BAGHDAD – Reports on a trove of leaked Iranian intelligence documents drovehome the depth of its influence in Iraq on Monday, where anti-governmentprotesters have accused Tehran of meddling and overreach.
The New York Times and online publication The Intercept reported that thehundreds of documents from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Securitypainted a rich picture of Iran’s clout in Iraq.
Among the revelations, they said, was how Iran had recruited former CIAinformants after the United States pulled out its troops in 2011, leavingthe assets “jobless and destitute” and ready to share their knowledge.
And in one meeting between military intelligence officers from bothcountries, the Iraqi side had reportedly signalled to Iran: “All of theIraqi Army’s intelligence — consider it yours.”
Iraq has had close but complex ties with its large eastern neighbour, whosesway among Iraqi political and military actors grew vastly after the US-ledinvasion of 2003.
The new reports served to confirm the sentiment of protesters acrossBaghdad and the Shiite-majority south who oppose the current government andits backers in Iran.
“Iran is intervening in our country,” one demonstrator said. “But we, thepeople, are the decision makers.”
The demonstrator, a veiled Iraqi woman in her sixties, also greeted thefact that Iran had been hit by its own wave of protests since Friday,triggered by a sharp rise in petrol prices.
“The spark that started in Iraq has reached Iran,” she said.The New York Times (NYT) and The Intercept said they had verified around700 pages of reports written mainly in 2014 and 2015, received from ananonymous source.
The source had said they wanted to “let the world know what Iran is doingin my country Iraq”.
The media outlets said the leaked documents “offer a detailed portrait ofjust how aggressively Tehran has worked to embed itself into Iraqi affairs,and of the unique role of General (Qasem) Soleimani”.
Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite QudsForce, is Tehran’s point man on Iraq and travels there frequently duringtimes of political turmoil.
As Iraq faces its largest and deadliest protests in decades, Soleimani haschaired meetings in Iraq in recent weeks.
As a result of those talks, sources have said, Iraq’s rival politicalparties have agreed to close rank around their embattled prime minister.
In one of the Iranian leaks, Adel Abdel Mahdi is described as having had a“special relationship” with Tehran when he was Iraq’s oil minister in 2014.
The prime minister’s office said it had “no comment” for the time being onthe report.
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Iran and Iraq fought a devastating war from 1980 to 1988 and were ferociousfoes under dictator Saddam Hussein.
Many Iraqi dissidents under the Saddam regime sheltered in Iran butreturned to political life in Baghdad following the brutal ruler’s ousterin 2003.
Iran has therefore enjoyed close ties with the new generation of Iraqipoliticians and has helped train military actors including in the Hashedal-Shaabi paramilitary network.
It is also a major trading partner, selling crucial electricity and naturalgas to supplement Iraq’s gutted power sector as well as goods ranging fromfruit to carpets and cars.
Iran has used wide-ranging intelligence operations to maintain that deepinfluence, the NYT and The Intercept reported.
Its major goals were to “keep Iraq from falling apart and prevent theemergence of an independent Kurdistan, among other strategic aims”.The “greater focus,” the NYT report said, was “on maintaining Iraq as aclient state of Iran and making sure that political factions loyal toTehran remain in power”.
Iran’s out sized influence has come under fire from protesters who accuseit of propping up a corrupt and inefficient system they want to bring down.
Crowds again hit the streets, and schools and government offices remainedshut, in Iraq’s southern hotspots of Kut, Najaf, Diwaniyah and Nasiriyah onMonday.
Protesters also burnt car tyres and blocked roads leading to oil fieldssouth of the port city of Basra.
In Baghdad, crowds again swelled in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, and on thenearby Al-Sinek and Al-Ahrar (Free Men) bridges, said an AFP correspondent.
Security forces set up cement barriers around the central bank building,several kilometres away, to protect it from attacks, said a police source.
Across Tahrir, demonstrators expressed solidarity with what they saw as anew sister protest movement in Iran.
“Today, the Iranian people are just like the Iraqis,” 55-year-old protesterAbdulhadi said. “Both are demanding their stolen rights and [mobilising]against the rule of our neighbour and against corrupt leaders.” -APP/AFP
