The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 even years after the United States removed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power, a wide range of accepted “truths” persist concerning whether Baghdad actually possessed weapons of mass destruction. Many of these are wrong; others are partially accurate, but represent little more than “bumper-sticker” characterization of a pivotal, but quite complicated, issue. In some ways, current misunderstandings about Iraq’s WMD are as off the mark as the prewar assumptions, but in different ways. F O C U S O N I R A Q & I T S N E I G H B O R S A CHIEVING C LOSURE ON I RAQ ’ S P REWAR WMD U NDERSTANDING WHY IT TURNED OUT S ADDAM H USSEIN HAD NO WMD PROVIDES INSIGHTS USEFUL IN OTHER SITUATIONS . B Y C HARLES A. D UELFER S Laszlo Kubinyi