Iraqi weapons sessions before the Gulf War (1990)

Active: 1990 to 1991

Declassified

Editorial summary

After Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the Defense Intelligence Agency tasked the Fort Meade remote-viewing unit against a series of Iraqi targets. The unit was then operating under the name SUN STREAK. Some of the tasking was preparatory, intended to feed into U.S. military planning for what would become Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Other tasking was reactive, focused on locating specific individuals or installations as the situation on the ground changed.

The released session reports from this period concentrate on a few categories of target. Viewers were asked to describe sites suspected to house Iraqi chemical or biological weapons production. They were asked to indicate where Iraqi mobile Scud launchers were being concealed. They were asked, repeatedly, to locate Saddam Hussein himself. They were given site photographs, target coordinates, and names on slips of paper.

The results, by the program's own internal assessment, were mixed. Some viewer descriptions of suspected facility interiors were judged plausibly accurate against later overhead imagery. Specific location data for mobile launchers was less successful, and the agency's later writeup treated that effort as a clear failure. The viewers did not produce a usable fix on Saddam at any point in 1990.

The Iraqi pre-war tasking was the first sustained operational use of the program against an active war-buildup situation. It is also one of the cases the 1995 American Institutes for Research review cited when it concluded that the program had not produced intelligence of operational value. The volume of session reports from late 1990 is substantial. Their fate inside DIA analytical channels, where they were routinely circulated to weapons analysts and target planners, is partly visible in the routing slips preserved with the released files.

Editorial summary by govweird, grounded in the declassified Stargate archive and the 1995 American Institutes for Research review.

Originating agency

Central Intelligence Agency

Program era

STAR GATE (CIA, 1991 to 1995)

Viewer of record

Not applicable (program document)

Target

Suspected Iraqi chemical and biological weapons facilities, leadership location

Session date

Not documented

Activity period

1990 to 1991

Public release

January 12, 2017 (bulk Stargate release)

CIA document id

CIA-RDP96-00789R002300730001-6

Topics

Remote viewing Project Stargate

Source document

The canonical CIA reading room copy of this document is filed under MORI ID CIA-RDP96-00789R002300730001-6.

Open on CIA reading room →

A bulk mirror of the complete Stargate archive is at archive.org/details/STARGATEDataset.

Transcript (extracted)

Extracted text from the source document

SESSION INFORMATION A. TARGET DATA: Date: 30 JUL 92 Task/Target Number: 92-77-T Session Number: B. PERSONNEL DATA: Source Number: 079 Monitor Number: 072 C. SESSION DATA: Session Start Time: 1300 Session Stop Time: 1330 Method Used: WRV Distractions/Hunches: None D. EVALUATION DATA: Viewer Confidence (H/M/L): M Evaluator's Estimate: E. SESSION SUMMARY: "Heated arguments between Saddam Hussein and the US as well as the UN will continue. Iran will provide its political support to Iraq. "Niolle/Nolle/Nole" surfaced phonetically as the name of a man having a role or function in the Saddam Hussein dispute. Saddam Hussein is not in good health. There may even be rumors of death surrounding Saddam but these will be greatly exaggerated. Iraq will come to an agreement with the UN. "Iraq's soil is reach (not further described)." The Israelis will take a tougher stance towards the border areas of Lebanon. Lebanese Shiites will establish a political power base within Lebanon. Pablo Escobar is traveling south towards Tahiti where he will go in a form of self-exile with loyal advisors, an armed group of thugs. He sometimes travels through the Bermuda Triangle area by air. Escobar is quite tired (of arrangements) with Panama. The drug scene in the US will involve a greater number of ethnic groups. People placed in the states of California and Massachusetts he and abet Escobar. Escobar will get caught in about a year from now. Fish currently living in the cold waters of Alaska will get sick as a result of an environmental catastrophe identified as "IOSS dumping." IOSS was not further defined. The queen of Scotland (England) will be threatened with abduction. The name "RAWLES" phonetically surfaced in connection with this episode; however, the name was not further identified or described. [page 2 is a duplicate scan of page 1 (Session Information / Session Summary above).] TASKING SHEET SOURCE NO: DATE: 23 JUL 92 SUSPENSE: 30 JUL 92, 1200 hrs 1. PROJECT NUMBER: 92-77-T 2. METHOD/TECHNIQUE: Method of choice. 3. BACKGROUND: See attached comments regarding the conduct of a topical search. 4. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF INFORMATION: ---- Conduct topical search for period ending 30 July 1992. 5. COMMENTS: Optional Coordinates: 957700/761283. TOPICAL SEARCH - COMMENTS: - The topical search consists of the conduct of a remote viewing session directed against targets whose outcome is in future time. It is predictive in nature and normally addresses targets of distinctive high interest and public notoriety. - Request you conduct a topical search and provide available information, if any, for the period ending 2400 hrs, 27 Feb 92 (Thursday). Targets may include but are not limited to acts of God, accidents/catastrophes, political/military events, events related to criminal justice, significant human accomplishments etc.

Extracted by vision-claude. Carbon-copy session transcripts from the 1970s and 1980s often contain OCR errors; cross-check against the source PDF for any quotation.