George Shultz says that life in official Washington is not one damn thing after another. It is the same damn thing over and over again.
...In Iraq today the CIA is building an Iraqi spy agency from the ruins of Saddam Hussein's Mukhabarat -- the secret police unit that was at war with Iran and Syria for two decades. Like ex-Nazis recruited to fight the Soviet peril, these Iraqis come with useful skills and experience in trying to destabilize Tehran. Some of them were on the job during the Iran-Iraq war, when the Reagan administration (in which Shultz served) shared U.S. intelligence with Hussein's regime to prevent the revolutionary ayatollahs of Iran from taking Baghdad. Old intelligence connections die hard.
WaPo article
...In Iraq today the CIA is building an Iraqi spy agency from the ruins of Saddam Hussein's Mukhabarat -- the secret police unit that was at war with Iran and Syria for two decades. Like ex-Nazis recruited to fight the Soviet peril, these Iraqis come with useful skills and experience in trying to destabilize Tehran. Some of them were on the job during the Iran-Iraq war, when the Reagan administration (in which Shultz served) shared U.S. intelligence with Hussein's regime to prevent the revolutionary ayatollahs of Iran from taking Baghdad. Old intelligence connections die hard.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
