Foreign Affairs article: “Saddam’s Delusions”
Saddam’s Delusions: The View from the Inside, from Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006. By Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray
Summary:
A special, double-length article from the upcoming May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, presenting key excerpts from the recently declassified book-length report of the USJFCOM Iraqi Perspectives Project.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The fall of Baghdad in April 2003 opened one of the most secretive and brutal governments in history to outside scrutiny. For the first time since the end of World War II, American analysts did not have to guess what had happened on the other side of a conflict but could actually read the defeated enemy’s documents and interrogate its leading figures. To make the most of this unique opportunity, the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) commissioned a comprehensive study of the inner workings and behavior of Saddam Hussein’s regime based on previously inaccessible primary sources. Drawing on interviews with dozens of captured senior Iraqi military and political leaders and hundreds of thousands of official Iraqi documents (hundreds of them fully translated), this two-year project has changed our understanding of the war from the ground up. The study was partially declassified in late February; its key findings are presented here.
AFP coverage of article, “US misinterpreted Iraqi compliance with UN inspectors”:
“US analysts viewed this information through the prism of a decade of prior deceit. They had no way of knowing that this time the information reflected the regime’s attempt to ensure it was in compliance with UN resolutions,” said the article.
The mistaken belief that Iraq posessed weapons of mass destruction, was nurtured in part by former dictator Saddam Hussein, who feared that if it became known Iraq had no such weapons, “it would encourage the Israelis to attack,” the magazine said.