by Con Coughlin
It was a valiant effort, but it made little impression on officials in either Washington or London. One British Foreign Office official described the material contained in the documentation submission as “the mother of all gobbledygook,” and within days American and British experts had found a number of key omissions in the declaration, so that they believed they had a prima facie case for finding Saddam to be in material breach of 1441. A week after the Iraqis made their submission, U.S. intelligence experts revealed that they had reached the preliminary conclusion that the Iraqi declaration had failed to account for chemical and biological agents missing when the inspectors left Iraq four years previously, and that Iraq’s declaration on its nuclear program was incomplete. Questions were also raised about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa, as well as high-technology materials that could be used to enrich uranium.25 In London Blair was given a similar briefing by his officials, who informed him that most of the report was a recycling of information that was known either from public sources or from intelligence. Blair, who still entertained the hope that the UN process might avert renewed military conflict, remarked to his colleagues, “He hasn’t done it, has he? That was Saddam’s big moment, and he’s blown it.” Blair’s intuition was on target, for on December 19 President Bush declared that Iraq was in material breach of 1441. Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, informed the UN that the Iraqi weapons declaration totally failed to meet the UN’s demand for an accurate and complete account of Iraq’s weapons programs. Saddam’s failure to comply would result in a month of intensified inspections. If those efforts failed, then war would be declared on Iraq. While the breach was undoubtedly a setback for Saddam, he could hardly have been surprised. The United States was in no mood to tolerate the tricks and obfuscations that Saddam had developed almost into an art form during the 1990s.
By the end of the year there was an inexorable momentum building up to war. In Baghdad the Iraqi authorities increased food distribution to enable civilians to stockpile supplies in anticipation of the expected conflict. The trade ministry advised civilians to buy enough supplies to last for three months at least. Saddam marked Christmas Day by delivering a speech on state television in which he called for extra efforts to boost national pride and faith “for people to see that it is worth it to sacrifice their soul and life in defense of the nation.”
The Iraqi media reported that the country’s armed forces had carried out extensive war games, including urban warfare. Saddam instructed Qusay—who apart from being in charge of the weapons concealment program had been given responsibility for defending the regime—to concentrate his energies on defending Baghdad, in the regime’s heartland. Regular army units were to be given the task of impeding the advance of the invading force while the elite units—the Republican Guard, Special Republican Guard, and the Fedayeen, a paramilitary outfit run by Uday—were to be deployed in a series of military “rings” around the city. If the invaders were successful in breaking through the city’s defenses, then the remaining units were to fall back to Baghdad and lure the invading forces into a bloody street war. Saddam remained convinced—as he had made clear to April Glaspie, the U.S. ambassador, during his meeting with her before the Kuwait war (see Chapter Ten)—that support for a war against Iraq would quickly collapse if U.S. forces suffered significant casualties. Saddam had been very impressed by the heavy casualties Palestinian militants had inflicted on Israeli troops the previous year in Jenin when they ambushed and killed several members of an Israeli patrol that had been lured into the city. He believed that if he could use similar tactics against American forces, he might be able to force Washington to accept a cease-fire.
Saddam was obsessed with improving the protection of Iraq’s air defenses. During the late 1990s he had become deeply frustrated by Iraq’s failure to protect its air defense systems from allied attack. Following one particularly devastating attack in late 2001, when allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones attacked and destroyed several Iraqi radar installations, Saddam demanded that immediate action be taken to prevent the country suffering further losses. “He went absolutely crazy,” said Lieutenant Colonel al-Dabbagh, who commanded a key air defense unit in Iraq’s western desert and was secretly providing reports on Iraq’s war preparations to British intelligence. “Saddam said, ‘If we don’t do something fast there will be no radar left in Iraq.’” Initially, the Iraqis recruited about one dozen Serbian air defense specialists who were each paid $100,000 a month to help devise a method to protect Iraq’s air defenses from attack. But their contract was terminated when their attempts to devise a mobile radar system failed because they could not find a truck large enough to carry the equipment. Saddam then struck a deal with the Chinese government—a clear breach of the UN sanctions applied against Iraq at the end of the Gulf War—whereby a team of Chinese military advisers was dispatched to Baghdad to help resolve the problem. “They were personally greeted by Saddam and seemed very happy to be in Iraq,” recalled al-Dabbagh. “A couple of them even grew mustaches and wore keffiyehs [Arab scarves] around their heads so that they would look more like us.” According to al-Dabbagh, the Chinese scientists succeeded in devising a sophisticated decoy device that led missiles fired by allied aircraft to hit the wrong targets.26
An altogether more sinister development was Saddam’s plan to deploy chemical and biological weapons that could be used on the battlefield against invading troops. This proposal was one of several measures Saddam made at a meeting of his military chiefs in early 2002 when he first became convinced that the Bush administration, flushed by its recent success in Afghanistan, was preparing to overthrow him. Saddam ordered that mortar shells fitted with chemical or biological weapons be deployed at front-line units for use when the war reached what he described as “the critical stage.” Al-Dabbagh, who smuggled his reports to London through a network of agents working for the Iraqi National Accord, the London-based Iraqi exile group, said that the shells—similar to the ones used during the Iran-Iraq War—could be deployed within forty-five minutes of Saddam giving the order. Al-Dabbagh’s report on Saddam’s forty-five-minute capability was smuggled to London in time for it to be included in the British government’s intelligence dossier on Iraq. The claim that Saddam could deploy his weapons of mass destruction within forty-five minutes generated most of the publicity that accompanied the dossier’s publication. The shells, which were simply marked “secret,” were actually delivered to front-line units toward the end of 2002, when Saddam was supposed to be helping UN inspectors destroy Iraq’s WMD capability. The munitions were under the control of the Special Republican Guard and the Fedayeen, who had special orders from Saddam on when and how they could be used. Any thoughts Saddam may have entertained of using these weapons seem to have evaporated after the White House issued an explicit warning to Baghdad in mid-December that it would use nuclear weapons if Iraq attempted to use chemical or biological weapons against American troops or allies. This was similar to the warning James Baker, the former secretary of state, had given Saddam before the Gulf War. It had the desired effect as soon afterward the Special Republican Guard units were ordered to remove the “secret” weapons from front-line units and store them at secret locations.
Finally Saddam put in place arrangements for Iraqi loyalists to wage an insurgency campaign in the event of the regime suffering a conventional military defeat. Saddam was reported as having told a meeting of senior Baathists, “The battle with America is inevitable. What is of paramount importance is how to sustain the continuation of war after occupation.”27 To that end Saddam ordered that 30 percent of the country’s weaponry be hidden at secret locations, which were to be marked by Iraqi Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) coordinates. These were to include guns, rocket-propelled grenades, antitank weapons and Strella surface-to-air missiles. The only people allowed to know the precise location of the arms caches were Saddam, Qusay, and Abdul Hamoud, Saddam’s private secretary. Al-Dabbagh said that Saddam gave explicit
orders that the location of the hidden arms should be kept a strict secret. “Saddam said that if any of these weapons were found by ordinary Iraqi people then the head of the military unit would be hanged immediately.”
With both sides stepping up their military preparations, the main issue facing the United Nations was whether Saddam’s noncompliance with Resolution 1441 justified launching military action, and if so was the Security Council obliged to pass a second resolution authorizing the use of force. By early 2003 the inspectors had been working in Iraq for several weeks and, although there was valid criticism about the level of Iraqi cooperation, the inspectors had been unable to uncover any significant evidence that Iraq was engaged in an illicit weapons program. In his State of the Union Address in January 2003, President Bush had stated that significant quantities of chemical and biological weapons were still unaccounted for in Iraq, and also claimed that Saddam was continuing with his efforts to develop nuclear weapons. In early February Colin Powell made a detailed presentation to the UN Security Council at which he spent an hour and a half playing tapes of intercepted Iraqi military communications, showing surveillance photographs of military sites, and recounting information from sources “who risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.” The British government’s contribution to the propaganda war was to publish a second intelligence dossier on Saddam’s WMD threat, although this was quickly discredited when it emerged that the “intelligence” had in fact been copied off the Internet from the doctoral thesis of an obscure Californian postgraduate student.
Despite the concerted efforts undertaken by the British and American governments to highlight the threat posed by Saddam, they were unable to generate sufficient support at the Security Council for a second resolution that would sanction military action. The British and American position was not helped by Dr. Blix, who, despite his public criticisms of the Iraqis’ lack of cooperation with the inspection teams, believed that the inspection process should be given more time, a view that was actively supported by France, Germany, and Russia. Dominique de Villepin, the French foreign minister, had let it be known that France would not support a second resolution that authorized military action. On February 14, when Dr. Blix provided the latest in a series of progress reports to the UN, he declared that Iraq’s behavior had improved and, while there were many questions that still needed to be answered about Saddam’s WMD capability, he was confident that these could be resolved if the inspectors were given more time. Much to Washington’s irritation, Blix was also openly scornful of Powell’s claims about Iraq’s WMD programs. Blix stated that the intelligence assumptions were dubious and that in one case—the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa—it was clearly based on forged documents. His colleague, Mohamed ElBaradei, who was investigating Iraq’s nuclear program, was even more pointed. “We have to date found no evidence of nuclear activity in Iraq,” he said, and added that given a few more months he could wrap up his investigation.
Saddam was reaping the rewards of a skillfully choreographed game he was playing with the inspectors and world opinion. He delivered a steady stream of carefully timed concessions, providing extra ammunition for those who argued that the inspections were working. He agreed to allow the destruction of his al-Samoud missiles, whose range exceeded the permitted distance. He signed a presidential decree, outlawing weapons of mass destruction. He allowed the inspectors to use aerial reconnaissance, safe in the knowledge that his WMD stockpiles had been carefully concealed. He had even acquired a special ground-level radar system to check that the WMD had been properly buried in the desert.28 Saddam invited Tony Benn, the left-wing Labour politician, to Baghdad to interview him for British television in February 2003. Saddam categorically denied any of the allegations being made against him. Asked about Iraq’s WMD programs, Saddam said, “There is only one truth and therefore I tell you that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever.” And asked about Iraq’s links with al-Qaeda, he said, “If we had a relationship with al-Qaeda and we believed in that relationship we wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it. Therefore I would like to tell you directly that…we have no relationship with al-Qaeda.” Saddam’s tactics proved highly successful in mobilizing public opinion, particularly in the West, against military action. On Saturday February 15 up to 100 million antiwar protestors converged on 600 cities in 60 countries. London saw the biggest demonstration in British history—up to two million people from all parts of the UK taking part in a “stop the war” rally.
Saddam might have been winning the diplomatic war, but it seemed there was little he could do to diminish the resolve of the British and American governments. By this time there were nearly a quarter of a million U.S. troops and British troops either in the Gulf or en route, and with summer approaching, Washington was keen to get on with the invasion. Commanders did not want their men to have to fight in the searing heat of the Iraqi desert in heavy chemical protection suits if they could help it. On February 24 Britain, backed by the United States and Spain, tabled a draft second resolution stating simply that Iraq had failed to take the final chance that it had been granted. The resolution was almost dead in the water from the moment it was tabled as, of the fifteen members of the Security Council, France, Russia, China, Germany, and Syria had immediately indicated that they would vote against it. Even if the resolution’s proposers were able to win over the votes of the other members—Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Pakistan, Mexico, and Chile—the vote could be blocked by a veto from the Russian or French, who, as permanent members of the UN’s Security Council, held the right to veto any resolution. Although both Washington and London embarked on a frantic round of diplomacy to win support for their resolution, the process was effectively made redundant on March 10 when Jacques Chirac, the French president, announced on television that France would definitely veto the resolution. “Regardless of the circumstances, France will vote no because it believes…there are no grounds for waging war.”
The French decision effectively signaled the end of the UN’s role in dealing with Saddam, especially as the Russians also indicated that they, too, would apply their veto. A few days later Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the United Nations, formally withdrew the draft second resolution. In President Bush’s eyes, the UN had failed the test. The alternative was to look for a “coalition of the willing.” In a telephone conversation with Blair on March 13, Bush revealed his growing impatience with the delays caused by the UN. Bush pointed out that it was now six months since he had given the UN a chance to deal with Iraq, and he had long ago given up on the need for a second resolution. Consequently he had decided that the war to remove Saddam from office would begin the following week.
In a last-minute attempt to avoid hostilities, Russian president Vladimir Putin dispatched Yevgeny Primakov, the veteran Middle East diplomat, to Baghdad to persuade Saddam to step down. Primakov, who had known Saddam for many years and was guaranteed an audience with the Iraqi president, had made a similar mission prior to the Gulf War. He was received by Saddam at one of his presidential palaces. Primakov later recalled that he told Saddam, “If you love your country and love your people…and if you want to save your people from these sacrifices, you must leave your post of President of Iraq.” Saddam listened to him, but remained silent for a while. When eventually he spoke he reminded Primakov that during the Gulf War the Russians had tried to talk him into taking action that would prevent war, but the allies still launched their attack. Primakov said that Saddam did not give him a direct answer. “He patted me on the shoulder and walked out.”29
FOURTEEN
The Captive
The intelligence report that was handed to President Bush as he was conducting a meeting of his inner cabinet in Washington on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 19, was almost too good to be true. Just hours before the expiration of the forty-eight-hour deadline Bush had given Saddam to leave Iraq, George Tenet, the director of the CIA, informed Bush that
he had recently received what was believed to be a trustworthy report from an agent on the ground that Saddam was staying at a bunker under a villa compound in the southern suburbs of Baghdad with his two sons and a number of other key aides. Saddam had already rejected Bush’s ultimatum the previous day, appearing in full military dress on Iraqi television for the first time since the Gulf War, telling his Iraqi viewers, “God willing, victory will be yours and your enemy will be repelled because it is on the side of falsehood.” Now Bush had a one-of-a-kind opportunity to deal with Saddam once and for all. If the intelligence was correct, one well-aimed missile would take out Saddam and the entire leadership of the regime. “Let’s do it,” Bush, the U.S. commander in chief, said to Tenet. At 8 P.M. Washington time, at precisely the moment that the deadline expired for Saddam to leave the country, Bush gave the order to attack. The first air-raid sirens were heard in Baghdad half an hour later.