Through Hussein's Looking Glass

[Barrett808]

Through Hussein's Looking Glass
Tue Oct 12, 7:55 AM ET
By Bob Drogin Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein was convinced he won the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

And when he destroyed all his weapons of mass destruction after that war, Hussein was sure the CIA knew it.

As a result, he saw 12 years of United Nations resolutions, trade sanctions and threats of war as a charade to humiliate him.

In Hussein's view, Washington and Baghdad should have been close allies. He could have helped curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He offered to become America's "best friend in the region, bar none." He was certain U.S. forces would never invade.

Hussein's looking-glass view of the world is vividly described in the report last week by Charles A. Duelfer, the CIA's chief weapons investigator. The document is based on a variety of sources, including interrogations of Hussein himself. A close reading of the report, along with interviews with intelligence officials and outside experts, sheds new light on Hussein's mind-set leading up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Duelfer argues that for Americans to understand Hussein's baffling decision to defy U.N. resolutions and face disaster they must "see the universe from Saddam's point in space."

Yet the reverse is also true. If Hussein misunderstood the West, it's clear that successive administrations in Washington since 1991 projected their own misconceptions and misjudgments onto Hussein. They also had a looking-glass view.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=20&u=/latimests/20041012/ts_latimes/throughhusseinslookingglass

I'm just not buying Duelfer's wide-eyed naïveté. If 11 million of us who protested the invasion knew there were no WMD, CIA and Cheney certainly did.

[knowbody0]

1. i would love to see a debate with george and saddam