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Capturing Saddam Hussein: A Network Analysis

When American force started took control over Iraq in March 2003, the head of Ba’athist regime, Saddam Hussein avoided capture. Unable to trace him, the coalition force designed a deck with 55 significant figures drawn. Saddam Hussein was indeed the Ace of Spades, marking his importance in the Iraq invasion. Other members in the card were the key officials of the former government, who were in close relationship with Hussein. This strategy worked as almost half of the men on the cards were captured. However, Hussein himself remained uncaptured.

U.S force had hope that the capture of high-rank officials would give clue about Hussein’s whereabouts. However, Chris Wilson wrote in Slate, “The deck of cards didn’t help in the hunt of Saddam, very simply, because the cards had many of the wrong people on them.” As they realized the insignificance of relying on traditional lines of power, they instead decided to employ a new tool: a social network analysis

Brian Reed, who was involved in reconstructing the core network of Hussein, focused more on family trees and gossips rather than on the government documents. Revealing the networks that were not overtly publicized was his main job. Overall, Saddam had very dense and small network, only having close relationships with his family and tribal associations. “[O]f the 214 actors in the total network, there are only 23 actors with direct ties to Saddam Hussein,” Reed wrote.

Incorporating techniques in social network analysis, the army intelligence analysts eventually found a picture of Hussein’s family. This picture, in fact, played a critical role in finding a key individual “fat man” who revealed the spider hold that hid the dictator.

 

Reference:

http://nationalsecurityzone.org/war2-0/case-studies/capture-of-saddam-hussein/

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/searching_for_saddam/2010/02/searching_for_saddam_5.html

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