CIA clings to control of Iraq’s intelligence service

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The CIA has refused to hand over control of Iraq’s intelligence service to the Iraqi government in a turf war that exposes doubts the Bush administration has over the ability of Iraqi leaders to fight the insurgency and worries about the new government’s close ties to Iran.

The director of Iraq’s secret police, a general who took part in a failed coup against Saddam Hussein, was handpicked and funded by the U.S. government and still reports to the CIA, Iraqi politicians and intelligence officials in Baghdad said last week.

After the elections in January, several Iraqi officials said, U.S. forces stashed the sensitive national intelligence archives of the past year inside U.S. headquarters in Baghdad to keep them off-limits to the government.

Iraqi leaders complain the arrangement violates their sovereignty, freezes them out of the war on insurgents and could lead to the formation of a rival, Iraqi-led spy agency. U.S. officials counter that the new leaders’ connections to Iran have forced them to take measures to protect Iraq’s secrets from the neighboring Tehran regime.

The Iraqi intelligence service “is not working for the Iraqi government – it’s working for the CIA,” said Hadi al Ameri, an Iraqi lawmaker and commander of the Badr Brigade, formerly the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Many Shiite Muslims now in power seem beholden to Iran for the regime’s gifts of refuge and funding for their opposition parties during Saddam’s reign. Handing the files to an Iran-friendly Baghdad administration would be tantamount to passing intelligence to Tehran, said three U.S. officials in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While the CIA hasn’t ruled out handing over the agency, an administration official confirmed that the U.S. government has strong concerns about releasing archives to the new government. The main worry is that Iran could score a coup by learning what the United States knows about Tehran’s covert operations in Iraq.