The Iraq Survey Group: From Weapons of Mass Destruction to Counterinsurgency

Abstract

The discovery and elimination of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was a focal point of the Coalition's strategy and operations in the aftermath of Operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’. Despite the failure of the WMD mission to meet expectations after almost two years of intensive operations, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was able to integrate multinational and multi-agency forces to provide detailed intelligence regarding the history of Iraq's WMD programs and to assist in the battle against insurgents. The ISG's experience raises the question of whether a standing intelligence force could become a key component in future counterproliferation and counterterrorism efforts around the world.1

¹The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Dept. of Defense, or the US Government.

Key Words:

• Iraq
• WMD
• Intelligence

Notes

¹The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Dept. of Defense, or the US Government.

²Hans Blix, Briefing to UN Security Council, 7 March 2003, <http://www.un.org/

Depts/unmovic/SC7asdelivered.htm>; National Intelligence Estimate, Key Judgments, ‘Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Oct. 2002, <www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html>. The State Dept. did not agree that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program. The controversy over the decision to go to war continues to receive much attention from scholars and is outside the scope of this study.

³Col. Raymond T. Van Pelt, ‘JTF-WMD Elimination: An Operational Architecture for Future Contingencies’, The Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense Univ., 28 April 2004, 7–8; ISG, Joint Lessons Learned: Iraq Survey Group, 18 Dec. 2004, 17–18.

⁴Van Pelt, ‘JTF-WMD Elimination’, 12.

⁵Barton Gellman, ‘Hunt for Iraqi Arms Erodes Assumptions’, 22 April 2003, Washington Post, <www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7310-2003Apr21?language=printer>; Bob Woodward, State of Denial (New York: Simon & Schuster 2006), 159–60; Stephen A. Cambone and Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, ‘Briefing on Weapons of Mass Destruction’, 7 May 2003, <www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/05/iraq-030507-dod02.htm>.

⁶Bob Drogin, ‘Concern Grows Over Weapons Hunt Setbacks’, 27 April 2003, Los Angeles Times; Woodward, State of Denial, 102–3; Global Security Newswire, ‘Iraq I: US WMD Search Team to Leave Iraq in June’, 12 May 2003, <www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2003/5/12/2s.html>.

⁷Author interview of Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, 23 Nov. 2005; ISG, Joint Lessons Learned: Iraq Survey Group, 17.

⁸Vice Adm. Jacoby to Senator Pat Roberts, 23 May 2003, U-1814/DR; Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), ‘Comparison of 75^th Exploitation Task Force to Iraq Survey Group'; Stephen A. Cambone and Maj. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, ‘Briefing on the Iraq Survey Group’, 30 May 2003, <www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/05/iraq-030530-dod02.htm>.

⁹Cambone and Jacoby, ‘Briefing on Weapons of Mass Destruction’, 7 May 2003.

¹⁰Cambone and Dayton, ‘Briefing on the Iraq Survey Group’, 30 May 2003; DIA interview of Maj. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, 30 Aug. 2004.

¹¹DIA interview of Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, 30 Aug. 2004; Author interview of David Kay, 16 Feb. 2005.

¹²DIA interview of Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, 30 Aug. 2004.

¹³Author interview of DIA, Directorate of Administration, 13 Oct. 2004.

¹⁴Dept. of Defense, Country Handbook, Iraq, Sept. 2002; ISG, Joint Lessons Learned: Iraq Survey Group, 93.

¹⁵DIA, ISG Welcome Packet, 2003.

¹⁶Brig. Gen. Joseph J. McMenamin, USMC, ‘Iraq Survey Group, Statement for the Record’, Oct. 2004, <www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_hr/100604mcmenamin.pdf>; DIA, Joint Manning Document, Sept. 2003.

¹⁷Dept. of Defense, Press Release, ‘DCI Tenet Announces Appointment of David Kay as Special Advisor’, 11 June 2003, <www.odci.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/

2003/pr06112003.htm>; Author interview of Vice Adm. Jacoby, 23 Nov. 2005; David Kay, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, 1 March 1998; Bob Drogin, ‘Concern Grows Over Weapons Hunt Setbacks’, 27 April 2003, Los Angeles Times, A1; Carla Anne Robbins, John J. Fialka, and Dan Morse, ‘US Has Chemical Arms Issues: Finding Them, Convincing World’, 8 April 2003, Wall Street Journal.

¹⁸Cambone and Jacoby, ‘Briefing on Weapons of Mass Destruction’.

¹⁹DIA interview of Maj. Gen. Dayton, 30 Aug. 2004; ISG, Status Report, 30 March 2004, 4; Tom Brokaw interview of David Kay, 15 July 2003, NBC web archives.

²⁰Author interview of Vice Adm. Jacoby, 23 Nov. 2005.

²¹ISG, Sector Control Point-Baghdad (SCP-B), After Action Report (May 2003–May 2004), 27 April 2004, 10, 13, 24.

²²ISG, CMPC Briefing, 11 Feb. 2005.

²³ISG, Joint Lessons Learned: Iraq Survey Group, 104; DIA Anonymous email, 10 Oct. 2003.

²⁴David Kay, ‘Statement on the Interim Progress Report on the Activities of the ISG Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’, 2 Oct. 2003, <www.cia.gov>, 1–2.

²⁵Kay, ‘Statement on the Interim Progress Report’, 2 Oct. 2003, 2–3; Author interview of David Kay, 16 Feb. 2005.

²⁶Author interview of David Kay, 16 Feb. 2005; Kay, ‘Statement on the Interim Progress Report’, 2 Oct. 2003, 4–6.

²⁷Kay, ‘Statement on the Interim Progress Report’, 2 Oct. 2003, 6–11.

²⁸McMenamin, ‘Iraq Survey Group, Statement for the Record’, Oct. 2004; Author interview of David Kay, 28 Jan. 2005.

²⁹DIA, Public Affairs, ‘DCI Announces Duelfer to Succeed Kay as Special Advisor’, 23 Jan. 2004; David Kay, Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, ‘Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs’, 28 Jan. 2004, < www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/kaytestimony.pdf>; Author interview of David Kay, 16 Feb. 2005.

³⁰Charles Duelfer, ‘The Inevitable Failure of Inspections in Iraq’, Arms Control Today, Sept. 2002, <www.armscontrol.org/act/2002_09/duelfer_sept02.asp>; DIA Public Affairs, ‘DCI Announces Duelfer to Succeed Kay as Special Advisor’, 23 Jan. 2004.

³¹Charles Duelfer, Testimony to the US Congress, 30 March 2004, <http://merln.ndu.edu/merln/pfiraq/archive/cia/tenet_testimony_03302004.pdf>; ISG, Status Report, 30 March 2004.

³²McMenamin, ‘Iraq Survey Group, Statement for the Record’, Oct. 2004.

³³ISG, Command Brief, 9 July 2004; ISG, Survey Operations Center correspondence, 18 July 2004.

³⁴ISG, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD (Washington DC: Central Intelligence Agency, rev. ed., March 2005), Note for the Comprehensive Report With Addendums, 1; Anne Penketh, ‘Zarqawi Attack on Inspector Cut Short the Hunt for WMD’, The Independent, 28 April 2005, <http//news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/

article3683.ece>.

³⁵McMenamin, ‘Iraq Survey Group, Statement for the Record’, Oct. 2004.

³⁶Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD Commission), Report to the President of the United States, 31 March 2005, (Washington DC: Government Printing Office 2005), 58; ISG, Comprehensive Report, II, Nuclear, 3–9; National Intelligence Estimate, Key Judgments, ‘Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction’, Oct. 2002, <www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html>.

³⁷ISG, Comprehensive Report, II, Nuclear, 1, 6–7.

³⁸ISG, Comprehensive Report, III, Iraq's Chemical Warfare Program, 1–3, 29–31, 43–59, and Addendums.

³⁹ISG, Comprehensive Report, III, Biological Warfare, 1–3, 81.

⁴⁰Ibid., II, Delivery Systems, 1–9, 41.

⁴¹ISG, Comprehensive Report, I, Regime Strategic Intent, 1–8; ISG, Comprehensive Report, I, Regime Finance and Procurement, 3–10.

⁴²Richard Boucher Briefing, 12 Jan. 2005, <www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dbp/2005/40828.htm>.

⁴³Robert Adams, ‘Iraq Survey Group in Transition’, Intercomm, 5 April 2005, 1, 10.

⁴⁴Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States, Report to the President of the United States, 31 March 2005, 157–96.

⁴⁵This allegation – supported by Kay and Duelfer – arose in early 2004 when it became obvious that the ISG would not find WMD stockpiles.

⁴⁶DIA interview of Charles Duelfer, 23 Sept. 2004; ISG, Status Report, 30 March 2004, 5; ISG, Joint Lessons Learned: Iraq Survey Group, 34, 80; David Kay, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, 1 March 1998.

⁴⁷National Defense Univ., ‘Combating WMD: Challenges for the Next Ten Years’, Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Feb. 2005, 41, <www.ndu.edu/WMDCenter/docUploaded//cswmd%202005-1.pdf>.

⁴⁸Author interview of David Kay, 16 Feb. 2005.