CIA Agents Who Were On The Ground Before The 2003 Invasion Of Iraq Are Now Speaking Up

A statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad on April 9, 2003. (Reuters/Goran Tomasevic/file)

Aaron Gell, Task & Purpose: CIA Agents Were On The Ground Before We Invaded Iraq, And They Knew It Was Going To Be A Clusterf*@k

Months before war was declared, a covert team of CIA paramilitaries and Green Berets slipped unnoticed into northern Iraq. They surveyed the battlespace, struck a deal with the enemy — and foresaw the disaster to come.

On March 20, America will be celebrating — if that’s the right word for it — the 15th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, one of the most well-executed projections of U.S. military might in history. Despite fears that we were underestimating Saddam Hussein’s capabilities (not to mention an elaborate $250 million dress rehearsal during which the team playing the enemy quickly decimated the U.S. fleet), a coalition including American, British, Australian and Polish armed forces managed to seize control of the country within a mere 21 days, with relatively few casualties on either side.

Leaving aside the difficulties presented by the subsequent occupation, Operation Iraqi Freedom was an impressive feat of warfighting, arguably every bit the “cakewalk” that one widely mocked column predicted it would be.

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WNU Editor: For those who are interested in the 2003 Iraq invasion, a story on what did the CIA was doing in northern Iraq before the invasion.