The massacre in Iraq that made the CNI bigger

Intelligence activities in Spain have a short bibliography of their own. Hence the special value of 'Three Days in November', a book that, although limited to a brief episode, shows that Spain's espionage and counter-espionage work has come of age. The death of seven members of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) in a jihadist attack near Baghdad on November 29, 2003 -the only survivor is the author of the book- was the greatest setback suffered by Spanish intelligence, in human terms, in its decades of existence. In spite of that tragic end, the story also highlights the strong commitment of the CNI in the world geopolitical chessboard and its fight against the great disruptive phenomenon of the moment, the Islamist terrorism. The events, even though they highlighted some shortcomings (lack of armored cars, inadequate weaponry, insufficient information on the vulnerability of the road being traveled), also helped to make a leap in experience.

The book by José Manuel Sánchez Riera, a military officer who was part of the CNI for two decades until he was forced to leave the service due to the after-effects of the attack suffered in Iraq, is made up of three parts, all three of which are of undoubted interest to the general public. The shortest is the one that reference letter to the CNI itself: lacking certain public information, Spaniards are largely unaware of the tasks of information collection and analysis carried out by the State to guarantee the security of citizens, basically through the CNI, created as CSID at the beginning of the Franco regime and renamed at the beginning of democracy. Although logically, due to the very nature of its work, little data can be offered on the CNI's activity, the explanation offered by these few pages constitutes a good example of dissemination. The second part of the book, the most extensive, refers to what happened in the 'three days of November', which is read with intense interest and shrinking spirits. The third part provides a more intimate content that, by presenting the emotional vicissitudes caused by the post-traumatic stress syndrome suffered by the author, financial aid to position the long-lasting psychological problems that cause traumas of this subject and suffered by many of the victims of terrorism.

We have to thank Sánchez Riera for having the courage to revisit, with this book, events as traumatic for him as they are important in the history of Spanish intelligence (with the added effort of having to spend time in the bureaucratic hassle of examining with the CNI what information could be offered publicly). Likewise, that he wanted to open up his staff s life to us so that other victims of comparable choks could be treated with greater understanding and social financial aid .

The mission statement that took Sánchez Riera to Iraq was a staff substitution operation. Four members of the CNI who had been sent to that country after the fall of Saddam -their goal was to support with intelligence work the security of the Spanish troops deployed there in response to the UN request- were to be replaced after six months by four other colleagues. Before the replacement was effective, both teams met for a few days in Iraq to facilitate the transfer of information and sources. On the first day of their meeting , they took a group photo which, in an absolutely unusual internship , the CNI would divulge

after the tragedy occurred two conference later, as a tribute to the deceased (whose names, along with that of Sánchez Riera, were announced immediately). Given the nature of the mission statement, all eight were military personnel. The photo, easy to find on the Internet, is not included in the book, whose cover, however, reproduces one of the two cars in which the Spaniards were traveling and which ended up completely burned.

Being the only survivor of the group was a recurrent inner mortification for Sánchez Riera. Ordered by his superior, during the attack, to go to look for financial aid in the vicinity, this saved him from dying in the confrontation with the aggressors, although it left him in the hands of a mob that mistreated him and almost ended his life. The question of why the others died and he did not would later become an obsession.

The book reads avidly; the well-written narrative flows smoothly. The text goes to the point, without the need to spend space explaining the gestation and development of the Iraq war, nor to enter into a discussion about the decisions of José María Aznar's government in relation to it. The author points out some deficiencies in the conditions of the operation, but does not question the CNI, of which he sample a proud defender.