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Abstract
Decisionmaking processes leading to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by democratic states have served as the basis for theories about nuclear proliferation. In contrast, less is known about how a totalitarian regime responds to immense external pressure to abolish unconventional weapons it considers crucial for its security and survival. This article will analyze how we can explain Iraq's behavior after the passing of Resolution 1441 and during the United Nations inspections in 2002–2003.
The author wishes to thank Sven Holtsmark, Gudrun Harrer, Ane Mannsåker Roald, Rod Barton, and the anonymous reviewer for comments an various drafts.
Notes
1. The term WMD is problematic because of the considerable differences among nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Because the term is well established, however, it is used here with reference to the three weapon categories.
2. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, Nov. 8, 2002.
3. Charles Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD, Vol. 1, Transmittal Message, Sept. 30, 2004, p. 1.
4. Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998).
5. International Crisis Group, Iraq Backgrounder: What Lies Beneath, Report No. 6, Oct. 1, 2002, p. 6.
6. Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship (London: I.B. Tauris, 1990), p. 179.
7. For one account of this process, see Makiya, Republic of Fear.
8. International Crisis Group, Iraq Backgrounder, p. 6.
9. International Crisis Group, Iraq Backgrounder, p. 9.
10. Eric Davis, “History Matters: Past as Prologue in Building Democracy in Iraq,” Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs 49 (Spring 2005), p. 236.
11. These practices in the Iraqi military have been accounted for in Risa Brooks, Political-Military Relations and the Stability of Arab Regimes, Adelphi Paper 324 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1998).
12. This term was introduced by Iraqi sociologist Faleh Abdel Jabar and is cited in Davis, “History Matters,” p. 235.
13. Saïd K. Aburish, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge (London: Bloomsbury, 2001), pp. 161–162. Foreign Affairs 79, (July/August 2000)
14. Bengio, “How does Saddam Hold On?”
15. Aburish, Saddam Hussein, pp. 169–170.
16. International Crisis Group, Iraq Backgrounder, p. 1.
17. A good account of the role of this uncertainty in totalitarian rule can be found in Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958), p. 400.
18. A good account of the role of this uncertainty in totalitarian rule can be found in Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958), pp. 404, 409.
19. A good account of the role of this uncertainty in totalitarian rule can be found in Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958), pp. 399–400.
20. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 5.
21. Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 365; Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 1.
22. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.
23. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.
24. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.
25. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.
26. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.
27. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 14.
28. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, pp. 14, 16.
29. Maalfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Disarming Iraq? The United Nations Special Commission 1991–98 (Oslo: Institutt for Forsvarsstudier, 2004).
30. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 14.
31. Dilip Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 49.
32. Ibrahim al-Marashi, “Where Are Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction?” May 1, 2003, <www.iraqwatch.org>.
33. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 44.
34. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 23.
35. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 59.
36. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 23.
37. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 10.
38. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 11.
39. Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, “Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside,” Foreign Affairs 85 (May/June 2006), pp. 2–28, p. 7.
40. Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, “Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside,” Foreign Affairs 85 (May/June 2006), p. 16.
41. Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, “Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside,” Foreign Affairs 85 (May/June 2006), p. 12.
42. Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, “Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside,” Foreign Affairs 85 (May/June 2006), pp. 10–11.
43. Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, “Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside,” Foreign Affairs 85 (May/June 2006), pp. 7, 21.
44. Amatzia Baram, Building Toward Crisis: Saddam Husayn's Strategy for Survival, Policy Paper No. 47 (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998), p. 39.
45. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 7.
46. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 51.
47. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 65.
48. Baram, Building Toward Crisis, p. 49.
49. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 56.
50. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 33.
51. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 33.
52. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 62.
53. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 61.
54. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 61.
55. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, pp. 61–62.
56. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 61.
57. Dr. Jafar, interview by author, 2005.
58. Hans Blix, Briefing to the Security Council, Jan. 27, 2003, <www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/>.
59. Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004), p. 240.
60. Jim Lacey, “Where are the WMDs? Why we may not find them,” National Review Online, May 15, 2003, <www.nationalreview.com>.
61. Blix, Disarming Iraq, pp. 265–266.
62. Geoffrey Forden, “Intention to Deceive: Iraqi Misdirection of UN Inspectors,” Jane's Intelligence Review 1 (March 1, 2004), pp. 30–39.
63. Michael R. Gordon, “Even as U.S. Invaded, Saddam Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat,” New York Times, March 12, 2006, p. 33.
64. Michael R. Gordon, “Even as U.S. Invaded, Saddam Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat,” New York Times, March 12, 2006, p. 33.
65. Blix, Disarming Iraq, p. 258.
66. Gordon, “Even as U.S. Invaded, Saddam Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat.” These findings are supported in Woods, Lacey, and Murray, Saddam's Delusions.
67. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 62.
68. Forden, “Intention to Deceive,” p. 30–39.
69. Braut-Hegghammer, Disarming Iraq?.
70. Former ISG inspector (name withheld by request), interview by author 2005.
71. Gordon, “Even as U.S. Invaded, Saddam Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat.”
72. Forden, “Intention to Deceive.”
73. Former ISG inspector, (name withheld by request), interview by author, 2005.
74. Former ISG inspector, (name withheld by request), interview by author, 2005.; Woods, Lacey, and Murray, Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside; Former weapons inspector from the ISG (name withheld by request), interview by author 2005.
75. Gordon, “Even as U.S. Invaded, Saddam Saw Iraqi Unrest as Top Threat.”
76. Woods, Lacey, and Murray, Saddam's Delusions, p. 7.
77. Braut-Hegghammer, Disarming Iraq?; Maalfrid Braut-Hegghammer and Olav Riste, Were WMD the Real Issue? The International Community versus Iraq 1991–2003 (Oslo: Institutt for Forsvarsstudier, 2005).
78. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p.1.
79. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 5.
80. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 1.
81. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 34.
82. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 1.
83. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 7.
84. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 10.
85. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 62.
86. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 16.
87. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 16.
88. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 16.
89. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 63.
90. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 22.
91. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 62.
92. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 62.
93. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, Transmittal Message, p. 22.
94. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 65.
95. Woods, Lacey, and Murray, Saddam's Delusions, p. 6.
96. Woods, Lacey, and Murray, Saddam's Delusions, p. 6.
97. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 65.
98. Former ISG head David Kay, interview by author, 2005.
99. This process has been analyzed in other contexts. See Scott Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
100. Former ISG inspector Rod Barton, email correspondence with author April 2005.
101. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 7.
102. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 16.
103. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 63.
104. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.
105. Duelfer, Comprehensive Report, p. 9.