20 years after the US invasion of Iraq: did an Arab country really have weapons of mass destruction?

Charles Duelfer did not return to Iraq because the CIA report concluded that there were no weapons of mass destruction, the pretext under which the US invaded an Arab country 20 years ago due to intelligence errors.

And this despite the possibility duelfer He is the American official who knows best the operations of Saddam Hussein’s regime (1979-2003).

In an interview with EFEexplained that Baghdad he never fully understood how Washington worked, just as the US never fully understood the Iraqi logic, with dire consequences for Iraq.

Unmotivated invasion?

On March 20, 2003, the first American soldiers entered the territory Iraq, armed with gas masks, convinced of the presence of weapons of mass destruction.

this weapon never it was found because it didn’t exist.

Washington decided to intervene in Iraq based on “the experience of the inspectors UN about weapons, the extremely limited intelligence that the United States has collected,” said duelfer.

In 2000, the Americans went blind in Iraq after the end of the UN inspection mission, Unskomin charge of verifying the elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the regime Saddam Hussein; team of which duelfer he was vice president from 1993 until its dissolution.

For this reason, US intelligence relied on “very little data” to ensure that Iraq he had such weapons and convinced US President George W. Bush (2001-2009) of the existence of such weapons. “It’s not that the President bushes He made it up,” he said. duelfer.

Many will still remember the famous speech of the then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, before the Security Council UN shortly before the invasion, in February 2003, where he defended the US intervention.

More than two years have passed since the September 11 attacks, and the United States feared a new terrorist attack from Al Qaedawhich at the time Washington associated with Hussein’s regime, although he could not be more wrong.

How is a proposal created?

In his speech, Powell used data that intelligence officials assured him was credible: photographs, maps and intercepted telephone conversations of high-ranking Iraqi commanders.

According to him, the Foreign Minister’s reports are based on the testimony of “untrustworthy” Iraqi deserters. duelferwhich the US investigated with some skepticism, but not “enough”.

The fact is that the United States knew for sure that Iraq used weapons of mass destruction during the war with Iran (1980-1988).

Meaning duelfer V Iraq This goes back to when he was the political-military head of the State Department and the US backed the Saddam government with intelligence and economic support.

“It would not be an exaggeration to say that chemical weapons did a lot to save his regime during this long and bloody conflict,” he recalled. duelfer.

With the invasion of Kuwait Iraq and the imposition of international sanctions against the regime in 1991, Baghdad weapons of mass destruction ended and checks began UN. In the 1990s duelfer in fact, he was the only high-ranking American official who had regular dealings with the Iraqi government in connection with his work on Unskom.

Both this mission and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the CIA-led Iraq Study Group (ISG) after the invasion to search for weapons of mass destruction, They concluded that it was not.

Hussein’s Big Mistake

Dülfer directed the 1,700-strong ISG and prepared its final report. It did not take long for the US to realize its mistake after entering the country.

The highlight was the publication of the call “Duelfer’s Report” in late September 2004, who, while acknowledging the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, stressed that Saddam intended to return them as soon as sanctions were lifted.

Perhaps the dictator’s big miscalculation was not to condemn the September 11 attacks, as Washington interpreted this as an indication of his connection to al-Qaeda, despite the fact that Saddam “i hated”Terrorist organization.

In fact, since 2000, the Iraqis have sought to rapprochement with the United States through Dulfer himself, but have not been successful.

But what did Saddam think of the US mistake regarding weapons of mass destruction? According to the expert, the dictator had distorted vision from reality, because those around her did not dare to tell her the truth, because they were afraid of her.

This he could see duelfer during interrogations of Saddam after his arrest in December 2003, of which he was the privileged witness, although he never met him face to face in the room, since it was decided that only one person, an FBI agent, George Pirowill do the job.

To get closer to him, they used psychological tactics, not violent ones.

“He wanted to shape his legacy, so part of our strategy for questioning him was to give him the opportunity to write down his legacy,” he recalled. duelferwho explained that Saddam understood that part of his problem when he ruled was that no one was telling him the truth.

The dictator was “puzzled” and I did not understand how could it be that the US attacked his country believing it had weapons of mass destruction.

And this is as stated duelferwhen Washington threw these accusations against the Iraqis, it didn’t fit in their heads that the US “didn’t know” what was happening in their country, but rather thought they were doing it for some specific reason or “for political purposes” “

(As reported by EFE)