Saddam Didn't Have the WMDs

This isn't news, but you have to wonder why it took a FOIA request to get it out of the federal government.

The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request.

The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

Of all his enemies, Iraq's ex-president - who insisted he still held office during captivity - hated Iran most.

Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.

"Hussein replied Iraq would have been extremely vulnerable to attack from Iran and would have sought a security agreement with the U.S. to protect it from threats in the region," according to a 2004 FBI report among the declassified files.

Saddam Hussein was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid. Unfortunately, our administration was.

Comments

[Tom]

Saddam Hussein was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid. Unfortunately, our administration was.

Well, I'd say if you knew you had nothing, it actually was kind of stupid to have your bluff called, your country invaded and yourself hanged.

An article in Foreign Affairs a couple of years back (Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside, May/June 2006) claimed that Saddam himself was kept unaware of the poor/non-existent state of his WMDs, because of, as I recall it, his management style. I found this fairly convincing.

[Ray]

At the Kernel, Saddam wielded ultimate power; he thought himself invincible within his country and inviolate. Surrounded by dozens of appointed family political and military members.
You might say that his lived in an unreal world, smart or not. He never accepted that he could be invaded by the most powerful nation in the world, incisively assisted by other nations. He certainly did not accept that he could be arrested and placed on trial- that was impossible; he was head of state and he had the oil. He would have been removed by the West (that is, principally, the US)whether he had WMD's or not.

[J.]

Well Tom, bluffs always involve risk - but let's be clear, Saddam was never bluffing the US govt. He was letting the UN inspectors in, he knew (I believe) that they would find nothing. The bluff was for Israel, Iran, and Turkey. Saddam probably would have restarted his WMD program, he had the technical specialists, labs, and testing grounds to do it. Doesn't change the fact that he didn't have the weapons, he knew it, our intel community knew it, and our political leadership ignored it.

Ray - I agree that Saddam was isolated to a degree. I am not sure that he didn't accept the possibility of being invaded; he was hit in 1991 with that coalition, and he was smart enough to negotiate on the issue of UN inspectors in 2002, for what good that did. I'm sure he was shocked that a nation would be willing to commit hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and an international reputation to invade him. He was probably thinking, it's crazy... it wasn't as if he had actually done anything provocative.

But Bush's "pre-emptive strike" doctrine didn't require a provocative action, did it?

[NVH]

"He was probably thinking, it's crazy... it wasn't as if he had actually done anything provocative"

-He was thinking "I'm crazy" and if you call balking at the 12 or so sanctions levied against him in the years between Gulf 1 and 2 not provocative action, fine. split hairs on the definition of provocative if you want J., if we'd waited and agreed to defend Saddam because of the threat from Iran, we'd still have troops there now, and hell we might be at war with Iran over it. I think he was stupied and agree with Tom, but even if he wasn't stupid, he was definitely misguided and insane.

[J.]

Of course, I forgot. We went to war against Saddam because he didn't listen to the UN sanctions. How silly of me. I forget that our UN warlords direct our foreign policy.

Just want it on the record - Bush went into Iraq because he thought he could build a democratic state in the Middle East as an example to everyone else. It wasn't the damn WMDs.

And hey, consider this - if we did partner up with Saddam to defend the oil fields - oops, I mean the Middle East - from Iran, wouldn't we be in a much better position to challenge Iran's nuke program and Iran's fostering of terrorist organizations? You know, the so-called rationale behind the 2003 Iraq invasion?

[Ray]

You know, it's that word "pre-emptive" that I find difficult to decipher for every military foresight- it conveys to me that there should be an element of surprise as an integral part of the definitions of that term in authorised books(dictionaries) but (I have looked again)and these don't emphasise that at all.
I still think that Saddam, with his years of contact (and in some cases extreme, co-operation with US intelligence services)politicians and business people, was labouring under a delusion that the war against him wouldn't happen. As you said, he probably thought it was crazy. He didn't go to Sandhurst or any other European or US military school, and his life was largely confined to Middle Eastern climes. He was unsophisticated in that respect. I think that, added to his parochial views of likely Western action, went against his preparations for what he should have seen was boiling up. There was enough chants for war in the media to warn him- and he obviously had his own intelligence sources.
I think that, looking at the history of his rise to power, among his delusions was that he thought that he was too important to the West (especially the US) to be taken down.

[Kilo]

"Bush went into Iraq because he thought he could build a democratic state in the Middle East as an example to everyone else."

I think Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al pushed the invasion for that reason.

I'd suggest Bush went into Iraq because WTF else was he going to do with his presidency?