U.S. spies on Iraqi army, officials say

The first of the operations, launched in March, was an assault in the southern city of Basra on elements of the Mahdi Army, a militia led by anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr. Among the forces Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki deployed were units that had just completed training and did not have a U.S. team assigned to them, which may help explain why American commanders were caught off guard.

Despite its tactical shortcomings, the operation has been portrayed as a major success, a demonstration that the Iraqi army, once viewed as ineffectual, if not incompetent, was emerging as a capable force.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month: "They moved a division inside a few days. And a year ago the Iraqi security forces could never have moved those kinds of forces."

Iraq's parched terrain has been a focal point of U.S. spy satellites for nearly two decades. Satellites were used to capture images of suspected chemical and biological weapons sites before the war, although the suspicions were proved unfounded, and continue to be used to track insurgent movements and the suspected influx of arms from Iran.

The satellites are part of a vast intelligence arsenal the U.S. has deployed in Iraq, including the CIA's largest overseas station, eavesdropping equipment that monitors much of the communications traffic, as well as Predator drones and other aircraft.

But in recent months, U.S. intelligence agencies have aimed the spacecraft's high-resolution lenses at Iraqi military positions and instructed imagery analysts to monitor those units for signs that they are preparing to deploy, officials said.

"What the satellites can do that Predators can't is they can see the country," the former official said. "They can detect big movements every day: That the Iraqi 4th infantry division is here. That Iraqi special forces moved from here. That there is a set of 12 vehicles congregated south of Samarra."

U.S. intelligence officials stressed that the satellites are not being diverted from other high-priority assignments -- including tracking terrorist and insurgent activity -- but are capturing additional images as part of routine sweeps.

Officials also emphasized that the surveillance did not reflect an adversarial relationship. The two militaries continue to coordinate closely and conduct joint operations, officials said, with U.S. military training teams traveling with Iraqi army units. The satellites provide U.S. officials with an independent means of tracking those movements.