Saddam's Weapons Bluff Aimed At Iran

[Richard]

Interesting.

After the earlier border tussle - chemical weapons and all - would Iran have called his bluff if we hadn't?

And what might have happened if President Gore had been in office at the time?

Richard's $.02 :munchin

Saddam's Weapons Bluff Aimed At Iran
JoAnne Allen, Reuters, 2 Jul 2009

Saddam Hussein believed Iran was a significant threat to Iraq and left open the possibility that he had weapons of mass destruction rather than appear vulnerable, according to declassified FBI documents on interrogations of the former Iraqi leader.

"Hussein believed that Iraq could not appear weak to its enemies, especially Iran," FBI special agent George Piro wrote on notes of a conversation with Saddam in June 2004 about weapons of mass destruction.

He believed Iraq was being threatened by others in the region and must appear able to defend itself, the report said.

The FBI reports, released on Wednesday, said Saddam asserted that he was more concerned about Iran discovering Iraq's weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the United States for blocking the return of UN weapons inspectors who were searching for WMD.

"In his opinion, the UN inspectors would have directly identified to the Iranians where to inflict maximum damage to Iraq," according to the documents obtained and released by the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute.

Saddam began a bloody border war with Iran in 1980 that lasted until 1988, during which Iraq used chemical weapons.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush launched the Iraq war in 2003, citing a threat of weapons of mass destruction from Saddam's government, but no such weapons were ever found.

FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least five "casual conversations" with the former Iraqi leader

after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to the documents.

Saddam, identified as "High Value Detainee #1," shared Bush's hostility toward the "fanatic" Iranian mullahs, according to the FBI records of conversations from February through June 2004 between Saddam and Arabic-speaking agents in his detention cell at Baghdad International Airport.

Saddam also denied any connections to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who he called a "zealot," and cited North Korea as his most likely ally in a crunch, according to the documents.

He also takes personal responsibility for ordering the launching of SCUD missiles against Israeli targets during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, because he blamed Israel and its influence in the United States for "all the problems of the Arabs," the reports said.

During the interviews, Saddam rejects some examples of what he viewed as myths, like his purported use of body doubles. According to the notes, Saddam said he could recall using the telephone only twice since March 1990 and that he communicated primarily through couriers.

Saddam was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court for the killing of 148 Shi'ite men and boys following a 1982 assassination attempt.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090702/ts_nm/us_iran_saddam;_ylt=AurnlVSFDTwmPOm1V4kb9t_9xg8F;_ ylu=X3oDMTJvOHYzbHI3BGFzc2V0Ay9ubS8yMDA5MDcwMi90c1 9ubS91c19pcmFuX3NhZGRhbQRjcG9zAzYEcG9zAzYEc2VjA3lu X3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNmYmlzYXlzc2FkZGE-

[Sigaba]

IMHO, this reads like the man finally saw the writing on the wall. To forestall a trip to the gallows he made a pitch by saying what he thought his captors wanted to hear.

The MSM and the left will say this "proves" what they were saying all along. However, such a conclusion would require a creative accounting of the facts on record (in particular the findings of the Iraqi Perspectives Project, the discovery of terrorist training camps in Iraq, and how the dictator arrayed his forces so he could protect himself from the foe he feared the most--his own people).

[HOLLiS]

There was also the interview from Iraqi Generals about WMDs. Saddam thought the invasion of Iraq would be similar as in A-Stan and the liberation of Kuwait, in that there would be a rather long air campaign to soften Iraqi defenses.

During that air campaign, Saddam would make the parade of dead, (even if had to kill them himself) women, children, other people. Along with his allies in the UN they would push for a humanitarian cease fire. Along with a cease fire, Saddam thought that all the UN restrictions would be dropped. The thread of WMDs, he hoped would encourage the US to follow this plan and be hesitant to place boots on the ground. Saddam told his Generals that he had WMDs, but the General all stated they did not know where they where or had control over them, only Saddam did.

This was in a article that I read a number of years ago. When you consider that some of the Iraqi Generals where in contact with the US, the rapid pace the troops made into Iraq, the constant warning and troops having to put on NBC suits and general lack of defense of Iraq by the Iraqi Army. I am not sure how 100% it is, it did seem reasonable.

IMHO, our command structure strongly believed Saddam had WMDs. Our Generals out general Saddam and his bluff backfired on him and worked against the US after the invasion of Iraq concluded.