Six Questions for Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh on the CIA and the Iraq War

Recently retired head of key CIA unit calls for Iraq “exit strategy”; says there was “no evidence” of Saddam–bin Laden links
from Harper's Magazine

Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh served in the CIA for 15 years and retired on June 30, 2006, as the Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, the intelligence community's premier group dedicated to the issue of political Islam. His research has focused on political Islam, political and educational reform, regime stability, and governance in the greater Middle East. Nakhleh was awarded several senior intelligence commendation medals, including the Director's Medal and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. While at the CIA, Nakhleh briefed the “highest policymakers”—he is not allowed to identify them by name—on issues related to the war on terrorism. In 2002, he traveled to the Guantanamo Bay prison and interviewed numerous detainees over the course of an 11-day stay. Before joining the CIA he worked as a university professor for a quarter-century, and in that capacity traveled widely in the Arab world, including Iraq. I recently interviewed Nakhleh and asked him about Iraq and the Bush Administration's “war on terrorism.” This is the first interview he has granted since leaving the CIA. By Ken Silverstein.
Sources

1. In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, administration officials claimed that Saddam Hussein's regime had links to terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda. What was your view on that question?

We had no evidence that there was a Saddam–bin Laden axis. Saddam was a butcher, but he was a secular butcher, and we knew that. Saddam only started employing religion when he felt defeated. He decided it would be useful to develop an Islamic cause after he was evicted from Kuwait in 1991. He even started going to the mosque to pray.

Everyone in the Middle East knew it was a joke; he had no religious credentials. Iraq was a secular state; women had more rights than in most places in the region, and Shiites were the backbone of the Baathist and even the Communist Party. It was almost a year after the 2003 invasion before Al Qaeda decided to make Iraq a jihadist cause because [before that] they viewed Iraq as a secular state. People at the CIA didn't believe there were links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The source for much of the information of that sort was Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, and their positions jibed with the positions of those in the administration who wanted to wage war in Iraq—Wolfowitz, Feith, people in the vice president's office. So they relied heavily on that reporting, but there was never any evidence to support that link.

2. What accounts for the failure of American policy in Iraq?

(There is more, here.)