Books – Everything in Hand

The C.I.A.'s covert ops have mattered-but not in the way that it hoped.

- By Daniel Immerwahr. Ilustration by Emmauel Polanco

Saddam Hussein was known for many qualities, but subtlety was not among them. An oft-repeated anecdote relates that, during a cabinet meeting, he floated the idea of stepping down as Iraq’s President, and his minister of health agreed too quickly. Saddam calmly stepped out of the room with him to discuss it and then shot him dead. This is, unsurprisingly, a tall tale. In reality, the health minister was sacked, arrested, tortured, and executed by firing squad.

Saddam employed the same direct approach with his neighbors. In 1980, after Shia protesters killed some Iraqi officials, Saddam executed the country’s leading Shia cleric. (The rumor is that he did so personally, hammering a nail into the cleric’s head and setting him on fire.) Saddam then invaded Iran, his Shia-led neighbor, starting an eight-year war that killed hundreds of thousands. To pay for that war, Iraq borrowed billions from Kuwait. Saddam wanted the debt forgiven, but the Emir of Kuwait refused, and then Kuwait accelerated oil production during a period of falling prices, pushing Iraq further in the hole. Once again, Saddam launched an invasion. On its first day, August 2, 1990, Iraq’s Army reached Kuwait’s capital and set the Emir’s palace aflame. Within the month, Iraq had annexed Kuwait. This resolved the matter of the loan, and gave Saddam control of a hefty percentage of the world’s oil supply.

The United States took an occasional interest in oil. And it took a keen interest in Saddam, whose government it had supplied with detailed maps and satellite images during the Iran-Iraq War. Still, U.S. officials were caught flat-footed by the invasion of Kuwait. A few days before it was launched, President George H. W. Bush had sent Saddam a friendly letter that gave no hint that anything was awry.