Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

• Instead, voluminous files were often kept onpersonnel management issues, and trivial and nonofficialaspects of even very junior personnel wererecorded.• Official record keeping was highly inconsistent incontent and form. Access to electronic informationtechnology varied widely. Even manual typewriterswere not available in some places. Pre-electroniccopying systems such as carbon paper donot appear to have been widespread. Hand-writtenrecords (including many of limited legibility) arecommon. A high level order in the 1980s directedthat Top Secret orders were to be hand-written toavoid the need for typing staff to see them.Saddam’s subordinates feared him and sought toanticipate his wishes on matters where he had notyet issued characteristically clear and unquestionableorders. At the very least they would seek toavoid outcomes he was known to detest or dislike.Senior subordinates would in these circumstancesissue instructions reflecting what they believed wasSaddam’s line of thinking on an issue. His more experiencedassociates, such as Ramadan, found Saddamto be predictable and they were able to work to thelimits of his tolerance. That said, fear of Saddammeant that rumor about his wishes could acquire considerableforce and make Regime attempts to changecourse sometimes awkward to implement. MIC staff,for example, initially did not believe that Saddamhad decided to abandon the program to withholdinformation from inspectors. They were accustomedto the earlier Saddam-endorsed policy of deception,and feared transgressing what they earlier knew tobe Saddam’s wishes. Vice President Ramadan had tobe dispatched in early 2003 to personally explain thenew policy to skeptical and fearful MIC staff.• Ramadan spoke for three hours at a mass meetingof MIC staff in 2003 to overcome their skepticism,according to Huwaysh.Saddam’s penchant for both centralized verbalinstruction and administrative compartmentationlent itself to accidental or intended competitionamong subordinates. Compartmentation, whenaccompanied by his encouragement of backchannelcommunication, (see Harvesting Ideas and Advicein Byzantine Setting section), occasionally led to two(or more) teams working the same problem. Thiswas particularly the case in security and intelligenceissues, allowing the possibility that more than one“order” might be given. Saddam was normally ableto realign projects when he needed to but checks andbalances among political and security forces of theRegime remained a feature of his rule to the end.• Intended competition resulting from two competing“orders” possibly occurred in WMD activities.For example, the Regime had two competing ballisticmissile programs under Ra’id Jasim Isma’ilAl Adhami and Muzhir Sadiq Saba’ Al Tamimi in1994, as well as the separate development of twodifferent binary CW rounds by the Al MuthannaState Establishment (MSE) and the TechnicalResearch Centre (TRC) in the late 1980s.Saddam Shows the WaySaddam gave periodic unambiguous guidance to awider audience than his immediate subordinates.He wrote his own speeches. He was unafraid ofdetail and personally intervened with instructions inall areas of government administration at all levels.Problems arose if Saddam or his lieutenants hadnot given junior subordinates his views on an issue,leaving them in doubt about policy or their authorityin a system where conformity was valued and failureto follow orders often brutally punished. Initiativesuffered and the system could be inflexible as itworked on old interpretations of Saddam’s wishes.This latter problem became acute after 1998 whenSaddam became more reclusive and his comprehensivespeeches became less frequent. A problem alsoarose when subordinates occasionally moved aheadof Saddam’s decisions, relying on older guidance toanticipate his wishes.• During a custodial interview, Saddam said majorspeeches he drafted and gave, such as the June 2000speech, on why Iraq could not give up its strategicweapons capability if its neighbors did not, wereintended to shape internal and external conditions,in this case the positions of both Iran and the UN.Regime StrategicIntent9