Long Strange Journey

Link to the files I sought as part of my original FOIA request to CIA in 1994: NPIC cables

Published by the CIA's Office of Near East and South Asia (NESA) in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), this report asserted--in contravention of all available evidence--that Saddam had a first deployed, then withdrawn, chemical weapons from the Kuwait Theater of Operations (KTO) during the fall of 1990. The authors of the report refused to seriously examine evidence presented by the author that contradicted the official CIA estimate.

Less than two years after the authors of this piece declared that it was unlikely Iraqi chemical weapons would be a decisive factor in the outcome of the war, Iraqi CW use--specifically the use of nerve agents--in their 1988 offensives caused Khomeini to sue for peace.

The largely declassified memo from CIA Office of Personnel Security to then Deputy Director of Intelligence Douglas McEachin regarding his request that I be investigated for attempting to expose the CIA's role in the burgeoning Gulf War Syndrome scandal.

A partially declassified CIA field report on a reported Iraqi chemical weapons handling accident in Kuwait in February 1991.

Another CIA field report on the possible movement of Iraqi chemical weapons-related materials, January 1991.

A slightly broader assessment of Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare capabilities prior to hostilities.

A somewhat more prescient assessment than the 1986 version.

A still-heavily redacted CIA field report from April 1991 in which an unidentified Iraqi army source mentions that some Iraqi units in Kuwait did have chemical weapons at their disposal after the occupation of the country.