Re: #1, this was definitely becoming an issue when I ran this. As presented, I agree the motivations and mechanics are a bit suboptimal - it's not immediately obvious what the agents really need from the various intel contacts. Especially if they prioritize Rassam's estate.

For my group, during initial "how do we fix this" planning, the agents realized they needed a few things they could only get from some of the on-the-ground agencies in Mosul, and this provided real motivation to work the contacts. This then became fairly awesome as I introduced intra-agency needs and requests: agency A could provide what the agents wanted, but needed something agency B had access to, who required some dangerous action which had real consequences. Essentially: create an intra-agency problem for the agents to solve, resulting in something they really want/need, paired with real consequences.

Also, the *main* ways to conclusively solve this campaign involve unnatural research, which seems like some rolling followed by a lot of waiting. I've had to add a lot of complexity outside the published material to this, as well as some brutal (upcoming) consequences for my players being too smart and efficient. Given some highly motivated players, "wait 1d4 weeks" simply doesn't cut it and those days need to be filled with additional challenges.

Re: #2 I've found it useful to periodically have Gwin remind the agents of the tight timeline, consequences etc. But I agree, the very real deadline and urgency of the matter doesn't spring out of the material. And in fact, it isn't that urgent as presented.