History – Past and Present

Found in The National Security’s Archive NSARCHIVE Oct. 18: Saddam’s Iron Grip, Intelligence Reports on Saddam Hussein’s Reign.

Washington D.C. October 18, 2005 – The National Security Archive today posted a series of declassified U.S. intelligence documents and other U.S. agency reports on Saddam Hussein’s human rights abuses, one of which is the subject of the first trial of Saddam which begins tomorrow in Iraq.

The first set of charges concerns Saddam’s responsibility, along with seven co-defendants, for the 1982 massacre of 143 Shiites in Dujail, a town 35 miles north of Baghdad, after an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Saddam. Procedures for the trial are the subject of significant controversy, as reported by the New York Times’ John Burns today. The Archive’s posting gives a preview of the evidence that the U.S. government may be providing to the trial process.

Saddam may face up to a dozen trials for crimes alleged to have been committed by his regime – among them the gassing of Kurds in Halabja and the suppression of a Shiite uprising in the south. However, in September it was reported that the Iraqi government may waive further proceedings if Saddam is convicted in the first trial, a conviction which could bring the death penalty. (Note 1)

During his years in power, the U.S. Intelligence Community produced estimates and studies of Iraq’s foreign and defense policies, its military capabilities and activities, and analyses of the regime’s domestic policies and actions. Other U.S. agencies, both before and after the termination of Saddam’s rule, also produced reports on the regime’s internal activities.

The collection below contains a number of documents produced by U.S. agencies over the last thirty years concerning the Iraqi regime’s policies and activities directed at maintaining itself in power and eliminating or neutralizing opposition to the regime.

Documents:

Document 1: NIO/Middle East, The Implications of the Iran-Iraq Agreement, May 1, 1975. Secret – Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 2: Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 36.2-1-79, Iraq’s Role in the Middle East, June 21, 1979. Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 3: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 34/36.2-82, Implication of Iran’s Victory Over Iraq, June 8, 1982. Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 4: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 36.2-83, Prospects for Iraq, July 19, 1983. Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 5: Central Intelligence Agency, Iraq: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services, August 1985, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 6: Central Intelligence Agency, Political and Personality Handbook of Iraq, January 1991, Secret, Source: CIA Electronic Reading Room;

Document 7: Central Intelligence Agency, Iraq: Domestic Impact of the War, January 25, 1991, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 8: Central Intelligence Agency, Iraq: Implications for Insurrection and Prospects for Saddam’s Survival, March 1991, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act;

Document 9: Director of Central Intelligence, SNIE 36-2-91, Iraq: Saddam Husayn’s Prospects for Survival Over the Next Year, September 1991, Secret, Source: CIA Electronic Reading Room;

Document10: Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 92-7, Saddam Husayn: Likely to Hang On
June 1992, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act;

Document 11: Central Intelligence Agency, Special Intelligence Memorandum, Humanitarian Situation in the Marshes, August 20, 1993, Top Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document12: Director of Central Intelligence, NIE 93-42, Prospects for Iraq: Saddam and Beyond, December 1993, Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request;

Document 13: Department of State, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, September 1999, Unclassified, Source: Dpartment of State;

Document 14: Director of Central Intelligence, Putting Noncombatants at Risk: Saddam’s Use of “Human Shields”, January 2003,Unclassified, Source: Central Intelligence Agency;

Document 15: U.S. Agency for International Development, Iraq’s Legacy of Terror: MASS GRAVES, January 2004,Unclassified, Source: Agency for International Development.

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 167. For more information contact Jeffrey Richelson – 202/994-7000.