The US can quit Iraq, or it can stay. But it can't do both

Iraqis have a clear idea who they believe funds their secret police

By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent

"....."It is somewhat curious," says Mr Chalabi, "that the intelligence service of a country which is sovereign – that no one really knows who is funding it."

In fact there are very few Iraqis who do not believe they have a very clear idea of who funds Iraq's secret police. Its director is General Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, who once led a failed coup against Saddam Hussein, and was handpicked by the CIA to run the new security organisation soon after the invasion of 2003. He is believed to have been answering to them ever since.

The history of the Iraqi intelligence service is important because it shows the real distribution of power in Iraq rather than the spurious picture presented by President Bush. It explains why so many Iraqis are suspicious of the security accord, or Status of Forces Agreement, that the White House has been pushing the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Malki to sign. It reveals the real political landscape where President-elect Barack Obama will soon have to find his bearings.

For all Mr Bush's pious declarations about respecting Iraqi sovereignty, General Shahwani is reported to work primarily for American intelligence. The intelligence service is "not working for the Iraqi government – it's working for the CIA," Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful Shia lawmaker, was quoted as saying three years ago. "I prefer to call it the American Intelligence of Iraq, not the Iraqi Intelligence Service."

It seems that not much has changed since then......

The key to the US conducting an orderly retreat from Iraq is that this retreat should be real and the US should not try to control essential Iraqi state institutions like the intelligence service. It is also crucial that Obama seriously negotiate with the Iranians. So long as the Iranian leadership thinks that Iraq might be the launching pad for an attack on Iran it will never be in Iranian interests for Iraq to be stabilised.

The same is true of Syria. A problem for Obama is that McCain's quite false claim that America's position in Iraq has become stronger has been largely accepted by the US media so any compromise with Iran can be portrayed as a sell-out."