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Author Archives: Charles Duelfer
The Last Iraqi WMD person released
One of the best known WMD technocrats to UN weapons inspectors, Mahmud Faraj Bilal Al Samarrai, was among 15 Iraqis released from prison a few days ago. A Justice Department official was quoted as saying that they were released by … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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Justice–Long Delayed In Iraq
The former oil minister of Iraq during the Saddam Regime, Amer Mohammed Rasheed al-Obeidi has just been released from prison after nine years. Amer Mohammed Rasheed turned himself in to US forces in late April 2003. He had been included … Continue reading
Posted in Intelligence, Iraq
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Quiet on the Iran Front? Not for long…
After a lot of sound and fury in the press about military options concerning the Iran nuclear program (largely around the visit to Washington by Netanyahu for the annual AIPAC meeting and discussion with President Obama)…things have gone rather quiet. … Continue reading
Obama and Netanyahu
In the speech President Obama gave to AIPAC on 4 March, he made a few obvious points. First and foremost, he seemed to be rather defensively arguing that no President was more supportive of Israel than he. Clearly one major … Continue reading
Posted in Iran
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Under Pressure–IAEA, Iran and the Rest of the World
IAEA Inspectors will be in a difficult position as the international community will inevitably look to them for “truth” about Iran. This is similar to Iraq case, but the comparisons with Iraq are otherwise limited. The data on the Iran … Continue reading
Posted in Iran, Iraq
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Iran Nuclear Intel Dwarfs the Data on Iraq
Comparisons between the intelligence assessments of nuclear weapons activities on the part of Saddam’s Iraq and today’s Iran are misleading. Certainly the pre-war intelligence assessments concerning Saddam’s nuclear weapons programs were wildly wrong. However, they were produced from astonishingly small … Continue reading
Posted in Iran
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The Next Year in Iraq — More Chaos
The bombings in Iraq this week point to two clear aspects of the situation in Iraq. One, the government can not provide security. Second, there are powerful forces who are not committed to the current government. These two points are … Continue reading
Posted in Iraq
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Closing UK Embassy in Tehran–There is a cost…
Closing the respective embassies in Tehran and London may have been inevitable for political reasons, but there is a cost to this action. Two governments that already have a poor understanding of one another will now have even less contact … Continue reading
Intelligence Funding Trends
Below are two charts on intelligence funding I did for an article in National Interest . These show funding trends (in constant 2012 dollars) for the National Intelligence Programs budget (NIP) and the NIP as a percent of overall DOD … Continue reading
Posted in Intelligence
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The Real Change in Iraq
President Obama is doing the equivalent of the “Moonwalk” out of Iraq. There have been negotiations concerning the potential retention of US forces, but without success. It is not clear either side would welcome success. Maliki has no use for … Continue reading