CIA's Strategic Intelligence in Iraq
Author(s): Richard L. Russell
Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 117, No. 2 (Summer, 2002), pp. 191-207
Published by: Academy of Political Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/798180
Accessed: 03-11-2015 02:03 UTC
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CIA's StrategicIntelligencein Iraq

RICHARD

L. RUSSELL

The CIA was the only agency to dissent: on the eve of the ground war, it was still
telling the President that we were grossly exaggerating the damage inflicted on the
Iraqis. If we'd waited to convince the CIA, we'd still be in Saudi Arabia.
-H.

Norman Schwarzkopf, IT DOESN'T TAKEA HERO

War is the realm of uncertainty;three quarters of the factors on which action in war
is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.
-Carl von Clausewitz, ON WAR

The role of strategicintelligence in the foreign policy decisionmakingprocessat the highestechelonsof governmentremainsa neglectedfield
of study. Much of the scholarlyliteratureon intelligence is written from the
perspectiveof intelligence officers,while significantlyless is writtenfrom the
perspectiveof policy makers.As Robert Gates observes, "A search of presidential memoirsand those of principalassistantsover the past 30 years or so
turnsup remarkablylittle discussionor perspectiveon the role playedby directors of central intelligence [DCIs] or intelligence informationin presidential
decisionmakingon foreignaffairs,"while "inintelligencememoirliterature,althoughone can reada greatdeal aboutcovertoperationsandtechnicalachievements,one findslittleon the role of intelligencein presidentialdecisionmaking."'
The studyof intelligencefromthe policymaker'sperspectivewouldpotentially yield a more robust understandingof the strengthsand weaknesses of
strategicintelligenceand focus attentionon areaswhere intelligencecollection
1 Robert M.
Gates, "An Opportunity Unfulfilled: The Use and Perceptions of Intelligence at the
White House," Washington Quarterly 12 (Winter 1989): 35.
RICHARD L. RUSSELL is professor at the Near East-South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, the
National Defense University. He previously served for seventeen years as a political-military analyst
at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he specialized on security issues in the Middle East and
Europe. Russell is working on a book on power politics, weapons proliferation, and war in the Middle
East and South Asia.
Political Science Quarterly Volume 11 7

Number 2

2002

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191

192

1POLITICAL

SCIENCE

QUARTERLY

and analysis need improvement. The need for improving strategic intelligence
performance was painfully made clear to Americans by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, in which their intelligence community failed to detect the
Osama bin Laden-orchestrated conspiracy that killed several thousand civilians
on American soil.
In the United States, the principal intelligence entity responsible for providing strategicintelligence to the president is the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA).
Despite media-inflated public perceptions, strategic intelligence generally plays
only a modest role in the day-to-day affairs of statecraft. Michael Herman correctly points out, "Those in CIA who produce the President's Daily Brief [PDB]
and the National Intelligence Daily [NID] do not expect them to lead regularly
to immediate action, any more than newspapers expect to change the world
with every issue. Of all the contents of daily and weekly high-level intelligence
summaries only a minute proportion feed directly into decisions."2 Herman
notes that "the role of most intelligence is not driving decisions in any short
term, specific way, but contributing to decision-takers' general enlightenment;
intelligence producers are in the business of educating their masters."3
STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENIOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION

The impact of strategic intelligence on the American policy-making process
reached an apex with President George Herbert Walker Bush. During his administration, the United States had its first commander-in-chief who had previously served as a DCI. Few, if any, presidents had had Bush's grasp of the
power-and limitations-of intelligence before occupying the Oval Office. The
president who probably comes closest to Bush with prior intelligence experience was Dwight Eisenhower who, as commander of Allied forces in Europe
during World War II, had relied heavily on intelligence, particularly intercepted German communications, to inform strategy. As Christopher Andrew
observes, Bush's "experience as DCI was to give him a clearer grasp than perhaps any previous president of what it was reasonable to expect from an intelligence estimate."4 Ironically, Bush had accepted his appointment as DCI by
President Gerald Ford with significant reservations. From his post in Beijing as
chief of the U.S. Liaison Office, Bush in November 1975 telegraphed President
Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger his acceptance of the nomination
as DCI out of a sense of duty. Bush remarked in the cable: "I do not have politics
out of my system entirely and I see this as the total end of any political future."5
2

Michael Herman, Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge,UK: CambridgeUniversity
Press, 1999), 143.
3Ibid., 144.
4
Christopher Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995), 504.

5

"Telegramfrom George Bush to the President through SecretaryKissinger,"2 November 1975,
George Bush Personal Papers, Subject File-China, Pre-CIA, Classified [1975-1977], George Bush
PresidentialLibrary.

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CIA'S STRATEGICINTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ | 193

Bush proved to be less than prophetic on this score, but, as president, he
personally paid close attention to intelligence and sought to integrate it into
the policy-making process. Bush held a daily national security briefing at which
CIA briefed him on the latest world developments. In attendance at these
briefings were the President, his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft or
his deputy Robert Gates-himself a former high-level CIA official and later to
be DCI-his chief of staff, and once or twice per week DCI William Webster.
The CIA briefer would present the PDB, a printed book, with a rundown of
important intelligence reports and analyses. Bush read the PDB in the presence
of the CIA briefer and Scowcroft or Gates in order to task the briefer to provide
more information or have his National Security Council (NSC) staff lieutenants
field policy-related questions as they emerged in the course of discussion of the
intelligence briefings.6
The Bush administration is a particularly lucrative case for the study of the
role of strategic intelligence in statecraft for several additional reasons. Most
notably, the United States under Bush's leadership waged a major war in the
Persian Gulf. CIA influenced the decision-making process to a degree well beyond that exercised in peacetime, because of insatiable policy-maker appetite
for intelligence on Iraq and the region given the high risks to American national
interests. In addition, many of the key policy makers who received a daily flood
of intelligence during the war have published accounts of their time in office,
which give outsiders invaluable insight into the policy-making process and can
be mined for evidence of the impact of strategic intelligence on decision making. Finally, many military accounts of the war by scholars, journalists, and military officers are windows through which to view how policy makers and military
commanders used intelligence during the Gulf crisis.
This article serves several purposes. First, it attempts to help fill a major
gap in intelligence literature on the role of strategic intelligence in informing
statecraft. Strategic intelligence in this article refers to the use of informationwhether clandestinely or publicly acquired-that is synthesized into analysis
and read by the senior-most policy makers charged with setting the objectives
of grand strategy and ensuring that military force is exercised for purposes of
achieving national interests.7 Strategic intelligence is a tool to help ensure that
civilian authorities control military means for achieving political objectives, as
Clausewitz sagely wrote of war. Second, the article traces the uses and limitations of strategic intelligence in major dimensions of the Gulf War to include
the warning and waging of war. The article concludes with an assessment or
balance sheet of the strengths and weaknesses of strategic intelligence during
the Gulf crisis. It draws insights from this case study to inform the future evolu6

George Bush and Brent Scowcroft,A World Transformed(New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 30.
strategicintelligence, see Adda B. Bozeman, StrategicIntelligenceand Statecraft

7 For treatmentsof

(Washington, DC: Brassey's Inc., 1992); and Sherman Kent, Strategic Intelligence for American World

Policy (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1951).

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194 |

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

tion of American intelligence and its support of statecraft, particularly in situations where policy makers face dilemmas posed by the use of armed force.
WARNING OF INVASION

American intelligence effectively tracked the physical build-up of Iraqi forces
across the border from Kuwait in mid-July 1990. Details of the President's
Daily Brief in the run-up to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait have not been publicly
disclosed. Nevertheless, information from the National Intelligence Daily,
CIA's current intelligence publication that received a wider dissemination
among policy officials than the more tightly controlled PDB, has made its way
into the public domain. The NID warned on 24 July that "Iraq now has ample
forces and supplies available for military operations inside Kuwait" and during
that day doubts grew as to whether Saddam Hussein was bluffing.8DCI Webster traveled to the White House on 24 July and briefed Bush on satellite imagery showing the movement of two Republican Guard divisions from garrisons
in central Iraq to positions near the Kuwait border.9The NID on 25 July published an article "Iraq-Kuwait: Is Iraq Bluffing?" which stated that unless Kuwait meets Iraq's oil production demands-the ostensible Iraqi reason for military posturing along the border-Baghdad will step up pressure on Kuwait. The
NID article, however, lacked specific intelligence on Saddam's intentions.10
Working-level analysts at CIA-primarily in the Directorate of Intelligence's
Office of Imagery Analysis (OIA) and Near East and South Asia Analysis
(NESA)-were the authors of analyses published in the NID.
One high-level intelligence official on the National Intelligence Council
(NIC), charged with advising the DCI, was more forward leaning than the analytic judgments published in the NID. The National Intelligence Officer (NIO)
for Warning Charles Allen on 25 July issued a "warning of war" memorandum
in which he stressed that Iraq had nearly achieved the capability to launch a
corps-sized operation of sufficient mass to occupy much of Kuwait. The memo
judged that the chances of a military operation of some sort at better than 60
percent.1l Allen on 26 July visited NSC's senior director for the Middle East
Richard Haass and briefed him with satellite imagery that showed the magnitude of Iraq's military build-up near Kuwait.12Allen on 1 August personally
informed Haass that an Iraqi attack against Kuwait was imminent. Haass, in
8 LawrenceFreedmanand Efraim Karsh, The
Gulf Conflict,1990-1991:Diplomacy and Warin the
New World Order(Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1993), 50.
9U.S. News & World Report, TriumphwithoutVictory:The Historyof the Persian Gulf War(New
York: Times Books, 1993), 21.
10Ibid., 31-32.
1 CharlesE. Allen,
"Warningand Iraq'sInvasionof Kuwait:A RetrospectiveLook,"Defense IntelligenceJournal 7 (no. 2, 1998):40.
12Michael R. Gordon and BernardE. Trainor, The Generals'War:The Inside Story of the Conflict
in the Gulf (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), 16.

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CIA'S STRATEGIC
IN IRAQ I 195
INTELLIGENCE

turn,informedScowcroft,but the WhiteHouse refrainedfrommovingto a crisis mode.13Other analyticvoices coming from the NIC may have significantly
softened the alarmof Allen's warningsin the ears of key Bush administration
policy makers.The NIO for the Near East and South Asia-more directlyresponsiblefor analysisof Iraq than Allen as the NIO for Warning-wrote in a
31 Julymemorandumthat Iraqimilitaryaction,such as seizingthe Rumailaoil
field straddledon the borderor Kuwaitislands,was likely unless Kuwaitmade
oil concessions.The NIO for the Near East and South Asia judged, however,
that a majorattackto seize most or all of Kuwaitwas unlikely.14
While strategicintelligenceperformedwell in detecting and trackingthe
buildupof Iraqimilitaryhardwarealong the borderwith Kuwait,there was a
dearthof humansource reportingon Saddam'sintentions.Such reportingwas
needed to give a weight of evidence to competinganalyticjudgmentsbetween
the NIOs and the working-levelCIA analysts.Althougha criticalmassof intelligence led CIA to concludeby the afternoonof 1 August that an Iraqiinvasion
was imminent,the magnitudeof Iraqi invasion plans was not anticipatedby
working-levelanalysts.'5Deputy Directorfor CentralIntelligenceRichardKerr
briefed the mainstreamanalyticassessmentto a Deputies Committeemeeting
of key policy makerschairedby Undersecretaryof State Robert Kimmitlate
in the day on 1 August. Kimmitand other participantsrecallthat Kerremphasized the limited land grab Iraqi option, not a massive invasion of Kuwait.16
Other accountsstressed that Kerr emphaticallytold the Deputies Committee
meeting that the "Iraqiswere ready to move."17
And move they did. Iraqiforces began their invasionof Kuwaitat 0100 on
the morningof 2 August. The invasionwas led by two RepublicanGuardarmored divisions, the Hammurabiand the Medina, and eventually included
about 140,000troops and 1,800tanks.The armoreddivisionsmoved rapidlyto
KuwaitCity,while IraqiSpecialForcecommandosattackedthe city in advance
of the armoreddivisions.Commandosloaded on helicoptersseized key positions throughoutKuwait,includingBubyianandWarbaIslandsin the northern
Gulf. On 3 August, a RepublicanGuardmechanizeddivisionsecuredKuwait's
border with Saudi Arabia. The 16,000-manKuwaitArmy was overwhelmed.
Iraqiforces fully occupied Kuwaitin about twelve hours.18
Despite CIA's intelligencewarningin the week before the invasion,Iraq's
behaviorhad defiedthe Agency'searlierassessmentsof the regime.CIA judged
in a 1989National Intelligenceestimate, "Iraq:ForeignPolicy of a MajorRegional Power,"publishedunder NIC auspices,that Baghdad after its bloody
eight-yearwar with Iran needed time to rest, recuperate,and rebuildboth its
13
14

Ibid., 5-6.
Ibid., 25.

15Freedman and Karsh, Gulf Conflict,73.
Gordon and Trainor, Generals'War,28.

16

17 U.S.

News & World Report, Triumph Without Victory, 33.

18Freedman and

Karsh, Gulf Conflict,67.

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196 I POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

conventionaland unconventionalmilitarypower before undertakinganother
As MichaelGordonandBernardTrainorpoint out, CIA andintelmajorwar.19
ligence communityanalystssufferedfrom "mirrorimaging"in whichthey projected theirown Americanvaluesto the Iraqis.They assumedthat becausethe
United States had needed time to rest and rebuild after its major wars. the
Iraqiswould have to do the same.20
Iraq'ssituationwas fundamentallydifferentthanthat of the United States,
however.Saddamhad a largestandingmilitaryandno doubtfearedthat demobilizationwould let loose unemployedand weapons-trainedyoung men into
the streets who would pose a risk to his regime.Saddam,moreover,preferred
to launcha war againsta minorpower ratherthan sufferhumiliationfrom the
burden of debt that he acquiredto the Gulf states duringhis war with Iran.
PaulWolfowitz,undersecretaryof defense for policy duringthe GulfWar,also
faultedthe intelligencecommunityfor not warningthe policycommunityabout
the changingcharacterof Saddam'spublicstatementsin early1990.He has suggested, "Somebodyshould have cataloguedhis increasinglybelligerentrhetoric, comparedand contrastedhis statementsto priorformulations,and laid out
one or more plausibleexplanationsfor the change."21
In defense of CIA analysisthough,its assessmenton the eve of Iraq'sinvasion that Saddamwould likely launch a militarycampaignto seize a limited
piece of Kuwaititerritorywas forwardleaning at the time. Many of the most
astute observersof Middle East politics, includingArab heads of state intimatelyfamiliarwithSaddamHusseinsuch as KingHusseinof JordanandPresident Hosni Mubarakof Egypt,were predictingthat Iraqwas militarilyposturing to politicallypressurethe Kuwaitisover oil productionlevels. KingHussein
even assuredPresidentBush in a 31 Julyphone conversationthat the crisisbetween Iraqand Kuwaitwouldbe resolvedwithoutfighting.The kingtold Bush,
"Onthe Iraqiside, they send theirbest regardsandhighestesteem to you, sir."22
A majorshortcomingin warningof the Gulf warwas the lack of humanintelligenceto help decipherSaddam'spoliticalintentions.As NormanSchwarzkopf observed after the war, "our human intelligence was poor."23Civilian
policy makerssharedhis assessmentof humanintelligenceduringthe war.As
Secretaryof State James Baker characterizedthe situation,"U.S. intelligence
19Gordon and Trainor, Generals'War,9.
20Ibid., 11.
21
Jack Davis, "PaulWolfowitz on Intelligence-Policy Relations," Studiesin Intelligence39 (no. 1,
1995):7.
22Memorandumof Telephone Conversation, "Telephone Conversation with King Hussein,"
31 July 1990,OA/ID CF01043,RichardN. Haass Files, WorkingFiles-Iraq,National SecurityCouncil,
George Bush PresidentialLibrary.
23 H. Norman
Schwarzkopfand Peter Petre, It Doesn't Take a Hero (New York: Bantam Books,
1992), 319.

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CIA'S STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ |

197

assetson the groundwere virtuallynonexistent."24
He judgedthat "therewasn't
much intelligenceon what was going on inside Iraq."25
JUDGING THE DANGER OF WIDER WAR

NotwithstandingCIA human intelligence shortcomingsin warning of war,
CIA's analysiswas effective in gaugingthe magnitudeof Iraq'sinvasion and
potential repercussionson the internationalpolitical landscape.At the first
meetingof the NSC convenedon 2 Augustto discussthe crisis,the tone of participants was that of accepting Iraq's invasion as a fait accompli.26 CIA analysis

deliveredin the followingNSC meetingon 3 Augustappearsto haveinfluenced
the discussionof participantsto a more assertiveAmericanpolicy stance.DCI
Webster told the Presidentand NSC officialsthat Saddamwas consolidating
his hold on Kuwait,and intelligenceshowedthat he wouldnot pull out despite
Saddam'spublicpledgesto do so in a couple of days.Websterwarnedthat Saddam would control the second- and third-largestproven oil reserveswith the
fourth-largestarmy in the world, Kuwaitifinancialassets, access to the Gulf,
and the abilityto devote money to a militarybuildup.Websteralso noted that
there was no apparentinternalrival to Saddam'srule, and his ambitionwas
to increasehis power.27The NSC participantsalso discussedCIA analysisthat
argued that "the invasionposed a threat to the currentworld order and that
the long-runimpacton the world economy could be devastating.Saddamwas
bent on turningIraqinto an Arab superpower-a balanceto the United States,
As GeneralColinPowell,then chairmanof the
the Soviet Union, andJapan."28
Joint Chiefs of Staff, recalled,Webster"gaveus a bleak statusreport,"which
promptedScowcroftto declarethat "We'vegot to make a responseand accommodatingSaddamis not an option."29
Strategicintelligencepainteda dismalpictureof the threatto SaudiArabia
posed by the Iraqimilitarybehemoth in Kuwait.Saudi forces were no match
for the Iraqis,andCIA estimatedthat IraqiforcescouldreachRiyadh-located
In the 5 AugustNSC meeting,
about275 miles southof Kuwait-in threedays.30
24James A. Baker III with Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, Warand
Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam'sSons, 1995), 7.
25

Ibid., 267-268.

26Bush and Scowcroft, World
Transformed,317.
27
Ibid., 322-323. The oil-related estimates in Webster'sbrief probablyoriginatedin an analyticpaper on world oil reservespreparedby economists in CIA's Office of Resource, Technology, and Trade.
See U.S. News & World Report, TriumphWithoutVictory,65. For a first-handaccount of the NSC
meeting, see Memorandumfor Brent Scowcroft,"Minutesfrom NSC Meeting, 3 August 1990,on Persian Gulf," OA/ID CF01518,RichardN. Haass Files, Working Files-Iraq,National Security Council,
George Bush PresidentialLibrary.
28Bob Woodward, The Commanders(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 237.
29Colin L. Powell with
Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random House,
463-464.
1995),
30 Freedman and Karsh,
Gulf Conflict,88.

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198 I POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Webster reported that CIA was uncertain about Saddam's intentions and that
it would be difficult to provide warning of an attack on Saudi Arabia. Webster
remarked, moreover, that Iraqi forces were massing on the Kuwait-Saudi border, and reinforcements were on the way giving Iraq more forces in the area
than were needed solely for occupying Kuwait.31The minutes of the 5 August
NSC meeting indicate that CIA analysts were more concerned about the potential for Iraqi offensive operations into Saudi Arabia than their Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) counterparts.32By Schwarzkopf's account, it was not until
mid-September that intelligence showed that Iraqi forces were moving to a defensive posture in Kuwait as Republican Guard divisions pulled back from the
Saudi border and were replaced by tens of thousands of infantry digging trenches
and building barricades, preparing for a long siege.33
The debate over whether Saddam ever had designs on Saudi Arabia continues today. The Gulf War Air Power Survey (GWAPS) concluded in retrospect
that it was unlikely that Iraq had intended to invade Saudi Arabia immediately
after seizing Kuwait, because Iraqi forces assumed a defensive posture to hold
Kuwait rather than to prepare for further land advances.34Nevertheless, over the
medium to longer runs, had Iraq been allowed to consolidate control over Kuwait
and had the United States not intervened on the ground to defend Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom would have been an attractive target of opportunity for Saddam's forces. Saudi forces standing alone would have collapsed in the face of
a massive Iraqi air and ground campaign much as the Kuwaiti military had.
ASSESSING MEASURES SHORT OF WAR

In the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion, many in the United States, particularly
those in the halls of Congress, were looking for American policy options short
of waging war against Iraq. Many viewed economic sanctions as the best policy
option to avoid the direct engagement of American troops in war overseas.
CIA analysis of international sanctions against Iraq became entangled in
the policy debates taking place between the White House and Capitol Hill.35
Webster in early August approved the dissemination of CIA's weekly reports
on the effectiveness of international sanctions against Iraq to the President, De31Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed,334.
32Memorandumfor WilliamF. Sittmanfrom RichardN. Haass, "Minutesof NSC Meeting on Iraqi
Invasionof Kuwait,5 August 1990,"18 August 1990, OA/ID CF00873,RichardN. Haass Files, Working Files-Iraq,National Security Council, George Bush PresidentialLibrary.
33Schwarzkopfand Petre, It Doesn't Take a Hero, 346.
34 Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Revolution in Warfare?Air Power in the Persian Gulf
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 4. This book is an unclassifiedsummaryof the multivolume Gulf War Air Power Study led by Cohen and commissioned by Secretaryof the Air Force
Donald Rice in 1991.
35 For an
analysisof CIA's unique bureaucraticposition, situatedbetween the executive and legislative branchesof government,see Robert M. Gates, "The CIA and Foreign Policy,"ForeignAffairs 66
(Winter 1987/88):215-230.

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CIA'S STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ | 199

partments of State and Defense, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In general, CIA analysts judged that in the short to medium terms, sanctions seemed
unlikely to force Saddam out of Kuwait.36Webster passed along this analytic
judgment when he testified to Congress in December 1990 and said that economic sanctions had little prospect for forcing Saddam to withdraw his forces
from Kuwait. Webster later reiterated this assessment in a 10 January letter to
Congressman Les Aspin. He wrote that "Our judgment remains that, even if
the sanctions continue to be enforced for another six to twelve months, economic hardship alone is unlikely to compel Saddam Hussein to retreat from
Kuwait or cause regime-threatening popular discontent in Iraq. ... He [Saddam] probably continues to believe that Iraq can endure sanctions longer than
the international coalition will hold and hopes that avoiding war will buy him
time to negotiate a settlement more favorable to him."37To a Congress eager
to seek economic sanctions as a way of escaping the hard issues raised by the
prospect of sending American forces to the region, CIA's bleak analytic assessment of their efficacy was not welcome news. To his credit, Webster refused to
submit to the congressional browbeating intended to force him to change the
Agency's assessment.
The congressional and public discourse over the wisdom of sanctions was
moot, because President Bush had already determined that war probably would
be necessary. After an 11 October White House meeting, Bush and his top advisers had concluded that military action, not economic sanctions, would almost
certainly be needed to evict Iraq's military from Kuwait. The President also
had accepted the view of Chairman Colin Powell that airpower alone was unlikely to achieve the task.38Historical hindsight and the eleven-year experience
with the United Nations' failure to use international sanctions to compel Saddam to alter course-particularly in regard to fully disclosing the scope of his
weapons of mass destruction programs-shows that CIA's judgment that sanctions would not significantly change Saddam's political behavior was accurate.
GAUGING CONVENTIONALAND
UNCONVENTIONALMILITARYCAPABILITIES

Intelligence estimates of Iraqi conventional military power stressed the mass
of Iraqi ground forces coupled with their battlefield experience fighting the
eight-year war with Iran. U.S. intelligence assessed that beyond the Republican
Guard divisions and eight to ten regular army divisions, the quality of Iraqi divisions significantly decreased.39American intelligence was effective in identi36U.S. News & World Report, Triumph Without Victory, 150.
37Letter, William H. Webster to Les Aspin, 10 January 1991, OA/ID CF 01361, Virginia Lampley
Files, National Security Council, George Bush Presidential Library.
38 Gordon and Trainor, Generals' War, 139.
39 Freedman and Karsh,
Gulf Conflict, 288.

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200

I POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

fying the locations of these less capable regular Iraqi army units along the Kuwaiti border as well as those of the more capable Republican Guard units,
which backed-up frontline forces in a strategic reserve in northern Kuwait and
southern Iraq. CIA in late 1990 assessed that Iraq would defend in place, try
to force the coalition into a war of attrition on the ground, and attempt to create
a stalemate that would undermine American political resolve.40From Saddam's
perspective, the strategy had proved its worth in Iraq's war against Iran. He
probably judged that the United States, with its purported fear of casualties,
would be even more vulnerable to the strategy than Iran had been.
The Agency correctly anticipated the impact of Iraq's Air Force on the
course of battle. CIA in October 1990 assessed that "The Iraqi Air Force would
not be effective because it would either be neutralized quickly by Coalition air
action or it would be withheld from action in hardened shelters. Within a few
days, Iraqi air defenses would be limited to AAA [anti-aircraft artillery] and
hand-held and surviving light SAMs [surface-to-air missiles]."41The course of
battle clearly showed CIA analysis to be on the mark, although it had not anticipated that many Iraqi pilots would flee with their aircrafts to Iran rather than
face coalition pilots in air-to-air combat.
CIA analysis paid close attention to Iraq's unconventional weapons capabilities that Baghdad worked assiduously to hide from the world. CIA had
tracked the development of Iraqi chemical weapons in the course of Baghdad's
war with Teheran. CIA estimated before the war that Saddam's chemical stockpile was more than a thousand tons and included artillery rounds, bombs, and
caches possibly moved into Kuwait. In fall 1990, CIA assessed that Iraq would
use those stocks in the event of war with the coalition.42These estimates had
an impact on American policy makers. As Powell recalls, "We knew from CIA
estimates that the Iraqis had at least a thousand tons of chemical agents. We
knew that Saddam had used both mustard and nerve gases in his war against
Iran. We knew that he had used gases on Iraq's rebellious Kurdish minority in
1988, killing or injuring four thousand Kurds."43CIA's grasp of Iraq's biological
warfare program, however, was sketchy at best. In October 1990, American
intelligence warned that Iraq's biological weapons capability was sufficiently
sophisticated to cause coalition casualties within four hours after the weapons
were used."44
American intelligence had closely watched the growth of Iraq's ballistic
missile capabilities, some of which were demonstrated in the missile exchanges
between Baghdad and Teheran during the "war of the cities" in their eight-year
struggle. Shortly before the war with the coalition, intelligence estimated that
Keaney and Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? 108.
Ibid., 108.
42 Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold
Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
40

41

1993), 86.
43Powell, My American Journey, 468.
44Atkinson, Crusade,88.

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CIA'S STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ | 201

Iraq's inventory of Scud missiles was about 300-700, but it was uncertain as to
how many were Soviet-supplied Scud-Bs and how many were longer-range Iraqi
modified variants.45American intelligence also had identified twenty-eight concrete launch pads for the Scuds in western Iraq, while it estimated that Iraq had
thirty-six mobile launchers, both Soviet-supplied and Iraqi manufactured.46
Intelligence estimates on Iraq's nuclear weapons program were less confident than on its ballistic missile programs and grew more conservative and
alarmist as the eve of the coalition ground war approached. Before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, intelligence judged that Iraq would not acquire nuclear weapons for five to ten years. In July 1990, Israel shared with Secretary of Defense
Richard Cheney evidence that Iraqi work on high-speed centrifuges needed to
enrich uranium for nuclear weapons was progressing fast, which in turn instigated a new American intelligence estimate. A special estimate prepared for
President Bush in fall 1990 concluded that it would take Iraq six months to a
year and probably longer to acquire a nuclear weapon.47
Postwar revelations made largely by United Nations weapons inspections
teams gave a truer picture of the scope of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
programs. Despite the air campaign against Iraq's chemical weapons facilities,
UN inspectors discovered about 150,000 chemical munitions that survived the
war.48American intelligence, moreover, failed to detect prior to the war that
Iraq had more than seventy chemical warheads for its Scud missiles.49UN
inspectors helped to lift the shroud of secrecy surrounding the massive Iraqi
nuclear weapons program. In January 1992, Iraq admitted having a uranium
enrichment program to produce nuclear weapons. Baghdad had bought the
components for as many as 10,000 centrifuges for the large-scale production of
fissile material. Had Iraq's efforts not been interrupted by the war, Baghdad
could have produced enough uranium for four bombs per year.50The GWAPS
assessed that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was fiscally unconstrained, closer
to fielding a nuclear weapon, and less vulnerable to destruction by precision
bombing than U.S. intelligence realized before the war. The target list on 16
January contained two nuclear-related targets, but after the war, UN inspectors
uncovered more than twenty sites involved in the nuclear weapons program,
sixteen of which were described as "main facilities."51
CONTROVERSY IN WAR

In the midst of the air campaign against Iraq, major analytic disputes erupted
between CIA civilian analysts and their uniformed counterparts in the Penta45Gordon and Trainor, Generals'War,230.
46
Ibid., 230.
47Freedman and Karsh, Gulf Conflict, 220.
48Keaney and Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? 71.
49Gordon and Trainor, Generals' War, 183.
50Freedman and Karsh, Gulf Conflict, 321.
5 Keaney and Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? 67.

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202 I POLITICAL

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gon and in Schwarzkopf'sCentralCommand(CENTCOM)staff. The initial
conflictoccurredover the battle damageassessment(BDA) of CENTCOM's
effortsto destroyIraqiballisticmissilesand theirmobile launchers.The political pressureon Schwarzkopfto stop Iraqi missile attacks against Israel and
Saudi Arabia was intense and caused him to divert substantialmilitaryresourcesagainstthe problemand awayfrom his primaryconcernto preparethe
theater for a groundcampaignto evict Iraqitroops from Kuwait.The second
controversybetween CIA and CENTCOMemerged over the BDA of Iraqi
ground forces, which for Schwarzkopfwas a barometerfor determiningthe
kick-offof the groundcampaign.
A majorrift in analysisemergedduringthe war between CIA and CENTCOMintelligenceanalystsover the BDA of IraqiScudsand mobile launchers.
Duringthe air war in January1991, Schwarzkopftold a television interviewer
that thirtyfixed Scud sites had been destroyed and that his forces may have
destroyedas many as sixteen of about twentysuspectedmobile launchers.Behind the scenes though, CIA heatedly contested Schwarzkopf'sBDA of the
Iraqimissilesand launchers.CIA analystsarguedthat there was no confirmation that any mobile launcherhad been destroyed.52
The militarycontinuedto disputeCIA's analysisof the issue well after the
war.Coalitionaircrewsreporteddestroyingabouteightymobilelaunchers,while
specialoperationsforcesclaimedabouttwentymore,accordingto the GWAPS.
Most of these reports stemmed from attacks against decoys or vehicles and
equipmentsuch as tankertrucks,whichfroma distanceresembledScudmobile
launchers.53
The GWAPS concludedafter painstakingresearchthat "thereis
no indisputableproof that Scudmobile launchers-as opposed to high-fidelity
decoys, trucks,or other objects with Scud-likesignatures-were destroyedby
ThatjudgmentvindicatesCIA'swartimeanalysis-largely
fixed-wingaircraft."54
conductedby its Officeof ImageryAnalysis-and belies the criticalappraisals
of CIA analysismade by Schwarzkopfand other senior commanders.
The controversyover the BDA of Iraqi ground forces had its origins in
Schwarzkopf'sdeterminationthat the transitionfrom the air campaignto a
groundwarwould occurat the point at whichIraqigroundforces had suffered
a 50 percentattrition.By his own admission,the figurewas solely a benchmark
and not a "hardand fast rule"for gauginghow much Iraqicombatpower had
been eroded by the air campaign.Schwarzkopfin his autobiographyacknowledged that the 50 percentattritionof Iraqiorderof battle was an arbitraryfigure: "Pullinga numberout of the air, I said I'd need fifty percentof the Iraqi
occupyingforces destroyed before launchingwhatever ground offensive we
might eventuallyplan."55
52Atkinson, Crusade, 144-145.
53
Keaney and Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? 73.
54Ibid., 78.
55
Schwarzkopf and Petre, It Doesn't Take a Hero, 319.

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CIA'S STRATEGICINTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ I

203

Nevertheless, Schwarzkopfreinforced the importanceof this 50 percent
figurein deliberationswithhis civilianpolicymasters,who were eagerto achieve
thatmarkand to kickoff the groundwar.As withmanythingsthough,the devil
of this BDA benchmarkwas in the details.As the GWAPS points out, no one
really knew what would constitute a measurable50 percent attritionof Iraqi
combat effectiveness. CENTCOM staffers merely applied the indicatorsto
measurablemilitaryequipmentsuch as tanks,armoredpersonnelcarriers,and
artilleryin the Kuwaititheater of operations.56
CENTCOMwas assessingin February1991that the aircampaignwas close
to achievingthe 50 percent attritionbenchmark,but CIA analystswere substantiallymore conservativein theirBDA of Iraqigroundforces.CENTCOM,
for example,estimatedin mid-Februarythat it had destroyedabout 1,700Iraqi
tanksor nearly40 percentof Iraqiarmorin the theater.CIA analysts,however,
by examiningsatellite photographyfor blown tank turretsand shatteredhulls
could only confirmabout one-thirddestroyed.57
CIA broughtthe discrepancyin BDA to the President'sattention.In a PDB
memorandum,it reportedthat CIA was unableto confirmall of CENTCOM's
reporteddamageto Iraqiforces. CIA informallysent the PDB memorandum
to Schwarzkopfwho went into a rage, because he was about to make the decision to launchthe groundattack.He viewed CIA as cynicallyhedgingits bets
andprovidingitselfwith an alibiin the event thatthe Iraqisinflictedheavycasualties on U.S. forces.58
President Bush asked Scowcroftto investigate the BDA dispute. On 21
February,Webster along with his NIO for conventionalforces, retiredArmy
General David Armstrong,met with Powell, Secretaryof Defense Richard
Cheney, and a CENTCOMrepresentative.Armstrongarguedthat aside from
the dispute over the numbersof tanks destroyed, CIA was not interested in
usurpingSchwarzkopf'scommandprerogatives.Armstrongreiteratedthat reDespite CIA's
gardlessof the tank tally, Iraq'sarmywas "highlydegraded."59
BDA
would signal
CENTCOM's
realized
that
Scowcroft
rejecting
argument,
a devastatingloss of confidencein the military.He saw no politicalalternative
but to side with CENTCOMin the dispute.Subsequently,Powell announced
that CIA was not to conductand reportBDA, whichset the precedentfor the
loss of that responsibilitylong after the Gulf War.60
Notwithstandingpolicy-makerdifferenceto CENTCOM'sBDA, postwar
analysisshowed CIA analysisto be superior.The House Armed ServicesCommittee concludedthat Schwarzkopf'sBDA on Iraqitankswas exaggeratedby
perhapsas much as 134 percent.For example,postwaranalysisconfirmedthat
166 tanksfromthree RepublicanGuarddivisionswere destroyed,while CENT56Keaney and Cohen, Revolution in Warfare?40-41.
57Atkinson, Crusade, 345.
58
Ibid., 266.
59 Ibid., 346.
60
Ibid., 347.

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COM had estimated during the war that 388 had been destroyed.61As had been
the case in the BDA of ballistic missiles, CENTCOM's overestimation of the
BDA of Iraqi ground forces was in large measure due to an overreliance on
pilot reports to estimate destroyed Iraqi equipment. Pilots fly high, fast, and in
hostile territory under enemy fire and have only fleeting moments to see bomb
impacts. They have too small an opportunity to assess damage fairly. In contrast, satellite imagery taken after the battlefield dust has had a chance to settle
is a more consistently accurate means of gauging BDA.
DRAWING A BALANCE SHEET AND FUTURE LESSONS

Before addressing the specifics of strategic intelligence performance during the
Gulf War, a broad characterization of the quality of the intelligence picture at
the disposal of Iraqi and American policy makers and military commanders
is in order. The Iraqis, for their part, lacked an accurate strategic intelligence
picture of the theater. They were blind as to the coalition force deployments
that made possible the operational concept for nearly enveloping Iraqi forces in
the Kuwaiti theater in the ground campaign. In marked contrast, the American
intelligence community provided its consumers one of the broadest and clearest pictures of an adversary that any American president and high command
has ever had in the nation's history. The United States, by Schwarzkopf's own
admission during the war, had managed to identify Iraqi units "practicallydown
to the battalion level."62The House Armed Services Committee concluded that
American intelligence had an excellent handle on the units, locations, and
equipment of Iraqi forces.63
That performance is hard to reconcile with the disparaging postwar assessments of CIA's performance made by Schwarzkopf and other CENTCOM
commanders. One wonders what General George Patton would have given to
have had a comparable picture of opposing German forces in Europe during
World War II. These criticisms, moreover, neglect the fact that CIA is not designed to be a "combat support agency." CIA's charter has been to provide
strategic-level intelligence primarily to civilian policy makers and not tactical
intelligence to battlefield commanders. While military commanders are prone
to fault CIA for perceived shortcomings, they appear reticent to fault their own
military service intelligence shops and DIA whose charters are to provide tactical combat support to field commanders. Accordingly, DIA and military intelligence manpower for conducting tactical military analysis dwarfs that of CIA.
61 U.S. House

of Representatives,Committee on Armed Services,Subcommitteeon Oversightand
Investigations,"IntelligenceSuccesses and Failuresin OperationsDesert Shield/Storm,"August 1993,
4 and 31. Hereafter cited as House Report. CIA published an unclassifiedstudy "OperationDesert
Storm:A Snapshot of the Battlefield"in September 1993, which graphicallydepicts the highlightsof
battle in the Kuwait theater of operations.
62Powell, My American Journey, 474.
63House
Report, 4.

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CIA'S STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ

205

The House Armed Services Committee noted that at the height of the Gulf
War, about one-third of DIA's several thousand employees were assisting the
war effort, a number that exceeds CIA's total analytic workforce.64
These observations aside, what does a balance sheet of American strategic
intelligence during the Gulf War look like? On the plus side, CIA's analysis
gave warning of war days before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. CIA analysis gauged
fairly well the threat posed to Saudi Arabia by a potential follow-on Iraqi
attack, an assessment that probably had a major influence on the Bush administration's decision to counter and reverse Iraq's military land grab. CIA accurately assessed the dim prospects for international economic sanctions compelling Saddam to withdraw his forces from Kuwait. The international sanctions
that have been on Iraq since the Gulf War have yet to compel Saddam to comply with UN demands, and it is doubtful that sanctions would have forced him
to vacate Kuwait without war.
In hindsight, CIA analysts-in many cases imagery analysts-scored high
marks for making accurate BDA of ballistic missile capabilities and the attrition of Iraqi ground forces even though their analysis is much maligned in the
common wisdom of the lessons of the war perpetuated by military commanders. A small group of CIA imagery analysts stood alone in informing civilian
policy makers that, contrary to Schwarzkopf's extravagant claims, CENTCOM
had not destroyed a single Scud missile or launcher during the war. CIA's BDA,
which caused substantial controversy toward the eve of the ground war, was
proved with postwar analysis to be much closer to ground truth than CENTCOM's inflated BDA of Iraqi forces.
Strategic intelligence in the Gulf War has a fair number of entries in the debit
side of the balance sheet. The greatest weakness of CIA's performance was its
lack of human assets inside the Iraqi regime able to report on Saddam's plans
and intentions. As Christopher Andrew points out, "Though a limited number
of agents had been recruited in Iraqi diplomatic and trade missions abroad,
none seems to have had access to Saddam's thinking or to his inner circle."65
The lack of human intelligence contributed to an inadequate assessment of
the magnitude of Iraq's ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction capabilities. The House Armed Services Committee judged that the intelligence
community had a good estimate of Iraqi chemical weapons, while it was hard
to assess the performance on the biological warfare program because the UN
had extracted very little information from the Iraqis on that issue. A debate
also continues as to how many ballistic missiles and mobile launchers Iraq could
have preserved during the war. Strategic intelligence performed badly against
Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The House Armed Services Committee report assessed that American intelligence was unaware of more than 50 percent
of all major nuclear weapons installations in Iraq.66To fill in the intelligence
64House Report, 7.
65Andrew, For the President'sEyes Only, 533.
6 House Report, 30.

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gaps created by poor human intelligence, moreover, CIA analysts resorted to
mirror imaging, which led analysts to judge that Iraq would only go for a limited
land grab against Kuwait instead of an all-out occupation.
The poor human intelligence performance is not a lone incident in CIA's
history. CIA has traditionally performed poorly in human operations against
the United States's most ardent adversaries. In evaluating the performance of
human intelligence one should point out the distinction that many intelligence
professionals and scholars make between secrets and mysteries. Secrets are
facts that can be stolen by human intelligence collectors. Mysteries, on the other
hand, are projections of the future that are less vulnerable to human collection
and tend to be the bailiwick of analysis.67As Gates reflects on CIA's human
intelligence operations for gaining access to the intentions of our adversaries
during the cold war, "We were duped by double agents in Cuba and East Germany. We were penetrated with devastatingeffect at least once-Aldrich Amesby the Soviets, and suffered other counterintelligence and security failures. We
never recruited a spy who gave us unique political information from inside the
Kremlin, and we too often failed to penetrate the inner circle of Soviet surrogate leaders."68CIA has done a better job of human operations against lesser
nation-state threats and at stealing technical secrets, but has failed too often in
the human intelligence game against the intentions of the most formidable risks
to American security. With the benefits of time, hindsight, and independent
review, the lack of robust human intelligence sources is likely to be found as
one of the prime root causes of the intelligence failure witnessed on 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington.
In the post-cold war age, American security has a narrower margin for error
because of technological advances that allow nation-states as well as nonstate
actors to project force farther and weapons of mass destruction that allow them
to strike with more devastating effects. In this environment, the United States
needs to rectify the substantial shortcomings in human intelligence collection
operations if it is to successfully deal with issues of war and peace in the future.
CIA must reform and make qualitative improvements in its human intelligence
operations to increase the odds that American policy makers and military commanders will have access to the thoughts and intentions of their adversaries.Even
if the intentions of U.S. adversariesprove elusive and remain hidden, a criticaltask
for human intelligence is to illuminate the policy pressures at play on foreign
leaders and to help analysts narrow the range of ambiguity for American policy
makers. Substantially improved human intelligence capabilities will help ensure
that in the event of a future war with Iraq or any other adversaryarmed with ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) the United States has
67 The author is indebted to Robert Gates for
remindinghim of this important distinction. For a
discussionof the role of secrets and mysteriesin intelligence estimates, see Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Peering
into the Future,"ForeignAffairs 73 (July/August 1994):82-93.

68Robert M. Gates, From the Shades: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They

Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 560.

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CIA'S STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE IN IRAQ I 207

the strategicintelligenceneeded to targetWMD assets before these weapons
are used againstAmericantroops and citizens.
A Gulf Warlegacythat mustbe redressedis the removalof a civiliancheck
of militaryBDA in wartime.The civil-militaryintelligencecontroversiesthat
emergedduringthe Gulf Warwere reminiscentof argumentsduringthe Vietnam War, in which civilianCIA analystswere more objectivethan the politically and operationallytaintedanalysescomingfrom DIA and militaryintelligence services.Since the Gulf War,CIA has been relievedof any responsibility
for BDA, andits once impressiveimageryanalyticcapabilitieshavebeen stripped
from the Agency and moved to the National Imageryand MappingAgency, a
designatedcombatsupportagencycontrolledby the Pentagon.To ensurethat
accurateand objectivestrategicintelligencereachesseniorcivilianpolicy makers, CIA needs to resume its exercise of independent imagery analysis and
againbe chargedwith criticalreviewsof militaryintelligenceanalysesin peace
and war to avoid futurepolicy debacleslike those suffered-although increasingly forgotten-during the Vietnam conflict.The absence of an independent
civiliananalyticcheckon militaryintelligencethreatensAmericanciviliancontrol of the militaryinstrumentfor politicalpurpose.*

* The authorwould like to express his appreciationto the George Bush PresidentialLibraryFoundation and the George Bush School of Governmentand Public Service's Center for PresidentialStudies for an O'Donnell Grantto supportresearchfor this articleat the George Bush PresidentialLibrary.
The authorparticularlyappreciatedthe special interest that then directorof the Centerfor Presidential
Studies, George Edwards,III, showed in this project.A word of thanksis due to ArchivistJohn Laster
for his gracioushelp in the Bush Libraryand to Roger Harrisonand Bruce Pease for their comments
on earlierdrafts.A specialwordof thanksis due to Robert Gates for takingthe time to readand thoughtfully comment on an earlierversion of this article.The authoralso is indebted to MichaelWarer, with
whom he delivereda joint lectureon the Gulf Warto studentsat CIA's ShermanKent School for Intelligence Analysis. That joint lecture germinated the interest that drove the research and writing of this
article. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy
or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

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