This article explores the interconnecting social and political events, motivations, and consequences surrounding the US restitution to Iraq of three major caches of records seized from Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1991 and 2003 wars. Emphasis is given to the Pentagon’s covert return of the trove of sensitive records and archives captured in the 2003 war to prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s sectarian-driven regime in May 2013.