Why Saddam Hussein lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction
The former dictator was afraid of looking weak to Iran, according to newly declassified interviews he had with an FBI agent.
By Christa Case Bryant | Middle East Editor 07.02.09
Saddam Hussein encouraged the perception that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) because he was afraid of appearing weak in Iran’s eyes, according to nearly two dozen declassified transcripts of an FBI agent’s conversations with the former Iraqi dictator released Wednesday.
The National Security Archive, a project run by The George Washington University in Washington, obtained 20 interviews and five “casual conversations” through the Freedom of Information Act. Conducted in 2004 by FBI agent George Piro, they shed new light on Mr. Hussein’s thinking and the course of events that led to the US invasion six years ago.
Among the findings, with links to the .pdf file of the relevant transcript:
- Hussein criticized Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a “zealot,” denied meeting him in Sudan in 1994, and said his country and the international terrorist franchise “did not have the same belief or vision.”
- Iraq would have been more likely to cooperate with China or North Korea, with which Hussein claimed to have a relationship. But his first choice would have been to seek a security agreement with the US to protect Iraq against regional threats.
- Iraq had complied with all UN resolutions regarding nuclear weapons by 1998. The main reason Hussein would not let UN inspectors return after kicking them out was that he was afraid Iran would learn from them where to strike Iraq.
- Hussein reluctantly reversed that decision after the British government prepared a report with inaccurate intelligence. “It was this inaccurate intelligence on which the United States was making their decisions,” says the transcript.
Hussein’s unlikely bond with FBI agent
Mr. Piro, one of about 50 Arabic speakers among the FBI’s 10,000 agents, coaxed this information out of Hussein over the course of nearly a year – during which, he says, the dictator came increasingly to rely on him emotionally.
According to CBS, Piro listened to Hussein read poetry he’d written – a daily exercise for the former dictator, who had always carefully carved out time to read fiction when he was running Iraq. He gave Hussein the baby wipes the “clean freak” ruler loved to use to clean his cell and wipe off fresh fruit. The FBI agent celebrated Hussein’s birthday with cookies from his mother. He gave Hussein flower seeds, which he cultivated in a tiny garden with his bare hands. Slowly, the relationship began to yield fruit.
When Piro gave a lengthy interview to CBS’s 60 minutes in January 2008, his boss – FBI Assistant Director Joe Persichini – called the interviews with Hussein “one of the top accomplishments of our agency in the last 100 years.”
The FBI was asked, it said in statement, to brief Hussein because of the agency’s “longstanding work in gathering statements for court.”
Excerpts from the transcripts
Piro, a former California policeman who earned his college degree in night school in order to be eligible for the FBI, often took issue with Hussein’s assertions.
Hussein denied having any WMD. Piro countered, pointing out that US intelligence had gathered intelligence to the contrary and asking if WMDs could have been developed without his knowledge:
Hussein said no, and claimed on several occasions he held meetings with all of his ministers and asked them specifically if Iraq had WMD that he was unaware of.
All of the ministers said no.
Hussein also claimed that if UN sanctions had been lifted, he would have sought a security agreement with the US. Piro pointed out that given the relationship of the two countries, such an agreement may have not been an immediate option, and Iraq “would have needed to reconstitute its own weapons program in response.” Hussein replied that “Iraq would have done what was necessary and agreed that Iraq’s technical and scientific abilities exceeded others in the region.
On other points, Hussein’s statements received less criticism – particularly on Iran. The former dictator’s was worried not only about the immediate threat from Iran, but its advancing expertise:
<< Are N. Korea’s short-range missile tests a prelude? | MainHussein further stated that Iran’s weapons capabilities have increased dramatically, while Iraq’s have been eliminated by the UN sanctions. The effects of this will be seen and felt in the future, as Iran’s weapons capabilities will be a greater threat to Iraq and the region in the future.
Comments
2. sharon | 07.02.09
What a shame that the Bush administration couldn’t wait to find the truth about Iraq and its WMD program; instead it concocted its own version of intelligence and rush off to show shock and awe the world. Instead thousands of Americans and even more Iraqis have died and our country is far less safe and far less prosperous and far less respected now. Shame , shame shame on the Bush administration
3. burgwinkel | 07.02.09
Not that I would ever be suspicious of a project called the National Security Archive (smirk), but isn’t the real issue the unconscionable manufacture by the US of disinformation, codified as ‘intelligence’, with the treasonable intent of justifying a criminal war?
The story of Hussein’s handling while in US custody is undoubtedly an interesting one. Unfortunately the custodians of that information are cold-blooded liars. The Monitor would do well to keep that in mind when reporting information obtained from them.
4. kim | 07.02.09
Good heavens, you two badly miss the point. Saddam wanted Iran to believe he had WMD. He cultivated the perception that he had them. And Duelfer shows that he had the will to WMD, and Rossett that he had the means.
So please; it’s not ‘Bush Lied, People Died’, it’s ‘Saddam Lied, and he and many others died.
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5. Shawn | 07.02.09
well, he seems prophetic concerning Iran. They have their political concerns, we have ours.
6. Dan | 07.02.09
Wow, what an imaginative interrogation technique - use the subject’s dependency an isolation to gain their trust. No wonder the FBI prefers it to waterboarding. (Added bonus - it’s not criminal torture!)
7. AJ Duggal | 07.02.09
Unbelievable stuff. It is just hard to believe the such powerful governments will have so less of ability and capability to know the truth. Specially in this case when (Iraq) Saddam was being considered a friend in the region prior to first gulf war.
This has been a very very expensive truth finding commission.
FBI job well done.
8. nick | 07.03.09
as far as the war in iraq goes, we have accomplished many things. the greatest of which removing saddam hussein from power and introducing democracy even if it is taking longer than expected to take hold in the country. saddam was an evil man who carried out public executions almost daily on what would be considered innocent people in our country, not to mention the terrorism he helped fund with that country’s money while his citizens starved. kim said it best saddam lied not bush. bush simply acted on what he was told. saddam also would not let the u.n. make inspections of certain facilities within his country. it was a preimptive and not well educated strike by bush, but a good one in the end.
9. nick | 07.03.09
(Let me preface by saying I’m no fan of Bush or his regime, which relieved US citizens of many civil rights using his “shock doctrine” methodology).
What has faded into obscurity is the very real possibility of WMD’s being ferried into Syria before the invasion. The intelligence community knew of it, Iraqi assets relayed it, and one of Saddams top generals spoke freely of it after the war.
Bio & Chem WMDS aren’t rocket science. Remember, Aleph, a civilian religious cult in Japan synthed their own Sarin gas in the subway gassing awhile back (they also synthed up some VX). Iraq had better capabilities, with the entire scholastic and industrial sectors to pull from, without having to work “underground” like the nuts in Japan. I met plenty of Iraqi’s in biology/chem/engineering sciences doing post grad work in University here on visas between Gulf war 1 and 2. Iraq also had some of the best Universities in the region before Gulf 2 There was no shortage of capable scientists that could whip up nasties in cheap makeshift labs in no time.
I don’t think that them even having bio/chem weapons gave us license to invade- and it was stupid to do so, as it knocked out Irans “natural” counterweight- but I have no doubt that if Saddam wanted some dangerous war gases, if they werent onhand, they could have been produced within 24 hours. Nerve gases are a different story and require a bit more sophistication, but nothing the Iraqi scientific community wasnt capable of doing in short order.
Same with rough biologicals. Granted they wouldnt be the nice highly weaponized stuff that takes awhile, but some rough bioweapons could have been cobbled together in short order (if there werent any available already).
It’s very possible everything was moved on to Syria, and we’ve kept it semi-quiet so we didn’t have to attack Syria under the same flawed reasons we were advertising we invaded Iraq. I still don’t understand why we really invaded Iraq…
10. A. L. Flanagan | 07.03.09
‘FBI Assistant Director Joe Persichini – called the interviews with Hussein “one of the top accomplishments of our agency in the last 100 years.”’
Wow, and they didn’t even use a waterboard. Did they tell Cheney?
11. A. L. Flanagan | 07.03.09
Nick, why on Earth would the Iraqis have sent WMDs to Syria? They would have been the only weapons which had any hope of slowing down the American advance.
12. Len Gebase | 07.03.09
Don’t dismiss the possibility that Bush lied so quickly simply because Hussein lied. Hussein’s lies satisfied Bush’s purposes very nicely. Had Bush been interested in the truth, he would have certainly made a better attempt to find it. For good or evil, it’s clear to anyone who wants to look at the circumstances that lead to the Iraq War that the Bush White House was determined to go to war with Iraq, and Mr. Hussein unwittingly helped them along.
13. nick | 07.04.09
The logic was likely along the lines of we’d go in, not find WMDs, Saddam would be vindicated, and we’d pack up and go home.
Like I said, even if they had destroyed their WMD’s (which they did have at one point, there’s no argument about that), quick and dirty WMD’s could have been whipped up by the Iraqi’s after we started the invasion…if they wanted to play card. Heck, once the Shiite militias became our main problem, Iran could have furnished them with WMD’s. They furnished them with those nasty shaped charge penetrator IED’s. Iran should theoretically be able to produce not only any war or organophosphate nerve gases & bioweapons, but they absolutely could produce dirty bombs.
The problem with unleashing WMD’s on us is that it steps over a line in the sand. Whether it means we retaliate with our own WMDs- or we just go back to WW2-type rules, it’s bad news. We did some horrific things to Tokyo with incendiary bombs in WW2. Some historians think we killed more in one particular night of incendiary bombing than we did with on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki with our nukes (not the tally of both bombings, the tally of either). Also keep in mind that not all of our nuclear assets are massive yield, multiple warhead ICBM’s or Polaris missiles. We’ve got all sorts of low-yield devices that can be used in “conventional” warfare.
As far as warfare in general, we fight pretty cleanly, and our troops are relatively well disciplined. It’s not like the old “the rules are no rules” bit. Where the invading force kills EVERYONE, and then literally scorches (or salts) the earth so the place is uninhabitable.
Of course that could be why we keep having stalemates, or losing. Yeah, we manage to kill alot of people, but we don’t really achieve our objectives. Of course we go to war for different reasons than we used to- or at least we claim to. I’m not condoning war,particularly under the circumstances lately, but for sure the great Generals of history would be disappointed with our reluctance to let loose all of our military might. Maybe thats a good thing, demonstrating how far we’ve come since some very brutal times, or maybe it’s a bad thing- thousands upon thousands of lives lost for no apparent reason.
All I know is that I’d much rather have our boys at home than stuck in the quagmires they’re in now.
15. Al Lawoor | 07.06.09
I hate WAR. War is not a good or positive thing. And if a war is absolutely necessary than it should be like a snake strike. I guess we should learn from the snake. It doesn’t go into a protracted war of minutes, hours or days. It strikes its enemy and withdraws quickly. The future wars should be like the striking of a snake. Especially when the war is carried out at great distances. You cripple the adversary and then put up your demands and if he does not agree to the terms - do other strikes. But I do not mean the strikes of the SHOCK & AWE nature but just a few strikes to cripple its industries without bombing cities and towns and causing harm to the innocents. I do not see how one can win a war and peace by killing the others family and then shake handshake in peace. The other party will always have an inbuilt animosity against you.
Al Lawoor,
Spain
16. Matthew | 08.13.09
Does everyone realize that the CIA director George Tenet, a Clinton appointment, said to President Bush in reference to the WMD case, (this is a quote) “It’s a slam dunk case Mr. President.”
If the Director of National Intelligence tells President Obama or any President something of the like, I think everyone would expect thaat President to act. What would the Democrats have said if President Bush had NOT listened to the highest level intelligence person in the world who was also appointed by a Democrat? Pres. Bush had no choice.
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1. fiendish avatar | 07.02.09
Wasn’t this obvious to everyone?
Now the real question is: Why did Bush lie about the WMDs?