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U.S. strains to get useful intelligence

Sep-19-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

[Link to Full Article]
By Rick Jervis, Tribune staff reporter

TAL AFAR, Iraq -- The ski-masked informant marched through rows of seated villagers, tapping "terrorists" on the head as he went--this one yes, this one no, this one yes.

The fingered suspects, all military-age men rounded up by U.S. soldiers from a dusty village 20 minutes west of Tal Afar in northern Iraq, were photographed, blindfolded, tied up and driven to a nearby Army base for interrogation.

"All this village is with resistance," said the informant, a 35-year-old local law-enforcement agent whom soldiers call "the Source." Asked how he knew, the man replied, "I came here with my source, and he pointed them out."

But the next day, all but four of the 49 villagers taken to the military base were released for having no usable information or any ties to the insurgency, according to interrogators. Most were refugees from recent clashes between rebels and coalition forces in nearby Tal Afar, they said.

The exercise highlighted the murky science of intelligence-gathering in Iraq, where little distinguishes insurgent from peaceful civilian and informants' motives often are suspect.

The U.S. military has struggled to develop reliable information about the various insurgencies roiling Iraq, and frustrated Army interrogators say soldiers under pressure to produce results often use unchecked and unreliable information to round up detainees, arresting scores of civilians in the process.

U.S. commanders in northern Iraq said the recent mission outside Tal Afar was unique because operations usually are more productive and target fewer civilians. But interrogators at the base disputed that contention.


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