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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Negroponte sez Iraqis in insurgency are more elusive |
| 2005-09-13 |
| U.S. intelligence is struggling to expose elements of the insurgency in Iraq made up of former members of Saddam Hussein's regime, John Negroponte, the nation's intelligence chief, said in an interview Monday. Joint U.S.-Iraqi military efforts have damaged the network of foreign insurgents led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, though Zarqawi himself remains at large, Negroponte said. Indigenous Iraqi insurgents, led by former members of Saddam's ruling Baath Party, have been tougher to track down. The "former regime elements ... seem to have very good operational secrecy," Negroponte said in a wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY reporters. "And thus far it's not been that easy to make a dent in that part of the insurgency." Though foreign fighters, mainly Sunni Muslim Arabs from Syria and Saudi Arabia, have grabbed headlines with suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Iraqis, Negroponte said Iraqis dominate the insurgency. Despite intense focus on Iraq, where 138,000 U.S. troops are deployed, U.S. intelligence has not been able to produce anything more than a "speculative" estimate of the insurgency's size, he said. Based on everything he has seen, Negroponte said, the insurgency is neither gaining strength nor weakening appreciably. The insurgency's stubborn resistance to U.S. and Iraqi military efforts has complicated the development of a democracy. Negroponte became the nation's first director of national intelligence in April after nine months as U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Congress created the post last year in response to independent commissions that laid out major intelligence failures prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He has spent much of his time in the job setting up special centers overseeing counterterrorism and weapons proliferation. "Mission managers" will be named soon for human intelligence, Iran and North Korea, Negroponte said. Although the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in an atmosphere of urgency, "it's really a start-up organization," he said. "It's work in progress." In his first media interview since assuming the intelligence post, Negroponte also said: Despite significant failures before 9/11 and the Iraq war, U.S. intelligence "is second to none compared to any other intelligence organization in the world." His task is "making it even better." Al-Qaeda, though weakened by the U.S.-led global war on terrorism, continues to plan and organize terrorist attacks and regards the U.S. homeland as its top-priority target. Western Europe, Negroponte said, is more vulnerable than the USA to al-Qaeda. A viable Iraqi government has been slow in getting organized because the war led to the "degradation ... of virtually every single government department. ... They basically had to start practically from scratch." Negroponte, 66, spoke in a secure room of his office's headquarters a block from the White House. A career diplomat with Foreign Service commissions signed by every president back to Dwight Eisenhower, Negroponte got his first overseas experience in South Vietnam in the early 1960s. He has been ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and Iraq. When he appointed Negroponte, President Bush emphasized that the new chief needed broad powers over spending and personnel across military and civilian intelligence agencies. Nevertheless, Negroponte said he cannot rule the 15 intelligence agencies "by fiat" but must "foster a strong sense of community" among organizations that have not always cooperated. Negroponte said he is close to making a major decision on whether to go forward with a highly classified imagery intelligence network. According to Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, the program probably concerns a costly network of satellites capable of evading radar, reflecting a Defense Department concern about the possibility that an adversary might attempt to "blind" U.S. intelligence operations by attacking its satellites. Negroponte praised Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for helping the "lash-up between domestic and foreign" intelligence, which the 9/11 Commission called a major contributor to lapses before 9/11. Following the report of the so-called WMD Commission, which examined the incorrect prewar estimates that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and an active nuclear weapons development program, Negroponte said he is creating new standards on rating the veracity of clandestine intelligence sources. He is also improving the description of sources behind intelligence assessments. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 master of the obvious. How much we payin this guy? |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-09-13 01:08 |