July 11, 2014
McClatchy Foreign Staff
Source: McClatchyDC
IRBIL, Iraq — A supposedly
secret but locally well-known CIA station on the outskirts of Irbil’s
airport is undergoing rapid expansion as the United States considers
whether to engage in a war against Islamist militants who’ve seized
control of half of Iraq in the past month.
Western contractors
hired to expand the facility and a local intelligence official confirmed
the construction project, which is visible from the main highway
linking Irbil to Mosul, the city whose fall June 9 triggered the Islamic
State’s sweep through northern and central Iraq. Residents around the
airport say they can hear daily what they suspect are American drones
taking off and landing at the facility.
Expansion of the facility
comes as it seems all but certain that the autonomous Kurdish regional
government and the central government in Baghdad, never easy partners,
are headed for an irrevocable split _ complicating any U.S. military
hopes of coordinating the two entities’ efforts against the Islamic
State.
The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government angered Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki when early in the crisis it sent its
pershmerga militia to seize the long-contested city of Kirkuk when Iraqi
troops abandoned it. Relations have deteriorated since. On Wednesday,
Maliki accused Kurdish President Massoud Barzani sheltering Islamic
State members. The next day, Barzani demanded that Maliki resign.
Overnight,
Kurdish troops seized oil fields operated by Iraq’s Northern Oil Co.,
whose exports had been controlled by the central government, and on
Friday, Kurdish legislators began a boycott of the Iraqi government.
The
developments all come as the United States, which has said it won’t
come to Iraq’s assistance unless Maliki takes steps to make his
government more inclusive, is expected to announce early next week its
assessment of the military situation in the country. Pentagon officials
said the assessment might be made public as early as Monday.
But
U.S. officials have known for some time that it was likely that they’d
need to coordinate any steps it takes both in Baghdad and in Irbil,
where the peshmerga has worked closely over the years with the CIA, U.S.
special forces and the Joint Special Operations Command, the military’s
most secretive task force, which has become a bulwark of
counterterrorism operations. Peshmerga forces already are manning
checkpoints and bunkers to protect the facility, which sits just a few
hundred yards from the highway.
“Within a week of the fall
of Mosul we were being told to double or even triple our capacities,”
said one Western logistics contractor who spoke only on the condition of
anonymity because he’d signed nondisclosure agreements with the U.S.
government on the matter.
“They needed everything from warehouse
space to refrigeration capacity, because they operate under a different
logistics command than the normal military or embassy structures,” the
contractor said. “The expansion was aggressive and immediate.”
Other
contractors who deal extensively with moving heavy equipment through
Irbil’s airport, which has supported a rapidly expanding oil and gas
drilling industry, said they were aware of the expansion. One British
oil executive said he’d detected a “low-key but steady stream of men,
equipment and supplies for an obvious expansion of the facility.” The
local Kurdish intelligence official described what was taking place as a
“long-term relationship with the Americans.”
In a
statement July 3, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that
Irbil would host such a center, in addition to one being set up in
Baghdad, and suggested that it had already begun operating.
“We
have personnel on the ground in Irbil, where our second joint operations
center has achieved initial operating capability,” he said then.
“It’s
no secret that the American special forces and CIA have a close
relationship with the peshmerga,” said the Kurdish official, who spoke
only on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing covert
military operations. He added that the facility had operated even “after
the Americans were forced out of Iraq by Maliki,” a reference to the
2011 U.S. troop withdrawal after the Obama administration and the Iraqi
government couldn’t agree on a framework for U.S. forces remaining in
the country.
The official refused to directly identify the
location of the facility but when he was shown the blurred-out location
on an online satellite-mapping service he joked, “The peshmerga do not
have the influence to make Google blur an area on these maps. I will
leave the rest to your conclusions.”
But the official wasn’t shy discussing the past arrangement and potential for a future expansion of the relationship.
“Most
of our ‘mukhabarat’ worked directly alongside both the CIA and JSOC
throughout the war in Iraq because of our language ability and long
experience battling both Saddam and radical terrorists,” he said, using
the Arabic term for “information office,” usually ascribed to local
intelligence.
“Peshmerga fighters fought closely alongside the
American Green Berets throughout northern Iraq in places like Mosul, Tal
Afar and Kirkuk because we are very professional and trusted,” he said.
“And many of our men would work directly with the most secret units as
interpreters and Iraqi experts.”
During a recent visit to the
site, extensive construction of new roads off the main highway could be
seen, as well as what appeared to be construction of a fortified gate
complex to protect access, which previously had been controlled by a
simple dirt road and checkpoint flanked by two bunkers guarded by men in
peshmerga uniforms.
Armored sport utility vehicles driven by
military-appearing Westerners in civilian clothes were seen entering and
exiting the facility in convoy fashion.
“Irbil is a very
friendly place for people in the intelligence business,” a Western
military attache said on the condition he not be identified because of
the diplomatic sensitivity of the matter. “So many locals worked with
the Americans and remember them fondly, that you didn’t need the
hardened defenses that you’d find normally this close to a battlefield.”
The
attache said the existence of the facility had long been known to
residents. “Nobody cared before because everyone is on good terms,” he
said.
A retired American special forces officer said it would be a
relatively simple matter for the United States to work with peshmerga
forces. “A lot of those pesh guys were known and respected for their
training and trustworthiness by ODA, OGA and the Secret Squirrels long
before the 2003 invasion,” he said, using the acronyms for “Operational
Detachment Alpha,” the official designation of the Green Berets, and
“other government agency,” a common slang term for the CIA. “Secret
Squirrels” is a term soldiers use to describe Joint Special Operations
Command units that usually don’t have an obvious unit designation.
A
special operations officer, who spoke only on the condition of
anonymity because he’s legally bound not to publicly discuss his career
without specific Defense Department permission, said working with the
Kurds would overcome a number of difficult issues that would be present
as U.S. advisers worked with the Iraqi army.
“It’s a natural fit
that as these guys look around at the collapsed Iraqi army and how all
of its remaining competent units are either infiltrated by or directly
led by Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders that there would be a high
degree of discomfort directly operating with them,” he said.
“But the
Kurds are trustworthy, reliable and already know how to fight alongside
your units. It’s a natural fit to run an operation from Irbil with the
pesh, while the other advisers in Baghdad try to stem the bleeding of
the Iraqi army and protect that huge U.S. embassy complex.”
He
also noted there are advantages to working with Kurdish forces if the
United States decides to launch airstrikes against Islamic State
positions.
“Airstrikes are close to useless without good
intelligence and targeting, and that’s going to be hard to come by on
the Baghdad side of things,” he said. “To me it’s a no-brainer. The only
real way you can do that is with the Kurds.”
Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this report from Washington.
Link: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/07/11/233126/expansion-of-secret-facility-in.html.
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