IJ Reilly
Oct 12, 2004, 10:20 AM
Excerpts from a lengthy and remarkable story.
CIA report says the Iraqi leader assumed the agency knew he didn't have banned weaponry.
WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein was convinced he won the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
And when he destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction after that war, Hussein was sure the CIA knew it.
As a result, he saw 12 years of United Nations resolutions, trade sanctions and threats of war as a charade to humiliate him.
In Hussein's view, Washington and Baghdad should have been close allies. He could have helped curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offered to become America's "best friend in the region, bar none." He was certain U.S. forces would never invade.
Hussein's looking-glass view of the world is vividly described in the report last week by Charles A. Duelfer, the CIA's chief weapons investigator. The document is based on a variety of sources, including interrogations of Hussein himself. A close reading of the report, along with interviews with intelligence officials and outside experts, sheds new light on Hussein's mind-set leading up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Duelfer argues that for Americans to understand Hussein's baffling decision to defy U.N. resolutions and face disaster they must "see the universe from Saddam's point in space."
Yet the reverse is also true. If Hussein misunderstood the West, it's clear that successive administrations in Washington since 1991 projected their own misconceptions and misjudgments onto Hussein. They also had a looking-glass view.
They saw evidence of banned weapons when none existed. They missed signs that now seem obvious. President Bush, for example, insisted before the war that the failure by U.N. teams to find any evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons despite 731 inspections in the four months before the invasion simply proved that Hussein was hiding them — not that they didn't exist.
"I sometimes wonder, what part of the word 'no' didn't we understand?" mused a Pentagon official who has long studied Hussein's regime.
...
The former official said the CIA never understood that Hussein was bluffing about his long-abandoned weapons chiefly to deter Iran, Iraq's longtime enemy. To Hussein, Tehran's alleged push to gain the nuclear arms that he was denied posed an unacceptable danger to his country and a challenge to his rightful place in history.
CIA officials heard dire threats in Hussein's bombastic speeches. They assumed banned weapons were in trucks and buildings they could not enter. They believed defectors with codenames like "Curveball" and "Red River," who told them what they wanted to hear. They reasoned that Hussein would not endure U.N. sanctions, and lose an estimated $100 billion in trade, if he had nothing to hide.
In the end, Hussein's bluff backfired. Washington's failure to read the bluff would have a huge impact on both countries.
...
Hussein's own view of the United States was conflicted. In his mind, he was a heroic leader who gained prestige in the Arab world for his defiance of the sole superpower. But Hussein told aides it would be equally prestigious to become a U.S. ally. So he used U.N. diplomats, journalists and others to carry back-channel offers to improve relations with Washington.
"They really thought they could cut a deal," said a former CIA officer who was contacted by a senior Iraqi official shortly before the invasion in March 2003. "He thought it was power politics to the end. He really couldn't believe we would eliminate his country from the map. That's the way he looked at it."
All of Hussein's entreaties were rebuffed, and it's impossible to know if he was serious about cooperating with Washington. But he complained to an interrogator that "he was not given a chance because the U.S. refused to listen to anything Iraq had to say."
Dr. Jerrold M. Post, a psychiatrist who has profiled Hussein for the CIA, said Hussein was "not psychotic." But he said the dictator had little recent experience outside Iraq, and had a distorted worldview.
"He thought the real threats from the West were the kind of hyperbole that one often hears in the Arab world," Post said. "And he was surrounded by sycophants who told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to know."
...
Ironically, Saddam Hussein misread U.S. intentions in part because he believed the CIA was far better at spying than it turned out to be. Senior aides told interrogators that Hussein was convinced the U.S. intelligence agency knew he had no illicit weapons.
Hussein assumed that the CIA had penetrated his regime, just as his own intelligence services used wiretaps, secret cameras and informants to spy on the U.N. weapons teams.
He was wrong. In July, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that the CIA had no informants or spies inside Iraq for at least five years before the war.
"Saddam believed in the myth of the CIA," said Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who worked in northern Iraq. "He really thought we knew what was going on inside his regime. He couldn't believe that we didn't have any sources."
...
In other cases, U.S. officials simply misunderstood the high-tech intelligence they had.
On Feb. 5, 2003, for example, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell appeared at the U.N. Security Council to make the administration's case for war. He played a tape of a phone call that he said was intercepted on Jan. 30 between a Republican Guard officer and an underling in the field. According to Powell, the officer issued orders to "clean out all the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure nothing is there."
Powell said the tape proved Hussein was hiding "the presence of weapons of mass destruction." U.S. investigators never found the officers. But they concluded that Powell misinterpreted the tape. The call concerned materials from Iraq's long-defunct, pre-1991 arms program, not new weapons.
In fact, on Jan. 25, five days before the call was taped, a senior regime official met Republican Guard military leaders and warned that "the government would hold them responsible" if U.N. inspectors found any of the old material in their areas "or if there was anything that cast doubt on Iraq's cooperation."
Until the final few months, Hussein was convinced that Bush would not invade. He told aides America still suffered from the "Vietnam syndrome."
"He probably didn't think he'd be alive at this point," said Kay, the former U.S. weapons inspector. "Every day he probably wonders what went wrong."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-saddam12oct12,1,1983638.story
CIA report says the Iraqi leader assumed the agency knew he didn't have banned weaponry.
WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein was convinced he won the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
And when he destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction after that war, Hussein was sure the CIA knew it.
As a result, he saw 12 years of United Nations resolutions, trade sanctions and threats of war as a charade to humiliate him.
In Hussein's view, Washington and Baghdad should have been close allies. He could have helped curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offered to become America's "best friend in the region, bar none." He was certain U.S. forces would never invade.
Hussein's looking-glass view of the world is vividly described in the report last week by Charles A. Duelfer, the CIA's chief weapons investigator. The document is based on a variety of sources, including interrogations of Hussein himself. A close reading of the report, along with interviews with intelligence officials and outside experts, sheds new light on Hussein's mind-set leading up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Duelfer argues that for Americans to understand Hussein's baffling decision to defy U.N. resolutions and face disaster they must "see the universe from Saddam's point in space."
Yet the reverse is also true. If Hussein misunderstood the West, it's clear that successive administrations in Washington since 1991 projected their own misconceptions and misjudgments onto Hussein. They also had a looking-glass view.
They saw evidence of banned weapons when none existed. They missed signs that now seem obvious. President Bush, for example, insisted before the war that the failure by U.N. teams to find any evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons despite 731 inspections in the four months before the invasion simply proved that Hussein was hiding them — not that they didn't exist.
"I sometimes wonder, what part of the word 'no' didn't we understand?" mused a Pentagon official who has long studied Hussein's regime.
...
The former official said the CIA never understood that Hussein was bluffing about his long-abandoned weapons chiefly to deter Iran, Iraq's longtime enemy. To Hussein, Tehran's alleged push to gain the nuclear arms that he was denied posed an unacceptable danger to his country and a challenge to his rightful place in history.
CIA officials heard dire threats in Hussein's bombastic speeches. They assumed banned weapons were in trucks and buildings they could not enter. They believed defectors with codenames like "Curveball" and "Red River," who told them what they wanted to hear. They reasoned that Hussein would not endure U.N. sanctions, and lose an estimated $100 billion in trade, if he had nothing to hide.
In the end, Hussein's bluff backfired. Washington's failure to read the bluff would have a huge impact on both countries.
...
Hussein's own view of the United States was conflicted. In his mind, he was a heroic leader who gained prestige in the Arab world for his defiance of the sole superpower. But Hussein told aides it would be equally prestigious to become a U.S. ally. So he used U.N. diplomats, journalists and others to carry back-channel offers to improve relations with Washington.
"They really thought they could cut a deal," said a former CIA officer who was contacted by a senior Iraqi official shortly before the invasion in March 2003. "He thought it was power politics to the end. He really couldn't believe we would eliminate his country from the map. That's the way he looked at it."
All of Hussein's entreaties were rebuffed, and it's impossible to know if he was serious about cooperating with Washington. But he complained to an interrogator that "he was not given a chance because the U.S. refused to listen to anything Iraq had to say."
Dr. Jerrold M. Post, a psychiatrist who has profiled Hussein for the CIA, said Hussein was "not psychotic." But he said the dictator had little recent experience outside Iraq, and had a distorted worldview.
"He thought the real threats from the West were the kind of hyperbole that one often hears in the Arab world," Post said. "And he was surrounded by sycophants who told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to know."
...
Ironically, Saddam Hussein misread U.S. intentions in part because he believed the CIA was far better at spying than it turned out to be. Senior aides told interrogators that Hussein was convinced the U.S. intelligence agency knew he had no illicit weapons.
Hussein assumed that the CIA had penetrated his regime, just as his own intelligence services used wiretaps, secret cameras and informants to spy on the U.N. weapons teams.
He was wrong. In July, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that the CIA had no informants or spies inside Iraq for at least five years before the war.
"Saddam believed in the myth of the CIA," said Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who worked in northern Iraq. "He really thought we knew what was going on inside his regime. He couldn't believe that we didn't have any sources."
...
In other cases, U.S. officials simply misunderstood the high-tech intelligence they had.
On Feb. 5, 2003, for example, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell appeared at the U.N. Security Council to make the administration's case for war. He played a tape of a phone call that he said was intercepted on Jan. 30 between a Republican Guard officer and an underling in the field. According to Powell, the officer issued orders to "clean out all the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure nothing is there."
Powell said the tape proved Hussein was hiding "the presence of weapons of mass destruction." U.S. investigators never found the officers. But they concluded that Powell misinterpreted the tape. The call concerned materials from Iraq's long-defunct, pre-1991 arms program, not new weapons.
In fact, on Jan. 25, five days before the call was taped, a senior regime official met Republican Guard military leaders and warned that "the government would hold them responsible" if U.N. inspectors found any of the old material in their areas "or if there was anything that cast doubt on Iraq's cooperation."
Until the final few months, Hussein was convinced that Bush would not invade. He told aides America still suffered from the "Vietnam syndrome."
"He probably didn't think he'd be alive at this point," said Kay, the former U.S. weapons inspector. "Every day he probably wonders what went wrong."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-saddam12oct12,1,1983638.story
