It should be clear to anyone exposed to all relevant facts from this case that American, British and UN (UNSCOM and UNMOVIC) intelligence estimates on Saddam’s WMD programs were seriously flawed (see Chapter 5) – as were dozens of major intelligence reports produced by Germany, France, Russia, and almost every think tank and organization with a mandate to track global WMD proliferation. Everyone overestimated the threat(s) from the Iraqi regime, and no one at the time issued definitive statements on record that came close to what turned out to be the truth. But these serious errors account for only half of the mistakes that were directly responsible for the decisions leading to the 2003 war. The Iraqi regime, not surprisingly, was also plagued by serious intelligence errors and prone to making bad decisions based on dangerous strategic miscalculations. The effects of these mutually reinforcing misperceptions were aptly described by Tenet (2007):

It is impossible to fully appreciate the causes of the Iraq war without acknowledging the role and impact of Saddam’s mistakes. Critics of US and UK decision-making will immediately demand a higher standard for Western intelligence, but it would have been irresponsible for intelligence officials to completely ignore signals coming out of Iraq or to assume Saddam was making a series of dangerous miscalculations and strategic blunders. Clearly, Western intelligence communities should have given serious thought to the possibility that Saddam had nothing substantial to hide, but it was, for obvious reasons, not the best time in American history for any official in Washington to reject the combined intelligence on Saddam’s WMD that had been compiled over the previous decade. This alternative assessment – i.e., that Saddam was foolish enough to fabricate the myth of his regime’s WMD capabilities because of an irrational and largely unsubstantiated fear of an attack from Iran – was not a credible interpretation of his behavior. Never underestimating your opponent’s sanity or intelligence is usually the first rule leaders are cautioned to follow during any crisis. In this context, downplaying the threat from Saddam’s WMD would have been viewed by almost everyone as reckless and irresponsible.