Billmon: Dining With the Devil

We're starting to see the fruits of the Pentagon's labors to recreate the old Baath Party security agency, the Mukhabaret. And, as predicted here, the fruits are pretty damned rancid:

According to intelligence officials in Baghdad, whose clearances bar them from speaking publicly, Iraq's security services have hundreds of "ghost soldiers" -- members who vanish, sometimes for months on end, but continue to draw their pay. The fear is that they are working for the insurgency while keeping up their ties in uniform.

Newsweek
The Enemy Spies
June 19, 2005

Even if some kind of workable security service can patched together from the remains of Saddam's Mukhabaret, it's likely to be thoroughly penetrated almost instantly by agents still working for the old, not the new, boss.

Whiskey Bar
Rock Bottom
August 24, 2003