When lessons learned from the major combat operations phase of operation Iraqi Freedom were briefed to the nation’s top leaders, the question was asked:“How did events leading to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime look from the Iraqi perspective?” That question was posed to the Joint advanced Warfighting Program at the Institute for defense analyses (IDA), triggering the Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP), a research effort sponsored by the U.S. Joint Forces command that has delivered several volumes of analysis and supporting materials, with more in production.
The IPP is reminiscent of an effort begun in 1946, when a team of U.S. army historians and intelligence officers established a relationship with former members of the German general staff to develop an understanding of familiar events from an unfamiliar point of view. This volume marks the extension of that same methodology under a different sponsor, the National Intelligence Council, to encompass a broader spectrum of Middle Eastern military history from the perspective of Lieutenant General Ra’ad Hamdani, who during operation Iraqi Freedom commanded Saddam Hussein’s II Republican Guard Corps. 
Interviewed over a number of days by project leader Kevin Woods and historian Williamson “Wick” Murray, General Hamdani shared his knowledge about a wide range of subjects, with particular emphasis on his experiences in Iraq’s long war against Iran.
The project’s objective was to produce a series of personal, organizational, and campaign histories of contemporary Iraq. This volume is the first in that series, provided with the hope that it will improve our understanding of Middle Eastern military thought, the new Iraqi military, neighboring countries, and the dynamics of a region of the world that is vital to U.S. interests.
Topics of the discussions themselves ranged from the immediate tactical outcomes of particular actions in the Iran-Iraq War, to the interplay between the requirements of tyrannies (religious as well as secular) to control their political future, to the demands of military organizations for professionally competent officers who understand tactics and operations and who are able and willing to provide honest judgments of what is happening or might happen on the battlefield. In that respect, Ayatollah Rhollah Khomeini’s Iran and Saddam’s Iraq exhibited considerable similarities, although Saddam at times proved a faster learner—at least over the course of his war against Iran. On the opposite side, Khomeini and his fellow religious leaders appear to have clung, right through to the conflict’s end, to their belief that religious fanaticism and revolutionary spirit would triumph over all.

Saddam's War: An Iraqi Mililtary Perspective of the Iran-Iraq War (Mcnair Paper)

History

MURRAY, WILLIAMSON

Woods, Kevin M.

Holaday, Thomas

Elkhamri, Mounir

Asia

United States Govt Printing Office

The Iran–Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History

The Iran-Iraq War is one of the largest, yet least documented conflicts in the history of the Middle East. Drawing from an extensive cache of captured Iraqi government records, this book is the first comprehensive military and strategic account of the war through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders. It explores the rationale and decision-making processes that drove the Iraqis as they grappled with challenges that, at times, threatened their existence. Beginning with the bizarre lack of planning by the Iraqis in their invasion of Iran, the authors reveal Saddam's desperate attempts to improve the competence of an officer corps that he had purged to safeguard its loyalty to his tyranny, and then to weather the storm of suicidal attacks by Iranian religious revolutionaries. This is a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the history of war and the contemporary Middle East.

Military

Cambridge University Press

Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom From Saddam's Senior Leadership

Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) overthrew Saddam’s regime and opened up one of the world’s most secretive governments to outside analysis, presenting a once-in-a-generation opportunity for military leaders and historians to delve deep into the decision-making processes of a former adversary. For the first time since a similar project at the end of World War II, we have an opportunity to evaluate military events from not only our own vantage point but also from the perspective of the opposing political and military leadership. Admiral Edmund P. Giambastiani originated this vital and interesting work when he was Commander, United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM). As part of a major effort to ensure we fully understood the lessons of OIF, he commissioned a comprehensive analysis of US strengths and weaknesses. This first-of-its-kind venture was led by Brigadier General Robert W. Cone, the then-Director of USJFCOM’s Joint Center for Operational Analysis and Lessons Learned (JCOA). Almost as soon as this effort got underway in the spring of 2003, Admiral Giambastiani realized that the study would not be complete unless information about what drove the Iraqis to make the decisions they did was fully integrated into the analysis. To accomplish this, project leader Kevin Woods led a small team of professionals in a systematic two-year study of the former Iraqi regime and military. This book is the fi rst major product of that effort. It presents a comprehensive historical analysis of the forces and motivations that drove our opponent’s decisions through dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi military and political leaders and by making extensive use of thousands of official Iraqi documents. Kevin and his team have crafted a substantive examination of Saddam Hussein’s leadership and its effect on the Iraqi military decision-making process. Moreover, it goes a long way towards revealing the inner workings of a closed regime from the insiders’ point of view. Presented herein is crucial information currently missing from still ongoing analyses of OIF, and much of its content will counter currently accepted wisdom. While the practice of self-critique and gathering lessons learned are distinguishing features of the US military, in almost every past instance our understanding of events remained incomplete because any assessment was limited to a “blue” only view of the situation. While we often had a relatively complete picture of what our adversary did, we remained in the dark as to what motivated his actions. At the conclusion of past conflicts, we were left to speculate which of our actions were causing specific enemy responses and why. Expert analysts and “red team” assessments attempt to make this speculation as informed as possible, but because of the impenetrability of closed regimes, even their usefulness is somewhat limited. In this case, however, by adding the actual “red team’s view” to the compilation of multiple, differing viewpoints, this study hopes to contribute to a more fully developed history of the war, and allow all concerned to get closer to “ground truth.” General Lance Smith, the current USJFCOM Commander, and the JCOA team remain committed to this and similar projects as part of an ongoing process of learning and improving through the sharing of “ground truth.” Though this project is an important initial step, we acknowledge the history of OIF is far from complete. Researchers continue to locate, translate, and analyze information that will shed new light on our former adversary’s perspective of the conflict. It is in the interest of getting as much accurate information as possible into the hands of those already studying Operation Iraqi Freedom that we release this book.

Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

"The fall of Baghdad in April 2003 opened one of the most secretive and brutal governments in history to outside scrutiny. For the first time since the end of World War II, American analysts did not have to guess what had happened on the other side of a conflict but could actually read the defeated enemy's documents and interrogate its leading figures. . . This two-year project has changed our understanding of the war from the ground up."--Foreign Affairs 
"There are some intriguing new answers in this study by military experts who had access to many former officials in Saddam's regime, along with their files. . . . The most interesting parts of the report show just how dysfunctional and twisted the regime's internal workings had become. The culture of fear was so complete that Saddam's underlings routinely lied to him about almost everything, including the capabilities of his own military forces."--U.S. News &amp; World Report 
"The report cites captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians had 'sources inside the American Central Command' and that intelligence was passed to Saddam through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad."--Associated Press 
This Pentagon study takes advantage of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to delve deeply into Saddam's decision-making processes. A declassified version of a secret U.S. Joint Forces Command report, the work is based on thousands of captured Iraqi documents and dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi military and political leaders conducted by a small team of professionals from the Joint Center for Operational Analysis to determine what drove the Iraqis to do what they did. Such a full investigation of Saddam's leadership and its effect on the actions of the Iraqi military goes a long way towards revealing the inner workings of that closed regime and the lessons to be learned from that knowledge. The release of the report has prompted news stories around the world and been the source of much debate over the role played by Russian intelligence sources in supplying information to Saddam.

The Iraqi Perspectives Report: Saddam's Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom From the Official U.S. Joint Forces Command Report

Pease, Michael R.

Stout, Mark E.

Lacey, James G.

Naval Inst Pr

Events in this story of the "Mother of All Battles," as Saddam designated the 1991 war, are drawn from primary Iraqi sources, including government documents, video and audiotapes, maps, and photographs captured by U.S. forces in 2003 from the regime's archives and never intended for outsiders' eyes. The book is part of an official U.S. Joint Forces Command research project to examine contemporary warfare from the point of view of the adversary's archives and senior leader interviews. Its purpose is to stimulate thoughtful analyses of currently accepted lessons of the first Gulf War. While not a comprehensive history, the author's balanced Iraqi perspective of events between 1990 and 1991 takes full advantage of his unique access to material. The result is a completely unknown but fully documented view from the other side.

The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein's Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War

Naval_Institute_Press

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