Ibrahim al-Marashi
The Original Thesis by a postgraduate who lives in Californi
Wed Jun 8, 2005 23:55
64.140.158.33
Volume 6, No. 3 - September 2002
For our response to the British government plagiarizing this article To receive a free subscription to MERIA Journal, write.
IRAQ'S SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE NETWORK: A GUIDE AND ANALYSIS
By Ibrahim al-Marashi
http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html
Ensuring the survival of President Saddam Hussein are five primary agencies that make up the Iraqi security apparatus: Special Security, General Security, General Intelligence, Military Intelligence and Military Security. In addition to preventing coups and protecting Saddam, these agencies, whose duties largely overlap, maintain internal domestic security and conduct foreign operations. These intelligence agencies along with the Ba’th Party organizations and select units of the military form Saddam’s security network, permeating every aspect of Iraqi life and ensuring his total control over the state.
Iraq’s security apparatus, commonly referred to as the Mukhabarat, is one of the main instruments of state control for Saddam’s regime and has been instrumental in its survival despite two costly wars plus numerous internal insurrections, coup attempts and crippling international sanctions.
Al-Mukhabarat al-’Iraqiyya (The Iraqi Mukhabarat) rather than a monolithic unit is a vast, complex labyrinth of security organizations with their own intelligence and military units pervading all layers of Iraqi society. The number and size of these agencies have grown dramatically since the Ba’th party takeover of Iraq in 1968. The five main agencies are the al-Amn al-Khas (Special Security), al-Amn al-’Amm (General Security), al-Mukhabarat (General Intelligence), al-Istikhbarat (Military Intelligence) and al-Amn al-’Askari (Military Security). In addition, there is a myriad of Ba’th Party security agencies, civil police forces,aramilitary militias, and special military units which protect the regime.
The agencies’ jurisdiction is designed to overlap in order to encourage competition and to ensure that no one service will become strong enough to threaten Saddam. In fact, some agencies were created specifically to monitor the activities of the others. All of them are responsible for protecting the president, countering domestic dissent, block coups or mass insurrections, prevent external threats to the regime and conduct foreign operations. All also play a role in procuring and concealing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. All five intelligence agencies are headquartered in Baghdad, but General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, and General Security maintain field offices in numerous provinces, cities and towns of Iraq. Generally, Military Intelligence and Military Security deal exclusively with military matters, while General Security focuses focus on the civilian domain.
The majority of these forces are staffed by relatives of Saddam, members of his al-Bu Nasser tribe, or come from the towns of Tikrit, Dur, Sharqat, Huwayja, Bayji, Samarra and Ramadi, located in what is known as the Sunni Arab Triangle. Sunni tribes and families that have played a powerful role in the security apparatus include the Dulaym, the Jubur (mixed Shi’a/Sunni) and the ‘Ubayd tribe, as well as members of the Duri, and Samarrai families.(1)
As a rule, each agency has an inner security unit that monitors any dissent in that agency. The head of this unit reports directly to the agency chief who reports directly to the president or the Office of the Presidential Palace.(2) While in other countries, intelligence agencies report to their respective ministries, such as defense or interior, in Iraq they report directly to the president. After Saddam, Qusay, his younger son, is perhaps the most powerful person in the apparatus with direct control over Special Security and the Special Republican Guard.
The material on this subject is scant. However events after the Gulf War have provided a wealth of primary material on the activities, operations, structure and organization of Iraq’s security apparatus. Kanan Makiya’s book Republic of Fear gives a detailed background on the background of the apparatus.(3) Sean Boyne wrote a two-part article in Jane’s Intelligence Review providing a detailed breakdown of its structure based on interviews with former members of the Iraqi intelligence.(4)
Documentation also became available after the invasion of Kuwait and the post-Gulf War uprising in the north of Iraq. In March 1991, Kurdish militias stormed Iraqi intelligence headquarters and Ba’th party bureaus in numerous northern Iraqi towns, among them Kirkuk, Dohuk, Sulaymaniyya, and Irbil. The militia of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) seized the confidential files in these buildings looking for information on the Iraqi government spies in their own organization.
After Iraqi Republican Guards brutally suppressed the insurrection, the retreating Kurds took about four million documents totaling about ten million pages with them. Makiya and Peter Galbraith were instrumental in arranging the transfer of most of these Iraqi government documents to the United States for study.(5) Human Rights/Middle East Watch was the first organization to analyze and publish material on the documents.(6) In addition, over 300,000 documents were abandoned in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi forces in the 1991 Gulf War. A sample of these documents can be found in the publications of The Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait.(7) Both sets of documents from northern Iraq and Kuwait are being studied by the Iraq Research and Documentation Project in Washington, DC and some files can be accessed through their website.(8)
All this provides unprecedented insight into the workings of Saddam’s Iraq and the impressive, repressive state security apparatus. The documents give a blueprint of the operations, organizations, chains of command, and divisions of power in this network.
THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (AL-MAJLIS AL-AMN AL-QAWMI)
The Iraqi National Security Council, al-Majlis al-Amn al-Qawmi,(9) is an important element of this network.(10) Headed by Saddam, but usually chaired by Qusay, the Council includes representatives from the Office of the Presidential Palace and Iraq’s five major security units. Although Special Security was created to serve as an agency to coordinate Iraq’s competing intelligence and security services, the National Security Council serves as the supervisory body on intelligence matters.
But this does not mean that the National Security Council actually coordinates the agencies’ activities precisely because the system is designed to encourage inter-agency competition and duplication. Information-sharing or cooperation among the agencies is rare. Instead, all intelligence is meant to flow directly to the Presidential palace.(11) But the Council does provide another way for Saddam and his closest advisors to get an overview of the agencies’ activities and also to coordinate the actions of the independent, rapid-response military brigades attached to General Security, Military Intelligence, General Intelligence and Military Security, as well as the Special Republican Guard.(12)
SPECIAL SECURITY [AL-AMN AL-KHAS]
Background
Al-Amn al-Khas (Special Security)(13) was created during the Iran-Iraq War and emerged as the most powerful agency in the security apparatus. It emerged from within General Security in 1982 to provide bodyguards to the president after a failed assassination attempt.(14) Hussein Kamil, Saddam’s cousin, son-in-law, and minister for military industrialization, (as well as minister of defense after the 1991 Gulf War)(15) was instrumental in creating this agency and selecting the most loyal agents from General Security, Military Intelligence and General Intelligence to serve in it. Hussein Kamil’s brother, Saddam Kamil, was also a member of Special Security, before both of them defected to Jordan in 1995 and were later killed by Saddam Hussein upon their return to Baghdad. After graduating from his studies in 1988, Qusay Hussein, the son of Saddam, was made deputy director. During the 1991 Gulf War, Fanar Zibin Hassan al-Tikriti was made head of Special Security,(16) but was replaced in 1992 by Qusay. There are an estimated 5,000 members(17) in this organization mostly from the towns of Tikrit, Huwayja and Samarra.(18) Members of this Bureau enjoy a higher standard of living than the elements of the other agencies.(19)
Responsibilities
The responsibilities of Special Security can be roughly classified as follows: 1) providing security for the president, at all times, especially during travel and public meetings; 2) securing all presidential facilities, such as palaces and offices; 3) supervising other security and intelligence services; 4) monitoring government ministries and the leadership of the armed forces; 5) supervising internal security operations against the Kurdish and Shi’a opposition; 6) purchasing foreign arms and technology; 7) securing Iraq’s most critical military industries; and 8) directing efforts to conceal Iraq’s WMD programs.
While its primary duty is protecting the president, it manages the actions of the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard. Special Security is charged with the surveillance of General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Military Security, and General Security. It is clearly the regime’s most important security agency.(20) According to one source, "It is the eyes and ears of the President, as well as the hand to implement, directly or indirectly, the President’s security directives. This body is in charge of collecting information about the activities of all high ranking officials and even information about members of the President’s immediate family."(21)
Divisions
The director-general of Special Security supervises its Special Bureau, Political Bureau and Administration Bureau, the agency’s own military brigade, and the Special Republican Guard.(22) Its own military brigade serves as a rapid response unit independent of the military establishment or Special Republican Guard. In the event of a coup attempt from within the regular military or Republican Guard, Special Security can easily call up the Special Republican Guard for reinforcements(23) as this unit is also under its control.(24)
The Security Bureau: The Security Bureau is divided into a Special Office, which monitors the Special Security agency itself to assure loyalty among its members. If necessary, it conducts operations against suspect members.(25) The Office of Presidential Facilities, another unit of the Security Bureau, guards these places through Jihaz al-Hamaya al-Khas (The Special Protection Apparatus). It is charged with protecting the Presidential Offices, Council of Ministers, National Council, and the Regional and National Command of the Ba’th Party, and is the only unit responsible for providing bodyguards to leaders.(26)
The Political Bureau: The Political Bureau collects and analyses intelligence and prepares operations against "enemies of the state." This unit keeps an extensive file on all Iraqi dissidents or subversives. Under the Political Bureau, the Operations Office implements operations against these "enemies," including arrests, interrogations and executions. Another division is the Public Opinion Office, responsible for collecting and disseminating rumors on behalf of the state.(27)
Operations
The operations of Special Security are numerous, particularly in suppressing domestic opposition to the regime. After its creation in 1984, Special Security thwarted a plot of disgruntled army officers, who objected to Saddam’s management of the Iran-Iraq War.(28) It preempted other coups such as the January 1990 attempt by members of the Jubur tribe to assassinate him.(29) It played an active role in crushing the March 1991 Shi’a rebellion in the south of Iraq. Along with General Intelligence, Special Security agents infiltrated the Kurdish enclave in the north of Iraq in August 1996, to hunt down operatives of the Iraqi opposition.
Special Security watched over the activities of Military Intelligence and the KGB, Soviet secret police, advisors in Iraq during the 1980s who assisted their Iraqi counterparts in concealing covert weapons production facilities.(30) It serves as the central coordinating body between Military-Industrial Commission, Military Intelligence, General Intelligence, and the military in the covert procurement of the necessary components for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.(31) During the 1991 Gulf War it was put in charge of concealing SCUD missiles(32) and afterwards in moving and hiding documents from UNSCOM inspections, relating to Iraq’s weapons programs.
It is also thought that Special Security is responsible for commercial trade conducted covertly tin violation of UN sanctions, especially with Iran.(33)
GENERAL SECURITY SERVICE (AL-AMN AL-’AMM)
Background
Al-Amn al-’Amm (General Security),(34) the oldest security agency in the country, dates back to 1921, when it was created during the British Mandate era.(35) In 1973, Nadhim Kazzar, head of General Security attempted a coup against both President Hassan al-Bakr and then Vice-President Saddam Hussein. After this coup attempt, Saddam arranged for the KGB to aid in a reorganization and modernization of General Security.(36) One reform was transferring many of General Security’s responsibilities to his newly formed General Intelligence agency.(37)
General Security remained under the Ministry of the Interior as a civilian police force until the late 1970s, when it was established as an independent agency reporting directly to the Presidential Palace.(38) In the late 1980s, a number of detectives were transferred to General Security from the investigative section of the civilian police.(39) The size of General Security is estimated to be 8,000 personnel.(40)
As a policy, Saddam staffs General Security with relatives, members of the Tikriti clan, or members of Sunni tribes. In 1980, Saddam appointed ‘Ali Hassan al-Majid, who would later be the architect of the regime’s anti-Kurdish campaign, as its director to instill the ideology of the Ba’th Party into the agency.(41) General Security was given more political intelligence responsibilities during the Iran-Iraq War. When Majid was put in charge of repressing the Kurdish insurrection in 1987, General ‘Abdul Rahman al-Duri replaced him until 1991 when Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, (who had served as its deputy director prior to 1991) then became head of this agency.(42) In 1996, General Taha ‘Abbas al-Ahbabi was appointed director after Saddam doubted Sabawi’s loyalty.(43)
Responsibilities
General Security is essentially a political security police force whose activities are: 1) detecting dissent among the Iraqi general public; 2) reacting to political "criminal behavior"; and 3) preventing economic criminal activity. It monitors the day-to-day lives of the population creating a pervasive local presence.(44) It maintains an extensive filing system of personal files–such as birth certificates and marriages records--of Iraqi citizens. The agency operates an extensive network of informers, under the 1970 "Law of Securing the Trustworthy in Defending the Revolution." General Security coordinates its operations with the civilian police force and maintains a unit in every police station.(45) However, the agency’s responsibilities have been reduced, as other organizations have assumed many of its former responsibilities.
Divisions
The headquarters of General Security is located in Baghdad, from which it guides the work of branches in each Iraqi governate. Saddam provided it with a paramilitary wing known as Quwat al-Tawari’ (The Emergency Forces)(46) after the 1991 Gulf War to reinforce law and order.(47)
The Investigations Directorate of General Security maintains a large network of informants, while its Technical Directorate monitors daily telephone conversations and radio frequencies.(48) Its intra-intelligence unit, the Security Office, is responsible for s
For our response to the British government plagiarizing this article To receive a free subscription to MERIA Journal, write
IRAQ'S SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE NETWORK: A GUIDE AND ANALYSIS
By Ibrahim al-Marashi
http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html
Ensuring the survival of President Saddam Hussein are five primary agencies that make up the Iraqi security apparatus: Special Security, General Security, General Intelligence, Military Intelligence and Military Security. In addition to preventing coups and protecting Saddam, these agencies, whose duties largely overlap, maintain internal domestic security and conduct foreign operations. These intelligence agencies along with the Ba’th Party organizations and select units of the military form Saddam’s security network, permeating every aspect of Iraqi life and ensuring his total control over the state.
Iraq’s security apparatus, commonly referred to as the Mukhabarat, is one of the main instruments of state control for Saddam’s regime and has been instrumental in its survival despite two costly wars plus numerous internal insurrections, coup attempts and crippling international sanctions.
Al-Mukhabarat al-’Iraqiyya (The Iraqi Mukhabarat) rather than a monolithic unit is a vast, complex labyrinth of security organizations with their own intelligence and military units pervading all layers of Iraqi society. The number and size of these agencies have grown dramatically since the Ba’th party takeover of Iraq in 1968. The five main agencies are the al-Amn al-Khas (Special Security), al-Amn al-’Amm (General Security), al-Mukhabarat (General Intelligence), al-Istikhbarat (Military Intelligence) and al-Amn al-’Askari (Military Security). In addition, there is a myriad of Ba’th Party security agencies, civil police forces,aramilitary militias, and special military units which protect the regime.
The agencies’ jurisdiction is designed to overlap in order to encourage competition and to ensure that no one service will become strong enough to threaten Saddam. In fact, some agencies were created specifically to monitor the activities of the others. All of them are responsible for protecting the president, countering domestic dissent, block coups or mass insurrections, prevent external threats to the regime and conduct foreign operations. All also play a role in procuring and concealing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. All five intelligence agencies are headquartered in Baghdad, but General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, and General Security maintain field offices in numerous provinces, cities and towns of Iraq. Generally, Military Intelligence and Military Security deal exclusively with military matters, while General Security focuses focus on the civilian domain.
The majority of these forces are staffed by relatives of Saddam, members of his al-Bu Nasser tribe, or come from the towns of Tikrit, Dur, Sharqat, Huwayja, Bayji, Samarra and Ramadi, located in what is known as the Sunni Arab Triangle. Sunni tribes and families that have played a powerful role in the security apparatus include the Dulaym, the Jubur (mixed Shi’a/Sunni) and the ‘Ubayd tribe, as well as members of the Duri, and Samarrai families.(1)
As a rule, each agency has an inner security unit that monitors any dissent in that agency. The head of this unit reports directly to the agency chief who reports directly to the president or the Office of the Presidential Palace.(2) While in other countries, intelligence agencies report to their respective ministries, such as defense or interior, in Iraq they report directly to the president. After Saddam, Qusay, his younger son, is perhaps the most powerful person in the apparatus with direct control over Special Security and the Special Republican Guard.
The material on this subject is scant. However events after the Gulf War have provided a wealth of primary material on the activities, operations, structure and organization of Iraq’s security apparatus. Kanan Makiya’s book Republic of Fear gives a detailed background on the background of the apparatus.(3) Sean Boyne wrote a two-part article in Jane’s Intelligence Review providing a detailed breakdown of its structure based on interviews with former members of the Iraqi intelligence.(4)
Documentation also became available after the invasion of Kuwait and the post-Gulf War uprising in the north of Iraq. In March 1991, Kurdish militias stormed Iraqi intelligence headquarters and Ba’th party bureaus in numerous northern Iraqi towns, among them Kirkuk, Dohuk, Sulaymaniyya, and Irbil. The militia of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) seized the confidential files in these buildings looking for information on the Iraqi government spies in their own organization.
After Iraqi Republican Guards brutally suppressed the insurrection, the retreating Kurds took about four million documents totaling about ten million pages with them. Makiya and Peter Galbraith were instrumental in arranging the transfer of most of these Iraqi government documents to the United States for study.(5) Human Rights/Middle East Watch was the first organization to analyze and publish material on the documents.(6) In addition, over 300,000 documents were abandoned in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi forces in the 1991 Gulf War. A sample of these documents can be found in the publications of The Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait.(7) Both sets of documents from northern Iraq and Kuwait are being studied by the Iraq Research and Documentation Project in Washington, DC and some files can be accessed through their website.(8)
All this provides unprecedented insight into the workings of Saddam’s Iraq and the impressive, repressive state security apparatus. The documents give a blueprint of the operations, organizations, chains of command, and divisions of power in this network.
THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (AL-MAJLIS AL-AMN AL-QAWMI)
The Iraqi National Security Council, al-Majlis al-Amn al-Qawmi,(9) is an important element of this network.(10) Headed by Saddam, but usually chaired by Qusay, the Council includes representatives from the Office of the Presidential Palace and Iraq’s five major security units. Although Special Security was created to serve as an agency to coordinate Iraq’s competing intelligence and security services, the National Security Council serves as the supervisory body on intelligence matters.
But this does not mean that the National Security Council actually coordinates the agencies’ activities precisely because the system is designed to encourage inter-agency competition and duplication. Information-sharing or cooperation among the agencies is rare. Instead, all intelligence is meant to flow directly to the Presidential palace.(11) But the Council does provide another way for Saddam and his closest advisors to get an overview of the agencies’ activities and also to coordinate the actions of the independent, rapid-response military brigades attached to General Security, Military Intelligence, General Intelligence and Military Security, as well as the Special Republican Guard.(12)
SPECIAL SECURITY [AL-AMN AL-KHAS]
Background
Al-Amn al-Khas (Special Security)(13) was created during the Iran-Iraq War and emerged as the most powerful agency in the security apparatus. It emerged from within General Security in 1982 to provide bodyguards to the president after a failed assassination attempt.(14) Hussein Kamil, Saddam’s cousin, son-in-law, and minister for military industrialization, (as well as minister of defense after the 1991 Gulf War)(15) was instrumental in creating this agency and selecting the most loyal agents from General Security, Military Intelligence and General Intelligence to serve in it. Hussein Kamil’s brother, Saddam Kamil, was also a member of Special Security, before both of them defected to Jordan in 1995 and were later killed by Saddam Hussein upon their return to Baghdad. After graduating from his studies in 1988, Qusay Hussein, the son of Saddam, was made deputy director. During the 1991 Gulf War, Fanar Zibin Hassan al-Tikriti was made head of Special Security,(16) but was replaced in 1992 by Qusay. There are an estimated 5,000 members(17) in this organization mostly from the towns of Tikrit, Huwayja and Samarra.(18) Members of this Bureau enjoy a higher standard of living than the elements of the other agencies.(19)
Responsibilities
The responsibilities of Special Security can be roughly classified as follows: 1) providing security for the president, at all times, especially during travel and public meetings; 2) securing all presidential facilities, such as palaces and offices; 3) supervising other security and intelligence services; 4) monitoring government ministries and the leadership of the armed forces; 5) supervising internal security operations against the Kurdish and Shi’a opposition; 6) purchasing foreign arms and technology; 7) securing Iraq’s most critical military industries; and 8) directing efforts to conceal Iraq’s WMD programs.
While its primary duty is protecting the president, it manages the actions of the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard. Special Security is charged with the surveillance of General Intelligence, Military Intelligence, Military Security, and General Security. It is clearly the regime’s most important security agency.(20) According to one source, "It is the eyes and ears of the President, as well as the hand to implement, directly or indirectly, the President’s security directives. This body is in charge of collecting information about the activities of all high ranking officials and even information about members of the President’s immediate family."(21)
Divisions
The director-general of Special Security supervises its Special Bureau, Political Bureau and Administration Bureau, the agency’s own military brigade, and the Special Republican Guard.(22) Its own military brigade serves as a rapid response unit independent of the military establishment or Special Republican Guard. In the event of a coup attempt from within the regular military or Republican Guard, Special Security can easily call up the Special Republican Guard for reinforcements(23) as this unit is also under its control.(24)
The Security Bureau: The Security Bureau is divided into a Special Office, which monitors the Special Security agency itself to assure loyalty among its members. If necessary, it conducts operations against suspect members.(25) The Office of Presidential Facilities, another unit of the Security Bureau, guards these places through Jihaz al-Hamaya al-Khas (The Special Protection Apparatus). It is charged with protecting the Presidential Offices, Council of Ministers, National Council, and the Regional and National Command of the Ba’th Party, and is the only unit responsible for providing bodyguards to leaders.(26)
The Political Bureau: The Political Bureau collects and analyses intelligence and prepares operations against "enemies of the state." This unit keeps an extensive file on all Iraqi dissidents or subversives. Under the Political Bureau, the Operations Office implements operations against these "enemies," including arrests, interrogations and executions. Another division is the Public Opinion Office, responsible for collecting and disseminating rumors on behalf of the state.(27)
Operations
The operations of Special Security are numerous, particularly in suppressing domestic opposition to the regime. After its creation in 1984, Special Security thwarted a plot of disgruntled army officers, who objected to Saddam’s management of the Iran-Iraq War.(28) It preempted other coups such as the January 1990 attempt by members of the Jubur tribe to assassinate him.(29) It played an active role in crushing the March 1991 Shi’a rebellion in the south of Iraq. Along with General Intelligence, Special Security agents infiltrated the Kurdish enclave in the north of Iraq in August 1996, to hunt down operatives of the Iraqi opposition.
Special Security watched over the activities of Military Intelligence and the KGB, Soviet secret police, advisors in Iraq during the 1980s who assisted their Iraqi counterparts in concealing covert weapons production facilities.(30) It serves as the central coordinating body between Military-Industrial Commission, Military Intelligence, General Intelligence, and the military in the covert procurement of the necessary components for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.(31) During the 1991 Gulf War it was put in charge of concealing SCUD missiles(32) and afterwards in moving and hiding documents from UNSCOM inspections, relating to Iraq’s weapons programs.
It is also thought that Special Security is responsible for commercial trade conducted covertly tin violation of UN sanctions, especially with Iran.(33)
GENERAL SECURITY SERVICE (AL-AMN AL-’AMM)
Background
Al-Amn al-’Amm (General Security),(34) the oldest security agency in the country, dates back to 1921, when it was created during the British Mandate era.(35) In 1973, Nadhim Kazzar, head of General Security attempted a coup against both President Hassan al-Bakr and then Vice-President Saddam Hussein. After this coup attempt, Saddam arranged for the KGB to aid in a reorganization and modernization of General Security.(36) One reform was transferring many of General Security’s responsibilities to his newly formed General Intelligence agency.(37)
General Security remained under the Ministry of the Interior as a civilian police force until the late 1970s, when it was established as an independent agency reporting directly to the Presidential Palace.(38) In the late 1980s, a number of detectives were transferred to General Security from the investigative section of the civilian police.(39) The size of General Security is estimated to be 8,000 personnel.(40)
As a policy, Saddam staffs General Security with relatives, members of the Tikriti clan, or members of Sunni tribes. In 1980, Saddam appointed ‘Ali Hassan al-Majid, who would later be the architect of the regime’s anti-Kurdish campaign, as its director to instill the ideology of the Ba’th Party into the agency.(41) General Security was given more political intelligence responsibilities during the Iran-Iraq War. When Majid was put in charge of repressing the Kurdish insurrection in 1987, General ‘Abdul Rahman al-Duri replaced him until 1991 when Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, (who had served as its deputy director prior to 1991) then became head of this agency.(42) In 1996, General Taha ‘Abbas al-Ahbabi was appointed director after Saddam doubted Sabawi’s loyalty.(43)
Responsibilities
General Security is essentially a political security police force whose activities are: 1) detecting dissent among the Iraqi general public; 2) reacting to political "criminal behavior"; and 3) preventing economic criminal activity. It monitors the day-to-day lives of the population creating a pervasive local presence.(44) It maintains an extensive filing system of personal files–such as birth certificates and marriages records--of Iraqi citizens. The agency operates an extensive network of informers, under the 1970 "Law of Securing the Trustworthy in Defending the Revolution." General Security coordinates its operations with the civilian police force and maintains a unit in every police station.(45) However, the agency’s responsibilities have been reduced, as other organizations have assumed many of its former responsibilities.
Divisions
The headquarters of General Security is located in Baghdad, from which it guides the work of branches in each Iraqi governate. Saddam provided it with a paramilitary wing known as Quwat al-Tawari’ (The Emergency Forces)(46) after the 1991 Gulf War to reinforce law and order.(47)
The Investigations Directorate of General Security maintains a large network of informants, while its Technical Directorate monitors daily telephone conversations and radio frequencies.(48) Its intra-intelligence unit, the Security Office, is responsible for s
- The Original Thesis by a postgraduate who.... Part 2 —Ibrahim al-Marashi, Wed Jun 8 23:57
- The Original Thesis by a postgraduate who.... Part 3 —Ibrahim al-Marashi, Wed Jun 8 23:58
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