The Saddam Interviews
The National Security Archive has posted a bunch of FBI interview reports from Saddam’s interrogation. As the NSA notes, this record is not complete.
Not included in these FBI reports are issues of particular interest to students of Iraq’s complicated relationship with the U.S. – the reported role of the CIA in facilitating the Ba’ath party’s rise to power, the uneasy alliance forged between Iraq and the U.S. during the Iran-Iraq war, and the precise nature of U.S. views regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons policy during that conflict, given its contemporaneous knowledge of their repeated use against Iranians and the Kurds.
This series of interviews also does not address chemical warfare in Kurdish areas of Iraq in 1987-1988, although an FBI progress report says Saddam was questioned on the topic. One interview, #20, is redacted in its entirety on national security grounds, although it is not clear what issues agents could have discussed with Saddam that cannot now be disclosed to the public.
While they don’t say it specifically, there are interview notes specifically excluded. Not noted by the NSA, for example, is that the CIA interrogated Saddam from the time he was captured in mid-December until when the FBI took over in February. As Charles Duelfer describes in his book, Hide and Seek, they weren’t the best equipped to conduct this interrogation.
While the team was expert, only one analyst had spent much time in Iraq and personally knew senior Iraqis. (389)
Furthermore, as NSA does suggest, there are more "Casual Conversations" than have been turned over to NSA. Duelfer, for example, describes Special Agent Piro, Saddam’s interrogator, finally getting Saddan to open up in April.
Saddam began to open up with Piro in April, at least in his informal meetings. (402)
As you can see from the NSA list of interview materials, there’s a gap in what NSA got from the end of March through May–precisely the period when Duelfer describes Saddam beginning to open up.
I’m still reading these reports, but for the moment I’m interested in a paragraph from the June 11 Conversation (it is mislabeled June 1 in the NSA list).
Hussen commented he allowed the UN inspectors back into Iraq to counter allegations by the British Government. Hussen stated this was a very difficult decision to make, but the British Government had prepared a report containing inaccurate intelligence. It was this inaccurate intelligence on which the United States was making their decisions. However, Hussein admitted that when it was clear that a war with the United States was imminent, he allowed the inspectors back into Iraq in hopes of averting war. Yet, it became clear to him four months before the war that the war was inevitable.
Though the report doesn’t acknowledge this, the British report was the September 24, 2002 White Paper on Saddam’s WMD–one that was very similar to our own NIE (this was the "sexed up" dossier, and it made the Niger uranium claim more strongly than our own NIE did). And the report also doesn’t acknowledge that Saddam concluded war was inevitable when the US released its own report on what Saddam had "left out" of his WMD declaration on December 19, 2002–precisely "four months before the war." In other words, what Saddam must have been saying is that it was clear the US was using faulty intelligence in September-October 2002, and it became clear with that December 2002 report that they continued to make false claims about his WMD.
Also note, the very last Conversation included here–from June 28, 2004–shows that the FBI was still trying to shore up a claim that Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda at that late date. Apparently, Saddam pointed out,
HUSSEIN stated that the United States used the 9/11 attack as a justification to attack Iraq. The United States had lost sight of the cause of 9/11.
Funny–the dictator noticed what we all noticed too.
Bush was going to push the war button no matter what Iraq did. He and Saddam are both bastards.
Did Saddam mention Rummy’s clammy, sweaty hands?
Saddam told us the truth while our own government was knowingly lying to us.
There’s probably more redacted than we know. Do you really think that a day went by without a visit from the Inquisition? And based on prior reports of how detainees were handled, that there was only one agency involved?
And here’s the REAL question: Does anybody think that contractors didn’t conduct the really important interrogations? A quick scan indicates no contractor interviews were released. Or even acknowleged.
Boxturtle (It’s still too early for single malt. And tea isn’t improving my attitude much)
Not true.
Never too early. My great-aunt introduced me to single malt when I was but 16 years old, offered me a “White Elephant” – shot of scotch in 6 oz. of whole milk. Threw one down before I caddied for her that morning.
I miss that old broad, they don’t make ‘em like her any more.
The contractors would have worked with the CIA–so from mid-December through the end of January. Duelfer does give some details on what the CIA got out of him.
Vaguely remember there had been a puzzling and quiet controversy over the report Hussein submitted in response to a deadline in Nov. 2002. The scuttlebutt was that the report was supposed to be submitted to the UN, but that the U.S. received it (intercepted it?) and that the report was lightened by 800 pages between the time it was submitted by Iraq and received at UN.
Insert a BIG caveat here, because at the time it didn’t occur to me to make any copies of published content I saw about this at the time. Far more worried about a family member who was already being told to be ready to muster out to Iraq…
Yeah, that’s the document. ANd then on December 19, Bolton had it reported that Saddam was pursuing nukes from Niger.
Saddam just didn’t know how much Rummy had invested in defense firms that would make alot of money for him in a war.
Such a sorry mess! A sorry, bloody mess.
Excellent article, EW. BTW, the WaPo made this stunning announcement:
Washington Post sells access, $25,000+
By MIKE ALLEN | 7/2/09 8:04 AM EDT
“For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.
“The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”‘
http://www.politico.com/news/s…..24441.html
At those prices, access to Marcy at the $25 level seems a positive bargain!
Boxturtle (Obligatory linky)
Plus, you get the truth–or as near as you can get to it given the Great Cover-Up we’re experiencing.
Fucking Rove.
I find it ironic that he went “dove hunting”
We could have avoided the death of this soldier if we had told the
truth.
Now he gets filthy lucre from the WSJ by recalling this incidence…
Arshole…
http://online.wsj.com/article/…..83047.html
Of course Rove approves of Other People’s sacrifices. “Thank Mammon for the stooges,” he’s probably thinking.
Fucking Rove.
An entirely appropriate comment for any thread, imo….
“Fucking Rove”
What Jeff Gannon was doing on late night visits to the White House.
“During the Committee meeting, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee claimed that Guckert had engaged in “a penetration of the White House, maybe a security breach, and I do not believe it can be answered with self-investigation.”
To be sure the only ones set out to destroy American democracy was Bush/Chaney and Republicans…no one else had that power!
EW “It was this inaccurate intelligence on which the United States was making their decisions”
The American public and the rest of the world has yet to witness any administration hold those who created, cherry picked, and disseminated the false pre- war intelligence…accountable.
EW “Funny the dictator noticed what we all noticed too”
And a another big thank you to former Weapons inspector Scott Ritter who was everywhere (Diane Rehm show, internet, Washington Journal) anyone would allow him to share what he knew about Iraq and WMD’s. He was reporting that there was no way that there were any WMD’s.
Chris Matthews, etc never had Scott Ritter on before the invasion
Thank you to Iaea’s Mr. El Baradei who came out in early March of 2003 and reported that the Niger Documents were forgeries and bad ones at that. The MSM barely reported this
Thank you to Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and other former CIA officials who came out before the invasion calling the unsubstantiated intelligence claims highly questionable.
————————————————————————–
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82
Edited by Joyce Battle
February 25, 2003
Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq’s main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war — stirred by Iran’s Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)
Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.
The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country’s official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan. These were prepared pursuant to his March 1982 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 4-82) asking for a review of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
One of these directives from Reagan, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 99, signed on July 12, 1983, is available only in a highly redacted version [Document 21]. It reviews U.S. regional interests in the Middle East and South Asia, and U.S. objectives, including peace between Israel and the Arabs, resolution of other regional conflicts, and economic and military improvements, “to strengthen regional stability.” It deals with threats to the U.S., strategic planning, cooperation with other countries, including the Arab states, and plans for action. An interdepartmental review of the implications of shifting policy in favor of Iraq was conducted following promulgation of the directive.
By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints [Note 1]. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.
The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran’s accusations, and describing Iraq’s “almost daily” use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against “Kurdish insurgents” as well [Document 25].
Greenwald on the on-going scramble to find a euphemism for ‘torture’.
The still-growing NPR “torture” controversy
Glenn Greenwald
THURSDAY JULY 2, 2009 06:03 EDT
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..07/02/npr/
Blue Crow over at Oxdown post about this issue
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/6052
And I see you’ve posted a few treasures there yourself. Many thnx. I’ll go read them now.
Juan Cole
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/43211.html
Transcript of Bush-Aznar Consultation in Crawford, February 22, 2003
(conversation between Bush and Aznar translated by Juan Cole)
President Bush We are in favor of getting a second resolution in the Security Council and would want to do it quickly. We would want to announce it Monday or Tuesday [24 or 25 of February of 2003].
The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Both provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did. The destruction of these documents was presumably Bush’s goal when he had Rumsfeld order US military personnel not to interfere with the looting and burning of government offices after the fall of Saddam. The looting, which set off the guerrilla war, also functioned as a vast shredding party, destroying incriminating evidence about the complicity of the Bushes and Rumsfeld in Iraq’s war crimes.
Aznar asked Bush if he would grant Saddam these guarantees, and Bush roared back that he would not.
By refusing to allow Saddam to flee with guarantees, Bush ensured that a land war would have to be fought. This is one of the greatest crimes any US president ever committed, and it is all the more contemptible for being rooted in mere pride and petulance.
Saddam: The United States had lost sight of the cause of 9/11.
Marcy: Funny–the dictator noticed what we all noticed too.
ghost: Funnier still, the US had Saddam convinced of the same fairy tale that it supplied to the American people.
it wasn’t the united states that “lost site”, the country knew it was al qaeda not iraq
it was the sociopaths saddam is refering, not “the united states”, and he doesn’t have that quite right either
these sociopaths didn’t “lose site” of 9/11 and what caused it, they knew full well, but the CHOSE to use 9/11 while it was still effective to use
they knew what they were were doing with 9/11 “in site” they attacked Iraq because 9/11 presented the condition they were hoping for
“losing site” indicates you’ve done something involuntarily it doesn’t indicate you’ve done exactly what you wanted to do
In the document that EW linked
” Hussein denied miscalculating the effects of the attack, but he did not have any options in front of him. The only choice he was given was to leave Iraq which he claimed was not an option.”
Juan Coles translations of Bush conversation with
“Aznar asked Bush if he would grant Saddam these guarantees, and Bush roared back that he would not.
By refusing to allow Saddam to flee with guarantees, Bush ensured that a land war would have to be fought. This is one of the greatest crimes any US president ever committed, and it is all the more contemptible for being rooted in mere pride and petulance.”
“The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Both provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did.”
###### I had read in several places (in 2003) that Hussen had offered to leave Iraq and had contacted the Bush administration. Looking for other links
One can dream, can’t one?
I had not been aware of Aznar’s statements against Bush. Wasn’t Aznar a fascist and one of Bush’s closest allies who supported the Iraq War?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031208/infact
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11…..;position=
November 6, 2003
Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal to Avert War
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 ? As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.
Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.
It’s never easy to reverse a decision that was made years in advance.
since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did.
Zounds! How awful that would have been. Prescott Bush would have rolled over in his Nazi-coddling grave, not to mention Dubya’s distinguished (hick) Alabama National Guard service!
golly gee look at which office Saddam’s offers were routed through and who was sifting through and meeting with Iraq’s officials on the deal that Saddam offered”
“The messages from Baghdad, first relayed in February to an analyst in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy and planning, were part of an attempt by Iraqi intelligence officers to open last-ditch negotiations with the Bush administration through a clandestine communications channel, according to people involved.
The efforts were portrayed by Iraqi officials as having the approval of President Saddam Hussein, according to interviews and documents.
The overtures, after a decade of evasions and deceptions by Iraq, were ultimately rebuffed. But the messages raised enough interest that in early March, Richard N. Perle, an influential adviser to top Pentagon officials, met in London with the Lebanese-American businessman, Imad Hage.
According to both men, Mr. Hage laid out the Iraqis’ position to Mr. Perle, and he pressed the Iraqi request for a direct meeting with Mr. Perle or another representative of the United States.
“I was dubious that this would work,” said Mr. Perle, widely recognized as an intellectual architect of the Bush administration’s hawkish policy toward Iraq, “but I agreed to talk to people in Washington.”
Mr. Perle said he sought authorization from C.I.A. officials to meet with the Iraqis, but the officials told him they did not want to pursue this channel, and they indicated they had already engaged in separate contacts with Baghdad. Mr. Perle said, “The message was, `Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.’ “
A senior United States intelligence official said this was one of several contacts with Iraqis or with people who said they were trying to broker meetings on their behalf. “These signals came via a broad range of foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, charlatans and independent actors,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Every lead that was at all plausible, and some that weren’t, were followed up.”
There were a variety of efforts, both public and discreet, to avert a war in Iraq, but Mr. Hage’s back channel appears to have been a final attempt by Mr. Hussein’s government to reach American officials.
In interviews in Beirut, Mr. Hage said the Iraqis appeared intimidated by the American military threat. “The Iraqis were finally taking it seriously,” he said, “and they wanted to talk, and they offered things they never would have offered if the build-up hadn’t occurred.”
Mr. Perle said he found it “puzzling” that the Iraqis would have used such complicated contacts to communicate “a quite astonishing proposal” to the administration.. Perle and Feith received some of Saddams offers
Perle and Feith. Who would have thunk!
That’s just one example of the net being closed on Iraq. There were other discussions among EU countries developing an option to create a defacto occupation using U.N. troops instead of a U.S.-led military invasion, but that also got squeezed out, received virtually no coverage in American media.
Wonder if “mr. murder” is out there reading this thread; do you happen to have any info about the submission of the 12,000-page report submitted to the UN in compliance with Resolution 1441 on Dec. 7, 2002? Seems like we chatted about it, but I can’t recall and I can’t find any old info about it. Would really like to revisit chain of custody of that document because I think there were several ways in which the intel about WMD was manipulated, including messing with the report.
This interview served one purpose other than to try and shore up al Qaeda ties BS: They were determining how much he knew and how willing he was to talk about it. In other words, how quickly they would need to kill him to shut him up.
I came to the same conclusion, the interviews demonstrated with no doubt the needed to keep this man quiet
In the document
“Hussein stated that he wrote editorials against he attack, but also spoke of the cause which led men to commit these acts. The CAUSE was never reviewed which could crates such hatred to kill innocent people”
9/11 Commission Report
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
Have not looked through the 9/11 commission report for quite a while. Lots of reporting on just what happened , recommendations but not much reflection or speculation about possibilities or consideration of the “cause” of the attack
There are no crime without a motive. Successful police investigators work to determine possible motives, and then work backwards to determine who would benefit from those motives.
The omission of reflections about the cause of the attack speaks volumes.
hey you have you missed what Obama and so many others have ordered “move forward, turn the page, don’t blame, next chapter” what are you all about “vengeance, the blame game, ripping off the scab” Get over it is what some of them keep repeating
Really interested in just when accountability and justice having to do with very serious crimes started being described as “vengeance”
If the “vengeance” cry is allowed to limit accountability for crimes, it makes a mockery of the claim that this is a nation based on the rule of law.
Couple other docs which might offer counterpoint to Hussein content:
Legal Lessons Learned From Afghanistan and Iraq
Volume 1, Major Combat Operations
(11 September 2001 – 1 May 2003)
dd. 01 August 2004
Center for Law and Military Operations
JAG Legal Center and School, US Army
Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction
Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors
Chairman:The Rt Hon The Lord Butler of Brockwell KG GCB CVO
pub. 14 July 2004
as ordered by the House of Commons
At least these are the legal justifications the US Army used, and the intel the UK provided in the aftermath of the war.
A frameup or setup is an American term referring to the act of framing someone, that is, providing false evidence or false testimony in order to falsely prove someone guilty of a crime.[1] It is likely to derive from the English word frame meaning to cause someone innocent to appear guilty by “putting the person in a picture frame of suspicion”.
Sometimes the person who is framing someone else is the actual perpetrator of the crime.
The Anthrax Frame-Up is a similar scenario.
Sometimes the person who is framing someone else is the actual perpetrator of the crime.
There just aren’t enuf ways to say fuck you to that guy
EW — by the way, that document provided in previous comment, Legal Lessons Learned From Afghanistan and Iraq, contains a couple of detainee-related docs in its appendices.
wanna bet the redacted part is about donald dumsfeld selling Saddam the gas he used on the Kurds ???
that’s right
donald dumsfeld was ronnie raygun’s sales rep for WMDs
that’s why dumsfeld was so sure Saddam had WMDs
donald dumsfeld kept copies of the sales reciepts
so YOU KNOW that had to be redacted …
no way they were going to let Saddam leave the country with any WMD documents. How fast did they move in and remove documents, computers etc. Get rid of the evidence, the torture tapes etc. Remove the evidence.