The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: A Look at Intelligence, 20 Years Later

March 15, 2023·53 min·3 clips

Saddam Hussein told CIA interrogators during captivity that he had secretly disarmed but hid it from Iran—believing the CIA was good enough to see through his own deception.

The anniversary sets the frame. Morrell treats Iraq as one conflict where CIA got some things badly wrong and still showed real analytic discipline in places. That tension runs through the episode. He says five CIA officers, plus his own front-row view, will revisit the agency's role and the war's consequences. The clip stays with terrorism analysis. When an Iraqi intelligence officer met with a militant group, analysts read it as surveillance rather than cooperation. Small distinction, big stakes. They believed Iraq wanted to watch Zarqawi and Ansar al-Islam, not help attacks against Iraq or the West. Geography mattered too. The guest says Zarqawi's followers were in northern Iraq, outside Saddam's reach because of United Nations no-fly and no-drive zones. Baghdad was messier. Zarqawi and about ten fellow terrorists spent months there, and a foreign service reportedly told Iraqi intelligence where they were. Even then, analysts would not jump past the evidence. They saw possible Iraqi awareness, but no reporting that Iraqi leaders directed, controlled, or authorized Zarqawi's actions. Morrell says later evidence backed that call: no Iraqi support for Zarqawi's group. CIA was right on that part of the terrorism question. The fallout went another way. After the invasion and the collapse of a functioning Iraqi government, Zarqawi built Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which killed many US servicemen. After the United States withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, that line eventually became ISIS, and Morrell says the problem is still with us.

As heard by us

A sober CIA-side reassessment of Iraq intelligence, strongest on the contested Zarqawi and Iraq-Al-Qaeda question.

Michael Morrell uses the 20-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq for a measured reassessment of CIA performance, emphasizing a mixed record rather than a simple institutional defense.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a sober reckoning with Iraq and the CIA's role?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Intelligence Matters