Robert Lane Greene: Know Contest (what an execrable pun--I'm just sore because I didn't get it at first): on Saddam's probable lack of info:

the climate of terror which pervaded Hitler's regime compromised the performance of Hitler's highest-level advisers....Instigating perpetual terror may be a good way to amass power, but it turns out to be a bad way to run a government.

Of course I thought of the Chinese. But to give them their due, they're getting better.