Why Did Saddam Lie?

If you are fixated in the juvenile delinquent phase of intellectual development, you won't be able to get past the idea that Bush lied about Saddam's WMDs. But the truth is that Saddam Hussein lied about that, and the world believed him. That is, Saddam Hussein intentionally deceived the world into believing that he still possessed WMDs, and he was perfectly positioned to pull off that deception because he had proven his ability to do precisely that just a decade earlier. Before the first Gulf War, Saddam denied that he had been working on a nuclear bomb, but after the war we learned that he was actually quite close to completing such a weapon (to our amazement). More recently, he again denied he was up to no good, but, even so, he acted as if he had something to hide. And he did that on purpose so that reasonable people would conclude that he was once again concealing WMDs. And reasonable people did, indeed, draw that conclusion.

But why would Saddam continue to lie even when several hundred thousand troops were massed on his border, threatening to invade if he did not come clean? Again, he lied not by actually stating that he had WMDs (he always denied that) but by his actions. Specifically, he refused to cooperate with UN inspectors, which is the same technique he used back in 1998. That's when then-president Bill Clinton concluded that Saddam had WMDs and needed to be attacked by cruise missiles. In fact, he had no WMDs even then (as I'll document in a moment). He just wanted the world to believe that he did. And Bill Clinton believed him.

But why did Saddam lie? What good did it do him? UN sanctions were in place because of his supposed WMDs, Bill Clinton sent cruise missiles to destroy various facilities because of them, and George Bush launched a full-scale invasion over the issue.

Now, before I go on, let me disabuse you of the notion that, this time, Saddam was fully cooperating with UN inspectors. He wasn't, and that's why Bush ordered the invasion. To briefly recap, on November 8, 2002, the UN passed resolution 1441, which gave Saddam one last chance to fully cooperate and prove that he had disarmed (i.e., the burden of proof was placed on him). The resolution said, in essence:

[The Security Council] Decides that Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records, and means of transport which they wish to inspect,...and requests the IAEA to resume inspections no later than 45 days following adoption of this resolution and to update the Council 60 days thereafter;
...
Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations;

Did Saddam cooperate? In a report to the UN on February 14, 2003, Hans Blix noted that he was getting lots of cooperation as well as some lack of cooperation. The lack of cooperation was not trivial:

In my earlier briefings, I have noted that significant outstanding issues of substance were listed in two Security Council documents from early 1999 (S/1999/94 and S/1999/356) and should be well known to Iraq. I referred, as examples, to the issues of anthrax, the nerve agent VX and long-range missiles, and said that such issues “deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside…”. The declaration submitted by Iraq on 7 December last year, despite its large volume, missed the opportunity to provide the fresh material and evidence needed to respond to the open questions. This is perhaps the most important problem we are facing. Although I can understand that it may not be easy for Iraq in all cases to provide the evidence needed, it is not the task of the inspectors to find it. Iraq itself must squarely tackle this task and avoid belittling the questions.

Note the words "...it is not the task of the inspectors to find it." The burden was on Saddam, not on the inspectors. And Saddam was not being completely forthcoming. Then, on March 2, 2003, just days before the invasion and long after the deadline for full cooperation had passed, Hans Blix issued another report to the UN in which he again noted lots of cooperation. But he also said this:

"Against this background, the question is now asked whether Iraq has cooperated “immediately, unconditionally and actively” with UNMOVIC, as required under paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002). The answers can be seen from the factual descriptions I have provided. However, if more direct answers are desired, I would say the following:"

"It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as "active", or even "proactive", these initiatives three to four months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute "immediate" cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance."

Now, this might have been good enough for you. But Bush was unprepared to give Saddam yet another last chance to cooperate. That's because it was clear to Bush that Saddam would never cooperate. To Bush, that meant that Saddam had something to hide. As it turns out, he did have something to hide, but it was the absence -- not the presence -- of WMDs. It was all a deliberate ruse on Saddam's part. He wanted the world to at least suspect that he had WMDs even though the cupboard was bare. And he was never going to allow the truth to be known, which is a key point that very few people appreciate. All he had to do to keep doubt alive, which was his goal, was to play little games with UN inspectors. And that's just what he did.

But why? What was his motivation?

In the aftermath of the invasion, Charles Duelfer headed the Iraq Survey Group (after David Kay) to find out whether Saddam really had WMDs. We all know that he concluded that no such WMDs existed. But he also explained the puzzling reason why Saddam (not Bush) lied about those WMDs:

WMD Possession—Real or Imagined—Acts as a Deterrent

The Iran-Iraq war and the ongoing suppression of internal unrest taught Saddam the importance of WMD to the dominance and survival of the Regime. Following the destruction of much of the Iraqi WMD infrastructure during Desert Storm, however, the threats to the Regime remained; especially his perception of the overarching danger from Iran. In order to counter these threats, Saddam continued with his public posture of retaining the WMD capability. This led to a difficult balancing act between the need to disarm to achieve sanctions relief while at the same time retaining a strategic deterrent. The Regime never resolved the contradiction inherent in this approach. Ultimately, foreign perceptions of these tensions contributed to the destruction of the Regime.

And there you have it. Saddam feared an invasion from Iran if Iran realized that he had no WMDs. And his fear was well founded given that Iraq had invaded Iran in 1980 and fought a war with them that cost at least half a million Iranian lives, 100,000 of whom were killed with chemical weapons. Saddam had good reason to fear Iran, and that's why he deceived the world into thinking that he had WMDs. His very effective method for achieving that deception was to cooperate with UN inspectors up to a point and then resist further cooperation. The deception worked like a charm, just as he knew it would.

I'll never forget a debate I had with a liberal opponent of the invasion before the war. I said (essentially) "even on the brink of war, with 200,000 troops on his border ready to invade, he is still not cooperating with UN inspectors. What possible explanation could there be other than the fact that he is hiding WMDs?" My liberal opponent said "I don't know, maybe he wants Iran to think he has those weapons." That seemed utterly preposterous to me at the time. As it turns out, he was right.

Now, if you are prone to believing that Saddam was a truth-teller and George Bush was a liar, then I assume you also think that Clinton lied when he said:

"When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions."
--Bill Clinton, July 22, 2003

But Clinton did not lie, and he was not trying to line the pockets of cruise missile executives or to increase his popularity (or whatever) when he launched that cruise missile attack in 1998. This is true even though we now know that Saddam had no WMDs at the time of the 1998 attack. Instead, Saddam was simply tricking the world into believing that he had them by not cooperating with UN inspectors (which is why Clinton pulled the inspectors and launched that attack). Here is more from the Duelfer report:

While it appears that Iraq, by the mid-1990s, was essentially free of militarily significant WMD stocks, Saddam’s perceived requirement to bluff about WMD capabilities made it too dangerous to clearly reveal this to the international community, especially Iran.

No WMDs by the mid 1990s, but Bill Clinton attacked in 1998. Why? Because Bill Clinton manipulated intelligence? No, because Saddam manipulated Bill Clinton (and Iran) into falsely believing that Iraq possessed WMDs. The same thing happened a few years later when Bush was in office. Saddam lied about his WMDs by refusing to cooperate fully with UN inspectors. Both Bill Clinton and George Bush (and every reasonable person on earth) was deceived by that tactic.

Being clear about who lied -- and why -- is important if you want to analyze Iraq in a level-headed way. You can't do that if you are still stuck in the juvenile delinquent phase of intellectual development, and if you think that Bush lied, that's where you are (sad to say).