I would like to draw your attention to the Gold Star that I added to the Iraq article in the forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs.

Further, I would observe that the findings of the Iraqi Perspectives Project, on which this article is based, rather strongly vindicate the people who argued (generally unsuccessfully at the time) for more HUMINT worldwide in the wake of 9/11.

Despite widespread and persistent (dogged, even, and eventually desperate) efforts to link Iraq to al Qaeda, apparently it never occurred to the Administration to work on better HUMINT in Iraq. It is hard to believe they made an effort on par with that against al Qaeda; based on post-war interviews of the military leadership and bureaucracy, it seems likely we could have turned enough of them to get a sense of the organization's hollowness. Even one might have been enough, depending on the source.

The Cold War may be history, but the Hall of Mirrors yet persists.

My favorite part of the article is about the flowery language:

Besides outright lying, there were further impediments to the flow of information within the regime. One was the requirement to embellish even the simplest message with praise for Saddam, as evidenced by the minister of defense's memo following a training exercise called Golden Falcon:

In reference to your Excellency's instructions regarding the large exercises at the Public Center, having strong faith in the only God of our hearts, and God's permanent support to the believers, the faithful, the steadfast, and with great love that we have for our great homeland and our Great Leader, our Great Leader has won God's favor and the love of his dear people in the day of the grand homage.

Your enthusiastic soldiers from our courageous armed forces have executed Golden Falcon Exercise number 11. In this exercise we have tested our readiness and confrontation plans against any who attempt to make impure the lands of civilization and the homeland of missions and prophets. This exercise is the widest and most successful in achieving the required results. Soldiers from the III and IV Corps have participated in this exercise.

There is no indication that the two corps actually conducted any significant exercise during this period.

This kind of bureaucratic embellishment extended to every level of military organization. While this type of flowery language is not unknown in the region, it was taken to such extremes in Iraq that it often replaced all substance in reports and orders.