Round Table: February 10.012

Preliminary analysis of the Saddam Hussein project

Who is Saddam Hussein?

Saddam HusseinO 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 endsO 1990-War with KuwaitO 2003-Iran attacked by the USO 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 leadersO Meetings with foreign dignitaries

Types of data collectedO 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 sourcesO A total of eleven thousand records

were lodged on the internetO 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 !

EthicsO Advantages: EavesdroppingO 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 SpeechO Not obtainable by other means’

unguarded speechO ‘…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.

TopicsO 9-Jan-01 to 31-March-01 Minutes of a

meeting between 1st 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

TopicsO 2001-2002 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 FrameworkO Systemic Functional AnalysisO (Transitivity)O Critical Discourse Analysis

Systemic Functional Linguistics

O Systemic Functional LinguisticsO 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 TEXTO TranslationsO TranscriptionsO Identifying the voices of participants (in each

instance)O Summation of meritsO Ecological approach to linguistics and historyO ‘ 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 LawO State records, moveable propertyO (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 dataO Conversations were short versions

of longer conversationO In his interrogation of his speech

with Brian Piro.O Tape is the official documentO Transcripts are an interpretation of

that documentO Transcriptions may not capture

nuances of meaning

TranscriptionsO Transcriptions are ‘treacherous’ and

‘inevitable (David Greenberg 2003).