WASHINGTON — CIA Director Robert M. Gates has provided a new, detailed account of one of the most historically significant and controversial actions of the Bush Administration: the decision to leave Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the Persian Gulf War.
In an interview with The Times this week as he prepares to leave office, Gates--deputy national security adviser at the White House before and during the war against Iraq--acknowledged that Administration officials talked extensively about the possibility of making the capture of Hussein one of America's war aims.
In the end, Gates said, Administration officials rejected the idea, largely because they feared that the Iraqi leader would go into hiding, as Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega had done during the 1989 U.S. military intervention in Panama, and that U.S. troops would be unable to find him.
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