Mark E. Stout

Saddam's Perceptions and Misperceptions: The Case of ‘Desert Storm’

Abstract A large collection of captured documents from the very highest levels of the Iraqi government offers a chance to gain insight into why Saddam Hussein was unwilling and unable to alter his strategy on the eve of the 2003 war that toppled his regime. This paper explores some of the perceptions and misperceptions that Saddam Hussein took away from the 1991 Gulf War and shows how they affected his decisionmaking on the eve of the war in 2003. It concludes with some thoughts on the policy implications of these findings.

New Sources for the Study of Iraqi Intelligence during the Saddam Era

Abstract The US Department of Defense (DOD) has made available to scholars a significant collection of documents captured from the files of the Saddam-era Iraqi intelligence services. DOD is also studying ways in which further such documents can be released. These documents paint a picture in many ways reminiscent of the intelligence services of the totalitarian Soviet Union. These and forthcoming documents may enable important research on Iraq and on the role of intelligence services in totalitarian states. One newly available document gives the Iraqi General Military Intelligence Directorates assessment of Iran on the eve of the Iran–Iraq War.

Al Qaida's Views of Authoritarian Intelligence Services in the Middle East

Abstract Al Qaida and its jihadist allies shape their plans and operations substantially in response to threats they face from authoritarian intelligence services of the Middle East. While most jihadists initially believed that victory over their ‘near enemies’– so-called ‘apostate’ regimes – should be their top priority, the ruthlessly effective security apparatuses of their home countries were significant factors in the transition to ‘global jihadism’, which emphasized the fight against the ‘far enemy’: the United States. This article presents al Qaidas views of the regions domestic intelligence services by examining captured documents and open source materials.

Intelligence is as intelligence does

Abstract Anglo-American scholars have sought to define ‘intelligence’ by positing that it helps leaders acquire and control information against competitors. Most or all agree that intelligence entails collection, analysis, and counterintelligence, and many add covert action as well. These core functions of intelligence, however, neglect the variety of activities that intelligence services have also engaged in, such as conducting diplomacy, guarding borders, running prisons, operating military units, designing atomic bombs, and managing professional soccer teams. Such peripheral functions can vary across time and place, while the core functions endure but can gradually grow in number over time. Simultaneously, non-intelligence agencies encroach on the turf of intelligence agencies. Thus, ‘intelligence’ is what intelligence agencies do. We close by wondering how these insights can generate testable hypotheses to illuminate patterns in intelligence functions and organizations over time and across a range of regimes.

‘Every Hungarian of any value to intelligence’: Tibor Eckhardt, John Grombach, and the Pond

Abstract Tibor Eckhardt, a Hungarian émigré, was a key player in American intelligence operations regarding Hungary during World War II and the early Cold War. He worked closely with a secretive American intelligence organization headed by John Grombach, an American intelligence officer who was a vehement opponent of the CIA. Though Eckhardt and Grombach shared concerns about the CIA, they were also forced to cooperate with it. Eckhardt’s endeavors and those of the many Hungarians whose intelligence work he coordinated were ultimately futile. Hence, they were representative of the efforts of freedom-loving Hungarians to liberate their country during the Cold War.

Downing, Taylor M. Secret Warriors: The Scientists, Spies, and Code Breakers of World War I

cial incentives to work in the Far North, or when the state depended on families to realize its evacuation plans in the Great Patriotic War. In other cases, migrants thwarted state intentions: the authors “found ample evidence of people’s resourcefulness in disembarking at the ‘wrong’ station” (392). For migration specialists, the authors contextualize Russian migration in global migration trends. For example, they argue that Russia is an excellent case study in the limits of what an ambitious state can achieve by controlling population movement. They point to the centrality of urbanization in twentieth-century Russian social change and to its causes in a wide variety of different migration types. They also emphasize the similarities between international and internal migration. Overall, more connections could have been made with the general scholarship. Perhaps a conscious decision was taken not to overload the book with social science concepts and cross-country comparisons, yet it seems a shame that there is little or no reference to the wider literature on topics such as internal migration, household decision-making, return migration, or social remittances. Although rich and detailed on Russia, the book could nonetheless have benefited from referencing additional sources—for example, Svetlana Stephenson’s excellent book Crossing the Line, on homelessness in Russia (Ashgate, 2006); Steven Solnick’s study of the graduate job placement system in Stealing the State (Harvard University Press, 1999); and various articles in Europe-Asia Studies such as those by Moran, Pallot, and Round on the effects of out-migration on the post-Soviet North or Wegren’s research on rural Russia. It is also a pity that the authors did not draw on the Demoscope Weekly website, run by the Institute of Demography at the Moscow Higher School of Economics. However, these are small criticisms of a generally excellent, highly informative, thought-provoking, and exceptionally readable volume.

Ian Johnson, A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West

Black Tom ammunition dump. Doenecke devotes little attention to this remarkable campaign and it seems clear that it figured only minimally in the deliberations of Wilson, the Administration, and Congress. The book might have benefited from a brief discussion as to why. Nothing Less Than War also makes clear the ignorance of the United States Government about the world around it. For instance, Wilson had little understanding of what had caused the war. In addition, though we tend to think of the United States as having been protected by the vast oceans to its east and west – and indeed itwas – it is interesting to see in this book the extent to which the Atlantic seemed very narrow to the US Government at the time. Members of Congress, Colonel House, and even the War Department at various times expressed delusional concerns that Germany might invade the United States. Doenecke approvingly notes the argument of David S. Patterson that the lack of understanding of the world can be attributed in part to the lack of an intelligence service which was not Wilson’s fault. This is scarcely persuasive. Wilson could have created an intelligence service. He simply did not want to. This book is unusual in that at numerous points it includes the views of other historians on the importance of various events and decisions. These alternate views are sometimes interesting in themselves, but they provide little sense of broad scholarly debates about the book’s overall subject. The result is a somewhat disjointed narrative. That said, he book provides a useful account of the numerous crises and dilemmas that the Wilson Administration faced from 1914–17 and good summaries of the views of American elites.

Note to Readers

Paper 26 no show Scintigraphic imaging of breast cancer with TcHMPAO Medvedeva AA, Scopinaro F, Srbovan D, Obradovich V, Slonimskaya EM, Petrovich N, Velichko SA, Yu. Ussov W Nuclear Medicine Department, Institute of Oncology, Tomsk Medical Research Centre, Tomsk, Russia Paper 66 no show Normal left ventricular ejection fractions from stress and redistribution thallium-201 gated myocardial perfusion SPECT Jagadeesan B, Hadi M, Thomas EJ, Karthikeyan G, Kumar R, Malhatra A, Nuclear Medicine Department, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, India