Iraq Survey Group Report: on War & Peace

Saddam's goal was to end sanctions then restart WMD program

Key Findings: Regime Strategic Intent
• Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
• The introduction of the Oil-For-Food program in late 1996 rescued Baghdad's economy from a terminal decline created by sanctions. The Regime quickly came to see that OFF could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and to provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development.
• The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them.

Saddam's focus for WMDs was tactical use on Iran & Israel

Key Findings: Regime Strategic Intent
• Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq's WMD capability-which was essentially destroyed in 1991-after sanctions were removed and Iraq's economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
• Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq's principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary.
• In Saddam's view, WMD helped to save the Regime multiple times. He believed that during the Iran-Iraq war chemical weapons had halted Iranian ground offensives and that ballistic missile attacks on Tehran had broken its political will.

UN sanctions hurt Saddam militarily and politically

Key Findings: Regime Finance and Procurement
• Saddam severely under-estimated the economic and military costs of invading Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990, as well as underestimating the subsequent international condemnation of his invasion of Kuwait. His initial belief was that UN sanctions would not last.
• From Saddam's perspective, UN sanctions hindered his ability to rule Iraq with complete authority and autonomy. According to Saddam and his senior advisors, the UN, at the behest of the US, placed an economic strangle hold on Iraq.
• UN sanctions curbed Saddam's ability to import weapons, technology, and expertise into Iraq. Sanctions also limited his ability to finance his military & intelligence forces to deal with his perceived and real external threats.
• Saddam's evolving strategy centered on breaking free of UN sanctions in order to liberate his economy from the economic strangle-hold so he could continue to pursue his political and personal objectives.

Saddam used Oil For Food program to bank $11 billion

Key Findings: Regime Finance and Procurement
• Although Saddam had reluctantly accepted the UN's Oil for Food (OFF) program by 1996, he soon recognized its economic value. Therefore, he resigned himself to the continuation of UN sanctions understanding that they would become a "paper tiger" regardless of continued US resolve to maintain them.
• Saddam circumvented the OFF program by means of "Protocols" or government-to-government economic trade agreements outside the purview of the UN. The successful implementation of the Protocols, continued oil smuggling efforts, and the manipulation of UN OFF contracts emboldened Saddam to pursue his military reconstitution efforts starting in 1997 and peaking in 2001.
• Once money began to flow into Iraq, the Regime devised and implemented methods and techniques to procure illicit goods from foreign suppliers.
• The Regime's revenue streams amassed more that $11 billion from the early 1990s to 2030 outside the UN-approved methods.

1991 Desert Storm & UN sanctions destroyed Saddam's missiles

Key Findings: Delivery Systems
• Since the early 1970s, Iraq has consistently sought to acquire an effective long-range weapons delivery capability. The Soviet Union was a key supplier.
• Desert Storm and subsequent UN resolutions and inspections brought many of Iraq's delivery system programs to a halt. While much of Iraq's long-range missile inventory and production infrastructure was eliminated, Iraq until late 1991 kept some items hidden to assist future reconstitution of the force.
• It appears to have taken time, but Iraq eventually realized that sanctions were not going to end quickly. This forced Iraq to sacrifice its long-range delivery force in an attempt to bring about a quick end to the sanctions.
• The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) has uncovered no evidence Iraq retained Scud-variant missiles, and debriefings of Iraqi officials in addition to some documentation suggest that Iraq did not retain such missiles after 1991.

Saddam's nuclear program decayed after Desert Storm

Key Findings: Nuclear
• Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq's ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.
• Nevertheless, after 1991, Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program. Senior Iraqis-several of them from the Regime's inner circle-told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended.
• Baghdad undertook a variety of measures to conceal key elements of its nuclear program from successive UN inspectors, including specific direction by Saddam Husayn to hide and preserve documentation associated with Iraq's nuclear program.
• As with other WMD areas, Saddam's ambitions in the nuclear area were secondary to his prime objective of ending UN sanctions.

Saddam wanted chemical weapons but industry was destroyed

Key Findings: Chemical
• Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a Chemical weapons effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable.
• While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991.
• Iraq's CW program was crippled by the Gulf war and the legitimate chemical industry, which suffered under sanctions, only began to recover in the mid-1990s. Subsequent changes in the management of key military and civilian organizations, followed by an influx of funding and resources, provided Iraq with the ability to reinvigorate its industrial base.
• ISG found no credible evidence that any field elements knew about plans for CW use during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Saddam had biological weapons capability but no weapons

Key Findings: Biological
• In 1991, Saddam Husayn regarded Biological Weapons (BW) as an integral element of his arsenal, and would have used it if the need arose.
• Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judges that Iraq's actions between 1991 and 1996 demonstrate that the state intended to preserve its BW capability and return to a steady, methodical progress toward a mature BW program when and if the opportunity arose.
• ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.
• Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability. Nevertheless, after 1996 Iraq still had a significant dual-use capability- some declared-readily useful for BW if the Regime chose to use it.
• ISG judges that in 1991 and 1992, Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons. However ISG lacks evidence to document complete destruction.