The Iraq Project

Featured Posting

Israeli Attack on Iraq's Osirak 1981: Setback or Impetus for Nuclear Weapons?

Washington, D.C., June 7, 2021 – On June 7, 1981, 40 years ago today, Israel attacked and partially destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research reactor at Tuwaitha, using U.S.…

Jun 7, 2021

Previous Postings

The Iraq War Ten Years After

Mar 19, 2013

Foreign Policy Features CIA Document Released to National Security Archive

Sep 5, 2012

The Iraq War --Part III: Shaping the Debate

Oct 4, 2010

The Iraq War -- Part II: Was There Even a Decision?

Oct 1, 2010

The Iraq War -- Part I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001

Sep 22, 2010

Saddam Hussein Talks to the FBI:

Jul 1, 2009

PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings

Aug 22, 2008

U.S. Military Hoped for Virtually Unlimited Freedom of Action in Iraq

Jun 13, 2008

The Record on Curveball

Nov 5, 2007

See More Postings

About this Project

The National Security Archive’s Iraq Project began in the early 1990s and has worked for more than two decades to secure and curate historically significant documents regarding U.S. relations with Iraq, with a specific emphasis on “Iraqgate” and the 2003 Iraq War. The Iraq Project first published a 10,000-page document collection in 1994 on the “Iraqgate” scandal –the extensive financial, intelligence, and (at minimum, indirect) military support provided to Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush administrations, in full knowledge of Iraq’s repressive policies and widespread and illegal use of chemical weapons. The Iraq Project will publish a second document collection on the 2003 Iraq War in 2017. In addition to these two major document collections, the Iraq project has posted 25 Electronic Briefing Boks to date, which complement 16 separate ones on terrorism.

Blog Posts

US Documents Help Contextualize Iraqi Records on Iranian Nuclear Program

Feb 25, 2014

In Wake of Chevron Spat, Declassified Documents Show Tricky History of US-Iraqi-Kurdish Affairs

Jul 31, 2012

Document Friday: When Iran Bombed Iraq’s Nuclear Reactor

Mar 28, 2012

Document Friday: Joint Chiefs of Staff “History” Brief of the Iraq War Gets it Dead Wrong.

Oct 20, 2010

Document Friday: A Soldier’s Handbook to Iraq– “FOUO [For Official Use Only]

Feb 26, 2010

More >>

Project Publications

Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War
Apr 1, 2004

In the Media

Israel’s 1981 bombing of Iraq nuclear reactor may have fuelled Saddam’s nuclear ambitions

Independent

Jun 8, 2021

A war built on falsehood

The Daily Star

Mar 25, 2018

John Bolton, the ultrahawk rumored to be Trump’s next national security adviser, explained

Vox

Mar 12, 2018

Ahmad Chalabi “The Fabricator”

History News Network

Nov 9, 2015

In foreign policy, the moral high ground is only an occasional destination

McClatchy

Aug 27, 2013

DNSA Document Sets

Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy and the Prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980–1994

The collection brings together a wealth of materials which trace U.S. policy toward Iraq prior to the Persian Gulf War, as well as U.S. government reactions to revelations about the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) scandal and the secret arming of Saddam Hussein's regime. The set also focuses on the economic issues at play in the U.S. relationship with Iraq. Documents are derived from virtually every federal agency involved in U.S.-Iraq policy and the BNL affair.

The collection contains 1,900 documents representing nearly 10,000 pages of rarely-seen documentation from the highest levels of government.

Books

Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War
by John Prados, The New Press, 2014.

In America, the wife of the former ambassador who exposed George Bush’s sixteen-word State of the Union fib about uranium from Niger, is now being harassed by allies of the administration. In Britain, the scientist who blew the whistle on Tony Blair has been driven to suicide.

Project Director

Joyce Battle is Director of Publications and Senior Analyst for the Archive's projects on South Asia and the Middle East. She received her B.A. from the University of Michigan in Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages and Literature, an M.S. in Library Studies from Columbia University, and an M.A. in Near Eastern Regional Studies from Harvard University. She directs the Archive's project on Iraq and edited the Digital National Security Archive publication (DNSA) Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy, and the Prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980-1994. Currently, she is working on a series of DNSA document collections on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.