The intelligence crisis in Iraq: political fragmentation and the challenge of reform

This article examines the transformation of Iraq’s intelligence agencies from Ba’athist instruments of authoritarian control to fragmented entities shaped by ethno-sectarian and political rivalries after 2003. Using a historical institutionalist framework, it analyses how legacies, critical junctures, and incremental changes produced today’s dysfunctional intelligence order. The study operationalises ‘intelligence effectiveness’ through proxies of warning lead time, interdiction ratio, and cross-agency fusion, linking theory to measurable outcomes. Drawing on archival sources, official documents, and more than sixty interviews with intelligence officials (2023–2025), it demonstrates how the dissolution of Iraq’s intelligence structures and their subsequent partisan capture created parallel organs serving factions rather than the state. These dynamics undermined counterterrorism effectiveness against AQI and ISIS, contributing to catastrophic failures such as the fall of Mosul in 2014. The article concludes with a reform roadmap, emphasising legal clarity, depoliticization, oversight, and inclusivity, situated in the current context of UNAMI’s drawdown and residual ISIS threats.