Iraq war ends Syrian intelligence co-operation

[CyberPundit]

A fascinating article by (who else?) Seymour Hersh in the latest issue of the New Yorker about how the Iraq war along with the bellicose rhetoric of the Bush administration has ended Syrian co-operation with the CIA.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030728fa_fact

American intelligence and State Department officials have told me that by early 2002 Syria had emerged as one of the C.I.A.’s most effective intelligence allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, providing an outpouring of information that came to an end only with the invasion of Iraq.

The Syrians had compiled hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, including dossiers on the men who participated—and others who wanted to participate—in the September 11th attacks. Syria also penetrated Al Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and in Arab exile communities throughout Europe. That data began flowing to C.I.A. and F.B.I. operatives.

However the relationship no longer exists:

There is no security relationship now,” a Syrian foreign-ministry official told me. “It saddens us as much as it saddens you. We could give you information on organizations that we don’t think should exist. If we help you on Al Qaeda, we are helping ourselves.” He added, almost plaintively, that if Washington had agreed to discuss certain key issues in a back channel, “we’d have given you more. But when you publicly try to humiliate a country it’ll become stubborn.

As usual the real professionals in Washingtons are angry at the neo-con ideologues:

The collapse of the liaison relationship has left many C.I.A. operatives especially frustrated. “The guys are unbelievably pissed that we’re blowing this away,” a former high-level intelligence official told me. “There was a great channel at Aleppo. The Syrians were a lot more willing to help us, but they”—Rumsfeld and his colleagues—“want to go in there next."

This is an important story because it exemplifies how the war against Iraq (a second-order threat at worst) has distracted from the fight against a first-order threat  like Al-quaeda. Syria is a nasty regime but was clearly a useful partner in some respects. Handling this kind of delicate relationship is essential to a sound foreign policy; instead tbe Bush administration has apparently blown it in the most egregiously clumsly manner imaginable.

[PatriotX]

Yet another example of how the invasion of Iraq has mad the US less safe.
I’ve come down off the fence. Impeach Bush and imprison the rest of the lot of 'em for endangering national security.

[Leaper]

'Course, you know that the Adminstration and their apologists will say that this proves that Syria has something to hide, and that this means we need to invade them ASAP.

Simply inexcusable. Even if the war was a good thing, surely we could have handled this situation better…

[Boo_Boo_Foo]

Yes, certainly, I must concede that the fight against terrorist cells suffered a major setback due to the Iraq invasion.

There was a period of about 4 months after 9/11 where the USA had carte blanche in terms of good will, and unlimited offers of assistance in her quest to rid the world of terrorist cells.

I’m loathe to criticise the USA - she has a tough role in this world of ours - but I must confess that, with hindsight, I fear that the USA could not possibly have squandered that “good will” with greater efficiency.

When all is said and done, terrorist cells are NOT nation states - and the use of military strength ultimately is a red herring it seems to me. Terrorist cells, even though they are capable of seemigly dreadful mass destruction, ultimately require amazingly potent police work on the ground to root them out. And THAT is where the good will has been squandered I would suggest.

[Fang]

*Originally posted by Boo Boo Foo *
**When all is said and done, terrorist cells are NOT nation states - and the use of military strength ultimately is a red herring it seems to me. Terrorist cells, even though they are capable of seemigly dreadful mass destruction, ultimately require amazingly potent police work on the ground to root them out. And THAT is where the good will has been squandered I would suggest. **

True to some extent but if we rely solely on police work then we are virtually guaranteeing attacks. The cell system is designed specifically to make investigative work difficult, and thus while police work is in many senses the most important, it is also in a manner of speaking the last line of defense. Rather like trying to catch all the Mafia’s gunmen instead of bringing down Capone. The cells know little about each other, and really can only provide information about the person one level above them. Military action is not the be-all end-all of counter-terrorism, but certainly not a red herring either. It can be used to destroy bases and infrastructure, along with eliminating governments that harbor terrorists. It must be used in combination with economic, police, and intelligence action to defeat terrorist groups.

That said, the Iraq war was a mistake in terms of the war against international terrorism. While I think in the long term fostering liberal democracy in the region is important (and possibly the only good long-term solution to the terrorism problem), the massive commitment of military power, financial assets, and, in this case, political capital taken out of the fight against al-Qaeda has harmed US (and others’) national security NOW. I don’t think it’s right what the Syrians are doing, and while I can’t place all the blame at the US’s door, as the Syrians clearly have a choice, it was overall a stupid decision to sacrifice a greater goal (success against al-Qaeda) for a lesser (overthrow of Saddam’s regime).