WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has begun to monitor Iraqis in the United States in an effort to identify potential domestic terrorist threats posed by sympathizers of the Baghdad regime, senior government officials said.
The previously undisclosed intelligence program involves tracking thousands of Iraqi citizens and Iraqi-Americans with dual citizenship who are attending American universities or working at private corporations, and who might pose a risk in the event of a U.S.-led war against Iraq, officials said.
Some targets of the operation are being electronically monitored under the authority of national security warrants. Others are being selected for recruitment as informants, officials said.
In the event of an American invasion of Iraq, officials would intensify the program's mission through arrests and detentions of Iraqis or sympathizers if they are believed to be planning domestic terrorist operations.
Government officials who confirmed the outlines of the program did so in an apparent effort to rebut critics in Congress and elsewhere who have complained in recent days that American intelligence agencies are failing in their war against terror. Senior Democratic senators have said the problems are demonstrated by the government's inability to find Osama bin Laden and identify specific threats since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Iraqi domestic intelligence program is an addition to the government's continuing effort since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to identify citizens of Middle Eastern countries who represent a potential threat.
This week, federal authorities plan to begin asking Arab-Americans to report suspicious activity related to Iraq, a senior government official said.
Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security, declined to comment on the surveillance program, which is classified.
The effort by intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI, to strengthen and expand counterterrorism programs comes at a time of serious discussion in Congress and the Bush administration about whether to create a domestic intelligence agency that collects information about internal threats.
Senior Bush administration counterterrorism officials gathered on Veterans Day at a White House meeting directed by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to discuss whether to strip the FBI of its domestic security responsibilities. The meeting was first reported yesterday by The Washington Post.
No one in the administration has formally proposed creating a domestic intelligence agency, but several officials said a range of ideas were likely to be considered with the creation of a Homeland Security Department.