Saddam’s police state was pretty efficient at keeping foreign nationals–especially known or suspected foreign intelligence operatives–from getting much real information on the Iraqi military.  One part of the U.S. intelligence collection effort on Iraq involved the members of the U. S. Defense Attache Office (USDAO) in Baghdad. Their movements were generally tightly controlled by the Iraqi authorities, but occassionally DAO personnel were able to get some mildly interesting tidbits and insights on Saddam’s military machine, political intentions.

The litigation I conducted in the 1990’s produced thousands of pages of material, photographs, and other interesting items produced by the USDAO during the 1980’s right up through and immediately after Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Starting today, I’m beginning the process of scanning and posting of documents and photographs that give a flavor of the things DAO personnel did and reported back to DIA and the wider intelligence community. Let me know what you think of the DAO Baghdad Collection.