Saddam Hussein´s regime for several decades engaged in systematic deception with the objective to conceal its buildup of a WMD capability and decieve the international community about its strategic intentions. All deception activities were coordinated by a special organisation and in accordance with an overall deception plan. The plan included political,diplomatic,commersial,technical information-related and economic measures to make the world believe in Iraq´s peaceful intentions, to bluff and to create time for furthering its WMD efforts by faking policies and violating treaties. From the beginning of the 1970s and up till 1991 Iraq succeed in concealing its true WMD capacity with the result that the international community underestimated it. From around the mid-1990s Saddam, pressured by internal sanctions, changed the national strategic objective from developing a WMD capacity to getting rid of the sanctions. During this period the Iraqi deception exaggerated the country´s WMD capacity with the aim of deterring the archrival Iran. The result was that the international community overestimated the Iraqi WMD capacity. But, the equation of cooperating with the UN to get the sanctions lifted while at the same time making the world believe in a substantial residual WMD capacity and delaying the decisionmaking process of the international community, it also, to a large degree, contributed to uncertainty in the security policy arena of the region, an uncertainty regarding Iraq´s intentions. And this was clearly to Baghdad´s disadvantage. In essence, whereas the deception plan up till 1990 can be said to have been coherent with the overall national strategy it came into conflict with the same after the mid-1990s. This is tum resulted in the downfall of the regime.