Saddam Hussein: Dead or Alive?
Apr 01, 2003 - 0205 GMT
Summary
Pre-war intelligence assessments in the United States suggested that a swift decapitation strike against the Iraqi leadership -- that is to say, killing Saddam Hussein and his two sons -- would result in the collapse of the Iraqi regime. Washington continues to question whether or not Saddam Hussein survived the first day of air attacks, albeit without addressing what his demise would say about those intelligence assessments, given that Iraq has yet to surrender.
Analysis
Pre-war U.S. intelligence assessments argued that a war in Iraq might be decided on the first day, if only a successful decapitation strike could eliminate Saddam Hussein and his two sons. The belief was that Hussein bound the regime together through such personal terror, that if he was killed or seriously injured his influence would evaporate and a power struggle would ensue among his deputies.
This was the basis for War Plan A, put forward by the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and Joint Special Operations Command. That plan, and its underlying assumptions, was put to the test on the first day of the war, when Tomahawk cruise missiles and GBU-27 penetration bombs slammed into a building where Hussein was believed to be staying.
From the outset, Pentagon and intelligence officials have questioned whether Hussein survived the attack. According to some reports, a British Special Air Service team was in Baghdad, observing the target and verifying that Hussein was present. Other reports emerged after the attack that he was seen being pulled from the wreckage and taken away in an ambulance. Intelligence officials suggested that intercepted Iraqi communications after the attack indicated Hussein might be dead. Videotaped statements by Hussein were repeatedly downplayed as being so vague they could have been recorded before the war.
Some of this constant questioning of Hussein's survival is undoubtedly part of psychological warfare aimed at destabilizing the Iraqi military. If the U.S. assessments are correct, and Iraqi troops fight primarily out of fear of punishment by the regime, then even erroneous but convincing reports of Hussein's death might be enough to induce mass surrenders.
But if this is only propaganda, it begs the question: Why haven't those senior Iraqi political and military officials in the know begun to turn on one another? Why has there been no coup? Why have no officials begun to flee for their survival?
One of two things is clear. Either Hussein is not dead, and this is sufficiently obvious to Iraqis that no one is taking the coalition psychological warfare efforts seriously. Or Hussein is dead. If so, the continued coherence and resolve of the Iraqi regime and military raises serious questions about the assumptions underpinning U.S. war plans. Iraqis might be fighting to preserve Iraq, rather than out of fear of Hussein.
Washington's answer to this latter possibility has been that the remnants of the regime remain coherent because they know what the Iraqi people will do to them once the war is over. And frontline soldiers continue to fight because death squads will kill them if they try to surrender or abandon their positions. This is difficult to believe, given the large numbers of regular army soldiers, relative to their Fedayeen "oppressors," and given that absolutely no one from within the government has broken ranks.
Of course, no intelligence assessment claims to be absolute. All are laden with caveats to the extent that circumstances mandate or allow. Between unknown and uncontrollable variables, and the usual bureaucratic backside covering, pre-war assessments no doubt stopped short of guaranteeing a regime collapse would automatically result from a decapitation strike. The evaluation would have been more along the lines that there was sufficient likelihood that such a collapse would take place as to make the operation worth the resource allocation and attempt.
But regardless of caveats, there is a dangerous tendency in any intelligence agency to invest so much in an initial analysis of a situation that all ensuing evidence to the contrary is rejected out of hand. The pre-war assessments may simply have been wrong. And continued interpretation of events based on those pre-war assumptions could skew decisions over conduct of the war and about the postwar occupation of Iraq. |
