The CIA and the Invasion of Iraq
BOOK REVIEW: The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, The CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq
By Steve Coll / Penguin Press
Reviewed by Charles Duelfer
The Reviewer – Charles Duelfer was a political military officer at the State Department in the 1980’s, Deputy Chairman of the UNSCOM Iraq Weapons Inspectorate in the 1990’s and was head of the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group in 2004. He is the author of Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq and blogs at CharlesDuelfer.com
REVIEW — This is the book I’ve been hoping for since completing the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group (ISG) mission in Iraq in 2004. Steve Coll has doggedly obtained documents and interviews to illuminate the Iraq perspective of events from the beginning to end of the Saddam Regime. He provides comparative perspectives—Iraq and U.S.—that yield understanding of the miscalculations producing three wars (four if you count ISIS post-Saddam). Moreover, he does all this via an entertaining narrative featuring an array of fascinating characters.
Disclaimer: I met with Steve Coll as he began work on this book in 2018 and later in January 2019. I encouraged him to look at the early experience of the UN weapons inspectors and years prior to 1991. My argument was that decisionmaker’s mindsets in 2001-2002 were shaped by earlier experiences in the 80’s and 90’s. This was the approach I had taken in my earlier book, “Hide and Seek”.
In his book, Coll credits/blames me for arguing that he should begin his analysis earlier. I had no expectation that he would follow this course, but he did, and I and delighted. (As he began working on this book, Coll asked about where he might seek documentation for the book – I offered a suggestion for which he both thanks – and curses me for making, thereby adding a mountain of additional work for him in the process.)
The US-led invasion in 2003 and the subsequent work of the ISG produced a massive inventory of documents, recordings, financial data, interviews, etc. covering the whole of Saddam’s reign. While the ISG collected an incredible amount of data, our time and mandate were limited. Data was skimmed, “gisted” and triaged in relevance to the ISG primary mission related to Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD.) But the value of the data collection to understand the internal mechanisms, personnel, intelligence, etc. was extraordinary. My expectation was that the documents would become available to academics and scholars for extensive study later. That seemingly logical outcome has been stymied by a long series of bureaucratic, legal, and financial reasons that only make sense in Washington.
Coll and some dedicated scholars have pried their way into this resource. From it, he details the actions and thinking of Saddam and his regime. At times, because of the prevalence of recordings/transcripts of Saddam’s meetings, there is a better picture of the Iraqi side than the U.S. side. Of course, in one way, the Iraqi side is simpler. To understand Iraqi decisions, you need to understand only one person—Saddam. Washington is more complicated—as Saddam came slowly to understand.
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Here is one example. During the debate in Congress over authorizing the Kuwait War in 1991, Coll relates Saddam’s discussions with top advisors over this confusing process in Washington. Saddam was perplexed as to whether President Bush could just decide to go to war on his own. “What we have here is a complicated country,” he observed.
Coll’s examples depict the evolution of thinking on both sides through various participants. Revelatory conversations recorded after President George H. W. Bush lost to Bill Clinton in 1992 show how Saddam viewed himself and the United States. When Saddam learned of Bush’s defeat he first appeared on a balcony and fired a rifle in the air to celebrate (celebratory gunfire is traditional in Iraq.) Subsequently, in discussions with his top aides Tariq Aziz and Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam basically concluded that Bush lost because he failed to remove Saddam. Saddam observed that Bush was gone, and he remained and that was what the world saw. He won…reinforcing his views on America and how to deal with it.
Beyond the insights from such documentation, Coll sought out key Iraqi players who were willing and able to talk. They provide context and confirmation of the points in his presentation. They also remind the reader of the reality of the Saddam regime; its prisons, summary judgments, brutal consequences, and surveillance to assure regime survival.
Paired with the documented insights to the Iraq side, Coll records the reflected actions and reactions by US actors. He has many quite candid discussions with CIA and DIA participants. Details, after twenty years, are trickling out. There are no surprise revelations—the intelligence community got many things—actions and assessments– wrong for reasons that have been previously described. However, the personal details add context and illuminate where judgements by policymakers departed from intelligence assessments (as they inevitably do in consideration of other driving factors). And many of the actors were excellent officers levied with dubious goals.
Coll follows Iraqi and American actors and threads from the beginning of the Saddam regime in 1979 to its end in 2003. Mistakes and miscalculations build upon one another over time. Mindsets and biases present for decisions in 2002-2003 accreted like stalagmites over time.
In September 1980, Saddam engaged Iran in what he thought would be a short conflict to acquire some specific geographic territory. It wasn’t. The Iran-Iraq war lasted until 1988. Hundreds of thousands of casualties occurred and virtually nothing was accomplished. However, Coll details the provision by the U.S. of satellite-derived data on Iranian troop concentrations. (Iran was effectively employing “human wave attacks” at the time.) Saddam produced thousands of sarin and mustard munitions to offset the Iranian attacks. The channel used to share this data in Baghdad was via the defense attaché in Baghdad. This obviously created an impression on Saddam, especially as the intelligence exchange continued even after the horrendous Anfal campaign against Iraqi Kurds. Saddam, concerned that Kurds were taking the side of Iran, unleashed his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid (AKA Chemical Ali). Majid directed the air force to drop chemical munitions in Iraqi Kurdistan and indiscriminately killed thousands of Kurds. One Iraqi general was quoted at the time, “Every insect has its insecticide.”
Memorable quotes punctuate such moments. From the Conflict Resolution Research Center (CRRC) documents we hear Majid gently chastising his underlings for their haste in carrying out his direction, “We have no objection to beheading the traitors. However, it would have been preferable to send them to security for interrogation before executing them.”
Another important effect of Coll’s presentation of primary source material is that it reminds readers of the horror of the Saddam regime. With the myriad problems of post-Saddam Iraq and the failure to date of any effective government not under the thumb of Iran, it’s worth remembering that things were once worse.
Saddam’s chilling response to the Shia uprising immediately after the 1991 war are but one example. Coll pairs this description with the US decisions to encourage the uprising knowing we would not follow through with any material support. This is not only a serious blot on the success story of the war, but, combined with the U.S.-driven ceasefire resolution in the UN it also planted the seeds for the next war.
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Among the American reactions, Coll gives a robust depiction of the evolution of U.S. covert action ventures. Unvarnished truth comes from direct participants starting from the lame hope that in the aftermath of the 1991 uprising, Saddam would be weak and vulnerable to some imagined internal coup. The Bush Administration, as Coll echoes the participants’ skepticism, gave form to wishful thinking via a Presidential Finding authorizing covert action intended to nudge Saddam on his way. Thereon a decade of feckless efforts followed. And they help shape the ground and thinking when the new Bush Administration arrived in 2001.
On the Iraq side during this period, we see Saddam’s views of Washington were colored by unfounded but understandable assumptions. During the contentious UN weapons inspections, Saddam found the inspectors a threat—not to hidden WMD reserves, but to his own security. This was a major reason for his constraints on inspection activities. Further, Coll notes that the Iraqi default assumption about US intelligence is—well, that it was good. Saddam did not assume that we were ignorant despite billions spent among many more secret agencies than even he possessed. Saddam concluded that Washington must have known he didn’t have WMD and therefore claims to the contrary by Madeleine Albright, among others, were lies intended to keep sanctions in place.
Coll also shows Saddam considering the alternative that maybe the U.S. was correct and there were clandestine WMD stocks in Iraq, but from fear or other reasons, no one had informed Saddam. It’s complicated.
Coll has unearthed many choice nuggets on the U.S. side as well. One that was new to me, was a series of communications between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Tariq Aziz via an Iraqi-American oil dealer named Samir Vincent. Vincent had gotten in touch with then Assistant Secretary of State Bill Burns with an introduction by former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci. Grounds for the back channel could not be agreed upon so the dialogue did not proceed. (Incidentally, Samir Vincent was one of the very few Americans listed in the Oil for Food Allocations that Iraq used reward friends. Following subsequent investigations, he pleaded guilty in 2005, acknowledging he was being compensated for acting on behalf of the Iraq regime.)
Coll’s book relates a tragic tale by describing decisions made by real people with limited data and flawed assumptions. The narrative carries you along the full arc of US and Saddam’s relations. In the end you may retain your previous views on the 2003 Iraq War, but it will be with far better understanding.
Spoiler alert: In the end Saddam dies, but the chaos lives.
The Achilles Trap earns a prestigious 4 out of 4 trench coats
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