The Politics of Truth_Inside the Lies That Put the White House on Trial and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity
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What we learned firsthand is what the CIA psychiatrists have said for years: Saddam is an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called “malignant narcissism,” a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading neighboring countries.
But the trait also makes him highly sensitive to direct confrontation and embarrassment, even as he is contemptuous of compromise.
“IN YOUR FACE” APPROACH
Shortly after the invasion, I met with my senior staff to game out possible outcomes, given the history of Iraq in times of conflict. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, foreigners, including Americans, had been dragged from their hotels and hanged in public. At the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, a visiting delegation of Iranians disappeared in Baghdad, never to be seen again. Our conclusion was that some of us attending that meeting would not survive.
We also recognized that the traditional diplomatic methods had not worked; Ambassador April Glaspie had been severely, albeit unjustly, criticized for not being tough enough in her meeting with Saddam just days before the invasion. What she did at that meeting was follow longstanding instructions from Washington to urge, but not demand, that Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait over border and oil issues be settled diplomatically. She then left for official business in Washington.
After the invasion, those of us still at the embassy opted for a confrontational “in your face” approach opposite to diplomatic convention, but well-suited to Saddam’s understanding of the world. Whenever Saddam tried to garner international sympathy or support, we pushed back hard. Saddam would never yield to traditional diplomatic persuasion, because he equates compromise with weakness. Therefore, we let no action go uncriticized and sought to embarrass him whenever possible, to shame him into concessions.
The first test of this approach came when Saddam tried to portray himself as a host rather than hostage-taker when he appeared on television with a young British boy and his terrified family. We immediately issued statements that true Arab knights, as Saddam liked to be called, did not hide behind women’s skirts—mocking his masculinity. Our comments were broadcast to the world and repeated by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a speech. Just days after Thatcher chided him, Saddam released all women and children. While we could never prove cause and effect, we knew we had succeeded.
Later, when the Iraqi government circulated a diplomatic note threatening to summarily execute anybody harboring foreigners—at a time when the embassy was providing refuge to 125 Americans stuck in Baghdad—I wore a hangman’s noose in lieu of a tie to a news briefing. I shared the note with the international media and told them that if the Iraqis wanted to execute me for protecting Americans, I would bring my own rope.
The Iraqis were furious at my black joke and harangued me publicly. Then they withdrew the diplomatic note—another indication that Saddam was thin-skinned in the face of aggressive opposition.
CONFRONTATION WORKED
At one point, Saddam sought to justify the invasion of his neighbor as a step toward the liberation of Palestine and, in a particularly ludicrous assertion, he claimed to be the champion of the Muslim world against the Christian infidel capitalists. We countered that several hundred thousand Muslim Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans were languishing in Iraqi refugee camps. Within days, Saddam released all of them.
As we applied these tactics to the task of attempting to reverse the invasion of Kuwait, we understood that the only way to try to avoid a war was to be credible in threatening one. Saddam had announced the annexation of Kuwait on Aug. 8, but by the end of September he was squirming, trying to retain as much of his conquest as possible as we kept beating the drums of war.
We told Saddam that the United States had accepted the fact that the men he was still holding hostage would be killed and convinced him that they were not of any worth to him. On the contrary, we said, they were a liability; if the Iraqis brutalized any of them, American outrage could well trigger a war to avenge the mistreatment.
He released the hostages in early December. Our entire embassy staff and virtually all other foreigners who wanted to leave also were allowed to go before the start of war.
In each case, taking a tough stand worked.
In the end, of course, the United States didn’t succeed in peacefully dislodging Iraqi troops from Kuwait. But in the days leading up to Operation Desert Storm the United States again took a confrontational approach that may well have prevented an even deadlier war.
A week before the United States launched the assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait, Secretary of State James Baker met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva.Throughout December it had become clear that Saddam would fight a military battle that he knew he would lose, calculating that in defeat he could still win the political war. In a region that feels deeply the humiliations it has suffered over centuries at the hands of imperialists, conquerors and more recently Israel, merely standing up to the West is considered a victory.
It fell to Baker to try to deter Saddam from using chemical or biological weapons. In the meeting, Baker made it clear that if Iraq attempted to defend itself in Kuwait by using weapons of mass destruction, the United States would respond by “eliminating the current Iraqi regime”—a not-so-veiled reference to a nuclear strike.
During the war, Saddam launched Scud missiles against Saudi Arabia, set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields and did everything he could to draw Israel into a broader conflict. But he did not use chemical or biological weapons against our troops. In the end, he prized his own survival above all.
You could argue—and some liberals have—that deterrence alone could work again now, and that neither war nor tough inspections are needed. But effective deterrence requires that world leaders issue ultimatums backed by the credible threat of force, which they have not been willing to do so far.
BUILD ON EXPERIENCE
So the question remains: Can we disarm Saddam this time without risking a chemical attack or a broader regional war that threatens our allies?
The answer, I think, is yes, but only if we reject the approaches favored by many in the Bush administration and by France and Russia, and build instead on the experiences of the gulf war.
An aggressive U.N.-sanctioned campaign to disarm Iraq—bolstered by a militarily supported inspection process—would combine the best of the U.S. and U.N. approaches, a robust disarmament policy with the international legitimacy the United States seeks. Secretary of State Colin Powell is pushing the Security Council to adopt such an approach.
But he will have to overcome French and Russian concerns that other harsh demands in the U.S.-British draft resolution leave Saddam little room to save face and avoid war.
One of the strongest arguments for a militarily supported inspection plan is that it doesn’t threaten Saddam with extinction, a threat that could push him to fight back with the very weapons we’re seeking to destroy. If disarmament is the goal, Saddam can be made to understand that only his arsenal is at stake, not his survival.
Our message to Saddam can be simple: “You are going to lose your weapons-of-mass-destruction capability either through the inspections or through a sustained cruise-missile assault on the 700 suspicious sites the United Nations has already identified. If you rebuild them, we will attack again. And if you use weapons of mass destruction or attack another country in the region, we will destroy you and your regime.” The decision to live or die then becomes his to make.
The ultimate lesson of the gulf war may be that when offered the choice, Saddam will sacrifice almost everything before sacrificing his own life or grip on power.
JOSEPH WILSON was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991. He also served as special assistant to President Clinton at the National Security Coun
cil and as ambassador to Gabon. He wrote this article for Perspective.
Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2003
A ‘BIG CAT’ WITH NOTHING TO LOSE
Leaving Hussein no hope will trigger his worst weapons, U.S.
envoy in historic ’90 meeting warns
By Joseph C. Wilson
SADDAM HUSSEIN IS a murderous sociopath whose departure from this Earth would be welcomed everywhere.
I met with Hussein for the last time in a heavily curtained room in the Foreign Ministry late in the morning of Aug. 6, 1990, four days after his invasion of Kuwait. As the senior diplomat in charge of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad at the time, it was my responsibility to tell him to get out of Kuwait and to let the several thousand Americans, including 150 so-called “human shields,” leave the region.
I knew from previous meetings that he always stacked the deck to give himself every advantage, and this session was no different.
I was accompanied by a single embassy note taker, while Hussein had eight senior foreign policy officials with him. But only Tarik Aziz, then the foreign minister, dared speak in his presence. The others were as silent as furniture.
Hussein joined me in the middle of the room with the Iraqi news cameras whirring. Typically, when it came time to shake hands, he deliberately held his low so that to take it I would have to lean over. The cameras would then capture for posterity that his visitor had bowed to the potentate. I kept my back straight.
Later in the meeting, when he turned to others in the room to elicit a reaction, the discomfort was palpable. At one point, he made a move to his ever-present gun. My immediate thought was that I had said the wrong thing. To my relief he took it off, telling me that it hurt his back when he sat. I looked at his people, who were also on edge, watching his every move. He reminded me of a big cat at a watering hole, with the zebra and antelope wondering whether he is there to drink or to eat.
During our session—the last he had with any American official before the war—I listened as he offered his deal through a translator: In exchange for keeping Kuwait, he would give the U.S. oil at a good price and would not invade Saudi Arabia. In a matter-of-fact manner, he dismissed the Kuwaiti government as “history” and scoffed at President Bush’s condemnation of him.
He mocked American will and courage, telling me that my country would run rather than face the prospect of spilling the blood of our soldiers in the Arabian Desert.
I was never prouder than when the American response was to confront Hussein and ultimately force him from Kuwait.
Desert Storm was a just war, sanctioned by the international community and supported by a broad multilateral coalition. Today we are on the verge of another conflict with Iraq, but unlike Desert Storm, the goals are not clear—despite Secretary of State Colin Powell’s eloquent argument for war in his address Wednesday to the United Nations Security Council.
Is it a war to liberate the people of Iraq, oppressed all these years? Is it a battle in the war on terrorism? Or is it, as President Bush often says, all about disarmament?
Clarity matters, because our goals will determine how Hussein reacts.
By all indications, Hussein is clear in his own mind about our intentions: He believes we are going to war to kill him, whether he disarms or not.
This is a major problem for us. My judgment was—and is—that only power will make him yield, but there also has to be some incentive for him to comply.
During the Gulf War, we were always acutely aware of the need to be confrontational on the issues at hand but to leave Hussein, a proud and vain man, a way to save face.
When he released the women and children hostages, Hussein initially threatened to keep dual Kuwaiti-American citizens. I told his underling that unless all Americans were put on the evacuation flight within half an hour, I would inform the American TV networks that Hussein had again reneged on his promises and was toying with the lives of children.
Hussein relented, and our official statements acknowledged Iraqi cooperation.
There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him.
And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.
Hussein and Aziz both told me directly that Iraq reserved the right to use every weapon in its arsenal if invaded, just as it had against Iran and later the Kurds.
The fact that thousands of men, women and children had died in these attacks fazed them not one bit. In fact, Aziz could barely be bothered to stop puffing on his Cuban cigar as he made these comments, of so little importance was the use of chemicals to kill people.
It is probably too late to change Hussein’s assessment, and that will make any ensuing battle for Iraq that much more dangerous for our troops and for the Iraqis who find themselves in the battlefield.
The assertion that Hussein might share weapons of mass destruction with a terrorist group, however, is counterintuitive to everything I and others know about him. The Iraqi leader is above all a consummate survivalist.
He acts as if he expects the people around him to die for him, but he has long known that every terrorist act, and particularly a sophisticated one, raises the question of his involvement and invites blame. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose. In his mind he is Iraq, Iraq is Hussein, and as long as he survives, Iraq survives.
After then-Secretary of State Jim Baker made it clear to Aziz on the eve of the Gulf War that the United States would destroy Iraq if weapons of mass destruction were used, Hussein did not use them. He is not stupid, and for him living is better than dying in vain.
Now, however, if he feels his death is inevitable, he may well arm extremist groups in an attempt to have a last, posthumous laugh.
Along with our drive toward war, it should also be made clear to Hussein that—in the little time remaining—he still has a choice.
We should do everything possible to avoid the understandable temptation to send American troops to fight a war of “liberation” that can be waged only by the Iraqis themselves. The projection of power need not equate with the projection of force.
JOSEPH C. WILSON, chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991 and acting ambassador during Operation Desert Shield, is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington.
The Nation, March 3, 2003
REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE?
by Joseph Wilson
AS THE SENIOR American diplomat in Baghdad during Desert Shield, I advocated a muscular U.S. response to Saddam’s brutal annexation of Kuwait in flagrant violation of the United Nations charter. Only the credible threat of force could hope to reverse his invasion. Our in-your-face strategy secured the release of the 150 American “human shields”—hostages—but ultimately it took war to drive Iraq from Kuwait. I was disconsolate at the failure of diplomacy, but Desert Storm was necessitated by Saddam’s intransigence, it was sanctioned by the U.N. and it was conducted with a broad international military coalition. The goal was explicit and focused; war was the last resort.
The upcoming military operation also has one objective, though different from the several offered by the Bush Administration. This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. The intrusive inspections are disrupting Saddam’s programs, as even the Administration has acknowledged. Nor is it about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not less. It is not even about liberation of an oppressed people. Killing innocent Iraqi civilians in a full frontal assault is hardly the only or best way to liberate a people. The underlying objective of this war is the imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and installation of vassal regimes that will control restive populations.
Without the firing of a single cruise missile, the Administration has already established a massive footprint in the Gulf and Southwest Asia from which to project power. U.S. generals, admirals and diplomats have crisscrossed the region like modern-
day proconsuls, cajoling fragile governments to permit American access and operations from their territories.
Bases have been established as stepping stones to Afghanistan and Iraq, but also as tripwires in countries that fear their neighbors. Northern Kuwait has been ceded to American forces and a significant military presence established in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The over-the-horizon posture of a decade ago has given way to boots on the ground and forward command headquarters. Nations in the region, having contracted with the United States for their security umbrella, will now listen when Washington tells them to tailor policies and curb anti-Western dissent. Hegemony in the Arab nations of the Gulf has been achieved.
Meanwhile, Saddam might well squirm, but even without an invasion, he’s finished. He is surrounded, foreigners are swarming through his palaces, and as Colin Powell so compellingly showed at the U.N., we are watching and we are listening. International will to disarm Iraq will not wane as it did in the 1990s, for the simple reason that George W. Bush keeps challenging the organization to remain relevant by keeping pressure on Saddam. Nations that worry that, as John le Carré puts it, “America has entered one of its periods of historical madness” will not want to jettison the one institution that, absent a competing military power, might constrain U.S. ambition.