Research Note: Documenting Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Abstract

This research note introduces a major archival resource for scholars and analysts interested in the security, foreign and domestic policies of pre-2003 Iraq. Recently released captured records from Saddam Hussein's Iraq are now housed at the Conflict Records Research Center (CRRC), located at the National Defense University in Washington DC, and are available for public use. This expanding collection of documents and audio files of meetings between Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders offers scholars and opportunity to explore topics including Iraqi policies on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, internal repression, decisions to go to war, policies on terrorism, inter-Arab politics, and foreign relations. Akin to the opening of the Soviet archives, this collection is the first substantial archive on contemporary political and security issues from the Arab world.

Notes

See CRRC's mission statement, available at http://www.ndu.edu/inss/index.cfm?type=section&secid=101&pageid=4

For a transcript of Secretary Gates' speech, see http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1228. Gates had the long-term goal of moving the CRRC to a consortium. On a separate note, it is likely that the National Defense University was chosen as the location because of its ability to accommodate the necessary sensitive procedures related to the release of materials connected to national security.

For publications based on Captured AQAM records, see Jessica M Huckabey and Mark Stout, ‘Al Qaida's Views of Authoritarian Intelligence Services in the Middle East’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 25, No. 3 (June 2010), pp. 327–49; Mark E. Stout, ‘In Search of Salafi Jihadist Strategic Thought: Mining the Words of the Terrorists’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 32, Issue 10 (October 2009), pp. 876–92; Mark E. Stout, Jessica M. Huckabey, and John R. Schindler with Jim Lacey, The Terrorist Perspectives Project: Strategic and Operational Views of Al Qaida and Associated Movement (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008).

For a review of two of them, see Lawrence Rubin, ‘A Review of: Kevin M. Woods. The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein's Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War. Kevin M. Woods with Michael R. Pease, Mark Stout, Williamson Murray, and James Lacey. The Iraqi Perspectives Report: Saddam's Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Official U.S. Joint Forces Command Report’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 136–8. For publications based on captured Iraqi state records, see Elizabeth A Nathan, ‘Saddam and the Tribes: How Captured Documents Explain Regime Adaptation to Internal Challenges (1979–2003)’, Joint Center for Operational Analysis Journal, Vol. XII, No. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 12–30; Kevin M. Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein's Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008); Kevin M. Woods and James Lacey, ‘Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents’, Institute for Defense Analyses, 2007; Kevin M. Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, ‘Saddam's Delusions: The View From the Inside’, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006; Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray, Thomas Holiday, and Mounir Elkhamri, ‘Saddam's War: An Iraqi Military Perspective of the Iran-Iraq War’, McNair Paper, 70, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington DC, 2009; Kevin M., Woods and Mark E. Stout, ‘Saddam's Perceptions and Misperceptions: The Case of ‘Desert Storm’', Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 33 (2010), pp. 1, 5–41; Kevin M. Woods, Michael Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey, The Iraqi Perspectives Report – Saddam's Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Official U.S. Joint Forces Command Report (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006); David Palkki and Shane Smith, ‘Contrasting Causal Mechanisms: Iraq and Libya’, in Etel Solingen (ed.), Preventing Nuclear Proliferation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); Hal Brands, ‘Making the Conspiracy Theorist a Prophet: Covert Action and the Contours of U.S.-Iraq Relations’ (International History Review, forthcoming); Hal Brands and David Palkki, “Conspiring Bastards”: Saddam Hussein's Strategic View of the United States', Diplomatic History, forthcoming; Hal Brands and David Palkki, ‘Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb: Nuclear Alarmism Justified?’ International Security, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Summer 2011), pp. 133–66.

For more information, see http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/june18/iraq-061808.html

For a good discussion of these issues and historical perspective on the seizure of archives during war see Trudy Peterson, ‘Archives in the service of the state’, available at www.trudypeterson.com/downloads/ARCHIVES.pdf. See also Douglas Cox, ‘Archives & Records in Armed Conflict: International Law and the Current Debate Over Iraqi Records and Archives’, Catholic University Law Review, Vol. 59, No. 4 (2010). For debates about the potential political use of these documents, see Scott Shane, ‘Iraqi documents put on web and the search is on’, 28 March 2006, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/politics/28intel.html

Charles Tripp, ‘The Foreign Policy of Iraq’, in Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami (eds), The Foreign Policies of Middle East States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002), p. 167.

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, ‘Keeping Saddam Hussein in a Box’, New York Times, 2 February 2003; John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, ‘Can Saddam be Contained? History Says Yes’, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, November 2002, available at www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/swalt/files/121982BelferSaddam.pdf. For criticism of the logic of how Saddam's rationality by Mearsheimer and Walt was constructed to support the containment policy, see Leonard Binder, ‘On Deterring Iraqi Agression’, Columbia International Affairs Online, February 2003, available at http://www.ciaonet.org/special_section/iraq/papers/blo01/blo01.html

For an article that did not have access to documents on the question of why Saddam did not launch a terrorism campaign, see Andrew Terrill, ‘Saddam's Failed Counterstrike: Terrorism and the Gulf War’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 16, No. 3 (July–September, 1993) pp. 151–71. Terrill argues that the main factor was the successful counter-terrorism measures by the allies.

For more on sub-systems and the Arab system, respectively, see Leonard Binder, ‘The Middle East as a Subordinate International System’, World Politics (1958), pp. 408–29 and Paul C. Noble, ‘The Arab System: Pressures, Constraints and Opportunities’, in Bahgat Korany and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki (eds), The Foreign Policies of Arab States, 2nd edition (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991). For the Persian Gulf as a regional security complex, see F. Gregory Gause III, The International Relations of the Persian Gulf (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

SH‐SHTP‐A‐000‐553: This file, dated 3/27/1979, contains details of a Revolutionary Command Council meeting headed by Saddam Hussein after the Baghdad Conference in 1979 as a consequence of the Camp David Treaty between Egypt and Israel. Internal records how this was framed as ‘an Arab national responsibility that falls on the shoulders of the Iraqi nation’.

This quote is taken from Woods, The Mother of all Battles (note 4), p. 39, which cites Harmony media file ISGQ-2003-M0004353.

Woods, The Mother of All Battles (note 4).

Rubin, ‘A Review’ (note 4), pp. 1, 137; Woods, Mother of all Battles (note 4), p. 50.

Woods, The Mother of All Battles (note 4), p. 147.

Woods et al., ‘The Iraqi Perspectives Report ‘(note 4), p. 48.

Woods and Lacey, ‘Iraqi Perspectives Project’ (note 4), Volume 1, Executive Summary, pp. 1–3, available at http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/index.html

Saddam became head of internal security and undercover operations in 1970. Baram relates that Saddam Hussein's support of groups such as Abu Nidal, which carried out an attack in Amman, represented the coercive side of the mixed message he sent King Hussein of Jordan. Saddam was also involved in the inducement side. See Amatzia Baram, ‘Baathi Iraq and Hashemite Jordan: From Hostility to Alignment’, Middle East Journal, Vol. 45, No.1 (Winter 1991), pp. 54. See also Andrew Terrill, ‘Saddam's Failed Counterstrike’ (note 9), p. 220.

Terrill, ‘Saddam's Failed Counterstrike’ (note 9), p. 220.

Ibid.

Woods and Lacey, ‘Iraqi Perspectives Project’ (note 4), Volume 1, Executive Summary, pp. 1–3, http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/index.html

Ibid.

See Keith Krause and Jennifer Milliken, ‘Introduction: The Challenge of Non-State Armed Groups’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 30, No. 2, p. 202. This article is part of a special issue of Contemporary Security Policy on armed groups (August 2009) that discusses many issues of great importance for international relations scholars.

Woods and Lacey, ‘Iraqui Perspectives Project’ (note 4), p. 16.

SH-SHTP-A-000-614, ‘Audio Recording of Saddam Hussein and Iraqi Officials Discussing the Uprising in the South’, undated (circa spring 1991). See also Kevin M. Woods, David D. Palkki, and Mark E. Stout, A Survey of Saddam's Audio Files, 1978–2001: Toward an Understanding of Authoritarian Regimes (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2010), pp. 241–4. This study is due to be published under the title The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of an Authoritarian Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Woods, ‘Iraqi Perspectives Report’ (note 4), Executive Summary.

Dan Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge University Press), p. 2. See also Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), p. 263.

For a summary, see http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2008/pa032008.html, accessed 28 April 2011.

Woods and Lacey, ‘Iraqi Perspectives Project’ (note 4), p. 48.