Of what use would the death of bogeyman Al-Zarqawi be, if he didn’t leave a little suicide note Safe-House Document? It must be fun being a spook. Thinking up ways to fool all the people all the time. In Craig Unger’s latest Vanity Fair piece, Milt Bearden gives us a little tradecraft. Milt Bearden served as the CIA station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, and he ran covert operations for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Unraveling a disinformation campaign is no easy task. It means entering a kingdom of shadows peopled by would-be Machiavellis who are practiced in the art of deception. “In the world of fabrication, you don’t just drop something and let someone pick it up,” says Bearden. “Your first goal is to make sure it doesn’t find its way back to you, so you do several things. You may start out with a document that is a forgery, that is a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, which makes it hard to track down. You go through cutouts so that the person who puts it out doesn’t know where it came from. And you build in subtle, nuanced errors so you can say, ‘We would never misspell that.’ If it’s very cleverly done, it’s a chess game, not checkers.”

The most interesting thing about the Zarqawi forgery safe house document is that it seems to have been written by a CIA or DIA officer that is determined to keep the United States out of a war in Iran. For example, the ostensible Zarqawi theorizes:

In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is to try and inflame the situation between American and Iraq or between America and the Shi’a in general.

Specifically the Sistani Shi’a, since most of the support that the Americans are getting is from the Sistani Shi’a, then, there is a possibility to instill differences between them and to weaken the support line between them; in addition to the losses we can inflict on both parties. Consequently, to embroil America in another war against another enemy is the answer that we find to be the most appropriate…

We have noticed that the best of these wars to be ignited is the one between the Americans and Iran, because it will have many benefits in favor of the Sunni and the resistance, such as:

1. Freeing the Sunni people in Iraq, who are (30 percent) of the population and under the Shi’a Rule.

2. Drowning the Americans in another war that will engage many of their forces.

3. The possibility of acquiring new weapons from the Iranian side, either after the fall of Iran or during the battles.

4. To entice Iran towards helping the resistance because of its need for its help.

5. Weakening the Shi’a supply line.

The question remains, how to draw the Americans into fighting a war against Iran? It is not known whether American is serious in its animosity towards Iraq, because of the big support Iran is offering to America in its war in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Hence, it is necessary first to exaggerate the Iranian danger and to convince America and the west in general, of the real danger coming from Iran, and this would be done by the following:

1. By disseminating threatening messages against American interests and the American people and attribute them to a Shi’a Iranian side.

2. By executing operations of kidnapping hostages and implicating the Shi’a Iranian side.

3. By advertising that Iran has chemical and nuclear weapons and is threatening the west with these weapons.

4. By executing exploding operations in the west and accusing Iran by planting Iranian Shi’a fingerprints and evidence.

5. By declaring the existence of a relationship between Iran and terrorist groups (as termed by the Americans).

6. By disseminating bogus messages about confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the west and against western interests.

Let us hope for success and for God’s help.

The whole letter is implausible on its face. Zarqawi has (supposedly) been blowing Shiites to bits by the mosqueload. And yet, in the letter, he is worried about “avoid[ing] mistakes that will blemish the image of the resistance and show it as the enemy of the nation.” Puh-leeze.

It looks to me like someone decided to have a good time with the Iran War Party by planting this clever letter in the wreckage. On the surface it supports the stay the course rhetoric of the administration by showing how effective we are in disrupting the resistance (which has next to nothing to do with some one-legged thrice killed Jordanian). That’s basic tradecraft. It’s makes it look like, if this is a phony, it’s a phony that supports the administration. In reality, it’s a phony of a phony. It only helps the administration make the case for staying in Iraq, but, in doing so, it mocks the administration for falling for the act that got us into Iraq and might be used to get us into Iran.

6. By disseminating bogus messages about confessions showing that Iran is in possession of weapons of mass destruction or that there are attempts by the Iranian intelligence to undertake terrorist operations in America and the west and against western interests.

Now, that is some funny, spooky, stuff. I bet a lot of intel guys are having a very private chuckle about the artfulness of this one.