Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

Israel“There can never be stability, security or peace in theregion so long as there are immigrant Jews usurpingthe land of Palestine,” Saddam Husayn, Baghdad TVpolitical discussion, 17 January 2001Saddam’s attitude toward Israel, although reflectingdefensive concerns, was hostile. Saddam consideredIsrael the common enemy of all Arabs and this mirroredthe attitudes of the Arab street in their oppositionto a Zionist state. Moreover, it was reported thathe considered himself the next Salah-al-Din (Saladin)with a divine mission to liberate Jerusalem. Thiswas a tactic to win popular support in countries likeEgypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. He was aware of hisprestige as a champion of Palestine against Israel andconsistently called for the liberation of Palestine fromthe “river to the sea” and warned that any Arab rulerwho abandoned the Palestinians would “pay a heavyprice.” In February 2001, he said publicly:“When we speak about the enemies of Iraq, thismeans the enemies of the Arab nation. When we speakabout the enemies of the Arab nation, we mean theenemies of Iraq. This is because Iraq is in the heart,mind, and chest of the Arab nation,”Saddam implied, according to the former presidentialsecretary, that Iraq would resume WMDprograms after sanctions in order to restore the“strategic balance” within the region. Saddam wasconscious of Israel’s WMD arsenal and saw Israelas a formidable challenge to Arab interests. Israelappeared to be a rival that had strategic dominancebecause it possessed WMD and the ability to buildrelations with countries neighboring Iraq, such asTurkey and Iran, which could destabilize Iraq fromwithin using the Shi’a or Kurds. Iraq faced a morefocused risk of air and missile strikes from Israelistrategic forces, rather than a ground attack. Accordingto a former senior official, Israel’s bombing ofIraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor spurred Saddam to buildup Iraq’s military to confront Israel in the early 1980s.Other Iraqi policy makers stated they could otherwisedo little to influence Israel. Saddam judged Israel tobe a lesser adversary than Iran because Israel couldnot invade Iraq, according to former Vice PresidentRamadan.The United StatesSaddam did not consider the United States a naturaladversary, as he did Iran and Israel, and he hopedthat Iraq might again enjoy improved relations withthe United States, according to Tariq ‘Aziz and thepresidential secretary. Tariq ‘Aziz pointed to a seriesof issues, which occurred between the end of theIran-Iraq war and 1991, to explain why Saddam failedto improve relations with the United States: Irangate(the covert supplying of Iran with missiles, leaked in1986), a continuing US fleet presence in the Gulf, suspectedCIA links with Kurds and Iraqi dissidents andthe withdrawal of agricultural export credits. AfterIrangate, Saddam believed that Washington couldnot be trusted and that it was out to get him personally.His outlook encouraged him to attack Kuwait,and helps explain his later half-hearted concessionsto the West. These concerns collectively indicated toSaddam that there was no hope of a positive relationshipwith the United States in the period before theattack on Kuwait.Although the United States was not considereda natural adversary, some Iraqi decision-makersviewed it as Iraq’s most pressing concern, accordingto former Vice President Ramadan. Throughoutthe 1990s, Saddam and the Ba’th Regime consideredfull-scale invasion by US forces to be the mostdangerous potential threat to unseating the Regime,although Saddam rated the probability of an invasionas very low. Throughout the UNSCOM period, Iraqileaders extended a number of feelers to the UnitedStates through senior UNSCOM personnel offeringstrategic concessions in return for an end to sanctions.The stumbling block in these feelers was the apparentIraqi priority on maintaining both the Saddam Regimeand the option of Iraqi WMD.• In a custodial debriefing, Saddam said he wanted todevelop better relations with the US over the latterpart of the 1990s. He said, however, that he was notgiven a chance because the US refused to listen toanything Iraq had to say.• In 2004, Charles Duelfer of ISG said that between1994 and 1998, both he and UNSCOM ExecutiveChairman Rolf Ekeus were approached multipletimes by senior Iraqis with the message that Bagh-Regime StrategicIntent31