by emptywheel
Summary: In this series of posts, I examine some funkiness regarding the story of Mahdi Obeidi, the Iraqi nuclear scientist who claimed to have buried a nuclear centrifuge under his rose plant. In part one, I lay out a timeline for his story. Parts two and three examine some problems with the materials he turned over. Part four questions the stories Obeidi and Pitzer told about their meeting. Part five looks the WaPo article that is a central prop in Obeidi's story. In this post, I explore some of the tensions within the intelligence agencies dealing with Obeidi. For the most part, these tensions don't discredit Obeidi's story. But they do provide an important background to the questions I have already raised.
The US by no means went into Iraq with a unified intelligence approach; I've described some of the tensions between the Pentagon on one side and the CIA/State on the other. Those tensions played a central role in Mahdi Obeidi's story and exacerbated the confusion about it.
"Jerry"
The first evidence of intelligence agency tension regarding Obeidi--or at least his area of expertise--goes back to before the war, in 2001. That's when, according to leaked allegations from a pending wrongful dismissal suit, the CIA willfully ignored evidence that Iraq had ceased all uranium enrichment activities.
A pseudonymous CIA Counter-Proliferation Operative (incidentally, a former colleague of Valerie Plame) launched a wrongful dismissal suit against the agency. "Jerry" says he was fired in retaliation for complaining about his intelligence getting buried. "Jerry" was accused in 2003 of having sex with a female contact, was later accused of embezzling money, and was fired in 2004. "Jerry" disputes the allegations, saying they were retaliation for his unwillingness to accept the dominant (and incorrect) interpretation of intelligence regarding Iraqi nuclear capabilities.
So what was the intelligence "Jerry" had discovered that, he alleges, the CIA buried?
In his lawsuit, the former officer said that in the spring of 2001, he met with a valuable informant who had examined and purchased parts of Iraqi centrifuges. Centrifuges are used to turn uranium into fuel for nuclear weapons. The informant reported that the Iraqi government had long since canceled its uranium enrichment program and that the C.I.A. could buy centrifuge components if it wanted to.
The officer filed his reports with the Counter Proliferation Division in the agency’s clandestine espionage arm. The reports were never disseminated to other American intelligence agencies or to policy makers, as is typically done, he charged. [my emphasis]
Now, if I had to guess, I'd say "Jerry's" source is an arms dealer. The CIA told "Jerry" to tell his source to concentrate on other countries, which suggests he's a go-between.
According to Obeidi's book, centrifuge components might make it into the black market via one of two sources. When the Iraqis were dismantling the nuclear program in 1991, the Special Security Organization directed that centrifuge components be put aside:
I later heard that the SSO in charge of hiding materials had been given a strange order: to gather enough material for one hundred centrifuges and stash them separately. What was bizarre about this order was that my staff and I were not involved in selecting the material. It was a hopeless task for the largely uneducated security men. As it was we didn't have enough materials for even fifty complete centrifuges. It seemed like a quixotic idea, ill-conceived in the midst of the chaos. (Bomb in My Garden 139)
So it's possible that someone in the SSO eventually sold these components on the black market. But a significant number of these components were turned over to the UNSCOM inspectors along with the "chicken farm" documents after Hussein Kamel defected in 1995.
I was able to see an NMD videotape showing exactly what had been uncovered at the chicken farm. As the camera panned across the pile of material, I was surprised to see a jumble of centrifuge parts. I figured they must have been the components separated out in 1991, when the SSO was trying to hide enough materials for one hundred centrifuges. (Bomb in My Garden 168)
In other words, the other major source for centrifuge components would be whoever in UNSCOM received those components in 1995. Given the degree to which US intelligence manipulated UNSCOM inspections, it is even possible US intelligence had those centrifuge components. In 1995.
Note, Scott Ritter makes no mention of centrifuge components in his book. He describes the chicken farm cache:
The farm was stuffed with crates and boxes containing hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, on paper and stored as microfiche, dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. It was the elusive Military Industrial Committee archive, the very same one that UNSCOM had been searching for since the confrontation outside the Ministry of Agriculture in the summer of 1992.
No components mentioned. But the Duelfer Report does mention components:
In a separate action, Husayn Kamil ordered the retention of at least one copy of all nuclear-related documents and some centrifuge components by a senior nuclear scientist. In 1995, following Husayn Kamil’s defection, the IAEA seized a number of WMD-related documents and items of equipment from the Haidar Chicken Farm. The equipment seized included spools of high tensile, carbon fiber, and other centrifuge-associated components.
Note: Big surprise, but the Duelfer Report pulls off some narrative acrobatics here, referring to Obeidi both by name (for example, in the subsequent bullet) and anonymously (as it does here--Obeidi is identified elsewhere in the Duelfer Report as the scientist in question) as if the two references are to different people. Do they do this to make it seem like more scientists support this evidence than actually do? Or are they trying to hide Obeidi's identity as the source for the information?
In any case, there is evidence a number of centrifuge components had been saved. It's unclear whether the ones "Jerry's" source had purchased came from an SSO source or from the materials turned over to UNSCOM or from somewhere else. In any case, assuming "Jerry's" allegations have merit (which is, admittedly, nothing more than an assumption), the CIA went to great length to prevent "Jerry" from circulating that message, particularly after it became clear in 2003 that "Jerry" had been correct and the CIA conventional wisdom badly wrong.
The "Jerry" allegations are crucial to the Obeidi story for two reasons. First they reveal the lengths to which the CIA was willing to go to defend the (ultimately erroneous) story of ongoing centrifuge development. And they remind us that the CIA may have already had Iraqi centrifuge components in their possession, either going back to the chicken farm cache or readily available from an existing CIA asset. Given that the centrifuge components shown in CNN's first scoop don't resemble the components Obeidi describes turning over (indeed, they look more like a "jumble of centrifuge parts"), this raises the possibility that the components CNN saw, at least, did not come from Obeidi.
CIA versus DIA
Then, when Obeidi actually starts reaching out to the Americans, a clear dispute between CIA and DIA develops. Obeidi has the following contacts with intelligence-related people:
Late April: Pitzer and Obeidi contact Albright (who presumably makes calls to Pentagon and CIA)
Mid-May: Kurd comes to Obeidi's house seeking "Dr. Mahdi"
Around May 17: DIA, then CIA contact Obeidi, per MoJo (in the book account, the order is presumably reversed, CIA then DIA, based on the latter group's location next to Chalabi's headquarters, although the book explicitly avoids identifying which agency is which; in any case, these initial contacts are supposed to occur on the same day)
June 2: Obeidi turns over materials to CIA
June 3: Obeidi arrested by US military (Gellman specifies Special Forces, no one else describes what kind of forces)
Clearly, the parallel interrogations of Obeidi reflect a rivalry between CIA and DIA. When "John," the rather aggressive DIA interrogator discovers Obeidi has also been approached by CIA, he gets territorial.
I apologized for being unable to meet him earlier and explained that I had been meeting some of his compatriots at another location. He became suspicious.
"Who were they?" he asked "Who else are you talking to?"
"They didn't reveal to me exactly who they were," I said.
John exchanged a look with one of his fellow Americans.
"The CIA is trying to intrude," the colleague said to him. "As if they don't have enough on their plate."(Bomb in My Garden 215)
Add in two other, related organizations, and you get the sense that Obeidi was caught at the center of a miniature power struggle. There's the mysterious Kurdish visitor, for example. I have speculated that he might be associated with the INC. After all, during its years of operating in Kurdistan, the INC attracted a significant number of Kurdish members, including the head of intelligence (in 2003) Aras Karem. And already by mid-May 2003, the INC had deployed its own intelligence operatives. Note that the INC's intelligence operations had a codependent relationship with the DIA, as described in this Richard Leiby profile.
The [INC] exiles have their own spy program. They gather and sift information, part of a classified Pentagon arrangement.
[snip]
An aged open-bed truck rolls across the sun-scorched lawn about 50 feet away. It's full of documents that INC militiamen and operatives scooped up from the homes of regime big shots. The papers are for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Brooke reports.
I'm just speculating that the Kurd belonged to INC's intelligence program, but it introduces the possibility that the DIA planned to use the INC to approach Obeidi. Certainly, when the DIA first interrogated Obeidi, they did so at a location adjacent to Chalabi's compound at the Hunting Club.
Then, there is the question of who arrested Obeidi. Only Barton Gellman provides any details about who arrested Obeidi; while most accounts simply say "soldiers" arrested Obeidi, Gellman describes them as Special Forces. That detail, plus the account Obeidi provided in his book raises the possibility (again, simply a possibility) that Obeidi was arrested by Task Force 20, the paramilitary organization tasked to carry out the most sensitive aspects of the WMD search.
But many of those most knowledgeable about Task Force 20's work, some of whom observed it at close quarters, said there is no sign of decisive evidence in the information gathered to date. They said most of Task Force 20's successes -- seizing files, wanted scientists and potentially "hot samples" of lethal substances -- came early in the war.
Intelligence specialists at the team's Baghdad airport headquarters, where many of the most important Iraqi prisoners are held, are interrogating leaders of the former Iraqi weapons program in cooperation with the CIA and the DIA. But the highest-ranking Iraqi weaponeers -- including Rihab Rashid Taha, known in the West as Dr. Germ, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, a Texas-trained microbiologist dubbed Mrs. Anthrax -- have disclosed almost nothing.
As in this description, Obeidi was taken to the Baghdad airport. And we know (because "John," the DIA interrogator told him) that Obeidi was number sixty-six on the most-wanted list. Thus, arresting him would fall in Task Force 20's roles.
Granted, I'm just speculating about the role of the INC and Task Force 20 (although if Task Force 20 was seizing files, it was likely doing it with the help of the INC). But it suggests the real possibility that, at the same time as David Albright was working to arrange meetings with the CIA, the DIA and its allies were aiming to interrogate Obeidi themselves, using a perhaps more aggressive approach. That would provide one possible explanation for Obeidi's arrest--that they were trying to regain control of his interrogation.
Why, though? Why was there so much confusion and competition over who got to interrogate Obeidi? One reason is simply a matter of timing. Obeidi's interrogation started at precisely the period when the responsibility for the WMD search was transitioning from the Pentagon-backed 75th XTF (Judy's group) and Task Force 20 to the CIA-backed Iraq Survey Group. On May 17, when Obeidi probably first spoke to the CIA, the transition had already been announced but the ISG was not due to be completely in place for another three weeks or so. So this was a period when the Pentagon-backed forces could still try to achieve their goals. Add in the fact that the switch from Pentagon-backed search to a CIA-backed one was an explicit condemnation of the Pentagon's efforts.
For political reasons, the White House wanted the CIA to conduct the hunt for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon's initial WMD-hunting efforts had been so amateurish that President Bush had personally asked CIA director George Tenet to take over the task.(State of War 142)
When Obeidi turned over the centrifuge, it was the closest anyone ever came to finding real evidence of ongoing WMD intent. Clearly controlling his interrogation would enable an agency to pitch their own efforts to find WMDs in the best light. Thus, the reason for the competition between the agencies for control over Obeidi.
One more speculation--this time a full-fledged wild-assed speculation--about this battle for control. According to William Jackson, Judy Miller showed up in Iraq, uninvited, around the same time as Obeidi was arrested.
After months of enjoying "embedded" status (and then some), Miller unexpectedly returned to Baghdad via Kuwait in the middle of the night in early June, military officials and journalists told me, but was denied permission to rejoin the weapons-hunting teams and was put on the next plane out.
According to a public affairs officer (PAO) on the scene, she sought an embed arrangement different from the "terms of accreditation to report" which she had originally signed. Most of her contacts had been replaced by new people from David Kay's Iraqi Survey Group (ISG). Col. Richard McPhee, commander of the 75th Exploitation Task Force in Iraq, whose teams had been looking for evidence of WMDs in the spring, refused an interview with her.
Now, one of the meetings in which Scooter Libby met with Judy and talked about Plame's identity and issues related to Iraqi's nuclear efforts occurred on June 23, the day before CNN broke the Obeidi story. So it is possible that Judy's patrons in OVP/Pentagon tried to get her help spinning the Obeidi story as well. Obviously, that's just a possibility. In any case, though, the command structure had changed in Iraq so she could no longer push the WMD teams around. And she had lost her ability to plant tripe in the NYT, too. So if Scooter Libby and his allies had wanted to get Judy's help on the Obeidi story, it was not to be. By early June, the Pentagon and its allies were losing the battle of bureaucratic infighting and so could not spin the Obeidi story themselves.
"Joe"
There's another reason why CIA fought to retain control over Obeidi's disposition, of course. Obeidi could confirm or deny the case the CIA had made that Iraq was attempting to reconstitute their nuclear enrichment program. And the CIA--led by the hack analyst "Joe," who championed the aluminum tube story--appears to have done what it could to try to force Obeidi to confirm their specious arguments. David Albright describes the conflict of interest created when CIA took the lead in Obeidi's interrogation.
Although the CIA was far better positioned to obtain the cooperation of Iraqi scientists than the Pentagon, in the end, it was in a conflict of interest when it came to Obeidi.
He's referring to just this issue. Obeidi had the ability to redeem the discredited CIA by confirming their unfounded stories. Which set up a long battle between "Joe" and Obeidi that extended throughout the summer.
It's not clear when "Joe" first got brought in. The person at the (presumably) CIA who first interrogated Obeidi doesn't sound like "Joe" (nor is he referred to as such, nor as "Mike," "Joe's" fake CNN name). So it's not even clear that "Joe" ever speaks to Obeidi before the latter is arrested. Yet "Joe" definitely becomes involved at least by the time of the CNN story on Obeidi.
Why would the CIA pick a WINPAC analyst rather than someone either experienced in interrogation or used to dealing with assets? Good question. Effectively, they brought in someone completely unqualified to debrief a source, and someone with the highest stakes in the outcome. It certainly seems like they gave "Joe" one last chance to prove the case he had been struggling to prove since he first heard of the aluminum tubes. Perhaps they figured this would make it more likely to get the answers they wanted. And at first, it worked. David Albright explains how "Joe" (and David Kay, who had just been appointed and probably hadn't had any opportunity to really review Obeidi's case) managed to spin Obeidi's story for the first CNN scoop to hold out the possibility that "Joe's" aluminum tube theory had been correct.
When CNN interviewed CIA officials at Langley in June about Obeidi, these officials gave a version of events that differed sharply with what Obeidi recounted. CNN interviewed a CIA official named “Mike” about Obeidi in June. The interview never showed Mike’s front, but a viewer identified him as Joe.
Joe claimed that Obeidi received one of four sets of centrifuge documents and had actually seen the other three sets. Thus, Joe said that Obeidi was one of four people who took a set of documents and hid them. Kay repeated to CNN what Joe said, adding that Obeidi was the source of this information. Kay said that Obeidi claimed not to have known who took these three sets, or where the documents may be located, but Kay added they were exploring how his memory can be improved. Obeidi told me repeatedly that he never made these statements to his interrogators.
Joe and Kay also falsely characterized Iraq’s pre-1991 Beams-type, aluminum-rotor centrifuge program to CNN. Joe told CNN that the Beams program was separate or parallel to the one involving more advanced centrifuges, and Obeidi had nothing to do with the Beams-type centrifuge. In fact, Obeidi headed this program as well. When the Iraqis were able to obtain classified information about more advanced European-type centrifuges in the summer of 1988, they shifted their efforts to these centrifuges and phased out their work on a Beams-type machine, which was proving difficult to operate in any case. For example, as mentioned above, Iraq never introduced the process gas uranium hexafluoride into either of its two Beams centrifuges.
Joe and Kay appear to have tried to create a case that parallel centrifuge programs existed after 1998 and that Obeidi was not in a position to know about them. However, Joe’s and Kay’s statements about parallel programs prior to 1991 are incorrect. Their attempt to create a case that parallel centrifuge programs existed after 1998 is contrary to what Obeidi has said.
From the very start, then, "Joe" was inventing details so he could hold out the possibility that his aluminum tube fantasy was correct. Now it's not entirely clear how the CNN story plays into Obeidi's treatment. Apparently, Obeidi's willingness to go public about the centrifuge was one reason the CIA finally moved Obeidi to Kuwait. But it also seems to have pre-empted further lies from the CIA.
Obeidi’s case became public in late June 2003 because of the CIA’s refusal to remove him from Iraq, CIA analysts’ attacks on his veracity, and their statements that the US government was going to release publicly a portion of the information Obeidi provided. Impending CNN television reports, which I initiated, broke an apparent impasse in the US government, and Obeidi and his family were quickly moved out of Iraq.
In any case, Joe seems to have spent the summer trying to "improve Obeidi's memory" in Kuwait.
It turns out [Obeidi]'s being held against his will in Kuwait apparently because he won't 'come clean' about the aluminum tubes, an on-going Iraqi nuclear weapons program and significant chemical and biological weapons stocks.
Obeidi is not in prison. He's in a residential setting with his family, under US government supervision, well-fed and so forth.
But he can't leave. He can't go back to Iraq -- for obvious reasons. He's only in Kuwait through a US agreement with the Kuwaiti government. He can't go anywhere else since he doesn't have a passport. American friends provided him with a satellite phone. But his CIA handlers have frowned on his using it.
The deal he made, or thought he'd made with the US, was that he would be given asylum and allowed along with his family to come to the United States. He has a job lined up in the US and even, believe it or not, a book contract (that's globalization for ya). But though he had a good-faith understanding with the CIA that he'd be allowed to come to the United States, he failed to secure a formal agreement.
That turned out to be a mistake. For two months they've been holding out on him, apparently because the answers he's giving them aren't the ones they want to hear.
It's crystal clear why "Joe" pushed Obeidi so hard to confirm things that weren't true. "Joe's" career success depended on it. It's not clear, however, how the tension was resolved in August 2003, and Obeidi and his family were finally brought to the US. Perhaps Obeidi made a further deal with the CIA. Perhaps they finally realized that the evidence overwhelmingly supported Obeidi's story. Perhaps by late August David Kay was willing to cede the aluminum tube case.
Conclusion
In any case, it's clear that, when Obeidi decided to come forward with his centrifuge, he walked into a swirling power struggle. Both DIA and CIA wanted credit for and the ability to spin the Obeidi story themselves. And the CIA had already proved its willingness to go to great lengths to maintain its explanation of the aluminum tubes in spite of pre-existing evidence and Obeidi's testimony. The stakes surrounding Obeidi's were high. Which might explain some of the inconsistencies with it.
Comments