United States Department of State
Washington DC 20520

MEMORANDUM FOR : James Baker, Secretary of State
FROM : Political Intelligence and Analysis Group
SUBJECT : Assassination of Saddam Hussein
DATE : 5 February 1991
CLASSIFICATION : Eyes only

It will certainly not have escaped your attention that since the inception of hostilities between the Coalition Air Forces flying out of Saudi Arabia and neighboring states, and the Republic of Iraq, at least two and possibly more attempts have been made to achieve the demise of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

All such attempts have been by aerial bombardment and exclusively by the United States. This group therefore considers it urgent to spell out the likely consequences of a successful attempt to assassinate Mr Hussein.

The ideal outcome would, of course, be for any successor regime to the present Ba'ath Party dictatorship, set up under the auspices of the victorious Coalition forces, to take the form of a humane and democratic government.

We believe such a hope to be illusory. In the first place, Iraq is not, nor ever was, a united country. It is barely a generation away from being a patchwork quilt of rival and often warring tribes. It contains in almost equal parts two potentially hostile sects of Islam, the Sunni and Shia faiths, plus three Christian minorities. To these one should add the Kurdish nation in the north, vigorously pursuing its search for separate independence.

In second place, there has never been a shred of democratic experience in Iraq, which has passed from Turkish to Hashemite to Ba'ath Party rule without the benefit of an intervening interlude of democracy as we understand it.

In the event therefore of the sudden end of the present dictatorship by assassination, there are only two realistic scenarios. The first would be an attempt to impose from outside a consensus government embracing all the principal factions along the lines of a broadly based coalition. In the view of this group, such a structure would survive in power for an extremely limited period.

Traditional and age old rivalries would need little time literally to pull it apart. The Kurds would certainly use the opportunity, so long denied, to opt for secession and the establishment of their own republic in the north. A weak central government in Baghdad based upon agreement by consensus would be impotent to prevent such a move. The Turkish reaction would be predictable and furious, since their own Kurdish minority along the border areas would lose no time in joining their fellow Kurds across the border in a much invigorated resistance to Turkish rule.

To the south east, the Shia majority around Basra and the Shatt al Arab would certainly find good reason to make overtures to Tehran. Iran would be sorely tempted to avenge the slaughter of its young people in the recent Iran Iraq war by entertaining those overtures in the hope of annexing south eastern Iraq in the face of the helplessness of Baghdad. The pro Western Gulf States and Saudi Arabia would be precipitated into something approaching panic at the thought of Iran reaching to the very border of Kuwait.

Further north, the Arabs of Iranian Arabistan would find common cause with their fellow Arabs across the border in Iraq, a move which would be vigorously repressed by the Ayatollahs in Tehran. In the rump of Iraq we would almost certainly see the outbreak of inter tribal fighting to settle old scores and establish supremacy over what was left.

We have all observed with distress the civil war now raging between Serbs and Croats in the former Yugoslavia. So far this fighting has not yet spread to Bosnia, where a third component force in the form of the Bosnian Muslims awaits. When the fighting enters Bosnia, as one day it will, the slaughter will be even more appalling and even more intractable.

Nonetheless, this group believes that the misery of Yugoslavia will pale into insignificance compared to the scenario now painted for an Iraq in full disintegration. In such a case, one can look forward to a major civil war in the rump of the Iraqi heartland, four border wars and the complete destabilization of the Gulf. The refugee problem alone would amount to millions.

The only other viable scenario is for Saddam Hussein to be succeeded by another general or senior member of the Ba'ath hierarchy. But as all those in the present hierarchy are as blood-stained as their leader, it is hard to see what benefits would accrue from the replacement of one monster by another and possibly much cleverer despot.

The ideal, though admittedly not perfect, solution must therefore be the retention of the status quo in Iraq, except that all weapons of mass destruction will have been destroyed and the conventional power so degraded as not to present a threat to any neighboring state for a minimum of a decade.

It could well be argued that the continuing human rights abuses of the present Iraqi regime, if it is allowed to survive, will prove most distressing. Beyond any doubt. Yet the West has been required to witness terrible scenes in China, Russia, Vietnam, Tibet, East Timor, Cambodia and many other parts of the world. It is simply not possible for the US to impose humanity on a world wide scale unless it is prepared to enter into permanent global war.

The least catastrophic outcome of the present war in the Gulf and the eventual invasion of Iraq is therefore the survival in power of Saddam Hussein as sole master of a unified Iraq, albeit militarily emasculated as regards foreign aggression.

For all the stated reasons, this group urges an end to all efforts to assassinate Saddam Hussein or to march to Baghdad and occupy Iraq.

Respectfully submitted
PIAG