The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 0 Many factors contribute to these persistent fallacies. Misconceptions and miscalculations evolve from mindsets and biases that grow over time — on all sides and for numer- ous reasons. For example, Saddam himself de- liberately projected alternative views of reality to keep his enemies (internal and external) confused, remaining ambiguous about his (lack of) WMD to keep Tehran off-balance. In his experience, WMD had been extremely useful. It had helped save him during the war with Iran in the 1980s and — as he saw it — deterred the United States from taking him out in 1991. Saddam Hussein’s leadership style also instilled uncer- tainty and fear among his minions concerning what they should do or report, especially regarding WMD. So he knew that he could not trust the reports of his own people. And if Saddam had doubts about what was going on in Iraq, how could outside analysts make accurate judgments founded on facts rather than expectations? For the record: There were no militarily significant stocks of chemical or biological agents (much less nuclear weapons-related development programs) in Iraq when U.S. forces occupied Baghdad in April 2003. The country did have limited numbers of prohibited long-range ballis- tic missiles, however, giving Saddam the option of deploy- ing WMD when circumstances permitted. This “absence of WMD” is, however, only one point on the long curve of the Saddam regime’s behavior. It is an important point, to be sure (especially for politicians), but it does not convey the regime’s internal dynamics, nor its intentions for the future. And it certainly ignores impor- tant matters of context. Unintended Consequences When international inspections began in 1991, following the war to liberate Kuwait, neither Saddam Hussein nor anyone else had a clear idea of what to expect. The U.N. Se- curity Council’s resolution ending the war (UNSCR 687) linked the lifting of sanctions to Iraq’s compliance with WMD disarmament, as verified by teams from the U.N. Special Com- mission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Saddam reasonably assumed that these inspectors would make some visits to Iraq and, in a fashion similar to previous IAEA inspectors, certify the absence of weapons of mass destruction. The process would then end. Other governments had similar expectations, reflecting the fact that policymakers in Washington and other capitals had taken a short-term view in crafting the resolutions. In the wake of the surprisingly swift, low-cost victory, Washington’s priority was to lock in the success and limit Baghdad’s ability to re-emerge as an aggressive power. There was also an unspoken belief that Saddam’s regime would soon fall due to internal instability, fueled by popu- lar anger over the nation’s military defeat. No one fore- saw that the sanctions would be the root and branch of ongoing international conflict for over a decade. The parallel with the punitive terms the Treaty of Ver- sailles imposed on Germany followingWorldWar I —and their consequences —went unrecognized or ignored. In- deed, even sophisticated international policy analysts still miss the fact that the U.N. Iraq resolution constituted co- ercive disarmament, not an arms control accord. Following the letter of the law, UNSCOM inspectors demanded that Iraq give up something it adamantly did not want to yield. Just as Germany had sought to thwart the Allied inspectors monitoring its disarmament, Saddam, we later learned, set as his highest priority the removal of sanctions, and at the lowest cost in terms of compliance and prestige. He therefore tested the process from the start, giving inspection teams minimal access and only turning over the most obvious Scud missiles and chemical weapons. In fact, just weeks after the inspections began, Baghdad blatantly denied inspectors access to locations known to contain weapons materials. In response, the Security Council held emergency meetings but could only agree to send the heads of the F O C U S We now know that there were no militarily significant WMD stocks in Iraq when U.S. forces occupied Baghdad in April 2003. Charles A. Duelfer was the deputy executive chairman, and then acting chairman, of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq from 1993 until its termination in 2000. He was in the country from April to August 2003 and later headed the Iraq Survey Group throughout 2004, producing the Comprehensive Report on Iraq WMD (known as the “Duelfer Report”) for the Director of Cen- tral Intelligence. He now consults on a range of intelligence and security management topics with Omnis, Inc., and is the author of Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq (Public Affairs, 2009).