Round Table: February Preliminary analysis of the Saddam Hussein project

Who is Saddam Hussein?

Saddam Hussein O Having a whole generation of Iraqi and Americans grow up without understanding each other (can have) negative implications and could lead to mix-ups (Saddam Hussein,1983) O (Saddam borrowed the quotation from Rumsfeld in a statement delivered during his discussion with the Iraqi minister 1983)

Who is Saddam Hussein? O Time Line: O 1980-attacked Hussein O 1988-War with Iran ends O 1990-War with Kuwait O 2003-Iran attacked by the US O 2006-Hussein is executed

Context of data collection O ‘Why do you think we trusted the Prophets? It is because they recorded every incident’ O (Saddam Hussein, circa 1991) O Important meetings with army generals recorded. O Meetings with political leaders O Meetings with foreign dignitaries

Types of data collected O Extensive collection of ‘state records’ O Videos

History of such type of data collection O Records collected at the end of World War 11 O Records were collected at the end of the Cold War after the collapse of the Communist Regimes O Hours of audio tape O Limited number of videos

Open sources O A total of eleven thousand records were lodged on the internet O In 2006 some of the tapes removed when it was reported that some of the files on the internet contained information on the formation of nuclear weapons !

Ethics O Advantages: Eavesdropping O Ability to follow the same individual over time on the same topic e.g. Saddam analyzing recordings about military intelligence over a long period of let's say a decade

Comparison with other dictators O ‘Historic, Secret Recording of Hitler’s 1942 visit to Finland Aired on Radio’ (Matti Huuhtanen) O Unlike Saddam’s recordings, Hitler was unaware of the eleven minute conversation.

Vernacular Speech O Not obtainable by other means’ unguarded speech O ‘…being almost unfiltered.. give eavesdroppers the experience of high level decision probable not obtainable by other means’ O Letters, diaries, and memoirs

Examples of topics covered O Articles by Islamic Sheiks and preachers on the legality of martyrdom operations such as suicide bombings in Islamic jurisprudence O 5-Nov-91 Dossier regarding the role of the first Iraqi Force in the 1991 Gulf War, including planning, preparation, and management of the war.

Topics O 9-Jan-01 to 31-March-01 Minutes of a meeting between 1 st Military Intelligence Division discussing Saddam’s previous speeches and meetings O July-02 to Octobers-02 Reports of daily events within the Iraqi Army Corps and schedules showing detailed information regarding the damage to Tammuz and Ali Air Bases

Topics O Study and correspondence regarding expected U.S attack on Iraq, including best practices for fighting United State O 22 October-00 Correspondence within Iraqi Intelligence Service regarding scientific ideas to produce viruses and germs to pollute the water tanks for the United States camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabs

Theoretical Framework O Systemic Functional Analysis O (Transitivity) O Critical Discourse Analysis

Systemic Functional Linguistics O Systemic Functional Linguistics O Field, Tenor and Mode O (Halliday,1994;Matthiesen 1995;Martin,1992) O Content=topic=what=field=ideational=war, ‘people who can collect information’ O Tenor=interpersonal relations=relationships with other soldiers=enemy=relationship=martyrs

INCLUDE TEXT O Translations O Transcriptions O Identifying the voices of participants (in each instance) O Summation of merits O Ecological approach to linguistics and history O ‘ How components interact to become systems whose nature can’t be defined merely by calculating the sum of the part’ (John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How historians Map the Past’. New York: Oxford University Press (2004).

International Law O State records, moveable property O (International Law) O The US returned the state records to Germany but kept some which were handed to scholars O Will the ‘state records’ be returned ! The issue here is that they are regarded as ‘state records’ and not ‘data’

Limitations of the data O Conversations were short versions of longer conversation O In his interrogation of his speech with Brian Piro. O Tape is the official document O Transcripts are an interpretation of that document O Transcriptions may not capture nuances of meaning

Transcriptions O Transcriptions are ‘treacherous’ and ‘inevitable (David Greenberg 2003).