The files keep coming. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi intelligence agency documents are now in the hands of the CIA and Iraqi opposition groups, who’ve collected them from ministries across Baghdad.
Though most are still under CIA control, their contents are beginning to emerge: The latest, the secret police files on Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news channel, described by the Iraqis as “a mobilised instrument of our propaganda”. The Files boast of what they call “close cooperation” with Al Jazeera executives.
Al-Jazeera, based in Gulf State of Qatar, has enjoyed good access to officials and facilities in Iraq – they had the first pictures of what was thought to be Saddam’s safe house.
The Americans and British accused them of bias during the war, and were outraged when the station showed pictures of Coalition POWs.
The intelligence agency documents include files on three agents: two are Baghdad-based employees, the third is a senior Qatar-based executive. His file includes details of a gift of gold to his wife. It talks of his efforts to get air time for Iraqi officials.
Also in his file, a note confirming that copies of letters sent to Al Jazeera by Osama Bin Laden in the wake of 9/11, were passed to Baghdad.
Full details of the files will be published in the Sunday Times tomorrow, whose correspondent has spent several days examining them.
Al-Jazeera has defended its war coverage as robust and independent, more prepared to show the full horrors of the war. Its own office was bombed and one correspondent killed during the American assault on Baghdad.
Al Jazeera executives in the city were not available for comment, but will probably see the release of the files as a further effort to tarnish their name – especially given that the intelligence agency documents are controlled by Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, and by the CIA.
And of course under Saddam Hussein it was virtually impossible for a news organisation trying to work in Iraq not to have some sort of contact with the security apparatus. The question raised by the files is whether Al Jazeera went further than this and in the process compromised their independence.
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