AFTER SADDAM: COULD REVENGE BECOME MASS MURDER?

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06794314
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: July 31, 2019
• Case Number: F-2018-02409

Director of Central Intelligence
Approved for Release: 2019/07/30 C06794314
1-e'RE.TZ
DCI Red Cell
A Red Cell Report Number 110
In response to the events of
II September, the Director
of Central Intelligence
conunissioned CIA's Deputy
Director for Intelligence to
create a "red cell" that
would think unconventionally
about the full range of
relevant analytic issues. The
DCI Red Cell is thus charged
with taking a pronounced
"out-of-the-box" approach
and will periodically produce
Memoranda and reports
intended to provoke thought
rather than to provide
authoritative assessment.
Please direct questions or
comments to the DCI Red
� Cell as
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28 March
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7.
After Saddam: Could Revenge Become Mass Murder?
The destruction of Saddam's Ba'thist regime could see an unleashing of
and religious emotions, possibly reaching the level that produced mass muraer
in Rwanda and Burundi. Media reports of revenge-based ethnic or sectarian
atrocities would eclipse US success in ousting Saddam. Because coalition forces
will be physically unable to head off every threatened instance of atrocity,
repeated public warnings to opposition leaders and the Iraqi populace may be
needed�even as combat goes on�to help contain the risk of large-scale
revenge killings. Suggesting a preventive UN role might embarrass France and
Russia into desisting from obstructing post-Saddam planning. (b)(3)
The DCI Red Cell
/speculates on the risk that ethnic and religious clashes could
escalate into mass killings. (b)(1) (b)(1) (b)(3)
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Hour of Defeat, Hour of Revenge
As Saddam's instruments of coercion collapse under coalition blows,
Shia tribes in the south and Kurds in the north are likely to extract retribution against Bath
party members and security forces.,
IThe circumstances in which Basra falls might be the first test of coalition ability to
prevent large-scale revenge killings. (b)(3)
The tribal and religious emotions that will be released as Saddam's regime falls strike us as
uncomfortably similar to those behind ethnic clashes that escalated into genocide in
Rwanda and Burundi in 1994. Although the historical animosity between Sunni and Shia
pales in comparison to the blood feuds of the Hutu and Tutsi, years of repression,
violence, and murders by Saddam's regime are spark and tinder for an inevi(b)(1)
conflagration. (b)(3)
� In Rwanda and Burundi, the key issues were power sharing in the government,
property rights, and extremist views on the hereditary rights of each clan. Similar
issues are likely to emerge in post-Saddam Iraq.
� Other factors that contributed to the Rwanda-Burundi genocides were the availability
of weapons, previous human-rights violations, racist propaganda, and militia
complicity in massacres. All these factors also exist in Iraq. (b)(3)
The Sunni-dominated militia have suppressed the Shia and Kurds by dislocation,
imprisonment, and execution, all of which are shaded with communal overtones. Although
the Shia have access to weapons, the Sunni have better training and superior weaponry.
The Kurds, with US help, have been able to hold their own against the Republican Guard.
� As the Ba'thist hold in the south collapses and civil war possibly breaks out in
Baghdad, the Sunnis could be split over maintaining loyalty to Saddam. A Sunni split
-STUN:4E1/
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could mirror the split between Hutu extremists and moderates that helped open the
way to mass killings in Central Africa.
.� In the north, the possibility of killings mounting to wholesale ethnic cleansing could
occur when Kurds return to Kirkuk to reclaim homes and property lost in Saddam's
Arabization program. More than a million Kurds have been displaced from their homes
in Kirkuk and the surrounding regions.
�Turks and Turkomans could help perpetrate mass slaughter in the north if Turkish
forces move aggressively to revent formation of an independent Kurdish state.
Invaders As Peacekeepers
The disintegration of the regime before US and coalition forces are in place in Baghdad and
other sensitive locations could provide the stimulus for ethnic purges. Such violent anarchy
might put isolated coalition units in the precarious position faced by US forces when
surrounded by hostile mobs in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
� Coalition forces already contending with the Iraqi military could confront Shia and
Sunni dvilians engaged in a blood feud. An all too plausible scenario might find
coalition units in a firefight with Iraqi forces as a simultaneous riot breaks out between
ethic and religious groups�with all four contending for the same ground.
Several steps by coalition forces might limit the danger that localized and individual acts of
revenge against Saddam's men will get out of control.
Leaflet Campaign. Messages and instructions might be conveyed and followed that would
limit participation in ethic barbarities. Iraqis are indeed reading,
distributing, and following the instructions provided in coalition leaflet drops. Casualties
during recent bombing runs were significantly reduced when Iraqis stayed away from work
during the designated time and targets were successfully destroyed.
Confiscating Weapons. Removal of weapons from the general Iraqi populace and militia
and then forming an ethnically diverse Iraqi security force could be crucial steps in limiting
the opportunities for mass killings. To this end, locating caches of regular arms and
chemical-biological weapons and preventing weapons disbursements to ethnic groups may
be as much a priority as keeping such caches from criminals or terrorists.
Establishing Legal Forums. Establishing an interim judicial system with the three major
ethnic groups equally represented could reduce ethnic tensions and offer reassurance that
justice will be served through law, not vengeance.
Coalition and International Presence. Having US or UK forces occupy regions where
ethnic or religious factions could square off would have an ameliorating affect on tensions
and reduce the likelihood of killings on a large scale. Asking for an expeditious UN
contribution to policing especially dangerous areas might lessen the risk that coalition forces
will get caught in an ethnic crossfire�and could force France and Russia to "put up or shut
up" on their supposed interest in sparing the Iraqi people from mayhem.
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Approved for Release: 2019/07/30 C06794314