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Abstract
A recently published collection of captured Iraqi records offers an opportunity to better understand Saddam Hussein's perception of US and Israeli deterrence signals, affording innovative insights into the reasons behind Iraq's restraint from using weapons of mass destruction against Israeli targets during the 1991 Gulf War. This article tests a wide range of suggested hypotheses, and suggests that US and Israeli deterrence played only a minimal role in dissuading Iraqi use of WMD. The article concludes with some thoughts on the practical implications, particularly on the effectiveness of a “no-first-use” nuclear policy.
Notes
1. Lawrence Freedman, Deterrence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), p. 30.
2. Saddam Hussein's Regime Collection is held by the National Defense University (NDU). The table of contents can be found at <www.ndu.edu/inss/index.cfm?type = section&secid = 138&pageid = 4>. Kevin Woods notes that some of the Iraqi narrative was misconstrued. However, despite the language barrier, which should be appreciated, these documents provide a unique observation into Iraqi perceptions, within the limits to which every non-Iraqi observer is subjected. See Kevin M. Woods, “A Note on Sources,” in Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Hussein's Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2008), pp. xv–xvii.
3. For example, see Kevin M. Woods, “A Note on Sources,” in Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Hussein's Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 2008), pp. xv–xvii; see also presentations by David Palkki, Kevin M. Woods, and Amatzia Baram at the conference “Iraqi Decision-Making Under Saddam Hussein,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, DC, September 20, 2010, <www.c-spanarchives.org/program/id/233237>; Scott D. Sagan, “PASCC Final Report: Deterring Rogue Regimes: Rethinking Deterrence Theory and Practice,” Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, July 8 2013, <http://hdl.handle.net/10945/34336>.
4. Woods, “Iraqi Decision-Making Under Saddam Hussein;” Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 136.
5. Alexander George and Andrew Bennett warn that a single case study analysis should be applied to a wide range of alternative hypotheses since omitted variables could threaten the validity of the analysis. See Alexander L George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 2004), p. 207.
6. Amatzia Baram, “Israeli Deterrence, Iraqi Responses,” Orbis 36 (Summer 1992), pp. 385–403; Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, “Passive Belligerency: Israel and the 1991 Gulf War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 15 (September 1992), pp. 304–29; Shai Feldman, “Israeli Deterrence and the Gulf War,” in Joseph Alpher, ed., War in the Gulf: Implications for Israel (Jerusalem: JCSS, 1992); Avigdor Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm: Iraq, Poisonous Weapons, and Deterrence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999); Gerald M. Steinberg, “Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East: Lessons from the 1991 Gulf War,” Nonproliferation Review 7 (Fall-Winter 2000), pp. 43–60.
7. Feldman, “Israeli Deterrence and the Gulf War,” p. 201.
8. Feldman, “Israeli Deterrence and the Gulf War,” p. 201.
9. Feldman, “Israeli Deterrence and the Gulf War,” p. 202.
10. Cited in Feldman, “Israeli Deterrence and the Gulf War,”, p. 202. CNN Correspondent Wolf Blitzer told Feldman that his impression was that “Mr. Cheney had chosen his words very carefully on that occasion and hence was sending a clear deterrent message.” Feldman, “Israeli Deterrence and the Gulf War,”, p. 208.
11. Baram, “Israeli Deterrence, Iraqi Responses,” p. 399.
12. Central Intelligence Agency, “Performance in the Persian Gulf War,” March 1991, <www.fas.org/irp/gulf/intel/961031/002mc_91.txt>.
13. R. Jeffrey Smith, “U.N. Says Iraqis Prepared Germ Weapons in Gulf War,” Washington Post, August 26, 1995, p. A1.
14. James A. Baker and Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1995).
15. George Bush, “The Letter to Saddam (January 9, 1991),” in Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, eds., The Gulf War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1991), pp. 178–79 and <www.wwnorton.com/college/polisci/lenses/protect/bush_letter.htm>.
16. This statement is written in the book he co-authored with former President Bush. George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. 463.
17. Keith B. Payne, The Fallacies of Cold War Deterrence and a New Direction (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), p. 22.
18. Wafaq al-Samarrai, interview on Frontline, Public Broadcasting Service, January 25, 2000, <www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/samarrai/3.html>.
19. Keith B. Payne, “On Nuclear Deterrence and Assurance,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 3 (Spring 2009), p. 49.
20. Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security and Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2009), p. 324.
21. Morton H. Halperin, Bruno Tertrais, Keith B. Payne, K. Subrahmanyam, and Scott D. Sagan, “Forum: The Case for No First Use: An Exchange,” Survival 51 (July 2009), p. 40. Sagan also explains why we should be very cautious when relying on Iraqi government officials’ statements after the war.
22. Keith B. Payne, The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty Century (Fairfax, VA: National Institute Press, 2008), pp. 414–16; Scott D. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap,” International Security 24 (Spring 2000), pp. 85–115; Payne, “On Nuclear Deterrence and Assurance;” Halperin et al., “Forum: The Case for No First Use: An Exchange,” pp. 17–46; Sagan, “Deterring Rogue Regimes.”
23. Paul Huth and Bruce Russett, “What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases from 1900 to 1980,” World Politics 36 (July 1986), pp. 496–526; Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, “Rational Deterrence Theory: I Think, Therefore I Deter,” World Politics 41 (January 1989), pp. 208–24; Keith B. Payne, “Deterring the Use of Weapon of Mass Destruction: Lessons from History,” in Stuart E. Johnson, ed., The Niche Threat: Deterring the Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1997); Freedman, Deterrence; T.V. Paul, “Complex Deterrence: An Introduction,” in T.V. Paul, Patrick Morgan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 1–27; Jeffrey W. Knopf, “The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research, Contemporary Security Policy 31 (April 2010), p. 1.
24. Freedman, Deterrence, p. 29.
25. Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm.
26. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 58.
27. See, for instance, Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm; Freedman, Deterrence; and Woods, The Mother of All Battles.
28. Derek D. Smith, “Deterrence and Counterproliferation in an Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Security Studies 12 (2003), p. 184.
29. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baghdad Operations Center, “Saddam Hussein casual conversation,” May 2004, p. 13, <www.gwu.edu/∼nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/23.pdf> .
30. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 56.
31. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 56.
32. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 56.
33. Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm, p. 56.
34. Cited in Hal Brands and David Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb: Nuclear Alarmism Justified?” International Security 36 (Summer 2011), p. 160.
35. Cited in Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot, 1991), p. 229.
36. Cited in Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 160.
37. Palkki, “Iraqi Decision-Making under Saddam Hussein.”
38. Cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, pp. 154–55.
39. Cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, pp. 154–55.
40. Harmony document folder CMPC-2003-004325, “Memorandum to Defense Diwan from Ministry of Industry,” (Ref no.2/1/35/9/160), Subject: “Munitions Receiving, 31 December 1990” and Subject: “Minutes of Special Warheads.” (January 11, 1991).
41. Woods, The Mother of All Battles, pp. 155–56.
42. Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 155.
43. Cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 198.
44. The UN inspectors assessed that the overall Iraqi unconventional arsenal totaled 105 warheads. See Amos Gilboa, “Milhernet Hamifratz Harishona—Hamodi'in Hayisraeli Veparashat Rashei Hakrav Hachimim Hairakim” [The Gulf War—Israeli Intelligence and the Iraqi Chemical Warheads Affair], Mabat Malam 62 (2012), p. 38.
45. Brands and Palkki, 2011, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 160.
46. Brands and Palkki, 2011, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,”, pp. 160–61.
47. Harmony folder ISGP-2003-00033136, “Role of the General Military Intelligence Directorate in Um Al-Ma'arik Battle and in Controlling Riots (Iraqi Top Secret), 15 July 2001,” cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 291.
48. Cited in Amatzia and Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,” Nonproliferation Review 8 (Summer 2001), pp. 30–31.
49. General Khamil was the former Iraqi minister of industry and military industries. He established and directed the SSO during the Gulf War.
50. Cited in Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,” p. 34.
51. Cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 155.
52. Staff Lt. Gen. Hazim Abd-al-Razzaq al-Ayyubi, “Forty-Three Missiles on the Zionist Entity,” FBIS translation JN2511082498 (1998), p. 11.
53. Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,” p. 35.
54. Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,” p. 35.
55. Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,” p. 35.
56. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap,” pp. 109–10. Nicknamed the “daisy cutter” and containing more than 12,000 pounds of conventional high explosive, the BLU-82 was, at the time, the largest conventional bomb in the US arsenal.
57. Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 232.
58. By igniting Kuwaiti oil fields, the Iraqi commander was in clear violation of one of Bush's public red lines, thus, it might have led to an escalation in the US response. See Bush, “The Letter to Saddam (January 9, 1991),” pp. 178–79.
59. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap,” pp. 108–09.
60. Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,” p. 35.
61. Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,”, 36.
62. Baram, “An Analysis of Iraqi WMD Strategy,”, 36.
63. Harmony file ISGQ-2003-M0004609, “Audio recording of a Revolutionary Command council meeting on 2 November 1990.”
64. Sagan, Deterring Rogue Regimes, p. 9.
65. Cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 211.
66. Harmony Media file ISGQ-2003-M0001720, “Recording of an Iraqi command meeting on 24 February 1991,” cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 221.
67. Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 230.
68. One example was the report given by the commander of the Republican Guard to Baghdad: “despite continuous engagements with the enemy and repeated ‘heavy helicopter assaults,’ ‘the status of Nebuchadnezzar, Hammurabi, and Adnan [divisions] was good.’ In addition, the Medina division was ‘above the center, meaning at more than 50 percent strength.’” Harmony document folder ISGQ-2003-000460330, “Portion of official Iraqi history of 1991 war, ca. 1995,” as cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 239.
69. One example was the report given by the commander of the Republican Guard to Baghdad: “despite continuous engagements with the enemy and repeated ‘heavy helicopter assaults,’ ‘the status of Nebuchadnezzar, Hammurabi, and Adnan [divisions] was good.’ In addition, the Medina division was ‘above the center, meaning at more than 50 percent strength.’” Harmony document folder ISGQ-2003-000460330, “Portion of official Iraqi history of 1991 war, ca. 1995,” as cited in Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 239.
70. Freedman, Deterrence, p. 40.
71. Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 158.
72. Wafaq al-Samarrai, interview on Frontline.
73. Brands and Palkki, 2011, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 158.
74. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography, p. 154.
75. Karsh and Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography; Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray, Thomas Holaday, and Mounir Elkhamri, “Saddam's War: An Iraqi Military Perspective of the Iran-Iraq War,” McNair Paper No. 70, National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, 2009, <www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD = ADA500619>.
76. Hamdani in Woods, Murray, Holaday, and Elkhamri, Saddam's War, p. 55.
77. Whereas broad deterrence aims to prevent all war rather than a specific action, narrow deterrence “involves deterring a particular type of military operation within a war.” See Freedman, Deterrence, p. 32.
78. Freedman, Deterrence, p. 160.
79. Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 152.
80. Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,”, p. 135.
81. Palkki, “Iraqi Decision-Making Under Saddam Hussein.” See also Sagan, Deterring Rogue Regimes, pp. 8–9.
82. Baram, “Iraqi Decision-Making Under Saddam Hussein.”
83. In its final military assessment on December 26, 1990, the GMID surveyed three likely enemy courses of action. The scenario considered most likely was a coalition attack “against the higher command post.” Woods suggests that this actually referred to a “decapitation” strike. Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 173.
84. Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 158.
85. Cited in Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 160.
86. Woods, The Mother of All Battles, p. 291.
87. Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,” p. 157
88. Brands and Palkki, “Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb,”, p. 144.
89. Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, p. 324.
90. See Sagan, “The Commitment Trap;” Halperin et al., “Forum: The Case for No First Use.”
91. Sagan, “The Commitment Trap,” p. 87.
92. See Halperin et al., “Forum: The Case for No First Use.”
93. Sagan, Deterring Rogue Regimes, p. 8.
94. For example, Sagan offers three other components of credibility: the perceived interests at stake, the costs of counter-retaliation, and the legitimacy of the response. See Sagan, “The Commitment Trap,” p. 97.
95. Tom Sauer, “A Second Nuclear Revolution: From Nuclear Primacy to Post-Existential Deterrence,” Journal of Strategic Studies 32 (October 2009), pp. 745–67. Also see McGeorge Bundy, “The Bishops and the Bomb,” New York Review of Books, June 16, 1983, pp. 3–8; Lawrence Freedman, “I Exist; Therefore I Deter,” International Security 13 (Summer 1988), pp. 177–95; Halperin et al., “Forum: The Case for No First Use.”
96. According to RDT, the deterrer must meet three conditions in order to successfully deter its enemy. First, strategic rationality deterrence depends on the actor's ability to behave “on the basis of cost-benefit calculations to advance their self-interest or obtain goods that maximize their utility.” Paul, “Complex Deterrence: An Introduction,” p. 6. Second, to communicate the threat, the deterrer should identify the unacceptable behavior and communicate its commitment to punish violations to the other party based on its goals and means. And third, the deterrer should possess the capability to punish his opponent or to prevent him from reaching his goals, and demonstrate his resolve to carry out the punishment. The deterrer's credibility is measured by the level of credibility that the deterree attributes to him. For further discussion on RDT's conditions, see Steinberg, “Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East,” pp. 44–48; Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence Now (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 42–79; Freedman, Deterrence, pp. 21–25; Robert, L. Jervis, “The Confrontation between Iraq and the US,” European Journal of International Relations (June 2003) pp. 315–37; Paul, “Complex Deterrence: An Introduction,” pp. 2–3; and Janice Gross Stein, “Rational Deterrence Against ‘Irrational’ Adversaries? No Common Knowledge,” in Paul, Morgan, and Wirtz, eds., Complex Deterrence, pp. 58–61.
97. Paul, “Complex Deterrence: An Introduction,” p. 15.
98. Robert Jervis, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 31. See also Michael Krepon, “The Stability-Instability Paradox, Misperception, and Escalation Control in South Asia,” in Michael Krepon, Rodney W. Jones, and Ziad Haider, eds., Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2004), <www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/ESCCONTROLCHAPTER1.pdf>; Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2003); S. Paul Kapur, “India and Pakistan's Unstable Peace: Why Nuclear South Asia is Not Like Cold War Europe,’ International Security 30 (Fall 2005), pp. 127–52; Robert Rauchhaus, “Evaluating the Nuclear Peace Hypothesis: A Quantitative Approach,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53 (April 2009), pp. 258–77.