Saddam's Delusions: The View From the Inside

Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006

Summary:  A special, double-length article from the upcoming May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, presenting key excerpts from the recently declassified book-length report of the USJFCOM Iraqi Perspectives Project.

Kevin Woods is a defense analyst in Washington, D.C. James Lacey is a military analyst for the U.S. Joint Forces Command. Williamson Murray is Class of 1957 Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy. Along with Mark Stout and Michael Pease, they were the principal participants in the USJFCOM Iraqi Perspectives Project.

There were two common reactions to the pervasive security apparatus. The first was to work through the fog of suspicion and maintain as open a process as possible, while still attempting to command a military unit on the brink of war. Operating in this manner often required extreme precautions. The commander of the Second Republican Guard Corps, for instance, held most of his private meetings in the walled garden of a private home where he could be relatively sure that the regime's spies could not eavesdrop on him. The second reaction, more common among senior leaders, was to avoid any actions, activities, or circumstances that might invite suspicion from the various "eyes" of the regime.

The net effect of such reactions was that corps-level operational command and control disappeared from the battlefield. The restrictions imposed on Iraq's officers during peacetime and the general atmosphere of fear made it impossible to coordinate action during war. By consistently sacrificing military effectiveness for the supposedly more important needs of internal security, the regime effectively neutered its military, which ultimately proved incapable of standing up to the disciplined and competent coalition forces.

LAST DAYS

In the end, Saddam determined that the most important factor for military success lay in the sprit of the warrior. Saddam considered instilling ideological commitment to the Baathist cause to be the best way to prepare Iraq's soldiers for war. Saddam told his officers that Allah wanted to insult the United States by giving his strongest personal abilities to the materially weak Iraqis. Because Saddam perceived the Baathist spirit of the Iraqi warrior to be far superior to anything American soldiers were capable of bringing to the battlefield, he overlooked the many factors eroding the foundation of his military's effectiveness.

The conclusion of an Iraqi training manual sums up the regime's attitude. "Military power," it reads, "is measured by the period in which difficulties become severe, calamities increase, choices multiply, and the world gets dark and nothing remains except the bright light of belief and ideological determination. . . . If [a soldier] ignores [his] values, principles, and ideals, all military foundations [will] collapse. He will be defeated, shamed, and [his] military honor will remain in the same place together with the booty taken by the enemy. The President, the Leader Saddam Hussein asks, 'Would men allow for their military honor to be taken by the enemy as booty from the battle?' "Iraq's was not the first army to place "spirit" over the reality of firepower and steel, and it is unlikely to be the last.

Much of the debate on the origins of the postwar insurgency in Iraq has centered on the question of whether Saddam's regime placed munitions around the country to support a future guerrilla war against an external foe. There is no significant documentary evidence to suggest it did so. Rather, what is clear is that the regime ordered the distribution of ammunition in order to preserve it for a prolonged war with coalition forces.

As far as can be determined from the interviews and records reviewed so far, there was no national plan to embark on a guerrilla war in the event of a military defeat. Nor did the regime appear to cobble together such a plan as its world crumbled around it. Buoyed by his earlier conviction that the Americans would never dare enter Baghdad, Saddam hoped to the very last minute that he could stay in power. And his military and civilian bureaucrats went through their daily routines until the very end.

Only slowly did Saddam and those around him finally seem to realize that they were suffering a catastrophic military defeat. In the regime's final days, the only decisive actions those at the top seemed capable of were attempts to stem the flow of bad news. For instance, a Ministry of Defense memorandum dated April 6 told subordinate units, "We are doing great," and reminded all staff officers to "avoid exaggerating the enemy's abilities." By that point, Iraq's military forces had already collapsed or were collapsing. Coalition attacks had destroyed almost all of the corps and division headquarters, and the few that remained had been rendered ineffective by the furious pace of the U.S. advance. Although some isolated Iraqi units continued to fight, they were no longer connected to a coherent military organization.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Aziz, by then even Saddam had finally accepted that the end was near. On that day, he called a meeting of the Iraqi leadership at a house in central Baghdad. During the meeting, according to Aziz, Saddam's tone was that of a man "who had lost his will to resist" and "knew the regime was coming to an end." Later that day, Saddam traveled to another safe house a few miles away (he changed locations every three to six hours). There he met with his personal secretary, his two sons, the minister of defense, and the chiefs of staff of the al Quds Army, the Republican Guard, and the Saddam Fedayeen. It was almost midnight, and according to those present, the combination of some accurate battlefield reports and Western satellite news broadcasts had finally made it impossible to ignore their dire predicament.

Yet Saddam began giving orders to deploy and maneuver formations that had ceased to exist. His attention focused on plans to have the Republican Guard enter Baghdad and join with the Saddam Fedayeen in "preparing" for urban warfare. Late the next day, Saddam met again with his closest advisers and, according to a participant, accepted that "the army divisions were no longer capable of defending Baghdad, and that he would have a meeting with the Baath Regional Commanders to enlist them in the final defense of the regime." A subsequent meeting on the same day produced an unexecuted plan to divide Baghdad into four quadrants. Saddam placed loyal Baath Party stalwarts in command of each sector and charged them with defending the city to their last drops of blood.