Eyes on Saddam

Jeffrey Richelson

"From the fall of 2002 through April 2003, the White House, Defense Department, and State Department released over seventy images, most obtained by satellite, of portions of Iraq. One objective, in the time before the beginning of military operations, was to provide evidence to support U.S. claims about the nature of Saddam Hussein's regime as well as claims about Iraq's failure to comply with U.N. resolutions concerning its weapons of mass destruction programs. Once military operations began, Defense Department and Central Command briefings made extensive use of overhead, including satellite, imagery to provide pre- and post-attack views of targets attacked by coalition air forces."