Eli Lake: CIA's Covert Iraq Mission

Obama claims that US troops are leaving Iraq, but the future of secret counter-terrorism and intelligence programs inside the country is still being hashed out. Eli Lake on how big a footprint the CIA will leave behind: As the US military departs Iraq, president Obama declares the Iraq war over. The CIA is now looking how it can absorb and continue secret counter-terrorism and intelligence programs run inside that country for years by the Joint Special Operations Command and other military organizations, officials tell The Daily Beast. The programs involve everything, from the development of remote sensors that scan the wireless spectrum of terrorist safe havens to stealth US-Iraqi counter-terrorism commando teams, and their status is uncertain as a US diplomatic team negotiates with Iraqi leaders, according to officials, who made clear the CIA intends to keep a footprint inside the country, even as troops leave by December 31. "There are, of course, parts of the counter-terrorism mission that the intelligence community, including CIA, will be able to take on from other organizations, and there are parts of that mission that it won't," said one US counter-terrorism official, who requested anonymity, because of the sensitivity of secret negotiations with the Iraqis. But the official added: "This idea that the US military and the CIA are somehow interchangeable is misinformed, they work together closely on some counter-terrorism issues, but their missions, expertise, and authorities are fundamentally different. When the US military leaves Iraq, some things just won't happen anymore."