Woods: Could you describe the sources of information and the deception operations during
Tarfa: The leaders in Baghdad thought Iran intended to attack the VI Corps sector in the
Hawr al-Ahwar region; Fao was not initially considered an Iranian target. We concen- trated Iraqi troops on the Fao Peninsula across from the Iranian troops in Hawr al- Ahwar. The Iranians believed Iraqi troops in the Fao region were weak, so they sent na- val reconnaissance units to the area. We arrested one of the frogmen, who belonged to the Revolutionary Guards, one month before the Iranian offensive. I interrogated him. He told me that he was assessing the barrier system of the Iraqi forces. This was an indi- cation the Iranians intended to attack the area. Air reconnaissance by MiG-25s also showed engineering efforts on the Iranian side of Shatt al-Arab across from Fao.8 We noticed an increased number of guns, boats, and pontoons. That confirmed Iran‘s inten- tions. The VII Corps was responsible for defending Fao. The VI Corps, comprising the 15th and 26th Divisions, was to the north of Fao. We mentioned in our reports Iranian intentions regarding Fao. However, General Mahmoudi did not want that assessment submitted because the army chief of staff, General Abdul Dhannoun, did not agree with it. He said, ‗You cannot pinpoint where the Iranians are going to attack. How am I going to maneuver the troops? You need not mention this much about intentions so I could use fewer troops.‘ Our intention was to protect Fao; we did not allow the army chief of staff to withdraw troops from Fao. On the other hand, we were supposed to support the troops there, which required him to bring troops from other sectors. When General Mahmoudi arrived in Fao, nothing was there. He visited the 26th Division; their sector appeared quiet. He did not see matters as we did. He thought he was smarter than we were. He even told the commander of the 26th Division that his officers could be given leave. We sensed danger in the area, but we were just low-ranking officers and could not do any- thing. I was a major then. The majority of the officers were either lieutenant colonels or colonels. This issue was related to Ba‘ath Party politics: General Abdul Jawad Dhan- noun was General Mahmoudi‘s superior within the Ba‘ath Party. The party should not have interfered with military issues because it affected its professionalism.
Woods: Did General Shahin agree with your reports?
Tarfa: No, he did not. By the way, it was not my report. It was a report by all of us. I was just
one of the authors.
8
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 was a Soviet-designed high-supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance- bomber aircraft introduced in the early 1970s.
Murray: Did you get the sense that that the leaders of the intelligence agencies were trying to
keep their bosses happy by telling them what they wanted to hear?
Tarfa: Exactly. The same was true with regard to keeping Saddam happy. The officers would
say everything is great; they would present hell as heaven to him. Saddam would be happy and laugh.
Woods: The degree to which foreign intelligence was used in 1986 was significant. Informa-
tion was provided by the United States, France, and the Soviet Union. Was it used as part of this calculation?
Tarfa: Yes, American intelligence provided us with information before Fao. The Iraqi intelli-
gence service brought a [US government representative], who provided satellite pictures, to meet us. General al-Samarra‘i and I met with him twice. There was cooperation, but there was no direct coordination. We used to sit with him only to exchange information. As a matter of fact, when we looked at the pictures the [US government representative] gave us, it was only raw intelligence, while our information was much more detailed. French, Yugoslav, and Soviet intelligence agencies also cooperated with us. The KGB helped us decipher the Iranian codes. In return, we agreed to provide them with equipment related to the Iranian American-made F-4 aircraft. The American information supported our conclusions regarding Fao, but failed to convince the higher ups. Our information was complete to start with; any information we received from the [US government] was com- plementary. The problem was with the intelligence director.
Murray: After the battle at Fao, did Saddam remove those who were responsible for the intel-
ligence failure?
Tarfa: Immediately. He moved General Mahmoudi to the II Corps. He reassigned General
Sabar al-Duri as the director of military intelligence during the operation at Fao. He then became the commander of the 17th Armored Division, but never became a corps com- mander. General al-Duri later became director of the intelligence service. They move the director of Iran section, Colonel Ayoub, to another section. Colonel Wafir transferred from the VII Corps to the Iran section as director. I stayed with the Iran section through- out the entire period.
Murray: Did Saddam prefer to receive intelligence directly from the analysts rather than
Tarfa: No, not from analysts directly. He used to get the final analysis from the intelligence
group. Our section received considerable raw material on Iran from deciphered codes. I submitted daily reports to the director of the president‘s office of information coordina- tion, Dr. Ekram Othmam, who then submitted the reports to the president. The reports contained the same information I sent to General al-Samarra‘i, the director of the Iran section. The President would follow up on how the intelligence had been exploited. General al-Samarra‘i used to blame me because he knew that I was the one sending this information to the president.
One day early in 1987 after the battle at Fao, an Iranian train was on its way from Tehran to Andimashq city in Yazfur carrying a division of Pasdaran, approximately 5,000 sol- diers. I suggested to the president that we strike the train with the air force, since we knew the train carried a division intending to attack us and we had the train‘s timetable. The president asked the intelligence service to carry out this plan. General al-Samarra‘i, in charge of Iran section, refused to implement the plan because it might disclose our source. The Iranians would know we could decipher their codes. General al-Samarra‘i blamed me and spoke out against me because I had turned the president against him. I suggested that the air force strike the train station among other targets. This way we could prevent the Iranians from realizing we had broken their codes. The air force failed to carry out this plan, because the intelligence service failed to provide the exact time the train would leave the station. I believe the intelligence service did this intentionally to protect its source.
Woods: Did Saddam often search for good intelligence analysts within the intelligence appa-
ratus to provide him his own private information, while allowing the system to produce its reports?
Tarfa: After this instance, he did not do it as often. However, I remained in contact with the
president‘s office regarding the breaking of the Iranian codes. For a while I was no long- er under the control of the intelligence service. I acted independently in terms of break- ing the code.
Woods: After the loss of Fao, besides the leadership changes in the GMID, were there any
other major changes? How did Iraqi intelligence perform during the 1987 Iranian offen- sives against Basra?
Tarfa: There were changes in the commands of the corps and divisions. During the counterat-
tack, they relied on Republican Guard‘s command. There was a complete collapse of the command and control system in the Iranian military intelligence apparatus from Khomeini
all the way down during the liberation of Fao. As a result, our troops crossed the border without encountering any Iranian resistance. Our job as intelligence officers during that phase of the operation was to continuously feed the frontline troops with information. The way intelligence officers look at matters is different from operational soldiers. That is why the president trusted us with setting up deception plans, as well as executing them.
Woods: Did the GMID change in any particular way when the Republican Guard expanded
from a division to a corps? How did that affect intelligence?
Tarfa: The GMID expanded to approximately three directorates and eight sections. In 1986,
we expanded from being a section to being a directorate. The Iran section became the 5th sub-directorate and was run by General al-Samarra‘i. It focused on Iran and was in charge of the secret service, strategic information, tactical information, special opera- tions, and deep reconnaissance. We had agents in every embassy including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Moscow before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Gulf coun- tries. We had sources and wiretap information reaching from the Gulf region and worked on improving our relations with Western intelligence organizations, such as those of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the former Yugoslavia, Argentina, and Brazil. This was all part of our effort to end the war in 1988. The expansion began in 1986, fol- lowing the Iranian seizure of Fao.
Woods: Describe the development of the deep reconnaissance units. How were they orga-
nized? Who did you recruit into them? What was involved in their training? Could you give me some examples of successful deep reconnaissance operations?
Tarfa: We formed two military units in 1985: the 888, special operations; and the 999, deep
reconnaissance. In early 1986, we economized our efforts by rolling Unit 888 into Unit 999, the resulting unit was then in charge of both deep reconnaissance and special opera- tions. The deep reconnaissance training was done by Egyptian Army officers, since they had gone through similar experiences during the war with Israel. Elite officers from spe- cial forces transferred to these units. The soldiers received all types of training: para- chute, underwater training, sabotage, mine sweeping, bridge building, sabotage opera- tions, and languages such as Farsi. This represented a high level of training and required a high level of fitness. Every week we made them march 100 kilometers, and eat gravel, snakes, and scorpions...anything to make them tougher. Approximately 400 soldiers joined. We carried out operations behind Iranian front lines to gather information regard- ing Iranian ranks, weapons, and the types of troops (e.g., whether they were Revolutio-
nary Guard or regular forces). We carried out explosion operations in the Dehloran oil- fields across from Maysan province.
Woods: I read that members from Unit 999 were actually in Tehran trying to assess the effec-
tiveness of Iraqi missile attacks. Was that true?
Tarfa: This is not true. We were effective at gaining information. We had no need to send our
officers to Tehran and risk their lives. We already had 10,000 mujahidin in Tehran. These Iranian opponents of the regime called their families and those helping them from Europe and the Gulf. Iranians were free to move to Europe and the Gulf region. For ex- ample, in September 1986, I went with General Wafiq al-Samarra‘i to Ankara to recruit a senior Iranian air force commander. He was on vacation in Turkey with his family. We coordinated with him through the Iraqi military attaché in Ankara. We provided him with money, took pictures, did some recordings, and told him our future information needs on the Iranian Air Force. This is just one example of the fact that we had a little difficulty obtaining information. Thus, we had no need to risk sending highly trained of- ficers to Tehran.
Woods: Was Iraq intelligence successful at working with other non-Persian groups in Iran,
such as Baluchis?
Tarfa: Our military attachés in Afghanistan and Pakistan gathered information by contacting
the Baluch, the drug dealers, the mafia, etc. Iranian Kurds, Persian Iranians, and Arabs from Ahvaz cooperated with us after 1985.
Woods: How effective or successful were Iranian intelligence operations against Iraq?
Tarfa: Iran used Hakim and the Dawa Party to carry out small terrorist operations in Baghdad
by using bombs; they were not very effective.9 They would occasionally coordinate with Iraqi deserters. The same thing happened to us; they would come to us. It was mutual. There was never a deep penetration.
Murray: How good were the Iranians at penetrating Iraqi intelligence? Did they break Iraqi
codes? Were they good at interrogating Iraqi prisoners?
9
Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammed Baqir al-Hakim was the founder and leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) in Iran, which ran operations against the Ba‘athists. Saddam had most of the al-Hakim family that remained in Iraq killed. In 2003, Baqir was supposedly assassinated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was replaced by his brother Abdul Aziz al-Hakim who became an important power-broker during the US occupation of Iraq. After Abdul Aziz‘s death in 2009, his son Ammar al-Hakim became SCIRI‘s new leader, and SCIRI was renamed Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) to better fit the new politics of Iraq.
Tarfa: Yes, they were good at interrogating prisoners. They pressured them with torture and
then released them. They made them marry Iranian women and fight with the Badr Corps.
In terms of gathering information on our troops, the Iranians were not successful because they did not have air reconnaissance.
They were unable to break our codes, because we did not buy our coding machines; we manufactured them ourselves. We used telephone or wireless to pass along orders. The Iranians were unable to break our codes, so they did not know about our activities, such as our deception operations.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard represented a major problem for us because they also did not use communications equipment. They used couriers instead. Thus, we had diffi- culty gathering information on them. However, we were eventually able to discover their activities and operations. We had full command of the Iranian armed forces, general command, and naval forces codes.
Our knowledge of Iranian codes benefitted us during the confrontation with the United States in 1991.10 We lacked presence in the Gulf region, but we had broken Iranian naval codes. Thus, we were able to monitor American and coalition naval movements via Ira- nian radio traffic. We received deciphered reports regarding the movement of Iranian naval forces in response to the movement of American ships in the Gulf. We had no in- formation except what we got through the Iranians. We collected all of our information through the Iranian naval codes. Thus, we were spying on the Iranians, who were spying on the Americans.
Woods: Can you give me some examples of deception operations? Can you describe for us a
particular one? What were the principles you used?
Tarfa: The most important deception operation occurred during the liberation of Fao. We
needed to send Iraqi forces closer to Fao, but did not want to alert the Iranians of our in- tention to attack their position on Fao. Before we sent Iraqi troops south, we made it ap- pear as though we thought Iran intended to attack Basra from Fao. Therefore our troops appeared to be heading to the defense of Basra. So the Iranian‘s started running a decep- tion of their own, pretending to send troops to reinforce our ‗belief‘ there really was going to be an attack on Basra. In the mean time, we sent Unit 999 behind Iranian front
10
The United States as part of the United Nations coalition forces fought against Iraq (17 January 1991–28 February 1991) in the First Gulf War after Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990.
lines. They followed the movement of Iranian vehicles and equipment coming from Ah- vaz toward Fao. The Iranians tried to deceive us by visibly sending personnel vehicles toward Fao; however, our Unit 999 soldiers could see through the open backs of the ve- hicles and reported them empty. Air reconnaissance showed troop movement, but we knew this was a deception. Thus, the Iranians saw our deception and then tried to trick us into believing further that they were about to attack from Fao by sending empty trucks. We set up a deception that triggered theirs and reinforced our original deception. We also sent the minister of defense, Adnan Kharaillah, to northern Iraq to visit troops and all the commanders. The commanders were in the south preparing their troops by the time his visit was aired on television.
When the Republican Guard attacked Fao, Iranian troops were caught totally by surprise. We appeared to be in a defensive posture, but we attacked them because they did not know our troop numbers or our intention to liberate Fao.