According to a fragment of the book Mission: CIA in the 21st Century by Tim Weiner (translated by Katarzyna Bażyńska‑Chojnacka and Piotr Chojnacki, published by REBIS, Poznań, 2026), the Central Intelligence Agency had carried out a propaganda campaign aimed at convincing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that members of his inner circle were conspiring against him. The alleged objective of the campaign was to prompt Hussein to eliminate his own loyalists, thereby creating a pretext for a military invasion. The book further claims that the CIA had been developing a plan to remove Saddam from power for two years prior to the 2003 invasion. On 4 August 2001, a high‑ranking CIA officer named Luis Rueda is said to have joined the effort to devise a detailed covert operation to overthrow Hussein. In the lead‑up to the invasion, U.S. soldiers reportedly prepared to demolish Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad on 9 April 2003, a symbolic act that was part of the broader campaign to delegitimize the Iraqi regime. The article is based on the cited book fragment; additional details remain unpublished.
Article source: Rzeczpospolita | Image credit: Rzeczpospolita