Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

How Much Power and Influence?The Quartet comprised some of the Regime’s mostsenior and experienced individuals, but it did nothave a significant impact on the Regime’s policy onany critical issue. Instead, the Quartet had only theappearance of power. It did not command its ownagenda; instead it advised Saddam only on issueshe chose to refer to it. Likewise, the Quartet offeredno proactive advice and had no executive power orpolicy-determining role, and it lacked a dedicatedstaff to conduct analysis or write assessments.• Personal divisions in the group hindered anyattempt to influence Saddam as US pressure on Iraqbegan to mount, particularly after 2000. Two Quartetmembers claim to have been private dissentersfrom the policy of obstructing WMD disarmament,but there is no evidence they attempted to pressSaddam on the issue through the Quartet. Quartetmembers were personally distrustful of colleaguesto the point of fear. Mutual distrust and the group’swidely varied experience of the outside world limitedits ability to speak decisively on strategic andforeign issues.• Longstanding conflicting lines of communication toSaddam further eroded the Quartet’s effectivenessand solidarity. Backchannel communications toSaddam were a fixture of his rule. Saddam’s growingreclusiveness after the mid-nineties increasedthis practice and the Quartet was immune neitherto its members using backchannels against colleaguesnor to disrupting effects of such practiceson the body’s effectiveness. ‘Izzat Ibrahim reportedhis summary of Quartet recommendations, oftenonly to have them contradicted by Tariq in separatediscussions with Saddam.• The Quartet, however, was solidly united on issuesunrelated to Iraq’s external problems. All Quartetmembers espoused hate of Shi’a, Kurds, democrats,communists, clerics, monarchists, free markets andmost other Arabs. This unity did not transfer to acommon coherent view of the wider world or createa common assessment of how to deal with Iraq’sconfrontation with the Coalition, or how to managethe crisis.• Despite a limited ability to shape policy, the Quartetstill carried considerable prestige among morejunior levels of the Regime. The Quartet’s existencereassured Regime supporters that Saddam’sdecisions had the benefit of the best minds in theleadership. Conversely, the individual networks ofsubordinates and followers of Quartet membersmeant that there was some transmission of Saddam’sintentions through government. The Quartetwas seen from below as powerful, even though—asthe Regime evolved—senior lieutenants such as theQuartet members were personally little more thanreflections of Saddam’s own authority.Chains of CommandSaddam was formerly an able administrator withinstandard civil service and military structures, butstarting in the mid-1990s, his methods changed dramatically.Saddam duplicated his mastery of formaladministration with increasing resort to a networkof family and personal relationships, using verbalinstructions heedless of formal chains of command.His motives appear to have been a combination ofincreasing obsession with personal security and aprioritization of personal interests.• This development blurred Iraq’s formal mechanismsfor developing state policy. Saddam hadalways retained the prerogative of final policydetermination, but the process by which he formedpolicy became progressively less clear, even tosenior participants in the system.• As Saddam became less wedded to formal processes,the Quartet—an advisory body to beginwith—was poorly placed to lock into formal chainsof command and determine outcomes.70