Saddam 'did not plan' insurgency

[ECH1969]

OUSTED Iraqi president Saddam Hussein did not plan the insurgency in Iraq because he thought the US would never invade the country, a US military history has concluded.

Even with US armored columns 161km from Baghdad about to make their final push, Saddam apparently believed the war was going Iraq's way, according to the history, called The Iraqi Perspectives Project. "Buoyed by his earlier conviction that the Americans would never dare enter Baghdad, Saddam hoped to the very last minute that he could stay in power," it said.

Saddam was convinced that France and Russia would prevent an invasion of Iraq to protect their economic interests, the study said, citing former Prime Minister Tareq Aziz.

Ibrahim Ahmad Abd al-Sattar, the Iraqi army and armed forces chief of staff, claimed that Saddam believed that even if the US did launch a ground invasion, Washington would rapidly bow to international pressure to halt the war, the study said.

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,18459680-5001028,00.html

[Vincardog]

1. NEWZ flash Saddam was as delusional as aWoL.

[Teaser]

2. Like most dictators

Saddam was a poor strategist. These guys tend to be good at manipulating people. It's often the only weapon in their skill set.

[LynnTheDem]

3. Yep, he didn't take into account the US's total disregard for law.

Imagine relying on America obeying international law, the Nuremburg Tribunal, the War Treaty, the Geneva Cons, the USC, etc.

What a fool. :rofl:

[Teaser]

19. Given his history as our client

you'd think he'd have known better.

[LynnTheDem]

20. Given our well-known (outside the US) history, he shoulda known.

Ho Chi Ming...bin Laden...the Taleban...

Yeah he sure as hell shoulda known.

[Ready4Change]

4. IMO, Bull.

Too many of the Iraqi forces dissolved prior to combat, rather than enter the engagement. Too much equipment was stashed away, to be brought forth later as arms for insurgents.

Before the Iraq War got under way one of the things I saw clearly, if we entered with force and moved to Baghdad, was that Saddam would have his trusted forces melt into the woodwork, in order to conduct a guerilla resistance, rather than fight an open war they could not win. Then, he would do his all to survive until the day that the US tired of fighting such a force, and he could waltz back into power.

That was the very reason I was against the Iraq War in the first place.

This report, however, is an attempt to cast this into a different light. Rather than say this administration, in its arrogance, triggered the creation of a quagmire, this report claims it materialized out of thin air, by magic. Poof! Who could have foreseen such a thing?

B.

S.

[daleo]

6. I agree with your assessment

I would just add that anyone writing an official U.S. history would be acutely aware of Bush's hatred for Saddam, and thus would have a strong motive to minimize Saddam's role in setting up the conditions for resistance.

[bemildred]

7. Yes. This is butt-covering horseshit.

He said before they headed out for Baghdad that he was reading General Giap.

Edit: speaking of General Giap, HE told these fuckwits they would lose BEFORE the war started.

[Ready4Change]

10. Who is (was?) Giap? n/t

[bemildred]

11. A military genius.

The guy that kicked our ass in VietNam:

http://www.carpenoctem.tv/military/giap.html

[Barrett808]

8. Yes, it's well documented Saddam planned for insurgency

For example, in Timmerman's book, The Death Lobby.

[VegasWolf]

15. Doubt it. Otherwise, how do you explain the almost geometric growth

in proficiency in building IEDs. People had to learn how first, then get better, and now they are experts in building IEDs. I just think that most people over there don't like the occupiers infesting their soil. I know I wouldn't like occupiers here.

[Barrett808]

21. I suspect they planned to hone their techniques.

But it's well known that Saddam cached hundreds of thousands of tons of arms around the country in preparation for the invasion. He ordered his generals to read Black Hawk Down. And the Ba'ath skimmed some $30 billion from the Iraq economy in preparation for insurgency.

So I don't know where this report is coming from. Possibly to bolster the "no one could have foreseen" case?

[alfredo]

16. Saddam told his people to prepare for urban warfare. He

instructed them to ready their weapons. When his army collapsed into the cities, I figured they were suckering us into a war on their terms, not ours.

[eomer]

9. The old "nobody could have anticipated" bit again, eh? (eom)

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

12. Telegraph contradicting itself...

..."Iraq's tyrant spent weeks before the war writing a novel about underground resistance, reports Jack Fairweather ...As the war began and Saddam went into hiding 40,000 copies of Be Gone Demons! were rolling off the presses. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/17/wbook17.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/17/ixportaltop.html>

[daleo]

5. ...a US military history has concluded.

Hilarious.

[teryang]

13. er, who trained all those people to make IEDs?

Maybe it was the cadre of 20,000 fedayeen fighters Saddam had trained before the invasion.

[Rex]

14. I doubt Saddam is that stupid.

France and Russia? That's pretty weak.

[scarletwoman]

17. This story is from the TELEGRAPH -- a neo-con propaganda organ.

Don't swallow it whole.

sw

[AlCzervik]

18. he didn't have predator drones that could reach our coast and

spread out chemical weapons either.

[OKNancy]

22. kick

[Tab]

23. Saddam had no WMDs, lived in dream: Report

WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- A major new report extracted in Foreign Affairs confirms that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 Iraq war began.
...
The report, entitled "Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside," was produced by the Pentagon's Iraq's Perspectives Project and written by Kevin Woods, James Lacey and Williamson Murray. It was commissioned by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, or USJFCOM, and it is based on previously inaccessible primary sources, Foreign Affairs magazine said. Extracts from the report are being published in an 8,500 word article in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs.
...
The article confirms recent assessments that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction before he was toppled, but it says that he wanted others to suspect he might. "In the last months before the war he realized that it was too dangerous to continue playing this double game and finally decided to cooperate fully with international inspectors. But at that point his track record of repeatedly lying meant that no one believed him," Foreign Affairs said.
...
The report also rejected the widespread view in many Bush administration and neo-conservative circles in Washington that Saddam deliberately planned the current insurgency in Iraq.

"No. He thought the United States would never attack, and was confident that even if it did, the resulting war would follow essentially the same script as the first Gulf War in 1991, without a full-scale invasion all the way to Baghdad," Foreign Affairs wrote, describing the report.
...
"How did Saddam think the war was going? Swimmingly. Because everyone knew that Saddam severely punished anybody who told him unpleasant truths, the entire regime was built on lies. During wartime, this meant that junior officers told senior officers that everything was going well, they reported it up the chain of command, and Saddam himself remained a prisoner of his delusions," Foreign Affairs said. (My comment: Who does this remind you of?)
More: http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060313-041037-6495r

[atommom]

24. A prisoner of his delusions, defeated by another prisoner of his

own delusions. This would make a great novel, or a great horror movie. Too bad this is our reality. :(

[rodeodance]

25. yes, BushCo team lived in a dream also.

[underpants]

27. Yeah we have heard several stories of how no one wants to tell W

ANY bad news.

Supposedly he had one young staffer dry heaving after he chewed him out.

This came to light right after KAtrina when all the senior staff was off on vacation and lower level staff had to sit him down with a DVD of news stories on New Orleans.

[wordpix2]

30. that's exactly what I thought when I read article

[daleo]

26. If true, this implies the "insurgency" is spontaneous and bottom up

And opposition to the U.S. invasion has very deep public support in Iraq. I don't know if the Pentagon really thought this through.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

28. This is yet another attempt to blame someone other than...

...the NeoCon Junta for the illegal and unjustified invasion/occupation of Iraq.

I call bullshit....and lots of it.

[54anickel]

39. Wait a minute...didn't they originally claim the "insurgency" (they didn't

even call it that back then) was foreign AQ fighters? First we were fighting foreign AQ, the Iraqi's were happy to see us - remember that? Now they are saying the "insurgency" was planned by Saddam? I don't remember them ever giving Saddam that much credit. WTF?

The report also rejected the widespread view in many Bush administration and neo-conservative circles in Washington that Saddam deliberately planned the current insurgency in Iraq.

I'd like to see the full report along with the background of this Pentagon's Iraq's Perspectives Project and the 3 authors behind it.

[Pryderi]

40. WMDs were flown out of Iraq prior to the invasion and hidden in Syria.

according to Iraqi General George Sadas.

[OKNancy]

29. Interesting how there are two different "takes" on this report

TAB posted another article about the same report and DUers seem favorable to that.

[ECH1969]

31. US 'misread Saddam's order'

US intelligence analysts misunderstood intercepted Iraqi communications, believing the orders were meant to deceive UN weapons inspectors searching for chemical or biological agents, a new report says.

Instead, the conversation between two Iraqi Republican Guard Corps commanders that included the order to remove reference to "nerve agents" from "wireless" communications was intended to ensure the regime was in compliance with international demands to disarm, the Foreign Affairs magazine reported in its online edition this week. That conversation was intercepted by the United States in 2002.

The article was based on a recently declassified US Joint Forces Command report assessing Iraqi internal developments prior to the war. The report said that US analysts had no way of knowing Saddam Hussein was trying to comply, since Iraq had spent a decade trying to hide evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

According to this report, Saddam was insisting that full access be given to weapons inspectors "in order not to give President Bush any excuses to start a war".

Link

[daleo]

32. What fresh lie is this?

Lame, lame, lame.

[lovuian]

33. Misunderstood or Lying bull...

It just shows that there was no evidence that Saddam had weapons and we attacked a country premptively just because we wanted a regime change...

[OKNancy]

37. That's what this report says, there were no WMD

This report is damning to Bush and the administration. There are three separate article posted within this thread. Each with a different take on the report. I'd love to read the whole thing in it's entirety.

[benburch]

34. If this Administration said the sky were blue...

somehow, that too would be a fucking detestable LIE.

[MADem]

35. His order read as follows

I want the Kung Pao chicken, the beef and broccoli, and a side order of shrimp fried rice. The WH read it as I am hiding the WMDs where that Devil Monkey cannot find them!

Of course, this is the INCOMPETENT Administration, where the head of Homeland Security gets locked out of his own building, and forgets the key code, and the CIA puts the names of covert agents ON THE WEB!!!

So of COURSE they would get shit wrong....it is what they DO!

[OKNancy]

36. This is the same report you posted yesterday

with a different headline and emphasis

[54anickel]

38. Guess they're trying to put to rest the idea that Saddam may have

been smarter than the Bush cabal? :shrug:

Uhmmmm, OK, so let's assume they're correct and say Saddam wasn't so smart afterall.

Does it change the impression that Bush is an idiot?.... Nope - didn't think so.

[Moderator]

41. Kick

[ECH1969]

42. First declassified documents from prewar Iraq released

The Bush administration Wednesday night released the first declassified documents collected by U.S. intelligence during the Iraq war, showing among other things that Saddam Hussein's regime was monitoring reports that Iraqis and Saudis were heading to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks to fight U.S. troops.

The documents, the first of thousands expected to be declassified over the next several months, were released via a Pentagon Web site at the direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Many were in Arabic – with no English translation – including one the administration said showed that Iraqi intelligence officials suspected al-Qaeda members were inside Iraq in 2002.

The Pentagon Web site described that document this way: "2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaeda Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/031606dnnatdocuments.178fb0b8.html

[sabra]

43. Freepers: you see Saddam was connected to 9/11

:sarcasm:

[LynnTheDem]

45. Will freep heads explode when they finally learn the fact that Hussein

& al Qaeda/OBL were deadly enemies?

Freepers; stupidest MFers on the entire planet.

[daleo]

44. I was monitoring that too

It's also known as watching the news.

[Robb]

46. Watch my head get all dizzy

AP Wire is reporting on untranslated reports, reported by Negroponte at the bidding of Hoekstra, showing Iraq monitoring someone else's reports of Iraqis and Saudis? :crazy:

"Moreover, it includes photos and names."

What, nobody fall down a goddamn well this week? :eyes:

[Jim__]

47. U.S. releases first declassified Iraq documents

I expect that with this selected release of documents all our stated causes for the war will be vindicated. Will the press report that these documents are being cherry-picked for release by an adminsitration with a reputation for manipulating intelligence?




Many were in Arabic — with no English translation — including one the administration said showed that Iraqi intelligence officials suspected al-Qaida members were inside Iraq in 2002.

...

The release of the documents, expected to continue for months, is designed to allow lawmakers and the public to investigate what documents from Saddam’s regime claimed about such controversial issues as weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaida in the period before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

More

[OKNancy]

48. kick

[jasmeel]

49. US releases confiscated prewar Iraqi documents

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060316/ts_nm/iraq_usa_documents_dc

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Thursday released prewar Iraqi government documents confiscated by U.S. forces, including some it said showed
Saddam Hussein's regime suspected an al Qaeda presence in the country.

Nine sets of documents, released by the office of U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte and posted to an Army Web site, are the first to be publicly released from a huge cache of materials confiscated by U.S. forces in
Iraq.

The collection is comprised of 48,000 boxes of papers and tape-recorded conversations, including many involving Saddam himself, officials said.

Republican lawmakers say the data could still address U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and had ties with
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, which carried out the September 11 attacks.<snip>

They're STILL trying to tie Saddam w/ Al Qaeda but they "forget" that they attacked Saddam, not Al Qaeda in Iraq. Do they think we're this retarded? Some sheeple will buy it though.

:wtf:

[babylonsister]

50. Still no WMDs found, so they're trying to convince us

some boxed-up papers are an acceptable substitute? :rofl:

Edit for spelling

[peacebird]

51. watch out - you could get a papercut and bleed to death!

[Critters2]

52. Terra! Terra! Terra!

[EST]

53. Ha!

Searching here, there and everywhere for "polling point" bullets, are we? Desperate, unethical, immoral imbeciles.

[johnfunk]

54. Saddam 'suspected Al Qaeda inside Iraq in 2002' (wanted Zarqawi arrested)

Oh, my! It looks like Dick (DICK!) Cheney's "Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda" narrative just took a barrel of birdshot in the face:

Iraqi documents collected by US intelligence during the Iraq war and released by the Bush administration show Saddam Hussein’s regime was investigating “rumours” that 3,000 Iraqis and Saudis had travelled unofficially to Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks to fight US troops.

...

... [O]ne of the documents translated by The Associated Press, a letter from an Iraqi intelligence official, dated Aug. 17, 2002, asked agents in the country to be on the lookout for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and another unnamed man whose picture was attached.

As in, arrest the terrorist bastards. Threat to Ba'athists. Threat to Americans. Threat to secularization.

Well, well, well!

ON EDIT: Formatting. Must learn to use[these] and not <these>.

[Oversea Visitor]

55. Haha

Looks like Saddam not supporting bush war on terrorism. :rofl:
He looking for Al Qaeda

[WCGreen]

56. Why do you hate America....

[stillcool]

57. Oh Please.....

no more attempts at justification....I think al-Zarqawi (aka the boogeyman)has a future in Iran.

[rodeodance]

58. oh cheney will just snarl and say --go away you little pesty docs.

[NYC Liberal]

59. Well DUH. The idea that Saddam was in cahoots with Al Qaeda is

utterly rediculous.

[pinniped]

60. Ya, so where's this alleged pic of al-Zarqawi boogeyman....

and this other alleged unnamed man?

I want to know who to look for so I could collect my 25,000,000.00 USD.

[ECH1969]

61. The people that say Zarqawi doesn't exist

screw up very good arguements about Bush's mistakes in Iraq.

A couple weeks before the election the Kerry campaign tried to push hard the story that Bush refused to attack Zarqawi before the war in order to help justify the war at the UN and with the US public. But, the push failed in no small part because having a discussion on the matter is impossible when half the people on message boards like DU and Dkos and others are attacking Bush for calling off the attack and half the people attacking the story as bogus because "there isn't any Zarqawi". You got to have at least somewhat of a unified message in order for people to hear what you have to say.

[magellan]

62. This is true, and it's a principal argument that deflates Bushbots

...on Bush**'s true reasoning for war. After all, we knew where the hell Zarqawi was and what he was doing; he was running an explosives training camp in Kurdish territory protected by our northern no-fly zone.

So why didn't BushCo go after him? The story given at the time was they didn't want to upset relations with Turkey by sending US forces in...but they sure didn't worry about that when they later invaded Iraq.