Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside
May / June issue of Foreign Affairs - Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside by Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray.
Quote:
EDITOR'S NOTE: The fall of Baghdad in April 2003 opened one of the most secretive and brutal governments in history to outside scrutiny. For the first time since the end of World War II, American analysts did not have to guess what had happened on the other side of a conflict but could actually read the defeated enemy's documents and interrogate its leading figures. To make the most of this unique opportunity, the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) commissioned a comprehensive study of the inner workings and behavior of Saddam Hussein's regime based on previously inaccessible primary sources. Drawing on interviews with dozens of captured senior Iraqi military and political leaders and hundreds of thousands of official Iraqi documents (hundreds of them fully translated), this two-year project has changed our understanding of the war from the ground up. The study was partially declassified in late February; its key findings are presented here...
Feeding Saddam's delusion
Tommy Franks including in his prewar strategy deliberate attempts to feed Saddams fears. He knew Saddam was talking regularly witht he leader of Yemen. Apparently Saddam was constantly asking about Franks. In his own conversations with this leader Franks hinted that he might attack from the west through Jordan and the north through Turkey. Even after Turkey had rejected the US proposal to move through Turkey, Franks kept the possibility alive for several more hours in order to tie up 13 divisions of Saddam troops in the north.
Subsequent reports have indicated that even as US troops were approaching the Karbala Gap, Saddam and his military leaders were still waiting for the main attack from Jordon. In fact Jordon and Saudia Arabia were used for launching Special forces operations to stop the western Iraq area from being used to launch scuds against the US and its allies including Israel.
