Iraqi leader to meet president at White House on Friday, although requests for US military aid will not be met

Almost every day brings an addition to the list of nations angered about the pervasive surveillance capabilities of the United States. Except for one, which wants as much US spy expertise as President Obama will provide: Iraq.

The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, will meet Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon. Maliki is on his first trip to the US in two years, amidst an onslaught of violence in his country not seen since the worst days of the US occupation.

US officials say Maliki is unlikely to leave Washington having secured the US military hardware he has sought, such as Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter jets and air-defense systems. But Maliki has been vocal in expressing his desire for US intelligence aid as well, a request to which US officials have signaled their receptivity.

“We are talking with the Americans and we are telling them we need to benefit from their experience, from intelligence information and from training from those who are targeting al-Qaida in a developed, technical, scientific way,” Maliki said at the US Institute of Peace on Thursday.

Obama administration officials say they stand ready to help Iraq, and are more receptive to the intelligence-sharing request than they are to requests to provide Maliki with US forces, to train his military.

“We do want to help the Iraqis develop the capability to target these [terrorist] networks effectively and precisely,” a senior administration official told reporters. “Some of the requests are in that line.”

The official would not specify intelligence systems or methods sought by Maliki to target a rising tide of terrorist attacks by Sunni extremists, which have prompted and fueled the revival of Shia militias, some backed by Iran. There is much speculation that Washington will approve new drone strikes or drone surveillance over Iraqi airspace to assist Maliki; the US has a launchpad for drones north-west of Iraq, at Turkey’s Incirlik air base.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Residents gather at the site of a bomb attack in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, 106 miles north of Baghdad, on 31 October. Photograph: Reuters

Maliki’s visit to Washington comes amidst great skepticism about the sectarian, Shia character of his administration and his closeness to Iran. A bipartisan Senate letter to Obama this week, signed by influential senators on the foreign relations and armed services committee, complained of Maliki’s “failure of governance”. The letter, however, explicitly endorsed “greater intelligence sharing” with Iraqi security forces.

Intelligence sharing still carries a risk: Maliki’s closest ally is the US's regional adversary, Iran. The New Yorker reported recently that Iraq’s rejection of a residual US military force in 2011, an act that resulted in all but a handful of US troops withdrawing that December, came at the instigation of the Iranian spy chief Qassem Suleimani.

A senior administration official indicated that the US was at least open to the Iraqi spy request.

“When our troops were there, when our troops left, we’ve had a relationship in terms of intelligence cooperation, intelligence sharing, as we do with partners all over the world,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Combatting a rising tide of suicide bombings and insurgent targeting of civilian areas – there were 979 violent deaths in October alone, according to a UN report – means “making sure they have information in terms of where people are located, where it’s coming from, where the funding is coming from, and that’s something we can do pretty effectively,” the official said, adding that the targeting help would be “a key topic of discussion over the course of the visit.”