ABSTRACT
Iraq’s concealment efforts can be divided into stages, each with its own characteristics. It is clear that most of the questions concerning Iraq’s weapons program left unanswered after 1995, questions used for the justification of the 2003 invasion, have turned out to have been mere accounting problems, a late consequence of decisions taken by the Iraqi regime in 1991. One reason why this has been so hard to understand and believe in the West is our perception of totalitarian regimes in general, and of Iraq in particular, as highly organized machines with a perfect logic, controlling every aspect of the organization of the state and the lives of its citizens. Those who live in non-authoritarian environments find it hard to understand how individuals who live in a totalitarian system can succeed in creating a certain amount of space around themselves in which they sometimes act in non-accordance with the system’s requirements.
