Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

that will match the weapons used against us by ourenemy, but in any case, under no circumstancesshall we ever relinquish Iraq.” He explained that“Iraq” included territory extending from “Zakho inthe north to the sea in the south, all of Iraq.”• Saddam warned in a statement to the press inFebruary 1993 “any attempt to strike against ourscientific or military installations will be confrontedwith a precise reaction.” He also used a Quraniccitation he rarely used “God be my witness thatI have delivered the message.” He used a similarconstruct in a July 1990 warning to Kuwait.WMD Possession—Real or Imagined—Acts as aDeterrentThe Iran-Iraq war and the ongoing suppression ofinternal unrest taught Saddam the importance ofWMD to the dominance and survival of the Regime.Following the destruction of much of the Iraqi WMDinfrastructure during Desert Storm, however, thethreats to the Regime remained; especially his perceptionof the overarching danger from Iran. In orderto counter these threats, Saddam continued with hispublic posture of retaining the WMD capability. Thisled to a difficult balancing act between the need todisarm to achieve sanctions relief while at the sametime retaining a strategic deterrent. The Regime neverresolved the contradiction inherent in this approach.Ultimately, foreign perceptions of these tensions contributedto the destruction of the Regime.• Saddam never discussed using deception as apolicy, but he used to say privately that the “betterpart of war was deceiving,” according to ‘Ali HasanAl Majid. He stated that Saddam wanted to avoidappearing weak and did not reveal he was deceivingthe world about the presence of WMD.• The UN’s inconclusive assessment of Iraq’s possessionof WMD, in Saddam’s view, gave pause toIran. Saddam was concerned that the UN inspectionprocess would expose Iraq’s vulnerability, therebymagnifying the effect of Iran’s own capability.Saddam compared the analogy of a warrior strikingthe wrist of another, with the potential effect of theUN inspection process. He clarified by saying that,despite the strength of the arm, striking the wristor elbow can be a more decisive blow to incapacitatethe entire arm; knowledge of your opponents’weaknesses is a weapon in itself.Saddam’s Prioritization of Getting Out FromUnder SanctionsIraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 led tothe imposition of comprehensive and mandatorytrade and financial sanctions under UNSCR 661 of6 August 1990. These sanctions remained in placeafter the military ceasefire on 28 February 1991. The“Political Ceasefire” incorporated in UNSCR 687 of3 April 1991 explicitly linked Iraq’s WMD disarmamentto Iraq’s right to resume oil exports. Withdrawalof wider sanctions was made dependent on this step.Saddam continually underestimated the economicconsequences of his actions. His belief that sanctionswould prove ineffective led him to conclude hecould avoid WMD disarmament. (Saddam may havebeen encouraged in this belief by a miss-appreciationof the relative effectiveness of sanctions against theapartheid regime in South Africa.) As early as 1992,however, Saddam began to form a more sober impressionof the power of sanctions and their deleteriouseffect on Iraq.The compounding economic, military, and infrastructuredamage caused by sanctions—not to mentiontheir effect on internal opinion in Iraq—focusedSaddam by the mid-90s on the need to lift sanctionsbefore any thought of resuming WMD developmentcould be entertained. Saddam’s proximate objectivewas therefore lifting sanctions, but efforts had to becompatible with preservation of Regime security.While it appears that Iraq, by the mid-1990s, wasessentially free of militarily significant WMD stocks,Saddam’s perceived requirement to bluff about WMDcapabilities made it too dangerous to clearly reveal34