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Over ensuing weeks, Abu Ranin called the names in the address book and concluded that he had the identities of 65 agents--either Iraqis based abroad or their contacts in foreign intelligence services, particularly Syrian and Palestinian. He then traipsed around the Middle East, arranging meetings with the Iraqi agents on various pretenses. Once, for example, he posed as a diamond trader looking to sell gems. Instead of showing up for the assignations, he would hide near the meeting place and surreptitiously photograph the agents. When his dossier was complete, he forwarded it up the I.N.C. chain of command. Exactly what use was made of his work, Abu Ranin isn't certain, but the data would have offered scores of prospects to the Americans working on turning Iraqi agents. And as the story of al-Jaburi, Ahmed and Mahmoud illustrates, one spy can beget another who begets another and so on.
A SINKING SHIP
As war approached and the Iraqi collaborators intensified their work, the underpinnings of Saddam's regime began to quiver noticeably. In the offices of Saddam's son Qusay, commander of the Republican Guard, "a lot of officers told us the coalition had called them or their families, telling them to surrender and offering money," says a former staff member who asks to be called Mohammed. It was the same at the mukhabarat. "Many told us they had been offered money or guarantees of safety or promises of positions of authority in the new government," says a member of the staff in the mukhabarat director's office. More telling was the number of officials who did not report the calls. "We know the Americans called virtually all the senior officers and a lot of the lesser ranks right down to lieutenants, but most of them did not come and tell us," says Mohammed.
When it came to war, most of Saddam's armies either chose flight over fight or were neutered by commanders who had agreed to accommodate the coalition. Colonel Ali Jaffar Hussan al-Duri was not one of them, but his ultimate superior was. Once the fighting had begun, Hussan's division of the al-Quds army, an official Iraqi militia, received what he called "an incredible" order to send half the men home on leave. He challenged the edict with his brigadier, who was equally bemused. They attempted to verify it, but communications had been cut. So they dismissed half the unit and watched the other half vanish soon after. "One top commander, a traitor, can make the whole army disappear," Hussan says, ashamed of his comrades' performance. With the U.S. briefed on the locations of many of Saddam's forces, the Americans devised novel ways to intimidate troops who might have stood their ground. "They broke into our [field] radio and told us they knew our precise locations," says a junior Republican Guard officer.