Legacy of the Iraq Intelligence Failure

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the declassified club The rest is classified. com Inspectors are on the ground hu. rocks, weapons of mass destruction using tip offs from MI six and CIA But will they find anything to support the drive for war? Well, welcome to the Rest of is Classified. I'm David McLlosky, and I'm Gordon Carrera. This is the final episode of the six part series where We are going to find the WMD. The WMD have This sort of befuddled dators, intelligence analysts, politicians for a generation We are going to reveal all at the end of this episode. importantortantly, you have to stay for the entire episode. We're not going we're not going to tell you right now. But we're going to get there. But yes, we've got to the to nearly the end of this story. We've been looking at how the UK and US have built this case of WMD as the justification for war using some it's fair to say Dodgy, if that's not too British a term intelligence like Kerball But the question is, Will the international inspectors be able to uncover the truth. I had forgotten this part of the story that There actually were inspectors who got into a rock justust before the war we had talked in an earlier episode about how Tony Blair and Colin Powell and others had eventually persuaded George W. Bush to go down what was called the UN route. and harder line advisers like Dick Cheney had not wanted to bother with this, but probably in part to get Brits to go along with this George W. Bush decides to go to the UN. And on november the eighth two thousand two. the UN adopts resolution fourteen forty one to send inspectors back into Iraq This episode is brought to you by HP. In intelligence work, it's rarely the obvious problem that causes failure. 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Brooke Shields leads an all star cast in the hit original mystery series, You're killing me. I sol mysteries for a living. I think I'm good to go. Maybe been one of your books, Not in real life Catch every killer episode. You're someone who from Douchf your Warehoutouse at the time of the incident. Whatere are you the alibi police? That's literally Exactly who I am. You're killing me. all episodes now streaming on accorn TV This is part of a British strategy, which Tony Blair and his advisors have sought through, because they thought, well, if Saddam refuses to allow the inspectors in in defiance of this UN resolution, well then you've got a case for war, you can draw in international support, you can build that case. And of course, if he does let them in which he's going to do They're going to find the weapons and they're going to disarm him Or they're going to find that he's hiding stuff and then that will help justify the war. So they think they Saddam with this resolution. But as we'll see, I think The U.S and particularly the UK are the ones who are going to be trapped. So the idea is Saddam has to cooperate with these inspectors. You know, it's a kind of test for him to show whether he's going to be able to cooperate, but the expectation is that he'll and that that will build support. The hawks in Washington, as you said, Dick Cheny and the like see these inspections as a mistake. you know, they're going divert the U. S away from the war they just want to get on with And the idea is that then when Saddam you know, frustrates the inspectors or they find something then there'll potentially be a new UN resolution authorizing ion against Saddam, which everyone can get behind and everything's going to be fine. That's the idea spoiler alert, it's not going work out that way. It's also a little unclear What mechanism would lead the UN to authorize action after something is found or if Saddam is compliant with the inspectors because is it? Is it enough to just say that Iraq is in breach of the existing resolution O do you then need to pass another resolution that authorizes military action against Saddam because he's in contrvention of Resolution fourteen forty one. Yeah. And pose here the premises that if you can show Saddam that you're credibly threatening war Maybe it's Mot and he comes clean. about the WMD that he obviously has, but But what if he doesn't have it, Gordon? How do you come clean It's hard. How you come clean to something you don't have. And so I think it's worth going back to Saddam, isn't it? Because I think that's what's so interesting is Saddam as a character in this story because As we get to the end of two thousand two, Saddam is going to decide, well, I'm going to let the inspectors back in. He's been told by France and Russia that you that's what he should do. and he kind of listens to them. And then again, we get one of these meetings, I love these meetings of Saddam's Revolutionary Command Council You know, he gathers all his top aids and this one this one is a corker becausecause this one, he gathers his top aids and he says Guys, there is no WMD Wh no What? What Why have we why have we been doing why have we' been suffering for almost fifteen years under sanctions when we didn't have WMD. Yeah. it sounds like some of his generals are actually stunned by this because they've always thought, well, he's you know I don't know about the WPMD, but someone else, you know, he's definitely got some hidden somewhere And so it's this kind of weird thing where he's now telling his generals like, yeah, we got nothing. And he says, you know, if anyone's got anything and got little bits of leftover stuff, destroy it, give it up. We don't want them to find something themselves And he says, like, right, we're going to declare everything And so they're going to do this declaration, which is going to come in December, which is part of the UN resolution. Jafar, this nuclear scientist who I met, is one of the people working on this declaration And he he is trying to own up to everything. and they're going to send it to the UN. And of course, London Washingt go, Well, there's nothing new in this. They're not admitting to anything. Yeah, Yeah they're not admitting to anything. And it's so kind of it's so funny because Jafar is kind of tearing his hair out. because he's like, we keep trying to tell people. And he's actually been to New York, Jafar in in april two thousand two to meet Hans Blicks, Mohamed al Baradai and you know, he has to be calmed down by the other aids because he's so angry that they won't believe him when he's saying, we've got nothing. Although I also think part of the reason Jafar is so angry is that he's getting pitched at every stage along the way by CIA officers on the plane out of you know, out of the Middle East heading towards New York. An American comes and sits next to him in the seat and he's like, Mr. Jafar, would you like to tell us about the WMD? And he's like, No, I'm going to the UN to tell them we don't have anything. And then at the airport he gets detained and he gets, you know question again, He gets pitched to this hotel by the CIA and he's constantly like, No, I just want to say we don't have any WMD Which of course, is what you would say if you're hiding it. Exactly. Exactly. That's the point. They're like, well these guys have been hiding stuff for years so you know, they're just making it up So so there's this interesting bit where the Iraqis are trying to oe up to everything and the inspectors now arrive And they're going to start kind of going around Saddam's palaces, you know, looking for stuff under Hans Blicks and Mohammed Al Baradai. and of course they're not going to be finding anything. They're looking for what are called the unaccounted for materials which is material That's unaccounted for. Yeah, it's unaccountable. where you know, they've made so much anthrax, Well where is it? And Jafar is like, Well, the records were rubbish and we've destroyed the stuff and we didn't record destroying it. So what can we do about it And I mean, one smallall story I was told by an inspector. He said, An Iraqi scientist later revealed what had happened to some of the anthrax, so this's pretty nasty stuff When they destroyed it, they just poured it into the ground But they've done it near one of Saddam's palaces. And so they then fear that if they have to own up to having poured it into the ground near one of Saddam's palaces at any point, they own up about that. Saddam will be so angry they will kill him That's bed forb. They should have gone out. they should have gone elsewhere to dump the anthrax. It just it's a pretty stupid thing dumping it near one of your bosses's palaces. So you know, that's a small example where they're like, we can't. and we don't want to come clean about where we dump the anthrax because it it's too dangerous. Saddam is often said to be bluffing about having these weapons to intimidate regional opponents, the Iranians, the Israelis George Tennant is the CEA director wrote in his memoirs before the war, we didn't understand that Saddam was bluffing and he did not understand that we were not But I think this is a fascinating twist here which is that as we're getting closer to war Saddam stops bluffing He now just starts to tell the U. S. and the UK that he doesn't have weapons and yet cannot prove the negative. How how can he prove that he doesn't have something that he doesn't have and that he's actually not hiding anything. So any evidence Saddam doesn't have weapons is being treated as deception Well All of the weird, sketchy, fragmentary circumstantial reporting that we've been discussing is being treated as absolutely earth shattering and massively serious and important to the overall case And This to me is a great snapshot. of the mindset and analytic problems in a nutshell and how you had confirmation bias just carrying and group carrying huge numbers of people Even at a point where Saddam himself is coming clean. He's done bluffing by early two thousand three and no one's listing. That's right. And so one of the ways Saddam is trying to say, I haven't got this stuff. So he's done the declaration to the UN is He's also got these back channels. So there's a really interesting one Which MI six the Iraqis. So early two thousand three, the MI six controller for the Middle East goes to the Middle East and meets a senior Iraqi intelligence official This is a kind of secret meeting. I mean, it's a back channel rather than an agent meeting And they're going to meet a number of times as war approaches. The CIA is aware of these contacts and it's kind of been briefed about And the Iraqi intelligence officer tells the MI six guy We don't have any weapons. Now, some people later write this up as like a lost opportunity to avoid war. and more evidence that the kind of spies were lying because they'd been told there were no weapons and yet they still press on with war I think this misunderstands it because the Iraqi is saying in private exxactly what Saddam is saying in public which is we don't have the stuff. And everyone goes, well, they're just saying what we expect them to say. Of course, they're saying they don't have the stuff. We know that they've got it That's the problem all along. There's nothing that Saddam can say or do at this point which is going to convince people that he doesn't have something that they think he has Again The analytic problem is that bar for intelligence that suggests there are no weapons is much higher. then evidence of their existence And those two Hypotheses are not being given equal weight and subjected to the same rigorous examination of what do the facts say and The inspectors were on the ground They're not finding anything. They're spending a lot of time in chicken farms which which are just chicken farms, unfortunately They're not hiding secret documents. And this is also I think interesting because haven't covered it at the time. I've spoken to a lot of these inspectors since it was becoming clear to them There was nothing there because they were going to all of these places that British and American intelligence said were potential weapon sites where the intelligence had suggested there might be mobile labs or something else, and they were finding nothing. And so they can see this is falling apart. But that's not really being made public. The public don't know that that actually This carefully constructed case is already falling apart. I mean, one inspector talks about turning up at one site. It's supposed to be a mobile biological lab And it's an basasically an ice cream van covered in cobwebs, you know? I mean, this is the scale of it. And you know the places where Curveball was saying, these are where they're developing this stuff it just doesn't Hans Blixz is going back to the UK saying, Thankks for all this intelligence, but you know, it doesn't work And then Tony Blair is going to his spooks, Well, Hans Blicks is saying this stuff isn't good. Where is the good stuff? Where is the intelligence? You told me that existed about WMD and he's pushing MI six hard and there's a really interesting meeting, january the ninth, two thousand three Tony Blair meets Richard Deerlove, Chief of MI six, who of course is going to be in an episode for our club members, a bonus episode and Tony Blair asks about the chances of finding a silver bullet, something to prove Saddam has the weapons. which will help turn international opinion and support for the war that's clearly coming. and Deal loveub is kind of saying,, we're still looking for something. And blay it looks at him and says, Richard, my fate is in your hands I mean, that is quite a statement for a prime Minister to an intelligence chief, isn't it I mean, it's because he knows that he's put his faith trust, his fate, his future in the hands of the intelligence, which he has been told Assured is there It's not the same on the other side of the Atlantic though. because Bush, I mean, Bush has made and Bush's advisers have made the case for WMD based on intelligence. but I think it's fair to say that care as much about finding something because there's a lot of different reasons for the warar in Iraq among Bush's advisers And and I think WMD is not frankly, one of the most important I think it's the lowest common denominator, what is Pul Wolfwit said they could all agree on. But I think inside his administration George W. Bush isn't as reliant on the WMD line the case for war. I think that's right. it matters less than it does for Blair who has really staked everything on that WMD. And so the inspector's drawing a blank. MI six is saying, well, it's just shows how devious Saddam is and how incompetent the inspectors are. So they start kind of saying, you know, these inspectors are terrible. They you know, they're announcing where they're going. It is worth saying that Delov continues to blame the inspectors and believe things were there. So I mean we'll be hearing from him directly, but he still thinks that there was material which ends up getting hidden and he will say moved out of the country. by Saddam's regime. I fair to say that's not a universally accepted view within the intelligence community. Is this the light about moving it to Syria? Yeah, I think we should come to that. I'll go out on the limb here and say after having on the Syria account for many years I don't I don't agree with that statement. there's there's no There's no evidence ity of the intelligence I've ever seen to suggest that that that happened that ever happened Be I think what it's based on is as the war approaches, they see some trucks moving over the border into Syria l mirror That doesn't mean the trucks had WMD. because I think the idea is you know, people are moving other stuff if you're a senior Iraqi official You're probably moving your money and your possessions out over the border, aren't you? So I think there is a suspicion about that and even some reporting. The two regimes hated each other too. There's also that Theistyri and Iraqi regimes were conflict and competition. Anyhow. Yeah. so you know there's all this tension, you know the UK's got a source inside Saddam's special seecurity organization talking about how they're gonna stymy the inspectors and keep them away from things. But that's actually standard behavior because as we know, the special security organization thinks the inspectors are spies you know gathering intelligence for war and they're trying to protect Sadam So so that's The problem So by the time you get to the end of January, Tony Blair is in in real trouble because he'd been hoping that either there might be a coup Saddam sounds familiar from recent events in Iic, doesn't it? The Always Always easer. justust count on the coup. Let's roll the dice at a coup. You know, it hass I've got a good feeling. We'll just poke a little bit and there will be a coup So he hasn't gotten his coup. No he hasn't got his coup. O he thinks maybe Saddam will just give up all his weapons U and therefore, we might not need a war You know because Saddam will just decide to disarm, which of course, as we know, he can't do because he hasn't gotone them And then Blair is thinking, well, the other option is, you know, the UN is going to find stuff And that will help me justify the war that's coming always going to block the inspectors and that will help me justify the war and it's not happening. And the inspectors are saying, Well, we need a few more months to come to the answers. Bl and Washington are starting to clash. I mean, Blicks thinks and I think rightly that Washington is bugging him So he starts meeting his team in a restaurant because he doesn't want to be spied on by Washington. And Cheney himself, I think and Cheney's team are saying, if you don't find stuff If you're not aggressive enough to Blicks and Albarado, we will discredit you So I think there's a kind of growing tension here over why nothing's been found Blix also believes there are weapons. Does't it? Yeah He does at the time and I think it's one of the interesting points is that I think he probably he thought there was probably something there. Uhu He's also a bit confused as why they haven't found stuff, but they think, well, we need months. we need time. And this is the problem because Blair wants more time, the inspectors want more time. Washington, the military timetable is now dictating events They do not want more time. So Blair goes to Washington on january thirty first to make the case to Bush at a kind of face to face meeting to let this UN process play out Maybe six months What he gets from Bush at that meeting? is just a few weeks delay. becausecause President Bush is making it clear to him privately that the war is going to happen in March and Tony Blair says, Well, I think we need a second resolution from the UN to authorize war press conference after their meeting President Bush says, Well, the second resolution would be welcome But that's not the same as saying I really want one and I'm going to work for it. Effectively, the U.S is saying we're giving up on inspections. We don't think they're going to work wedding for war. And this is a very memorable scene for me because I was a producer at theoday program Radyo for the time And I flew out with our presenter, James Noockty And we had an exclusive interview for the Today prorogram with Tony Blair as he came out of that meeting with President Bush at Andrew's Air Force Base. And we were told to go to Andrew's Air Force Base and wait for Blair where he was going to get his plane back to London. So before he got on the plane, he was going to do an interview of us in this tiny room in Andrew's Air Force Bace, me and James Noocty from the BBC, me holding the microphone, and Tony Blair and one Alista Campbell. Podcaster podcaster pre podcast career. the four of us in the room in this tiny room. And what I remember is Blare looked uneasy and uncomfortable and you could sense He was really unhappy. And as soon as the mic went on and the questions started to be asked, he you know, was in blair mode and he was, you know brilliant performer as he always was. but I could sense it. and then years later or twenty years later interviewed him for a series about your And I asked him, did he feel trapped at that moment? And he saidays, You're right, I was uncomfortable because I could feel all the options were closing. This is a guy who's who's not necessarily thought I want to go to war but has made a commitment to Bush that he will go to war with him the process is followed, particularly going through the UN and now suddenly, That's falling apart Is the UK public at the time Bored with the war. Is there a desire to do it? I think it is split, basically Whereas the US public is broadly supportive because you're in that post nine eleven world In the UK, it was, of course everyone now saidays, I was against the wall, but it was broadly split down the middle if you look at the the politics of it, but For the UK, getting a second resolution from the UN was really important because they want to get that second resolution to authorize military action because then it is legal And through the UN and politically for Tony Blair at home, within his government, within his party and the Labour partarty, that was really, really important and they're going to struggle to get. And so at this point also get a fairly sensational page of the observer appears on march second of the UK the great headline revealed U. S. dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war And this is fascinating because it's based on a top secret email which is sent from NSA. the U. S. S aggency to GCHQ that is requesting British help with the surgge to intercept communications of the six swing states the UN who are going to vote on this resolution on the second resolution that'll authorize military force and the email has been leaked. by a GCHQ employee who ends up being arrested a few days later and eventually she won't be prosecuted. But This is kind of a a fascinating little insight of maybe some of the unease with the war that was bubbling up inside the British National security bureaucracy That's right. I think it is a fascinating ent There are a few people in MI six who asked to be moved, I think because their distaste for the war, but didn't speak out publicly, but Katherine Gunn goes public when she sees this email saying we're going to spy on the UN and is opposed to the war and goes public with it. As you said, the prosecution of Ginster is eventually dropped. There's a film official seecrets about this. It's a fascinating story about her I think it's interesting though, because Oh we shocked by the idea that the US and UK were spying on the United Nations. Right Are we? I don't know. Are we I'm less sure. We're not We're not shocked by anything anymore, Gordon. We've been doing this too long We're not shocked by anything. It makes me think of the series we did on the Snowden Revelations where there was Shock, shock that we were spying on the Germans, for example And This is not sur surprisise me in the least and in fact, I would I would hope I think Catherine Gunn is' probably leaking this because she opposes the war, not necessarily that she is opposed to spying on the UN. but any citizen of the U.S or UK in this circumstance, I think should should be comfortable. I know that Metty won't be with the idea that you'd want your government to have an information advantage about what's going on at the UN. And so you should spy on the other governments, the other UN missions are that are voting on an important resolution that affects U S or UK national security policy. It seems obvious to me. What am I missing, Gordon? I think you're right in that it's the kind of thing that they do which we don't always know about, but it is that thing which is if you really oppose the policy and a part of it, I think your best option is to resign. Now baking, go public. that's a You know obviously different thing but I think it's interesting because it does give a sense though about how divisive this was at the time, including even within an intelligence agency like GCHQ that someone felt that they were outraged by this and had to act But it's not going to stop the march for war. You're getting these reports from the UN inspectors including one from Albaraday, saying the uranium from Africa claims fake in a way that You know, it doesn't matter anymore because the trains leaving the station for war. The effort to get a second resolution fails because the French say they won't support it Blair meanwhile, is facing this vote in Parliament on march the eighteenth This is another big moment for him because the US has woken up to the idea Congress has already authorized war back in October, but this is Blair's vote and it's coming on the eve of war There's worry he might have to resign and he has a call President Bush just before the vote. in which Bush says, I want regime change in Baghdad, not London. This is supposed to be getting rid of Saddam, not Tony Blair because he's worried Blair will lose this vote in Parliament and have to resign. And he actually makes a really interesting offer, which is he says You don't have to take part in the war You do not have to take part in the invasion You can just do the reconstruction afterwards. I understand you're in a difficult position you can back out at this stage And I asked Blair about this years later And he confirmed it to me for the first time publicly and said he had no regrets about turning that down. He said, they were offering me the way out because they felt sorry for the politically difficult situation that I was in under any doubt at all if Britain had left the alliance at that point it would have had a significant impact on the relationship I was sure that our alliance depended on us doing this together. That's what Tony Blair told me years later about why he turned down That offer from George W. Bush to back out at the last minute. What do you think about that statement? I think it's a very revealing statement because it tells you that Tony Blairres. reasons for taking part in the war were about preserving the relationship with the U.S. I've always felt that was the primary motivation for him. He does worry about WMD. I'm not saying that's not part of it and getting into the hands terrorists or reshaping the Middle East, Th these ideological reasons matter But I think he is fundamentally thinking We need to stay Close Blair wins the vote Yeah, he does. He makes it through and the war as we creep into March of two thousand three is about to begin, but it is going to start early Thanks to one final piece of intelligence. So maybe let's take a break there when we come back, we will see what this intelligence kicker is that gets the war going Hi, this is Garalinika from Goldhangers. The restest is foootball. This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas, or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate and easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than one hundred and sixty countries and with over forty currencies. Most transfers arrive instantly. WS uses the mid market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees. So when money needs to move, you can see the rate Know the fee and get on with it. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the Wise app today. Be smart, G wise, Ts and Ts applly. So welcome back March two thousand three And I guess a bit like recent attack on Iran that we saw in twenty twenty six The attack on Iraq in two thousand three starts with a what's called a decapitation strike based on inside intelligence against the leader in this case of the Iraqi regime. On march eighteenth of two thousand three, the CI has got some agents on the ground of Iraq, Kryptonim DB rockstars. Good name. great greatreat Kryptonim These agents are linked with the security detail for one of Saddam's sons, A second source is monitoring Saddam's special security organization's communications and the bodyguards agency understands shut offff communications infrastructure when Saddam is going to be in a particular area And these sources suggest that Saddam will be at a place called Dora Farms, which is a compound outside of Baghdad be there a bit after midnight local time The satellite imagery reveals lots of vehicles, which could suggest there's a meeting And Luis Reda, who's the head of the Iraq operations group at CIA Bay literally races over the White House.'s trying to get dressed. He's putting a tie on as he does. He wants to briefest information to the National Security Council. So it's about six PM Washington time He actually goes in Lis Rred a briefs bush with a map in the oval Office And this little piece of intelligence is going to give the U.S. a reason to actually start the war. early because Bush had given a forty eight hour deadline. on march the seventeenth for Saddam to give up power. feels like that was never quite in the cards. But that deadline is not yet over But this is this is good of an opportunity And so Bush gives the order at seven PM Eastern time the spot to American F one hundred seventeen stealth fighters carrying two thousand pound precision guided bombs lift off from an airbase and cutter Bombs land But I think in It's really only fitting for this story about Iraqi intelligence debacles that Saddam is not there. So The intelligence does not pan out And I think actually one of the sources that they had is killed in the bombing that the CIA had. Oh boy So it's an interesting start to the war. What is Saddam doing though It's so interesting because until close to the end, I think Saddam is not convinced the U. S. are actually going to do it. He thinks that they're bluffing. As we'd said, he's not prepared very much because he's been spending more and more time in his last few years not running the Iraqi government, but really focusing on his new career path as what else but a novelist. I mean, if only it was a few years later, he could have had a podcast as well. But at this point just it's just, you know, the novelist path that he's going down. If S Saddab were still around today, he would have a he'd have a terrific podcast. He'd have a big podcast. But he's writing his latest novel, isn't he? He's on his fourth novel. in the run up to the war. O of my regrets about this series, Gordon that I'm already having, even though we're not done with it is that we haven't done more on Saddam's novels and Saddam's, you know, sort of life in the written word, which he had focused on. Gooldhanger have a book club, you know That's true. we could suggest Zebiba and the King could be could be the next selection, but that March. you might think that Saddam was, you know pulling all the strings in Iraq and sort of avidly preparing for war, but in fact, what he is doing is trying desperately to complete his fourth novel which was titled Get out, Damned one exclamation Point a work of a work of allegory and propaganda was focused on rallying the nation of Iraq into an insurgency against the American occupiers And as he has as he's preparing to go underground, Saddam is is doing what no novelist should do. Rushing rushing the production. You never do that off get out, damned one. He wants to get that to the presses immediately before before the before the w before the invasion deadline. So I guess I guess what's happened here just so we're clear about this is that instead of doing things that he might have conceivably done to avert the invasion He has been rushing his fourth novel to print to prepare the nation for an insurgency. And I guess in one sense, it's logical because Saddam has tried to tell the Americans and the Brits over and over again that he doesn't have the weapons And inspectors have been crawling around not finding weapons And so he must have decided somewhere along the way that All he could do was be a manand of the pen That's all. And they do manage to print forty thousand copies before the war started. Pretty good print run. Not bad Yeahah. Thats That's a good print run. Yeah. So that's Saddam on the eve of the war. It's interesting. I was I was in Iraq in february two thousand three, so just a few weeks before, but in the northern bit of Ira, the Kurdish bit ofra And that is my memory of it. I was not penning novels. I was reporting for the Tay programe from the Kurdish partart. But I have one very vivid memory, which is I was kind of working alongside the PUK or one of the Jalal Talibani, who was one of the kind of Kurdish leaders at the time. And we were going to a meeting of All the Iraqi exiles at a place called Saladin in this kind of autonomous bit of Iraq, outside of Iraqi control. I'll never forget it because we were driving in a convoy and I was part of his convoy and we hit this kind of mountain top and another convoy came towards us. And out of this other convoy it stopped, both convoys stopped, came Ahmed Chalabi. And Chaliby came out and Chaliby and Talibani I remember seeing them embrace And it was two guys who knew We've got the Americans to do what we've been wanting to do for years, which is get rid of Saddam There was this moment, this feel amongst the exiles you know, as they gathered for this conference at Saladin, that it was coming at last. And you know, for lots of those people the anticipation was enormous because they hated Stam, he'd been their enemy.'d been this ruthless tyrant despite his novelistic career and he was finally going to be gone And this was it. And so yeah, it's a very vivid recollection to me. But actually when the war started, I was then in Washington covering things. Louis Ruedo, who we talked about, head of the CIA Iraq Operations Group, he describes taking a blackhawk over Kuwait just before it starts. And you can just see all this American armor, you know, tanks and You know helicopters and gunships everywhere and then watching on a screen as the trackers for all these vehicles suddenly move over into Iraq as the invasion starts And of course, the invasion itself goes beautifully The ground invasion It goes amazingly well and amazingly quickly with a thunder run into Baghdad A few people do wonder why did Saddam not use any of his special weapons As the troops approach Baghdad, but they take Baghdad incredibly quickly So far, so good. And Saddam of course, goes off on the run and goes into hiding. One of his former bodyguards, the Americans get a tip off and on the evening of december thirteenth, two thousand three. U. S. Special forces find him hiding in a spider hole. in the ground near a farmhouse in De Crete was actually very close to where he'd been born It's the same farm that he had hidden on In nineteen fifty nine after that failed assassination attempt that we talked about all the way back in episode one, which is remarkable. Wild, isn't it? And the pictures of it are astounding because he emerges from this whole I mean he looks terrible He's got, you know, his hair is a mess. he's got this long straggly beard. He looks like a man who's been hiding in a spider hole for six months And he comes out and he says, I am Saddam Hussein, the duly elected president of Iraq. I am willing to negotiate. He tells the soldiers, which has a kind of weird tells you something about his psychology. And actually one of the ways they identify him because've got to be sure it's him is a scar that he had from being shot in that nineteen fifty nine assassination attempt We talked about right at the start L Saddam is then put on trial and he's handed over to the new Iraqi government that takes over and it doesn't end well for him. And so on december thirtieth, two thousand six, Saddam is executed by hanging by the new Iraqi government, which is actually when you go back and watch videos of it, it is quite a Qite a disturbing scene It is because it's filmed on a kind of grainy mobile phone footage, almost isn't it And they're shouting abuse at him as he's hung the people who are doing it. It's really weird, isn't it? It is and it doesn't doesn't really give you a great sense of the justice being meted out by the new new Iraqi government at that time. But Saddam's body is buried the next day back Crete where it had all started for him. One story, Gordon about Saddam in custody though which I think is quite illuminating about his Bindness the Americans were actually to even toward the end is Do you remember when he was on trial and he had grown out of beard a thick beard. there was speculation that Beard was was to appeal to some of the Islamist tendencies of the judges When in fact, you know what the real story of the beard was? N go. At some point while he was in custody, he got Sunama very sick. It had to be visited by a a U. S. nurse And the nurse came in and it treated him and Saddam had apparently flirted with the nurse. the nurse was not interested in the was not interested in Saddam in the duly elected president of Iraq. And Saddam asks One of his one of the the jailers, one of the handlers. Why was she You know, why was she not Interested And the handler made some joke about how American women really prefer Ben with beards because at that time he had been shaved And so he grew that beer He grew that beard in an attempt to appeal to this American nurse who had who had treated him. and that is wild. It It gives you the sense of just how distant he was from the reality of what was going on in the American mind and consciousness and national security apparatus up til the very end. There was such a miscommunication, misunderstanding between both sides. He' didn't understand. I think that's really important because that sense in which he's detached from reality, which I think we've got through through talking about him. explain some of the weird decisions he takes, some of the weird statements he makes. It's so interesting because there's a He gets debriefed by both CIA and FBI and you can read Acounts of this is a book debriefing the Pident by John Nixon. where John Nixon been a CIA leadership analyst studying Sudan gets to go meet him and debrief him. over his time in captivity. And so that's how we know all this stuff about Revolutionary Command Council meetings because he and others talk about what was really going on at the time and it is fascinating to just be able to piece together what was going on in his head and how he wasn't quite the leader that people thought he was, which isn't to say he wasn't a murderous tyrant. more detached from reality. And of course, while they were hunting for Saddam in two thousand three, the occupation of Iraq turns into a disaster very quickly. I remember Iraqi exiles telling me it'll only take two weeks for the Americans to be seen as occupers and they were pretty much right There was no plan for the aftermath Yeahes, shocking part of it. So you get looting, you get the decision to disband the Iraqi army, leaves lots of angry men with guns I remember an Iraqi source telling me, well, there's lots of Jaddists coming over the border from other Middle East countries to fight you Americans. I remember asking a British intelligence source about this and going, Oh we haven't heard about that. You know, so you start to see all these kind of impacts very quickly as the whole situation unravels after the military victory This is another piece of the intelligence. picture that I do think Bears just a brief mention. I knowt this is serious about WMD, but one of the areas that the analytic community, I think should be commended for are the quality of the assessments about what a post Saddamaraq might look like becausecause there there were pap there was a paper done prior to the invasion by the NIC, the National Intelligence Council of the U.S. and it wasitled Principal Challenges in Post Saddam Iraq And it basically got everything right You know, it talked about how Iraq was was absolutely not fertile ground for an open democratic government It talked about the risk of terrorist groups, jihadist groups using more permissive environment to set up safe havens and conduct attacks. I talked about those sectarian divisions of Iraq and how that would be fuel for civil conflict. And of course, that's exactly what we saw in this reallyally civil war between Sudi and Shia that took place during the insurgency in the wake of the Iraq warar talked about the prospects for guerlla warfare or insurgency against an occupation. So I don't I don't say any of that to to detract from the really important conversation on WMD, but That is another piece of the story that I think at least the Aalist got that right and what it what is clear from all of the after action reviews that have been done on this is that policymakers didn't spend any time with those assessments at all. Yeah. No. And I mean it is a whole other story, which is the failure to plan for the aftermath. Of course the crucial thing is those weapons of mass destruction were never found. I mean we were promising, you were promising at the start of this episode that we were going to reveal where they were I'm afraid. This is the point where we tell the audience they've been they've been had. A bit like intelligence analysts, you know, briefing their customers that we're sure you'll find the stuff. I'm afraid we've let them down badly because we've not found them. Yet and no one has where however many years, twenty three years on. So I guess as we come to the end, focusing on that WMD question, I mean, who's to blame? There've been so many inquiries and things like that. The first question out of the gate. Whse fault is this? Well, it is because where do we assign blame? I mean, should we?? I think it's interesting because I always I felt in the aftermath There was this question and an accusation The politicians had lied about WMD, and that became very much the narrative in the UK, which is that Tony Blair you know, and others have lied about the WMD I actually think it's much more complicated than that because you know, Tony Blair says you know he went to his intelligence chiefs, even on the eve of war, went to the Joint Intelligence Committee and said to them, A you sure Saddam has got this stuff? And they said, yes. he's relying on what they are told. spies were the ones who got it wrong rather than the politicians Lying about it. Now That is not before people have a go at me to say that that excuses The politicians from responsibility because ultimately it was a political decision to go to war And it was Tony Blair and George W. Bush's decision that they were going to go to war and Tony Blair's commitment And they are just using the intelligence as a justification for a political decision that they are doing So I think the ultimate political responsibility lies with the politicians But I do think there is a massive intelligence failure because The public were told and they were told that the weapons were there. It is important context, though for the entire debacle to say that everybody Foreign intelligence Services, the CIA SIS MI six Hans Blicks The inspector Tands big Think tanks The UN Everybody thought Saddam had these weapons This was a judgment that was held by pretty much anybody who' been who'd been looking at a rock. And again, it's not to say that oh, that excuses it, just because everyone else thinks it I think as we record this in twenty twenty six Almost everyone would have absorbed some some meme from the past twenty three years that would say, o, it was a ridiculous assessment. and how could anyone have done this? or The politicians lied, but the reality is that pretty much everybody in two thousand two and two thousand three, including a lot of people in the Iraqi regime, thought that Saddam had these weapons Yeah, there's an interesting line, which is that the French spies, for instance. So France doesn't go to war, stays out of the war And the French president at the time says, yeah, my people thought they were spies, but he says something interesting. He says spy agencies sometimes intoxicate each other. Sounds very French. It's very French. It's this idea they all kind of judgment. So I think there was kind of to view that no one was willing to challenge and And you're right, you know, the French believed it, the Egyptians believed it. they all thought Iraq had the WMD. But there is There is something different about going to war on that basis to make the decision to go to war and to use that as the basis for going to war when it's not. And I think that is deeply consequential and disturbing. for lots of reasons. Yeah, this is an important point to be clear on is we're closing the series out And I guess I'll put it to you as a question. Do you think that the intelligence was politicized That's a really good question. In my mind makes the the analysts or the intelligence officers victims of the politicians who have strong armed them or excluded information that analysts wanted included or vice versa twist an analytic line for their own political purposes. I mean, that's a stark view of politicization, but that's Not inaccurate. Whas actually, I think it was a more fundamental intelligence failure Politicians were pressing the intelligence agencies for evidence to back something up, which they wanted to be true or thought was true But it is the job of an intelligence agency to resist political pressure So I think it's back to the what is the intelligence failure? I think there's three failures. There's the failure of analysis The assumptions. There's the failure of collection. so that's the kind of new sources on trial failure to validate, the failure to vet And then there's a failure in the relationship between intelligence agencies and politicians. in a failure to perhaps say to the politicians This is the limit of the intelligence Don't go beyond that here and no further. This is what we know, this is what we know with confidence. this is what we don't know with confidence. And I think I think that is also the responsibility of intelligence agencies do that with their political masters and to some extent to resist pressure So in a sense, I don't think it was politicization. I think it was a multil layered intelligence failure. I also don't think it was pololiticization, although you can find examples of attempted politicization I actually think not very successful politicization, to be quite honest, but attempted politicization in the process, you can find those. We talked about one when Scooter Libby's office wanted to kill an assessment about the lack of connection between Saddam Hussein and Qaeda, right? That's an example of just Trying to strong arm the agency by having them recall a report that had been put out because you don't like the analytic line Again, it's not a WMD and the agency held strong. I actually when you look at WMD in particular, I agree with you. I don't think there was obviously tremendous political demand. for information that would make the case. for war. I think when you look at the record, you can't say that the analytic lines, the judgments were We're politicized and that it's actually it's a in some ways and more disturbing Sstemic problems And I think I mean, on the analytics side, at least, And it encompasses a bit of your point around both the analysis and the relationship between intelligence and policy. but I think there are I'd probably make three Th three points on what went wrong. We've talked about these to some degree along way The first one is There was analytic creep. where assumptions became judgments about Everyone looked and said Saddam failed to cooperate with U.N inspectors because he was continuing to develop weapons of mass destruction That was an assumption It became the judgment even after the facts had departed The second one is that They were rampant biases, unchecked biases in the analytic process Hindsight bias, which is basically We missed the program in the early nineties and don't want to miss it again There's historical bias. Saddam had these weapons in the past. He used chemical weapons against the Kurds, therefore it's likely he has them again. And probably the biggest one confirmation bias, which is just accepting facts as true if they comport with your view and then rejecting those that don't. So there are biases that infected everybody along the way. I think though and this is the third I think the biggest mistake was actually not the assessment itself And I don't know if you would agree or disagree with this, but I think with the information available I think the assessment would have been the same The assessment would have been that Saddam had these programs Problem is that the analysts never ask themselves confident they were in those judgments. Yeah. Again, you'd probably get the same assessment, but you'd attach a low confidence state to it Beyond doubt. not beyond doubt And you would have never allowed those judgments to appear without that that caveat For example, when I joined the agency in two thousand six, I the analytic opponent was still reeling from the Rirect WMD debacle And it it It factored deeply into our thinking when we were looking, for example, at like Syrian use of chemical weapons during the Civil War They started using them in twenty twelve in small quantities You know, eventually ended up using that on a much larger scale in twenty thirteen And initially when they started using it, we believed that they were using it based on some pretty good information that we had. We were forced because of this because of Iraq WMD, we were forced by our managers and by the new kind of techniques that had been absorbed in the agency to look very closely at how we doew what we doew, where our gaps were and attach a confidence statement to it. And so we started with a low confidence statement. that eventually over a period of maybe three or four months became a high confidence statement as we filled in those gaps, working with collectors and others to get a deeper sense of the actual intelligence picture and to be confident in why we knew what we knew. None of that was was done. in two thousand two and two thousand three. It does bring us up to date because the legacy of Iraq there. there have been changes within MI six, within know the UK and the intelligence community with how it presents intelligence, how it talks about intelligence in forcing politicians to only use certain language. It was interesting though, even when you got to the run up to the war the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in twenty twenty two you could still see the legacy of Iraq because people in British intelligence and government were thinking, we want to present the intelligence about what Russia's intentions are because we discovered them but you could still see the nervousness about whether politicians might speak about it wrongly, whether people wouldn't trust it. All of that was the legacy of Iraq still shaping it. And I think making them to some extent overcautious, in some cases, I think British intelligence has been overcaautious in sharing information because it was so bruised by the experience of Iraq. It's shaped, doesnn't it? Both the CIA, MS six, British Government, American Government And it's shaped their intelligence agencies and led, I think, sometimes to an overcaution because of the scars of Iraq. But yes, there are certainly more kind of stricter controls in place. I mean, it is interesting just to finish as we talk about this now in twenty twenty six where you've got a war in Iran going on because in many ways It's so different, isn't it? Because there's been no attempt by the U.S. in this case, it's the US and Israel rather than the UK and US, but to justify the war with all these or get a UN resolution and you know, the intelligence is kind of you know, there's none of the It's so interesting, isn't it? Because's none of the public cases being made or the thoughts about dossiers or how to present the evidence. It's very different. And of course, You know, the other big difference is that the UK this time has made a very conscious decision, we are not going to be involved in this operation. And that again is such a shift from two thousand one, two thousand two, two thousand three, when Tony Blair felt we have to be in alongside the Americans. The military wanted to do it, the intelligence agencies wanted to do it In the current world, we've made a very conscious decision not to be alongside the Americans in this war And I think that tells you quite a lot about how the world and how Britain and how Britain and America have changed since. I think maybe this is the place to to close this out. I think The mention of epic fury in the war in Iran now highlights this interesting duality in which We are living in obviously a very, very different world where the U S is engaged again at a war of choice in the Middle East. has not though attempted to justify really proximate cause for that war with any public display of intelligence or any case really made to the Americans Pople So we're in a very, very different world And yet I would argue that You can draw a line back from this war in Iran to this decision to go to war in Iraq in two thousand three. So there's this Everything has changed and yet so much and inect P almost all of the major. developments that have happened in the Middle East going back to two thousand three are in subway either shaped cause formed by This fateful decision to go to war based on this faulty intelligence about WMD back in two thousand three. That's right. I think that's a great place to close it with a just sense that this was one of the most consequential decisions that was taken and based you know, on this intelligence failure. So Well, we hope everyone who's been listening has enjoyed this deep dive into Iraq WMD a reminder of course, that club members, you're going to be able to hear even more because you're going to be able to hear from some of the key players in these decisions, peopleople who are in the room this interface between intelligence and politics, people like Mike Morerell, who eventually becomes an acting director of the CIA, Richard Delev, who was head of MI six at the time, and one Alistair Campbell, who was Tody Blair's Director of commommunications. So it's a real chance to really explore this with key participants for our Club members, so do sign up at the rest is cllassified. com. And of course there's a live show. September, the fourth to fifth so do get your tickets for that But otherwise, I guess Um withith Zeibra and the King echoing in our minds and Saddam's novels. What it called? What was the last one called Get outut or something like that? Maybe that should be I believe it It was get out, get out down. Damn on Get out damn one. Maybe that's on that note. Let's get out. We'll see you next time. See you next time