Saddam’s Stenographers

James Meek of the Daily News says the memos demonstrate “How the FBI Broke Saddam.” And the Washington Post cites the memos, and Saddam’s statements contained therein, uncritically. The press is even acting as if the memos contain valuable information about Iraq’s WMD programs and (supposed lack of) ties to al Qaeda.

They don’t.

The truth is that the memos are almost completely worthless from an intelligence perspective. While that conclusion may sound unnecessarily dismissive, it is actually somewhat generous. Saddam frequently turned the FBI into his own personal stenographer.

Consider this summary from a June 17, 2004 memo, which was written after one of the last conversations between the FBI and Saddam.

Right. I’m sure the Butcher of Baghdad was content to hear out others while passively sitting on the sidelines. Lest you think this is cherry-picking, the passages cited above are not atypical–the memos include page after page of Saddam’s take on world affairs, ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which must be seen from an Arab point of view, Saddam insists) to the various Zionist plots against his Iraq.

At one point Saddam tells the FBI that Iraq invaded Kuwait because the Kuwaiti people wanted him too. “We felt they were asking” Iraq to invade, Saddam says during one session. Why? Saddam explained that the Kuwaiti people wanted to get rid of their leaders and “decide the way they wanted to deal with Iraq” themselves.

Saddam portrayed the first Gulf War as provocation by the Kuwaiti government. But it was not just Kuwait’s fault. Kuwait and the U.S. were planning to invade Iraq anyway: “America had a plan with Kuwait to attack Iraq. We had a copy of the plan in our hands. If I had the (prohibited) weapons, would I have let United States forces stay in Kuwait without attacking? I wish the United States did not have the intention to attack Iraq.”

And, naturally, the Jews were involved. Saddam elaborated, “The United States was planning to destroy Iraq, an intention pushed by Zionism and the effect of Zionism on elections in the United States.”

The FBI agent tasked with wading into Saddam’s delusional mindset was George Piro. The point of listening to Saddam’s peculiar views was to build rapport with the fallen dictator. This method of “interrogation” is supposed to build confidence and trust between the interviewer and interviewee, such that the latter divulges secrets, either wittingly or unknowingly. This method has worked elsewhere.

So, did Piro’s and the FBI’s patience–listening to Saddam’s nonsense for more than two dozen sessions–pay off?

No. Piro’s efforts were largely fruitless. The memos include little, if any, actionable intelligence.

That’s because Piro focused on shaming Saddam into admitting the sins of his past. The memos, which were written in 2004, document conversations that focused almost entirely on historical events that had little do with the realities on the ground in Iraq as they were then unfolding.

You will not find in the memos: what really happened to Saddam’s WMD stockpiles (including how, when, and where they were destroyed), Saddam’s desire and ability to reconstitute his programs once sanctions were lifted (as documented in the Duelfer report, among other places), the fallen regime’s sponsorship of the insurgency that was then (2004) beginning to engulf Iraq, a robust discussion of Saddam’s ties to regional and international terrorism (including Hamas and yes, al Qaeda), how Saddam gamed the UN’s Oil-for-Food program, and dozens of other grizzly facts.

Instead, the conversations focused mainly on Saddam’s draining of the Iraqi marshes, the repression of the Shiites in southern Iraq following the first Gulf War, Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds, and various other crimes against humanity that his regime committed in the past. Much of this occurred in the early 1990s.

It was important to question Saddam about these matters. But Saddam never really came clean about any of it. He never came out and said that he was guilty of any real crime. The most the FBI got out of him, according to the memos, is the obvious: that Saddam was a dictator and, as such, the buck stopped with him when it came to all of his government’s actions. But there was never any material dispute over the fact that Saddam did all of the horrible things he was accused of doing. Even if Saddam openly admitted to all of his humanitarian crimes how valuable could those admissions possibly be? Wasn’t it easy to “prove” this through other means (including his regime’s documents, signed by the maniac himself)?

Far from being a broken man, Saddam was defiant to the end. About his use of chemical weapons on the Kurds and the Iranians, Saddam dismissed the FBI’s inquiries. “I do not have an answer for that. I am not going to answer.”

Saddam simply wasn’t playing the FBI’s game:

“I will not be cornered or caught on some technicality. It will not do you any good. The United States has paid dearly for its mistakes here in Iraq and throughout the world and will continue to pay for its mistakes all over the world.”

And again, concerning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran: “I am not going to answer, no matter how you put the question.”

After being shown a documentary that included scenes of the horrors he inflicted on the Iraqi Arabs living in the marshes, Saddam “laughed.” The documentary showed one Iraqi woman who was left with nothing after Saddam ordered the marshes drained. Saddam asked, “What did she have before? Reeds?”

These are not the words of a broken man. These are the words of man who spilled much blood and continued to slyly gloat over it while in U.S. custody. Perhaps Saddam’s words, with respect to the marshes, can be construed as a sort of a confession. But he still admitted no crime, saying that he was merely trying to modernize that part of Iraq. In any event, this is not of any intelligence value.

Even when it came to matters in the distant past Saddam would not answer simple questions. In 1968, Saddam and his Baathist cronies gained infamy by overthrowing the existing Iraqi government. Not every participant in the coup could be trusted, however, so Saddam snuffed out some of the same men who helped catapult his party into power. One of these men was Colonel Abd Al Razzaq Nayif, a military intelligence officer. It is well known that Saddam had Nayif arrested and exiled to London, where Nayif was eventually killed as a traitor. Hunting down “dissidents” was one of the Iraqi regime’s favorite activities. It was so obvious that Saddam ordered the hit that thirteen Iraqi diplomats were deported from the UK after Nayif’s assassination.

Surely Saddam would admit to this, right?

Wrong. Nayif had it coming, Saddam argued, but only God knew who killed him. Saddam explained:

When the FBI’s man pressed, Saddam reiterated, “I told you, God knows.” Finally, Saddam got testy: “I told you in a very clear way.”

The FBI also wanted to know about a plot to overthrow Saddam shortly after he ascended to the presidency in 1979. Saddam brutally purged dozens of government officials after the plot was discovered. How did Saddam find out about the coup attempt?

“These are secrets of the country,” Saddam said. The FBI added: “He emphasized that he still considered these details secret despite the fact that the event occurred almost 25 years ago.”

Not only did Saddam refuse to divulge secrets of the distant past, he also did not give any meaningful details concerning the recent past or what was then the present (2004). This was especially true when it came to Saddam’s discussions of his terrorist ties.

Consider one of the most uncontroversial aspects of Saddam’s terror sponsorship: Iraq’s relationship with Abu Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF). There is no doubt that Iraq was the patron and Abbas’s PLF was the client. This is indisputable. Abbas lived in and operated from Iraq, on and off again, for years. Abbas was captured there after the U.S.-led invasion and reportedly died of natural causes while in custody.

Saddam downplayed his regime’s sponsorship of Abbas in his conversations with the FBI. A February 10, 2004, memo reads:

Piro wanted to know more, but Saddam wasn’t having it. When Piro asked Saddam further questions about his sponsorship of Abbas. Saddam quipped, “I didn’t say I helped Abbas. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“I think the questions should be in the context of a dialogue, not an interrogation,” Saddam added.

Of course not. We wouldn’t want to find out more about what Saddam was doing with the PLF and Abbas at the time of his regime’s downfall.

The same goes for Saddam’s relationship with al Qaeda. Saddam’s views of al Qaeda are not transcribed until the last memo of the bunch, dated June 28, 2004. The relationship was, apparently, an afterthought for the FBI. The discussion between Piro and Saddam took place in one of their “casual conversations.” That is, their session was hardly a tough interrogation even by the FBI’s standards. Here is one of the key paragraphs from that memo:

This paragraph and the even less meaty ones surrounding it were enough for the Washington Post to splash Saddam’s words on the front page. The Post made sure to point out that the dictator’s take on al Qaeda contradicted what the Bush administration said prior to the war. Of course, the Post and other outlets spent little time actually analyzing the contents of Saddam’s hollow denial.

For example, look again at the paragraph above. Are we really to believe that Saddam did not consider the United States an enemy of Iraq?

On its face, this is ridiculous.

It is also, of course, contradicted by a large number of statements (not to mention hostile actions) Saddam made prior to the war. It is also contradicted by the FBI’s own memos. In fact, during their first interview session Piro asked Saddam if he had made any mistakes during his tenure. Saddam responded, “Do you think I would tell my enemy if I made a mistake?”

To Piro’s credit, he cited some of the evidence that contradicted Saddam’s denial–but just some. Piro noted that one of Saddam’s top intelligence officers, Faruq Hijazi, met with Osama bin Laden in 1994. He could have also pointed out that Hijazi also met with bin Laden shortly after Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. That meeting was reported around the world.

Piro also noted that Abu Hafs al Mauritani traveled to Baghdad twice, and even requested a payment of $10 million. This is especially interesting because al Mauritani is a top al Qaeda theologian. It is yet another piece of evidence demonstrating that al Qaeda’s ideology did not preclude it from seeking Saddam’s support.

Saddam admitted that Hijazi met with bin Laden in 1994 and that Abu Hafs traveled twice to Baghdad. He reportedly denied paying the $10 million to Abu Hafs.

But are we really to take Saddam’s denial at face value? He lied about so much else, including his regime’s ties to the PLF, which no one seriously disputes. He also refused to answer questions about acts that took place decades prior. As mentioned, Saddam also had the audacity to pretend that America was not his enemy, and therefore there was no reason to work with al Qaeda.

Basic reason suggests that no one should take Saddam’s denials at face value. But this has not stopped the press from splashing his denials on the front page.

There is more evidence that Piro could have questioned Saddam about. For example, he could have asked Saddam about the numerous Iraqi regime documents that illustrate important ties to al Qaeda. Unfortunately, Saddam did not have to answer any questions about those documents during his interview with the FBI. And the press has not been especially curious about the documents either.

The bottom line is that there is no evidence in the documents released thus far that the FBI ever “broke” Saddam, or even got any meaningful intelligence from him. That the FBI and the press repeat Saddam’s meaningless denials demonstrates just how poorly understood and researched these matters are.

Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.