US Rejects Iraq’s CIA Invitation
- December 23, 2002
- No Comments
The BBC has an article about the US rejecting Iraq’s offer to bring in CIA agents to help the UN weapons inspectors. At first glance, this may look like the US is bluffing about the intelligence it has on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but I think this is a great move by the US. If the US were to bring in CIA operatives, then two things would likely happen.
First, the US would be giving away bits of information on it’s intelligence methods, locations and moles, which would set us back big time and worst of all endanger the lives of the agents.
Second, at any point in time, Iraq could (and probably would) cry foul and blame the US for spying again, like they did last time. Every one would believe them because we’d have CIA agents over there. Then all this work and time to get into Iraq would’ve been wasted. Now the burden of proof rests squarely on Iraq, which is where it should be. Every intelligence agency worth its salt knows Iraq has WMDs.