Now that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have left a California-sized canvas on which to create a new Arab state, some analysts see the United States embedding an intricate network of technological and human spy assets that would function long after U.S. troops have left.
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Though Rumsfeld indicated that the officials were providing what he described as useful information, captured leaders of a defeated regime are historically unreliable, said Timothy Naftali, an intelligence historian and a consultant on the declassification of U.S. intelligence documents under the Nazi War Crimes Act of 1999.

Imprisoned functionaries often make up things in order to magnify their importance and perhaps avoid prosecution for war crimes -- or even get a CIA job.

"None of the Nazi Party intelligence officers whom we employed were worth the moral cost of that contract," Naftali said. "Most of what they provided was invented. They saw this as a way to survive in an otherwise anarchic world. We could not corroborate what they told us."

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The United States seemed to de-emphasize human assets after about 1983, when the U.S. embassy in Beirut was blown up, killing several top intelligence officers holding a regional meeting.

Since then, critics have cited the lack of human intelligence as the reason several anti-U.S. terrorist attacks were successful.

Rand Corp. intelligence analyst Bruce Berkowitz, a former CIA analyst and currently a consultant to Rumsfeld's office, said today's espionage efforts need people primarily to aid technical intelligence.

"Digital, fiber optic, heavily encrypted communications you need to get close enough to touch the thing," he said. "That means you need human intelligence."

» New Iraq is a potential launch pad for U.S. espionage in Middle East