The Diplomacy of Death : When spies execute foreign policy : Why the Plot to Kill Hussein Failed

Almost five months after the end of the Gulf War, as the world watches Saddam Hussein consolidate his grip on Iraq, many Americans wonder how it happened. How can the brutal dictator--the man President George Bush compared to Adolf Hitler--still be in power?

Now, on the verge of a new crisis because of Iraq’s concealment of its nuclear capabilities and with the plight of the Kurds still unresolved, Bush continues to express his desire to see Hussein relinquish power and leave Iraq. However, European, U.S. and Israeli intelligence experts say the notion that Hussein will be toppled or exiled is nothing more than wishful thinking. Ousting Hussein “could have been devised before and during the war,” these experts said during interviews conducted in London, Paris, Tel-Aviv and Washington, “but now it may be too late to achieve this goal.”

Indeed, U.S., European and Israeli sources confirm that the removal of the Iraqi leader through a covert action had been discussed for several months before the outbreak of the Gulf War. These sources say the possibility of assassinating Hussein was raised in several separate and joint meetings between American, British, French and Israeli intelligence officials, who met secretly between the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in August, 1990, and the beginning of the coalition’s air war against Iraq, in January, 1991.

According to European sources, the prevailing assumption in these meetings was that any new leader in Iraq might be more flexible than Hussein and might agree to withdraw troops from Kuwait--and thus avoid the subsequent war. U.S. reports suggest that, as early as Aug. 3, 1990, the day after the invasion, Bush instructed the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency to start a covert action to destabilize the Iraqi regime and remove Hussein from power. The President wanted a wide-ranging effort--including economic sanctions, encouragement of opposition groups and identification of potential alternative leadership.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia were particularly attracted to the idea of seeing Hussein depart from power, but they realized he would not agree to step down voluntarily. Sources say the intelligence operatives concluded that only a forced removal could do this.

The Soviet Union--with thousands of military experts in Iraq--was approached by the CIA and French intelligence and asked to provide information on the Iraqi leader. According to previous reports, the KGB and the Soviet military agreed to help, but were never fully trusted and kept in the dark on details.

To explore possibilities, Israel prepared a study of Hussein--his personality, habits and whereabouts. Mossad and Aman, the two major branches of Israel’s intelligence community, collaborated on a psychological and personality profile. Israeli psychologists, historians and intelligence analysts watched and listened to video- and audiotapes of Hussein’s radio and television appearances, analyzed his handwriting and read transcripts describing meetings between the Iraqi president and foreign leaders. The study was intended to spot Hussein’s weakness, predict his future movements and provide a better understanding of his modes of operations.

Israeli sources say the profile--shared with the CIA and Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agency--described Hussein as shrewd and cautious, a most suspicious and elusive person. He was, and still is, so fearful of being poisoned that he keeps an official food taster, who tries all his meals. As an extra precaution, Hussein even waits an hour before eating. Hussein was, and still is, protected by armed bodyguards, who are changed regularly. In addition, he packs his own pistol. After the invasion of Kuwait, Hussein changed his daily routine constantly, never sleeping two consecutive nights in the same bed. Yet, after reading the profile, Western intelligence operatives concluded that, with proper preparations, even assassinating Hussein was possible.

One fascinating, successful and untold story of the war is the use of secret agents and commando units by allied forces. U.S. and European sources confirmed that, in a classic penetration behind Iraqi lines, U.S., British and French elite forces and intelligence agents gathered information and carried out reconnaissance missions, laying the foundation for subsequent military success.

According to well-informed European sources, one task assigned to the infiltrating agents was to collect information on Hussein’s movements. Indeed, British agents, who have long excelled in commando warfare and special-operations tactics, devised a plot to kill the Iraqi president. British sources, with access to confidential cables and communications, have said that the plot outline was sent from the British agents inside Iraq to their London headquarters.

The assassination plot seemed workable and, according to reliable British sources, was approved in London. But the plan was vetoed. British, U.S., French and Israeli officials have all refused to comment, claiming “military operations and intelligence plans are not discussed in public.” But, according to the intelligence sources, the U.S. Administration and, surprisingly, the Israeli government, opposed the British.

Under an executive order issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the CIA and other U.S. government agencies are forbidden from carrying out political killings. Bush reiterated the same order. According to European and Israeli sources, Bush, who needed the support of a reluctant Congress for his war plans, realized a formal request to reverse the executive order and assassinate Hussein would infuriate Congress, triggering unprecedented condemnation domestically if it was ever disclosed. It also threatened to break Bush’s carefully constructed international coalition.

The legal restrictions and political ramifications of U.S. participation in a plot make clear why it would eventually decline to participate. The British, on the other hand, did not want to pursue the plan without U.S. endorsement, and eventually dropped the idea of assassinating Hussein. The surprise is that Israel also disapproved of the British plan and refused to take part.

After all, Mossad and Aman agents have no moral, legal or political limitations on political assassinations of Israel’s enemies, if instructed by the government. In the 1970s, Israeli agents tracked down and killed 10 Palestinian terrorists in Europe and the Middle East who were involved in massacring Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games. The April, 1988, killing in Tunis of Abu Jihad, No. 2 leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is widely assumed to have been carried out by Israeli agents.

On the other hand, Israeli sources pointed out, Israel, in 43 years of independence, has never been involved in political killings of foreign leaders. “It’s wrong for Israel to be involved in assassinations against Arab leaders of sovereign countries,” said Rafi Eitan, a former Mossad agent and head of the special Israeli unit that ran Jonathan Jay Pollard as a spy in the United States. Other Israeli experts explained a tacit understanding has been reached between Arab states and Israel--if you don’t kill our leaders, we won’t kill yours.

But, according to British experts, there was another reason why Israel was so reluctant to participate in the assassination plot. The reasoning went as follows: If Hussein were assassinated, the Gulf War might have been avoided and Iraq’s huge military machine would have remained intact. This would thwart Israel’s desire to see Iraq’s conventional weapons and unconventional infrastructure destroyed. Israel, the war results clearly show, is one of the war’s main beneficiaries.

However, since the war ended, there is wide acceptance in the pro-Western Arab world--shared by Washington’s foreign-policy Establishment--that Iraq is still an important component in the Middle East as a counterbalance to Iran and its patronage of Islamic fundamentalism.

That was why the United States, after secretly encouraging insurgencies inside Iraq to depose Hussein, stopped its support of the Kurdish rebellion. Washington realized that, if the Kurds gained independence in the north, pro-Iranian Shiite forces, inspired and incited by Tehran, would seize power in the south. Thus, secular Iraq might disintegrate and turn into another anti-American Islamic republic.

The choice facing Western Europe, the United States, its Arab allies and Israel is between two evils. If the price of avoiding further political chaos is the continuation of Hussein’s hold on power, Washington and Western Europe, without admitting it, appear ready to pay it--even now when it is becoming clear that Hussein continues to play his old games and lie to the whole world about his share of unconventional weapons.