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By Root 1994 0

them. We enhanced our ability to intercept terrorist communications and track the money that financed them. And we developed a program to gain intelligence from detained terrorists that saved lives and prevented future attacks. As time passed after the 9/11 attacks and the threat of another attack seemed to recede in people’s minds, criticism of what we had done mounted, and no program was more bitterly condemned than the CIA’s procedures for interrogating high-value detainees. Amid the heated rhetoric some basic points tended to be ignored. The program was safe, legal, and effective. It provided intelligence that enabled us to prevent attacks and save American lives. Above all else, it was part of a broad effort that enabled us, for seven and a half years, to prevent any further mass casualty attacks against the United States.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Liberating Iraq

Saddam Hussein’s willingness to use weapons of mass destruction was well-known to the world. He had used chemical weapons not only against his enemies, but against his own people. In 1988 during the Iran-Iraq War, he attacked the Kurdish town of Halabja with mustard gas and nerve gas, killing thousands of innocents. Villagers died as they were going about their daily tasks. Mothers died, holding their children.

Saddam was determined to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, and after the 1991 Gulf War, we learned that his program to develop them was far more advanced than we had thought. The judgment of an International Atomic Energy Agency report was that Saddam could have had a nuclear device by late 1992, had his efforts not been derailed by Desert Storm.

After the Gulf War the United Nations Security Council demanded that Iraq declare and give up the components of its nuclear program as well as chemical and biological weapons and the capacity to produce them. UN Resolution 687 further required that Saddam destroy any ballistic missiles with a range greater than one hundred fifty miles and permit a regime of on-site inspections aimed at making sure he carried through. It also extended a program of tough and comprehensive sanctions.

But Security Council resolutions had little impact on Saddam. A 1993 National Intelligence Estimate assessed that international support for sanctions was eroding, but judged that even if they remained in place, Saddam Hussein would “continue reconstituting Iraq’s conventional military forces” and “will take steps to reestablish Iraq’s WMD programs.” In a 1994 Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee report, the intelligence community agreed “that the Iraqi government is determined to covertly reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.”

In 1995 Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamel al-Majid, his brother Saddam, and their families defected to Jordan. Hussein Kamel had been in charge of portions of Iraq’s WMD programs, and the revelations that followed his defection led inspectors to realize that Saddam was deceiving them, particularly when it came to his biological and nuclear efforts. Saddam lured Hussein Kamel, his brother, and their families back to Iraq and then had Kamel and his brother murdered, along with their father, their sister, and her children, not long after their return.

In 1998 Saddam Hussein insisted that international weapons inspectors stop work and leave Iraq. In response, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act, making regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States government and approving nearly $100 million to fund Iraqi opposition groups working for Saddam’s ouster.

That December, President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a four-day air strike campaign meant to diminish Saddam’s weapons capabilities. “If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future,” Clinton said. “Mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.”

There was bipartisan support for the operation. Among the Democrats who spoke out was Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, then a member of the House