According to Tariq Aziz, back-channel Franco-Russian assurances led Saddam to believe The US would not invade. Aziz reportedly indicated that Saddam's WMD program consisted primarily of bluff and bluster intended to convey the impression that Iraq was to be feared and respected, a deception foisted not only on the world community but on Saddam's own senior commanders.
Quote:washingtonpost.com
Hussein Was Sure Of Own Survival
Aide Says Confusion Reigned on Eve of War
By Steve Coll
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 3, 2003; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 2 -- Saddam Hussein refused to order a counterattack against U.S. troops when war erupted in March because he misjudged the initial ground thrust as a ruse and had been convinced earlier by Russian and French contacts that he could avoid or survive a land invasion, former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told interrogators, according to U.S. officials ...
... several high-ranking detainees have said they believe that Hussein was afraid to lose face with his Arab neighbors. Hussein concluded, these prisoners explained, that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other countries paid him deference because they feared he had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein was unwilling to reveal that his cupboard was essentially bare, these detainees said, according to accounts from officials.
In separate interviews with The Post, several former high-ranking Iraqi generals not held in detention offered similar views. Hussein "had an inferiority complex," said Maj. Gen. Walid Mohammed Taiee, 62, chief of army logistics as the war approached earlier this year. "From a military point of view, if you did have a special weapon, you should keep it secret to achieve tactical surprise. . . . But he wanted the whole region to look at him as a grand leader. And during the period when the Americans were massing troops in Kuwait, he wanted to deter the prospect of war." ...
... Aziz has told interrogators that French and Russian intermediaries repeatedly assured Hussein during late 2002 and early this year that they would block a U.S.-led war through delays and vetoes at the U.N. Security Council. Later, according to Aziz, Hussein concluded after private talks with French and Russian contacts that the United States would probably wage a long air war first, as it had done in previous conflicts. By hunkering down and putting up a stiff defense, he might buy enough time to win a cease-fire brokered by Paris and Moscow ...
... American and British interrogators have asked dozens of generals who served in high-ranking command roles in Iraqi army divisions during this year -- some imprisoned, some living freely -- why Hussein did not use chemical weapons to defend Baghdad. A number of these generals have said that they, too, believed chemical weapons would be deployed by Hussein for the capital's defense. Yet none of the officers admitted receiving such weapons himself.
"The only consistent pattern we've gotten -- 100 percent consistent -- is that each commander says, 'My unit didn't have WMD, but the one to my right or left did,' " said the senior U.S. official involved. This has led some American interrogators to theorize that Hussein may have bluffed not only neighboring governments and the United States, but his own restive generals ... [/b]
Aziz also reportedly indicated that Saddam, while not actively engaged in the production and operational distribution of WMD, none the less maintained a clandestine program of development of prohibited missiles, and husbanded resources critical to the rapid ramp-up of WMD production. According to Aziz, Saddam thought it sufficient that others believe he possessed operational WMD; Saddam felt the deterent effect of such deception would better serve Iraq's strategic and political interests than would admitting and proving Iraq in fact had no such at-hand capability.
Now, of couse, Aziz is an individual of at best suspect credibility, and not to be assumed to be acting out of dispassionate, selfless objectivity. However, his is one more voice harmonizing in this particular chorus, and he's singing the part well.
