allawi. Haley Barbour. Republican Party. CIA. Chalabi. Democracy. Which one is out of place?
linda wrote on August 26, 2007 12:24 AM:...because, ya know, the cia has such a sterling reputation regarding deposing those not particularly inclined to following uncle sam's edicts...
Anonymous wrote on August 26, 2007 1:44 AM:Salvador Allende was democratically elected in Chile, democracy hasn't stopped the machine in the past.
Anonymous wrote on August 26, 2007 9:04 AM:And there is one element of all this that I haven't seen mentioned, yet. Could Allawi's "lobbysists" possibly have influenced Hillary's call last week for Maliki's replacement?
Time to take a good hard look at her motivations and allegiances, folks.
Bill wrote on August 27, 2007 7:32 AM:In his memoir, ex-CIA Director George Tenet writes that when Shahwani returned to Iraq as part of "the Agency-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary group known as 'the Scorpions'" he became "key to developing a strong network inside Iraq for the Agency."
oh4real wrote on August 27, 2007 9:07 AM:So maybe I'm just being stupid here but I thought the stated reason for why we didn't know that Saddam had destroyed his WMDs during this same period was because the CIA didn't have any good assets in Iraq. What gives? We had assets up until 96 but not after? Saddam didn't decide to eliminate his WMDs until after the CIA tried to overthrow him? Does anything here make any sense?
"Democracy in action. Put the CIA in place and set up a puppet government. Overthrow the supposedly elected leader and put in a more friendly leader via a coup. Just like we overthrew Mossadegh government in Iran and put in the Shah. History is repeating itself?"
- Posted by: kentuck
Our Democracy can't rely on 'democracies' that sit on oil/gas, especially ones not aligned with us in a bent-over posture, ala Saudi Arabia.
"Our 'control' over energy security can't be guaranteed with oil not under US control, they might actually force oil prices higher." Ironically, this was argument when oil was $30/barrel - with OPEC not under our thumb, oil would go to $70/barrel and the global economy would collapse!
Hmmm, having had oil over $60 for better part of 3 years hasn't seemed to screw up the economy whatsoever.
I wonder what other assumptions our 'corporate overlords' have that are just plain wrong...
S.A. = #1 oil reserves
Iran = #2 oil + #2 gas (behind Russia)
Iraq = #3 oil reserves
SA very lucky they like us so much and can get us to do anything - like invade Iraq to remove Saddam so we can decommission our Saudi bases and avoid the coming Bin Laden instigated revolt against royal family - otherwise we would coup them too.
biker wrote on August 27, 2007 11:14 AM:My working hypothesis for explaining Iraqi events has been control of oil reserves for "our" oil companies. We should plan on being in Iraq for a period long enough to deplete the oil (several years already). We need a friendly regime, democratic or otherwise, who will let "our" oil companies profit from their resources. Maliki and government balked at the hydrocarbon legislation because the PSAs gave too much away to "our" oil companies. On the other hand, Allawi is a CIA asset, who pushed for PSA laden hydrocarbon legislation when he was prime minister.
Once Maliki disappears and Allawi is in charge, all is well. The oil companies get resources to keep going (the Caspian turned out to be a bust). We will foot the bill for the war and the continued oil resource security (the Iraqis will get little money to do so), but we get cheap gas at the pump in return. Who cares about morality when you can't drive to work to pay your bills.
We're behind you Cheney, all they way!
God Bless America!!!