Former CIA officer and interrogator John Nixon revealed new details on Saturday (August 1, 2026) regarding the tracking and interrogation of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, asserting that the United States misjudged the nature of his regime and relied on inaccurate intelligence in its decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
In an interview monitored by the Iraq Times Agency, Nixon stated that "American intelligence agencies exaggerated the portrayal of Saddam Hussein as personally running all aspects of the state," explaining that "during the final years of his rule, he was less involved in managing day-to-day affairs, relying more on a number of his aides."
He emphasized that "Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction at the start of the American invasion," arguing that "the decision to go to war was based on flawed intelligence assessments, in addition to a political desire to topple the regime, rather than on conclusive evidence."
He added that "the administration of former US President George W. Bush adopted inaccurate information regarding Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and the existence of links between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda." He noted that "the White House focused on the information that supported the decision to go to war, while ignoring intelligence assessments that contradicted that narrative."
Former CIA officer: Saddam Hussein did not control every detail of the state as we believed.
