Intelligence Centers in Iraq

One must take DEBKA's reports with a grain of salt, but I'd be surprised if this weren't true. Meet the new Mukhabarat, same as the old Mukhabarat. Well, no, not as psychotically violent, but with vastly superior technology and a lot more money.

The Americans are secretly building two giant intelligence facilities in Iraq at a cost of some half a billion dollars, according to an exclusive report received from DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources. US engineering and construction units are setting up what amounts to an "intelligence city" on a site north of the oil city of Mosul in Kurdistan and a second facility in Baghdad’s Saadun district on the east bank of the Tigris. Our military experts infer from the vast dimensions of the two projects and their colossal expense that it is Washington’s intention to retain a large US military presence in Iraq in the long term, for a decade at least.

The new installations will greatly enhance America’s military, intelligence and electronic command and control over Iraq and its neighbors, notably Iran and Syria. The Mosul facility will guard northern Iraq’s oilfields and the pipelines carrying Iraqi gas and oil to Mediterranean terminals. Its instruments will reach into every corner of Iran and Syria, replacing America’s electronic eyes and ears in southern Turkey. This facility will be activated a section at a time according to need. Upon completion at the end of 2005, it will employ an operating staff of around 4,000 American intelligence personnel and electronic engineers.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Middle East sources report that the intelligence center going up near Mosul is causing much nervousness in Damascus and Tehran. Both governments understand that when the first sections are activated in three months time, not a single military or intelligence move of theirs will go unseen by America’s electronic spies – and that goes for terrorist activity as well.

The functions assigned the Baghdad station are different. While the Mosul center will provide early warning against external threats to the US military presence in Iraq, the Baghdad station will stand guard over America’s political and military control of the capital and its satellite towns, including the Sunni enclave cities of Falluja, Ramadi and Tikrit.

An "intelligence city?" Sounds like they're settling in for the long haul.