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A. Background

(U) Prior to Iraq's 1991 defeat in Kuwait, Saddam Hussein's regime had built the largest and most capable conventional military force in the Persian Gulf region. He began a war with Iran that ran through the 1980s and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths between the two countries. He used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and then turned them against his own Kurdish population in retribution for their sympathy toward Iran during the war. He again used military force against Kuwait in 1990, and as the war ensued, he authorized the firing of Scud missiles toward Saudi Arabia and Israel. Misjudging the Coalition's determination to eject him from Kuwait, he pushed his military toward destruction.

(U) After 1991, Saddam Hussein brutally repressed the Shia in the south, the Kurds in the north and any source of potential opposition to his regime. He obstructed United Nations (UN) inspection efforts and internationally directed requirements to destroy his weapons of mass destruction (WMD). His military and security forces fired on Coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones, and both harassed and physically attacked inspectors who were implementing the will of the international community. He deployed his military forces in threatening manners in the direction of Kuwait, into Kurdish regions and in the western districts of Iraq toward Jordan, Syria and Israel.

(U) It is against this history of aggression, unpredictability and resistance that Committee staff reviewed thousands of pages of documents covering the full scope of the Iraqi threat in the aftermath of the first Gulf War in 1991 through the period just prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in 2003. Leaving aside the magnitude of the WMD issue, which is being covered in detail in other parts of the Committee's report, the Intelligence Community's (IC) task of tracking and characterizing the Iraqi threat to regional stability and security was immense and complex. For instance, over the 12-year period between the two wars, analysts and intelligence collectors focused their efforts on describing: the dimensions of the threat; what Saddam was doing with his military forces inside Iraq and around the region; Saddam's intentions to use force in the region; and, how regional governments understood and reacted to the Iraqi threat.

(U) At the IC's inter-agency level, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) produced documents that the entire IC considered to represent the most authoritative analyses. These IC-level documents included National Intelligence Estimates (NIE), Intelligence Community Assessments (ICA) and Sense of the Community Memoranda (SOCM). Their analytical authority was based on coordination and consultation among IC agencies, resulting in consensus judgments about the particular topic under review in the document. Intelligence consumers had a clear understanding of what the IC judgment was.

(U) The review of intelligence related to regional stability and security was unlike the review of other issues examined in the Committee's full report - such as WMD and international terrorism. In the case of WMD, Committee staff evaluated the quantity and quality of intelligence that described WMD capabilities. In the case of international terrorism, Committee staff evaluated the quantity and quality of intelligence that addressed the Iraqi regime's ties to such terrorism. In the case of regional stability and security, however, the analysis amounted to a characterization of how the IC monitored, understood and described the Iraqi threat in the region over more than a decade. At the agency level, for instance, there was no conflict among analysts that Saddam had attacked his neighbors in the past, that he continued to have the largest conventional force in the region, that he had the capability to conduct another attack if he chose, that he had attacked the Kurds, and that he had taken threatening actions toward Kuwait. At the IC-level, as well, analysts showed the same consensus in their coordinated assessments-such as in NIEs, ICA's and SOCMs - about Iraq's conventional capabilities and its aggressive military actions taken from 1991 - 2003. Because analysis at the agency level and at the IC level did not indicate analytical variance, the Committee focused attention primarily on the most authoritative level of analysis, which was at the IC level (i.e., the NIC).

(U) In the case of Iraq's threat to regional stability and security, the Committee also discovered that there was no single IC-level assessment, which Committee staff could use to evaluate IC analysis and intelligence collection.⁵⁶ There was no document that explained in one place how the IC consolidated its assessment of all the aspects related to Iraq's post-1991 performance and what it meant for the overall security and stability of the region. Committee staff were forced to review a broad range of assessments from 1991 - 2003 that touched on the many aspects of the Iraqi threat. In a major assessment of Iraq's conventional forces completed in 1999, analysts agreed on Iraq's conventional capabilities and Saddam's actions in the region. This assessment was based on what analysts described as adequate and reliable technical collection.

(U) Clearly, the issue of Saddam's intentions to use force against his neighbors and U.S. and Coalition forces was a high-interest matter, and, unfortunately, the main area where the IC was least confident about its analysis. That left IC analysts in the position of speculating ⁵⁷ about the range of possible actions Saddam Hussein could have taken at any point in the future. This was a consistent theme among analysts after 1991, and this section will demonstrate that the IC identified lack of human intelligence (HUMINT) as the main reason for the uncertainty.

(U) The task of judging regional neighbors' perceptions about Iraq was equally difficult, and it suffered from an additional problem - the complexity of assessing all the separate considerations any one country or group of countries could have had in conducting their relations with Iraq. For instance, well over ten separate countries in the Persian Gulf region had reason to be concerned about Iraq. The Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council both struggled, as well, with the complicated issue of how to interact with Iraq within the parameters of UN sanctions.

(U) Analysts were able, though, to describe the various steps that regional countries had taken toward Iraq. For example, Jordan, Syria and Egypt sought better trade relations. Turkey attempted to reestablish an intelligence liaison relationship and security cooperation in northern Iraq. However, analysts were not able to say with certainty why a country would choose any particular course of action. The array of attitudes, perceptions and actions of regional neighbors amounted to a complex back-drop for analysis of the Iraqi threat in the region.

footnotes

⁵⁶ (U) The National Intelligence Council communicated with Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) staff through CIA's Office of Congressional Affairs on 23 January 2004. According to the NIC, the IC did not produce an IC-level assessment (for example, an NIE) that addressed the range of issues comprising Iraq's threat to regional stability and security between 1991 and 2003. The IC produced analysis on individual topics that it monitored over the period. For example, the IC agencies produced assessments of conventional military forces or violations of No-Fly Zones.

⁵⁷ (U) Speculation - or informed judgment - was common in the body of analysis over the entire period. Analysts were in the position of trying to understand what Saddam had done and then predict his intentions for the future by laying out a series of options from which he would likely choose. For example, after Iraqi forces deployed to southern Iraq in October 1994, analysts debated whether he had planned to attack Kuwait or was conducting a training exercise. They later speculated about his willingness to actually attack Kuwait in the future - given his other concerns that included his efforts to have sanctions dropped and the likelihood of a devastating response from Coalition forces if he attacked. Speculation usually included use of caveats, such as "probably," "might," "could," etc.