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EVENTSAlthough the entire “Team B” intelligence analysis experiment (see Early 1976, November 1976, and November 1976) is supposed to be classified and secret, the team’s neoconservatives launch what author Craig Unger will call “a massive campaign to inflame fears of the red menace in both the general population and throughout the [foreign] policy community—thanks to strategically placed leaks to the Boston Globe and later to the New York Times.” Times reporter David Binder later says that Team B leader Richard Pipes is “jubilant” over “pok[ing] holes at the [CIA]‘s analysis” of the Soviet threat. Team B member John Vogt calls the exercise “an opportunity to even up some scores with the CIA.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 57] Team member George Keegan tells reporters, “I am unaware of a single important category in which the Soviets have not established a significant lead over the United States… [This] grave imbalance in favor of Soviet military capability had developed out of a failure over the last 15 years to adjust American strategic thinking to Soviet strategic thinking, and out of the failure of the leadership of the American intelligence community to ‘perceive the reality’ of the Soviet military buildup.” Keegan’s colleague William van Cleave agrees, saying that “overall strategic superiority exists today for the Soviet Union,” and adds, “I think it’s getting to the point that, if we can make a trade with the Soviet Union of defense establishments, I’d be heartily in favor of it.” [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 95] Entity Tags: New York Times, Paul Wolfowitz, Reagan administration, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George Keegan, Richard Pipes, William van Cleave, John Vogt, Ronald Reagan, Richard Lehman, Henry (“Scoop”) Jackson, Melvin A. Goodman, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Bush administration, Boston Globe, Barry Werth, ’Team B’, Craig Unger, Central Intelligence Agency, Donald Rumsfeld, David Binder, Gordon R. Mitchell, Ford administration, Fred Kaplan Timeline Tags: US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence  1981-1982: State Department Intern Warns of Pakistan’s Nuclear Program, but Is Ignored and Loses Job
Entity Tags: US Department of State, Ronald Reagan, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Barlow, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network West Point graduate Rolf Mowatt-Larssen joins the CIA. He will go on to hold a number of senior positions at the agency, including deputy associate director of central intelligence for military support, chief of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Department, Counterterrorism Center, and finally chief of the Europe division in the directorate of operations. His overseas assignments will include Moscow, Stockholm, Athens, Zurich, and Oslo. Mowatt-Larssen will also receive a number of awards, including the CIA Director’s Award, Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, Commendation Medal, and Secretary of Defense Civilian Distinguished Service Medal. [US Department of Energy, 12/2/2008] Following an incident where a Pakistani procurement agent was arrested in the US trying to buy components for a nuclear weapon (see Before July 1987), there is a serious row about it between a CIA manager and a CIA analyst at a Congressional hearing. The hearing is called by Stephen Solarz (D-NY), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, to vet intelligence concerning Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. CIA manager General David Einsel says it is “not cut and dried” that the arrested Pakistani, Arshad Pervez, and his handler, Inam ul-Haq, are agents of the Pakistani government. Richard Barlow, a CIA analyst there to help Einsel, is surprised by the false answer, as it is a criminal offense to lie to Congress. He realizes, “Einsel’s testimony was highly evasive, and deliberately so.” He will also later comment: “These congressmen had no idea what was really going on in Pakistan and what had been coming across my desk about its WMD program. They did not know that Pakistan already had a bomb and was shopping for more with US help. All of it had been hushed up.” When Barlow is asked the same question, he says it is “clear” Pervez is working for Pakistan, at which point Einsel screams, “Barlow doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Solarz then asks whether there are any more cases involving the Pakistan government. Einsel says there are not, but Barlow replies, “Yes, there have been scores of other cases.” Barlow is then hustled out of the room and returns to CIA headquarters. A senior government official not cleared to attend the briefing comes in and tries to repair the damage, saying that Barlow was referring to intelligence reports, but “not all intelligence reports are accurate.” The official will later indicate that he is not proud of what he does, saying, “I didn’t know what I was getting into.” [New Yorker, 3/29/1993; Guardian, 10/13/2007] Barlow will subsequently be forced out of the CIA because of this hearing (see August 1987-1988). Richard Barlow, an analyst previously forced out of the State Department and CIA for coming to the politically unacceptable conclusion that Pakistan has a nuclear weapons program (see 1981-1982 and August 1987-1988), is hired by the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon to become its first weapons of mass destruction intelligence analyst. Shortly after arriving, Barlow again builds up “a stack of evidence” about Pakistan’s WMD program, including intelligence that the Pakistan army was experimenting with a delivery system for its nuclear bomb, using US-provided technology. Barlow concludes, “Our side was at it again.” [Guardian, 10/13/2007] In the summer of 1989, Barlow is involved in investigating four criminal cases involving senior officers of the Pakistani Army who had attempted to make illegal purchases in the US or abroad of American-made nuclear-related materials, including highly enriched uranium. One of the cases involves evidence showing that Pakistan is attempting to obtain dual-use items for its nuclear program by claiming that the materials are to be used for its F-16 fleet. [New Yorker, 3/29/1993] Richard Barlow, a WMD analyst at the Pentagon, is commissioned to write an intelligence assessment for Defense Secretary Dick Cheney about Pakistan’s nuclear program. The report is apparently “stark,” indicating that the program is ongoing and Pakistan has configured US-made fighters to drop nuclear bombs, despite promising not to do so. Barlow also says that Pakistan is still trying to procure components and will start selling its technology to other nations (note: it is already doing so—see 1987). Barlow’s analysis is supported by a separate Defense Intelligence Agency study, which reaches the same conclusion. Barlow will later say, “Officials at the [Office of the Secretary of Defense] kept pressurizing me to change my conclusions.” When he refuses to do so, however, files start to go missing from his office and a secretary tells him a senior official has been intercepting his papers. In July, one of the Pentagon’s top salesmen criticizes him for trying to scupper a forthcoming deal to sell another 60 F-16s to Pakistan (see August-September 1989). Barlow refuses to change the report, but after he is fired he finds that it has been rewritten to say that continued US aid to Pakistan will ensure the country stops its WMD program. [New Yorker, 3/29/1993; Guardian, 10/13/2007] Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Richard Barlow, Pakistan Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network The Defense Department discovers that an Iraqi front company in Cleveland is funneling US technology to Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program. However, the Bush administration allows the company to continue its operations, even after Iraq invades Kuwait in 1990 (see November 8, 1990). At the same time, a top-secret CIA assessment informs Secretary of State James Baker that Iraq has a nuclear weapons program, and is using “covert techniques” to obtain the technology needed to build a nuclear bomb. The report identifies some of the specific dual-use technology that Iraq’s procurement network is trying to obtain around the world for its nuclear-weapons program, including oscilloscopes, high-speed cameras, and centrifuges. [New Yorker, 11/2/1992] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, James A. Baker, Bush administration, US Department of Defense Timeline Tags: US-Iraq 1980s
Entity Tags: Jim McClure, Alan Simpson, April Glaspie, Frank Murkowski, George Herbert Walker Bush, Howard Metzenbaum, Saddam Hussein, Robert J. Dole, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion The British MI6 establishes Operation Mass Appeal, a British intelligence mission designed to exaggerate the threat of Iraq’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in order to shape public opinion. [BBC, 11/21/2003] The operation plants stories in the domestic and foreign media from the 1990s through 2003. Intelligence used by Mass Appeal is said to be “single source data of dubious quality.” After the First Gulf War, the operation seeks to justify the UN sanctions policy. But after the September 11 attacks, its objective is to secure public support for an invasion of Iraq. The mission is similar to Operation Rockingham (see 1991-March 2003), another British intelligence disinformation program. [New Yorker, 3/31/2003; BBC, 11/21/2003; Press Association (London), 11/21/2003; Sunday Times (London), 12/28/2003] Former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter says in late in 2003 (see November 21, 2003) that he supplied Mass Appeal with intelligence while serving as UN chief weapons inspector from the summer of 1997 until August 1998 and that he met with British agents involved in the operation several times in both New York and London. [BBC, 11/21/2003] Entity Tags: Scott Ritter, UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda The United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 687. The resolution “[w]elcom[es] the restoration to Kuwait of its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and the return of its legitimate government.” The bulk of the resolution addresses Iraq, requiring that nation to destroy all of its chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons, as well as all of its ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers. The resolution says that Iraq’s compliance will represent “steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons.” Other portions of the resolution require Iraq to pay war reparations to Kuwait, to honor its international debts, and reaffirm the Iraq sanctions already passed by the UN. The resolution also paves the way for the controversial Oil-for-Food program by taking charge of Iraq’s petroleum exports. On the UN Security Council, twelve nations vote for the resolution; one, Cuba, votes against it, and two, Ecuador and Yemen, abstain. [United Nations, 4/3/1991; UNDemocracy (.com), 4/3/1991]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Ahmed Chalabi, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Baer, Iraqi National Congress Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Valerie Plame, a young CIA case officer working in the Europe Division at the agency’s Directorate of Operations following a tour in Greece (see Fall 1985 and Fall 1989), decides on a risky career move—becoming a NOC, or Nonofficial Covered Officer. As reporter Laura Rozen will later explain: “Becoming a NOC would require Plame to erase all visible connections to the US government, while, with the help of the agency’s Office of Central Cover, developing and inhabiting a plausible new private sector career and professional identity that would serve as useful cover for her to meet and develop potential sources of intelligence value to the agency without revealing herself as an agent of the US government. It also meant giving up the protection of diplomatic status should her covert activities be discovered.” “A NOC has no overt affiliation with the US government,” Plame will later write. “If he was caught, the United States would deny any connection.” The CIA accepts her as a NOC candidate, and in order to distance herself from her former association with her former “cover” career as a junior State Department officer in Athens, Plame begins pursuing double graduate degrees in international affairs and European studies. She studies at both the London School of Economics and at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, where the entire curriculum is taught in French. By 1996 she is ensconced in an apartment in Brussels, where she begins a “career” as an energy executive and secret NOC. She has a far wider range of potential contacts within the corporate world as an apparent private citizen, and her new assignment introduces her to the world of weapons proliferation, WMD, counternarcotics, economic intelligence, technological developments, and counterterrorism. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 332-333] After Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39), issued in June 1995 (see June 21, 1995), requires key federal agencies to maintain well-exercised counterterrorist capabilities, the number of counterterrorism exercises being conducted increases significantly. According to a 1999 report by the General Accounting Office, whereas 32 counterterrorist exercises are held between June 1995 and June 1996, from June 1997 to June 1998, 116 such exercises are conducted. Some of the exercises held between June 1995 and June 1998 are “tabletop exercises,” where participants work through a scenario around a table or in a classroom and discuss how their agency might react; others are “field exercises,” where an agency’s leadership and operational units practice their skills in a realistic field setting. Four exercises during this period are “no-notice” exercises, where participants have no advance notice of the exercise. These four exercises are conducted by either the Department of Defense (DoD) or the Department of Energy. DoD leads 97 of the exercises—almost half of the total—held between June 1995 and June 1998. The Secret Service leads 46, the FBI 24, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leads 16. Most of the exercises are conducted in the US and are based around the scenario of a domestic terrorist attack. Although intelligence agencies have determined that conventional explosives and firearms continue to be the weapons of choice for terrorists, the majority of exercises are based around scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or agents. More than two-thirds of the exercises have WMD scenarios, with the most common WMD being chemical agents, such as sarin. The other exercises have more traditional and more likely scenarios involving conventional weapons and explosives. [United States General Accounting Office, 6/25/1999
Entity Tags: Nikita Smidovick, John Barry, Bill Harlow, Rolf Ekeus, Maurizio Zifferero, Hussein Kamel Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion A Department of Energy study group chaired by former CIA Director James Woolsey and Harvard professor Joseph Nye warns that the United States is unprepared for the rising threat of a nuclear, biological, or chemical terrorist attack on the homeland. [Science & Technology Review, 1/1998] Despite the urgency of the threat, Woolsey and Nye say they doubt that the US can really mobilize in time. In an essay published in the Los Angeles Times, they write: “The very nature of US society makes it difficult to prepare for this security problem. Within recent memory, we have not had to battle a foreign invading force on US soil. Because of our ‘Pearl Harbor’ mind-set, we are unlikely to mount an adequate defense until we suffer an attack. Because the threat of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction is amorphous (rogue states, transnational groups, ad hoc groups or individuals) and constantly changing, it is difficult to make predictions and preparations. However, given the current geopolitical state of the world, there is every indication that terrorism will be the most likely physical threat to the US homeland for at least the next decade. Only if we go beyond business as usual and respond in a broader and more systematic manner do we stand a chance of dealing with this problem before the horror of another Pearl Harbor.” [Los Angeles Times, 6/1/1997; Washington Diplomat, 12/2001] Experts report that Iraq has failed to adequately account for 500 mustard-gas shells, 25 “special warheads,” 150 aerial bombs, 2 Scud missiles [Christian Science Monitor, 8/29/2002] , 520 kilograms of yeast extract growth medium specifically for anthrax [NewsMax, 9/4/2002] , 15,000 122 mm artillery shells, 25,000 rockets and several hundred tons of chemicals for the nerve agent VX. [Cirincione, Wolfsthal, and Rajkumar, 6/2002; BBC, 9/11/2002]
Richard Falkenrath, Executive Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, speaks at the Washington Institute’s Policy Forum on the issue of Iran and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Falkenrath argues that Iran “poses a greater long-term threat to US interests in the Persian Gulf,” asserting that it possesses significant quantities of chemical weapons, is developing and has small stocks of biological weapons, and intends to “produce medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and beyond.” The US should be concerned, he says, because a WMD-armed Iran would allow it to “deter the United States, disrupt US-led coalitions, and foment regional instability and arms races.” He recommends that the EU end its unconditional political and commercial ties with Iran, and work with the US and other allies to develop a new policy toward Iran and states like Russia that have been supplying Iran with nuclear materials. He also stresses that “US allies should enhance their ability to participate in US-led military operations against WMD-armed adversaries.” [Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, 6/8/1998] Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran President Clinton accuses Iraq of trying to build “an arsenal of devastating destruction,” and says, “[S]ome day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.” [Roberts, 2008, pp. 121] The White House convenes a small team of senior officials to look behind the nuclear program of North Korea, which appears to be attempting to start a uranium enrichment program, and focuses on Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. Khan travels to Pyongyang several times a month and, according to authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, he is the “most visible common denominator” in Pakistan’s proliferation network and “a flag to be followed.” Levy and Scott-Clark point out that, although the US has been aware of Khan’s activities for over two decades (see November 1975), this is the “first serious attempt at interdicting the Pakistani operation.” Entity Tags: Robert Gallucci, Karl Inderfurth, Catherine Scott-Clark, Adrian Levy, Gary Samore, Robert Einhorn Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Bob Drogin, Saddam Hussein, Thomas Wilson, ’Curveball’ Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion In his first Republican presidential candidate debate in New Hampshire, George W. Bush tells the audience that, if elected, he will overthrow Saddam Hussein. “No one envisioned him still standing” this long after the 1991 Gulf War, Bush says. “It’s time to finish the task. And if I found that in any way, shape, or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I’d take them out. I’m surprised he’s still there. I think a lot of other people are as well.” In addition, he would not lift the US sanctions on Iraq or attempt to negotiate with Hussein. A few newspapers and Sunday talk shows pick up on Bush’s belligerence, and the ones who do are often quite critical. The Boston Globe’s David Nyhan writes in response, “It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush’s first big clinker.” Bush backs off his statement the next day, blaming his Texas drawl for causing the so-called misunderstanding. “My intent was the weapons,” he says, not Hussein. Republican insiders know better (see Spring 2000). [Federal Document Clearing House, 12/2/1999; George Washington University, 12/2/1999; Boston Globe, 12/3/1999; Unger, 2007, pp. 174-175] Antonio Nucera, deputy chief of the SISMI center in Viale Pasteur in Rome and one of Italy’s foremost experts on WMD, telephones Rocco Martino, an Italian information peddler and former SISMI agent. Nucera tells Martino of a SISMI intelligence asset working in the Niger Embassy in Rome who is in need of money and who can provide him with documents to sell. [Sunday Times (London), 8/1/2004; Financial Times, 8/2/2004; Il Giornale (Rome), 9/21/2004; La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; Il Giornale (Rome), 11/6/2005] According to Martino, “SISMI wanted me to pass on the documents but they didn’t want anyone to know they had been involved.” [Sunday Times (London), 8/1/2004; Financial Times, 8/2/2004] Martino, who left the agency in 1999, has a long history of peddling information to other intelligence services in Europe, including France’s DGSE. He is weathering financial difficulties, and Nucera’s proposal may be a lucrative one. Nucera tells Martino about a longtime Italian “asset” in the Nigerien embassy in Rome, a woman of around 60 with a low-level position there. The woman will later be dubbed “La Signora” by the Italian press, and be identified as Laura Montini, the Nigerien ambassador’s assistant. Nucera suggests that Martino can possibly use her as SISMI had, paying her to pass on documents stolen or copied from the Nigerien embassy (see January 2, 2001) and March 2007). [London Times, 8/1/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 207] Entity Tags: Antonio Nucera, SISMI, Laura Montini, Rocco Martino Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing CIA Director George Tenet forms a national security advisory panel that comprises a team of security analysts and is chaired by Admiral David Jeremiah. The panel is, in the words of authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, “asked to think the unthinkable.” The State Department’s WMD specialist Robert Gallucci is the official responsible for nuclear issues. Galluccci will comment: “It was all sources, all clearances.… I was the nuclear freak and got briefings set up on the nuclear terrorist thing. Every single scenario was extremely scary and entirely believable. There was lots and lots of intelligence. Put it this way, the US number one enemy was looking more and more like Pakistan.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 293] Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Adm. David E. Jeremiah, Central Intelligence Agency, US Department of State, Robert Gallucci Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network The EPA issues a publication which states that in the event of a terrorist attack causing the release of hazardous substances, the EPA would respond under the authority of the NCP (see 1972). “The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has statutory authorities and responsibilities to prepare for and respond to emergencies involving oil and hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants, which include chemical, biological and radiological materials that could also be components of a weapon of mass destruction (WMD)…. EPA carries out its preparedness and response efforts primarily under the mandate of the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) and the Radiological Response Program.” [Environmental Protection Agency, 5/2000 The National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) publishes a report arguing for a “smaller, more efficient, arsenal” of specialized weapons. The report claims that developing a new generation of smaller, tactical nuclear weapons is necessary for the US to maintain its deterrent. The report suggests that nuclear weapons could be used to deter “weapons of mass destruction (WMD) use by regional powers,” deter “WMD or massive conventional aggression by an emerging global competitor,” prevent “catastrophic losses in conventional war,” provide “unique targeting capabilities” (such as the use of “mini-nukes,” or “bunker-busters,” to destroy deep underground/biological weapons targets), or to enhance “US influence in crises.” Many of the report’s authors are later appointed to senior positions within the Bush administration, including Linton Brooks who becomes head of the national nuclear security administration overseeing new weapons projects, Stephen Hadley who is appointed deputy national security adviser, and Stephen Cambone who becomes undersecretary of defense for intelligence. [National Institute for Public Policy, 1/2001 Entity Tags: Stephen J. Hadley, Linton Brooks, Stephen A. Cambone, National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) Timeline Tags: US Military A bipartisan commission chaired by former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) and former Carter administration counsel Lloyd Cutler reports on the state of nuclear nonproliferation programs in Russia and its former Soviet client states. The report is bleak: it finds that Russia alone is in danger of becoming a “virtual ‘Home Depot’” of nuclear weapons and technology for terrorists seeking nuclear WMD. Russia has the equivalent of 80,000 nuclear weapons, mostly in fragments and in different locations, but all befitting the definition of “loose nukes.” “Imagine if such material were successfully stolen and sold to a terrorist like Osama bin Laden,” the report warns. Baker and Cutler recommend that the US triple its annual expenditure on its program to secure the weapons, from $1 billion to $3 billion. The threat of terrorists acquiring Russian nuclear technology is “the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today.” For various reasons, the report stirs little interest among the members of the incoming Bush administration. Many of the relevant programs, collectively known as cooperative threat reduction efforts, are run through the Pentagon, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has no interest in them. Author J. Peter Scoblic will later point out that the very idea of “cooperative threat reduction” is at odds with the conservative “us-versus-them” ideology. “Paying our former enemy to secure its own weapons so that we will not be threated by them does not constitute a clear, military, zero-sum situation,” Scoblic will write. Indeed, some conservatives, led by House Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), mount an effort to scrap the programs entirely, arguing that they undermine US national security—by funding Russian efforts to secure and destroy so-called “loose nukes,” Hunter and his followers warn, the US is allowing Russia to spend more on its own weapons programs. The Bush administration will respond to the Baker-Cutler report by slashing funding for the cooperative threat reduction programs almost in half, and tripling funding for research into missile defense programs. Scoblic will write, “Rather than focusing on making it harder for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons, the administration was devoting its resources to building defenses against what an intelligence community assessment had determined would be the least likely means by which a nuclear attack would be carried out against the United States.” After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration will request $20 billion in emergency funding for homeland security; as Scoblic will write, “[n]ot a dollar of it was allotted to security upgrades for loose Russian nuclear material, even though the danger had certainly been brought to the president’s attention.” The administration will continue to oppose funding increases for the programs in the future. [Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Department of Energy, 1/10/2001 Entity Tags: Duncan Hunter, Bush administration, Carter administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Lloyd Cutler, Howard Baker, J. Peter Scoblic, Osama bin Laden Timeline Tags: US International Relations President Bush hosts British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David. Iraq is on the agenda. Bush and Blair tell reporters that they want to restructure the sanctions on Iraq through the United Nations, using what the White House calls “smart sanctions”—sanctions that are designed to constrain the Iraqi government without harming the Iraqi citizenry. The new sanctions are primarily aimed at tightening controls on “dual-use” goods, items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes, and to keep the regime from getting illicit funds from oil smuggling. Bush says: “A change in sanctions should not in any way, shape, or form, embolden Saddam Hussein. He has got to understand that we are going to watch him carefully and, if we catch him developing weapons of mass destruction, we’ll take the appropriate action. And if we catch him threatening his neighbors we will take the appropriate action.” In 2008, former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan will write: “Saddam was viewed more as a ‘problem’ to deal with than a ‘grave and gathering danger’ in the early days. Talk centered on if he was developing WMD, not that he was developing them.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 93-94] Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Scott McClellan, United Nations, Tony Blair Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, George J. Tenet, Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Defense Policy Board chairman and prominent neoconservative Richard Perle tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Does Saddam [Hussein] now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons.…How far he’s gone on the nuclear-weapons side I don’t think we really know. My guess is it’s further than we think. It’s always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we’re able to prove and demonstrate…. And, unless you believe that we’ve uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we’re able to report.” Perle fails to offer any evidence of his claims to the senators, and fails to provide evidence from UN inspectors that shows virtually all of Iraq’s WMD stockpiles and programs have long since been destroyed. [Hersh, 2004, pp. 209-210] Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Saddam Hussein Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence According to a 2007 book by former CIA Director George Tenet, shortly before 9/11, the CIA learns that a Pakistani charity front has been helping al-Qaeda acquire weapons of mass destruction. The charity, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), was founded in 2000 by two prominent nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudiri Abdul Majeed (see 2000). UTN allegedly is conducting charitable projects in Afghanistan, but a friendly intelligence service tells the CIA that UTN is really helping al-Qaeda build weapons, especially nuclear weapons. Tenet will claim that he presses “all of our contacts worldwide to find out anything we could about the people and organizations with WMD that might be wiling to share expertise with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.” Ben Bonk, deputy chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC), meets with Musa Kusa, head of Libya’s intelligence service, and Kusa tells him that Libya had contact with UTN. “Yes, they tried to sell us a nuclear weapon. Of course, we turned them down.” According to Tenet, this confirms other information from a different intelligence agency that UTN approached Libya with an offer to provide WMD expertise. The CIA then informs the Pakistani government of this, and Pakistan brings in seven board members of UTN for questioning. But according to Tenet, “The investigation was ill-fated from the get-go” and the UTN officials “were not properly isolated and questioned.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 262-263] Also shortly before 9/11, the CIA also learns that the two nuclear scientists who founded UTN had recently met with Osama bin Laden and advised him on how to make a nuclear weapon (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001). But despite all this the US takes no other action against UTN before 9/11, not even freezing the assets of the charity until December 2001 (see Early October-December 2001). Four prominent Republican officials make alarming comments about terrorism and especially the use of WMDs against the US: Entity Tags: Scott McClellan, Joseph Biden, Henry Hyde, Donald Rumsfeld, Andrew Card, John Ashcroft, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, 2001 Anthrax Attacks
Entity Tags: Wendy Chamberlin, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pervez Musharraf, Al-Qaeda, Chaudiri Abdul Majeed, Colin Powell, George J. Tenet, Osama bin Laden, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Ummah Tameer-e-Nau Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network On October 18, 2001, an alarm in the White House situation room allegedly goes off, indicating that sensors have detected dangerous levels of WMD agents. Vice President Cheney and others in the situation room at the time are said to believe that they have been exposed. Due to the recent anthrax attacks, Cheney allegedly is convinced that he has been subjected to a lethal dose of anthrax. This is according to the 2008 book The Dark Side by journalist Jane Mayer. An anonymous former administration officer will tell Mayer, “They thought Cheney was already lethally infected.” However, it is soon discovered that the sensors had malfunctioned and there was no danger. But Mayer will claim that the incident contributed to Cheney’s paranoia and his desire to use hard-line tactics such as torture in combating terrorism. Mayer will say that, after the incident, “a sense of constant danger followed Cheney everywhere.” When he is not in one of his several “undisclosed locations” (usually underground bunkers), he travels with a doctor and a bag containing a gas mask and biochemical survival suit. [ABC News, 7/14/2008] White House deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will, in 2008, write: “As soon as [President] Bush decided to confront Iraq, the groundwork for a public campaign began to be laid. The new doctrine on preemption (see Fall 2002) was part of the elaborate effort. So was the gradual ratcheting up of the rhetoric from late 2001 into 2002. Before 9/11, our rhetoric about Iraq had focused on warning Saddam Hussein not to develop weapons of mass destruction, while the policy centered on containing him with enhanced sanctions (see February 2001).… But by late November, the president was not ruling out military action against Iraq and he was saying that Iraq would be held accountable if it was found to be developing WMD.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 135-136] Entity Tags: Scott McClellan, Bush administration, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Greg Thielmann, director for strategic proliferation and military affairs at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), reviews Iraq’s alleged WMD programs for Secretary of State Colin Powell. Thielmann’s review concludes that Italian reports of a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, October 15, 2001, October 18, 2001, November 20, 2001, February 5, 2002, Late April or Early May 2002-June 2002, and Late June 2002) are completely false. Thielmann will later recall: “A whole lot of things told us that the report was bogus. This wasn’t highly contested. There weren’t strong advocates on the other side. It was done, shot down” (see March 1, 2002). [Unger, 2007, pp. 229] Entity Tags: Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Colin Powell, Greg Thielmann, US Department of State Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Federation of American Scientists, Bush administration, US Department of Defense, US Strategic Command, Hans Kristensen Timeline Tags: US International Relations An unnamed CIA case officer with the agency’s Directorate of Operations (DO) will later say with regard to Iraq’s alleged arsenal of WMD: “Where I was working, I never saw anything—no one else there did either.” [Bamford, 2004, pp. 333] After more than two months and more than 350 inspections, the UN teams have failed to find the arsenal of banned weapons the US and Britain claim Iraq has. Nor are there any signs of programs to build such weapons. The London Observer reports that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are convinced Iraq does not have a reconstituted nuclear weapons program. “IAEA officials and intelligence sources admit it is extremely unlikely that Iraq has nuclear weapons squirreled away,” The Observer reports, explaining that “… the IAEA [had] revealed that analysis of samples taken by UN nuclear inspectors in Iraq… showed no evidence of prohibited nuclear activity.” [Observer, 1/26/2003; Los Angeles Times, 1/26/2003; Washington Post, 12/27/2003] The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) sends Colin Powell a memo warning that the current draft (see January 30-February 4, 2003) of Powell’s UN speech contains 38 “weak” and “unsubstantiated” allegations. It says the allegation that Saddam has plans to conceal his WMDs is from mostly “questionable sources” and that the alleged decontamination vehicles—purported to be evidence of Iraqi WMD—are “water trucks that can have legitimate uses.” The memo emphatically warns that the section on the aluminum tubes is “WEAK” and contains “egregious errors.” It also disputes the speech’s claim that terrorists “could come through Baghdad and pick-up biological weapons.” As a result of the memo’s warnings, 28 of the 38 allegations identified by INR as weak are removed from the draft. Two days later, three more claims are removed when INR objects to seven more of the speech’s allegations. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 179] Entity Tags: Colin Powell, Bureau of Intelligence and Research Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issues “a finished intelligence product” summarizing the February 5, 2002 SISMI report (see February 5, 2002). The report, entitled “Niamey Signed an Agreement to Sell 500 Tons of Uranium a Year to Baghdad,” states as irrefutable fact that Iraq intends to buy weapons-grade uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, October 15, 2001, October 18, 2001, November 20, 2001, February 5, 2002, March 1, 2002, Late April or Early May 2002-June 2002, and Late June 2002). It concludes, “Iraq probably is searching abroad for natural uranium to assist in its nuclear weapons program.” It does not comment on the credibility of the sourcing. The report is sent directly to Vice President Dick Cheney. Within hours, Cheney directs the CIA (see February 5, 2002) to investigate the claims. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2004 report on Iraqi WMD (see July 9, 2004), CIA and DIA analysts find the subsequent reports more informative and believable than the first, more sketchy reports (see February 5, 2002). The CIA’s Directorate of Operations tells one agency analyst that the report comes from a “very credible source.” Analysts with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) continue to find the reports unconvincing. [US Congress, 7/7/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 239] Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern will later describe Cheney’s receipt of this document as “odd.” “[I]n more than two years of briefing then-Vice President George H. W. Bush every other morning, not once did he ask a question about a DIA report or even indicate that he had read one,” McGovern will note. “That this particular report was given to Cheney almost certainly reflects the widespread practice of ‘cherry picking’ intelligence.” [AfterDowningStreet (.org), 7/25/2005] Entity Tags: Defense Intelligence Agency, Ray McGovern, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
British Intelligence MI6 says in an intelligence assessment that information on Saddam’s alleged arsenal of illicit weapons is “sporadic and patchy.” In its conclusion, the report states: “We believe Iraq retains some production equipment, and some small stocks of chemical warfare agent precursors, and may have hidden small quantities of agents and weapons. There is no intelligence on any biological agent production facilities.” [Daily Telegraph, 3/21/2005] Peter Ricketts, the British Foreign Office’s political director, offers advice to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who is to provide Tony Blair with a note (see March 25, 2002) before he sets off for a planned meeting with Bush in Texas. In the memo, Ricketts recommends that Blair back the Bush policy on regime change, in a broad sense, because it would allow the British to exert some influence on the exact shape of the administration’s policy. “In the process, he can bring home to Bush some of the realities which will be less evident from Washington,” he says. “He can help Bush make good decisions by telling him things his own machine probably isn’t.” But he acknowledges that the British, in backing US plans against Iraq, may have a difficult time convincing Parliament and the British public to support the use of military force against Iraq because of scant evidence supporting Washington’s allegations against Iraq. “The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September.” He adds that the “figures” being used in a dossier on Iraq that Downing Street is drafting needs more work in order for it to be “consistent with those of the US.” He explains: “[E]ven the best survey of Iraq’s WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile, or chemical weapons/biological weapons fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up.” He also says the US has little evidence to support its other allegation. “US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda is so far frankly unconvincing,” he says. [United Kingdom, 3/22/2002 March 24, 2002: Britain Accused of Fabricating WMD Threat to Justify Troop Deployment in Afghanistan
Entity Tags: Pentagon, Geoff Hoon, US Department of State, Foreign Office, Walter Menzies Campbell, Ministry of Defence, David Manning Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline According to Arnaud de Borchgrave, the editor-at-large of the Washington Times, he learns in April 2002 from neoconservatives that the planned war against Iraq is not about WMD, but about reshaping the Middle East. In a February 2004 op-ed, he writes: “WMDs were not the principal reason for going to war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq; they were the pretext.… When this writer first heard from prominent neoconservatives in April 2002 that war was no longer a question of ‘if’ but ‘when,’ the casus belli had little to do with WMDs. The Bush administration, they explained, starkly and simply, had decided to redraw the geopolitical map of the Middle East. The Bush Doctrine of preemption had become the vehicle for driving axis-of-evil practitioners out of power.” [Washington Times, 2/10/2004] Entity Tags: Arnaud de Borchgrave Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a visit to Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas [Independent, 2/27/2005] , tells the president that Britain intends to “support military action to bring about regime change.” [Guardian, 5/2/2005; Daily Telegraph, 5/4/2005] But Blair also says that certain conditions will have to be met. He says that efforts will have to be made to “construct a coalition,” “shape public opinion,” and demonstrate that all options to “eliminate Iraq’s WMD through the UN weapons inspectors” have been exhausted. Additionally, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis should be quiescent, he says. [Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2005] At a joint press conference with Bush on the first day of their summit at Crawford, Blair is asked by a reporter if Bush has convinced him “on the need for military action against Iraq” and whether or not regime change “is now the policy of the British government.” Blair does not respond with a direct answer to either of the questions. [United Kingdom, 4/6/2002; US President, 4/15/2002] Also during the summit, the two leaders establish the US-UK Energy Dialogue to “enhance coordination and cooperation on energy issues” (see July 30, 2003) They agree to create a joint working group that will devise a plan to overcome obstacles to “free access” to Gulf oil. The first item on the task list is “a targeted study to examine the capital and investment needs of key Gulf countries….” [Muttitt, 2005] British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesperson states, “Given what we know about al-Qaeda’s interest in the material [Iraq’s supposed WMD], we have to have concerns about a possible marriage between those who wish to acquire it and those who have it.” Immediately after the statement is made, Britain’s own senior military officials refute the claim saying that there is no credible evidence to support the claim. A senior source tells the Independent of London, “We are not aware of evidence, intelligence or otherwise, that the Iraqi government or its agencies are passing on weapons of mass destruction to al-Qaeda. Nor have we seen any credible evidence linking the Iraqi government to the September 11 attacks.” [Independent, 3/26/2002] Entity Tags: Tony Blair, Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion In November 2001, the Sudanese allowed the FBI to interview two al-Qaeda operatives living in Sudan, Mohammed Loay Bayazid, and Mubarak al Duri (see November 2001). Even though both men had links to al-Qaeda dating back to the 1980s (Bayazid even was one of al-Qaeda’s founding members), CIA Director George Tenet will later claim that the FBI agents “reported back that, although their suspicions were great, they were unable to develop sufficient grounds for a case against either man that would justify an extradition request.” But the CIA continues to find more intelligence that appears to tie both of them to al-Qaeda efforts to get weapons of mass destruction. For instance, a trusted informant claims Bayazid helped in an effort to buy uranium for bin Laden (see Late 1993). Tenet claims that “Both men had developed business connections to Sudanese WMD-related entities, and both had established businesses that could have served as dual-use front companies for developing nuclear and biological weapons.” In mid-2002, the CIA tries to get the two men to change sides. CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen goes to Sudan and is allowed to speak with them in a neutral location. But both men are unrepentant. After an appeal to help uncover al-Qaeda’s WMD program to potentially save millions of lives, one of them replies, “No… I think it is legitimate to kill millions of you because of how many of us you killed.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 270-271] There have been no reports since of the US capturing or killing either man or putting them on any public wanted lists. Entity Tags: Mohammed Loay Bayazid, Al-Qaeda, Mubarak al Duri, Central Intelligence Agency, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline The British Cabinet Office issues an eight-page briefing note to prepare officials for an upcoming meeting (see July 23, 2002) on Britain’s role in the United States’ confrontation with Iraq. The paper, titled “Conditions for Military Action,” addresses a number of issues including US invasion and post-war planning, legal justification for the use of military force, and what the US and British hope to achieve through “regime change.” [United Kingdom, 7/21/2002; London Times, 5/2/2005; Newsweek, 6/15/2005] Top British officials attend a meeting to discuss Britain’s potential role in the Bush administration’s confrontation with Iraq. According to the minutes of the meeting, transcribed by Matthew Rycroft, Sir Richard Dearlove, head of the British intelligence service, MI6, says that during his last visit (see July 20, 2002) to Washington he noticed a “perceptible shift in attitude. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.” Furthermore, he states, Bush’s National Security Council indicated it “had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record.” He also noted that there “was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.” [United Kingdom, 7/23/2002; Salon, 5/6/2005; Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2005] Foreign Minister Jack Straw appears to agree with Dearlove’s assessment, saying that it seems clear that President Bush has already decided on using military force to depose Saddam Hussein. But Straw notes that the Bush administration’s case against Saddam was “thin.” The Iraqi leader “was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran,” the minutes say, summarizing his remarks. [Guardian, 5/2/2005; Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2005] There is no indication in the minutes that anyone present at the meeting disputed Dearlove’s or Straw’s observations. [United Kingdom, 7/23/2002] Furthermore, the account provided by the intelligence official and Straw are corroborated by a former senior US official who is later interviewed by Knight Ridder. It is “an absolutely accurate description of what transpired,” the official will say. [Knight Ridder, 5/2/2005] Straw proposes that the next step would be to “work up an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors,” which “would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.” [Guardian, 5/2/2005; Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2005] Britain’s attorney general, Lord Peter Goldsmith, warns that “the desire for regime change [is] not a legal base for military action,” the minutes say. But Blair says that “it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors.” [Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2005] Finally, the officials agree that the British government “should continue to work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action” but “not ignore the legal issues.” [Guardian, 5/2/2005] The minutes do not provide any indication that officials discussed how war might be avoided. [Salon, 6/10/2005] The minutes of this meetings will be revealed by the British Sunday Times three years later (see May 1, 2005). Commonly referred to as the “Downing Street Memo,” the minutes will re-spark the controversy over politicized intelligence. Richard Butler, a former UN inspector from Australia, tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “I have seen no evidence of Iraq providing weapons of mass destruction to non-Iraqi terrorist groups.” [Associated Press, 8/1/2002] Entity Tags: Richard Butler, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion The CIA publishes its first detailed paper outlining its assessment that the aluminum tubes (see July 2001) were intended for use in a uranium enrichment program. The one-page report, titled “Iraq: Expanding WMD Capabilities Pose Growing Threat,” argues that the tubes’ “exceedingly stringent tolerances, high cost, and the secrecy surrounding procurement attempts, indicated that the tubes were destined for Iraq’s gas centrifuge program,” according to a later Senate Intelligence investigation. [US Congress, 7/7/2004] The CIA has already published about 10 less detailed intelligence assessments expressing this view, which the Department of Energy’s top centrifuge physicists disputed in their own detailed 8-page report more than a year before (see August 17, 2001). USA Today reports: “US intelligence cannot say conclusively that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, an information gap that is complicating White House efforts to build support for an attack on Saddam’s Iraqi regime. The CIA has advised top administration officials to assume that Iraq has some weapons of mass destruction. But the agency has not given President Bush a ‘smoking gun,’ according to US intelligence and administration officials. The most recent unclassified CIA report on the subject goes no further than saying it is ‘likely’ that Iraq has used the four years since United Nations inspectors left the country to rebuild chemical and biological weapons programs.” [USA Today, 8/15/2002] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Vice President Cheney and his staff have become increasingly reliant on intelligence from Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC—see Early 2003). Cheney’s senior aide John Hannah, the liaison between Cheney and the INC, has become increasingly invested in the exile group. “He relied on Ahmed Chalabi for insights and advice,” a Bush administration official will later recall. Cheney has himself become an increasingly vocal Chalabi advocate. At a meeting of President Bush’s National Security Council, the State Department and Pentagon officials argue over whether to increase funding to the INC. Cheney, a former NSC staffer will recall, “weighed in, in a really big way. He said, ‘We’re getting ready to go to war, and we’re nickel-and-diming the INC at a time when they’re providing us with unique intelligence on Iraqi WMD.’” The fact that no one else, particularly the CIA, could confirm anything the INC was providing was merely proof that the CIA was recklessly disregarding INC intelligence. The administration official will say that before long, “there was something of a willingness to give [INC- provided intelligence] greater weight” than that offered by the intelligence community. In return, Cheney’s aides tried to inject their intelligence into the CIA’s own conduits. One CIA analyst will recall that both Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, “come out there loaded with crap from OSP [the Office of Special Plans—see September 2002], reams of information from Chalabi’s people” on both terrorism and WMD. One of the main channels into the CIA for Cheney and his staff is Alan Foley, the director of the CIA’s Nonproliferation Center. Cheney’s office inundates Foley with questions about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, particularly about Iraq’s supposed attempts to purchase uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, October 15, 2001, October 18, 2001, November 20, 2001, February 5, 2002, March 1, 2002, Late April or Early May 2002-June 2002, and Late June 2002). At first, Foley attempts to push back by “stressing the implausibility of it,” a colleague of Foley’s will recall. But as Cheney and his aides keep pressing, Foley begins to give in. “He was bullied and intimidated,” one of his friends will recall. The pressure on Foley and other analysts is both relentless and hostile. One retired CIA analyst close to current analysts will recall: “It was done along the lines of: ‘What’s wrong with you bunch of assh_les? You don’t know what’s going on, you’re horribly biased, you’re a bunch of pinkos.’” A current analyst later explains, “It gets to the point where you just don’t want to fight it anymore.” [New Republic, 11/20/2003] Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Alan Foley, Ahmed Chalabi, Bush administration, John Hannah, Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Special Plans, Iraqi National Congress, National Security Council, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, US International Relations CIA Director George Tenet appears before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in a secret session to discuss the agency’s intelligence on Iraq. He tells the senators that agency analysts have concluded that Saddam Hussein is rebuilding his nuclear arsenal and that there are about 550 sites in Iraq where chemical and biological weapons are being stored. He adds that the regime has developed drones capable of delivering these weapons, perhaps even to the US mainland. When Tenet finishes his briefing, senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) ask to see the agency’s latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Tenet replies that the CIA has not prepared one. “We’ve never done a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, including its weapons of mass destruction.” The Democrats find this revelation “stunning.” Recalling the matter in a 2006 interview, Graham tells PBS Frontline: “We do these on almost every significant activity—much less significant than getting ready to go to war.… We were flying blind.” [PBS Frontline, 1/20/2006] Vice President Dick Cheney is interviewed on NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss the Bush administration’s position on Iraq and the alleged threat Iraq poses to the world. “[B]ased on intelligence that’s becoming available—some of it has been made public [referring to the recent New York Times story—see September 8, 2002 ]—… he has indeed stepped up his capacity to produce and deliver biological weapons,… he has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon,… there are efforts under way inside Iraq to significantly expand his capability.… [H]e now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs.… There’s a story in The New York Times this morning… [I]t’s now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb. This is a technology he was working on back, say, before the Gulf War. And one of the reasons it’s of concern,… is… [that] we know about a particular shipment. We’ve intercepted that. We don’t know what else—what other avenues he may be taking out there, what he may have already acquired. We do know he’s had four years without any inspections at all in Iraq to develop that capability.… [W]e do know, with absolute certainty, that he [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment [aluminum tubes] he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.” Cheney says the US intends to work with the international community, but hints that the US is willing to confront Saddam without international support. “We are trying very hard not be unilateralist,” he says. “We are working to build support with the American people, with the Congress, as many have suggested we should. And we are also as many of us suggested we should, going to the United Nations, and the president will address this issue.… We would like to do it with the sanction of the international community. But the point in Iraq is this problem has to be dealt with one way or the other.” [Meet the Press, 9/8/2002; Washington File, 9/9/2002; Washington Post, 2/7/2003; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/27/2003; New York Times, 10/3/2004] Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will later write of Cheney’s remarks: “Taken together [with Cheney’s recent speech to the VFW—see August 26, 2002], the vice president’s warnings made a compelling case for war. They were, however, entirely untrue. Yet they reframed the terms of the Iraq debate, leading the public to the conclusion that the question should not be ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ the nation goes to war in Iraq.” [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 176] Entity Tags: Jake Bernstein, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, White House Iraq Group, Lou Dubose Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and US President George Bush meet in Detroit to discuss policy towards Iraq as well as security measures along the US-Canadian border initiated after September 11. Chretien later tells reporters that Bush said that Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to militant Islamic groups was “not the angle they’re exploring now. The angle they’re exploring is the production of weapons of mass destruction.” [Washington Post, 9/10/2002; CNN, 9/10/2002] Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Jean Chretien Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion In an appearance on Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson, Rumsfeld dismisses the notion that the administration needs to disclose evidence about Iraq’s banned weapons to the public before going to war. Gibson asks: “One of the seminal moments of my life was when John Kennedy went on television and showed satellite photos of Soviet missiles on Cuban soil. Isn’t it going to take—and do you have that kind of direct evidence?” In response, Rumsfeld states: “You know, the idea of direct evidence is not like a court of law under Article 3 of our Constitution where your goal is to punish somebody for doing something wrong. That really isn’t the case here. This is self defense, and the United States task is to see that we don’t allow an event to happen that then one has to punish someone.” Gibson then follows with another question: “But you can’t go to war without American public support and I’m asking don’t you need that kind of direct evidence? Or do you have it, to get the American public support or to get a coalition?” Rumsfeld replies: “The evidence is certainly there. The President has to decide what precisely he believes is the best approach. And one thing he’d say is, the one course of action that’s not acceptable is doing nothing.” [Financial Times, 9/11/2002; US Department of Defense, 9/11/2002] The second draft of the “Scarlett dossier” (see September 10-11, 2002) on Iraqi WMD is circulated. As with the first draft, the language of exactly how certain British intelligence is about the Iraq-Niger uranium deal (see Before September 2002) varies from section to section. One page states flatly that “[u]ranium has been sought [by Iraq] from Africa,” but another page says there is “compelling evidence that Iraq has sought the supply” of uranium. Such language shifts (similar to those in the first draft) may mean little to the lay reader, but are very significant within the intelligence community. In the first draft, principal author John Scarlett’s executive summary added to the confusion by saying that “recent evidence… indicates” Iraq has tried to purchase uranium from Africa, an even less certain phrasing. But this draft’s executive summary will be redacted from public view. [Common Dreams (.org), 8/26/2003] The French arrange a backchannel meeting between a friend of Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri Hadithi and the CIA’s station chief in Paris, Bill Murray. Sabri’s friend, a Lebanese journalist, tells Murray that Sabri would be willing to provide the CIA with accurate information on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program in exchange for $1 million. The CIA agrees to advance the journalist $200,000. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 45; MSNBC, 3/21/2006] When CIA Director George Tenet announces the deal during a high-level meeting at the White House—attended by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice—the news is greeted with enthusiasm. “They were enthusiastic because they said, they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis,” Tyler Drumheller, the agency’s head of spying in Europe, later tells 60 Minutes. [CBS News, 4/23/2006] But Sabri does not tell the CIA what the White House is expecting to hear. In a New York hotel room, the Lebanese journalist says that according to Sabri Iraq does not have a significant, active biological weapons program. He does however acknowledge that Iraq has some “poison gas” left over from the first Gulf War. Regarding the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program, Sabri’s friend says the Iraqis do not have an active program because they lack the fissile material needed to develop a nuclear bomb. But he does concede that Hussein desperately wants one. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 62-63; MSNBC, 3/21/2006] “He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction programs,” Drumheller, will recall. [Unger, 2007, pp. 246-247] The White House immediately loses interest in Sabri as a source after the New York meeting. Sabri, Bush says, is merely telling the US “the same old thing.” The CIA continues to corroborate material provided to the agency by Sabri. Wiretaps on Sabri’s phone conversations by French intelligence back up Sabri’s claims, but Bush could not care less. “Bush didn’t give a f_ck about the intelligence,” a CIA officer will later say. “He had his mind made up.” CIA agent Luis (whose full name has never been disclosed) and John Maguire, the chief and deputy chief of the Iraq Operations Group, also lose interest in the lead. In one confrontation between Maguire and Murray, Maguire allegedly says: “One of these days you’re going to get it. This is not about intelligence. This is about regime change.” Drumheller will agree, saying the White House is “no longer interested.… They said, ‘Well, this isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.’” [MSNBC, 3/21/2006; CBS News, 4/23/2006; Unger, 2007, pp. 246-247] Entity Tags: Naji Sabri Hadithi, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Luis, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Bill Murray, Central Intelligence Agency, John Maguire Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri reads the full text of a statement by Saddam Hussein before the UN secretariat-general. The statement condemns the Bush administration’s attempts to provoke a war with Iraq and accuses the administration of working hand in hand with the hardline Zionists in the Israeli government [Arabic News, 9/21/2002] “I hereby declare before you that Iraq is totally clear of all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons,” the letter says. “Our country is ready to receive any scientific experts, accompanied by politicians you choose to represent any one of your countries, to tell us which places and scientific and industrial installations they would wish to see.” [New York Times, 9/20/2002] Hussein also states that in pursuing its aggressive policy towards Iraq, the US is “acting on behalf of Zionism which has been killing the heroic people of Palestine, destroying their property, murdering their children,” adding that Washington intends to “control Middle East oil.” The passage draws the applause of several UN diplomats. [Independent, 9/20/2002] Entity Tags: United Nations, Naji Sabri Hadithi, Saddam Hussein Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion The New York Times publishes a highly detailed set of military options the Pentagon has recently given President Bush for attacking Iraq (see September 20, 2002). General Tommy Franks gave Bush the document just before a US speech at the UN calling for military action against Saddam Hussein. The attack would begin with a lengthy air campaign by B-2 bombers using satellite-guided bombs to knock out Iraqi command centers and air defenses, to isolate Hussein from field commanders. Ground forces would stage out of Kuwait. “The President has options now, and he has not made any decisions,” states White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. [New York Times, 9/21/2002] These plans assume that only 5,000 troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, a date only 45 months from the proposed invasion date - D-Day. The plans discussed goals and strategies for the invasion: “POTUS/SECDEF [President of US/Secretary of Defense] directed effort; limited to a very small group… Integrate / consider all elements of national power… [State Department] will promote creation of a broad-based, credible provisional government - prior to D-day… Iraqi regime has WMD capability.” [National Security Archive, 2/14/2007] The release of the military plans causes no widespread outrage or official US investigation, suggesting the White House approved the leak. Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, US Department of Defense, George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer, Thomas Franks Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion British Prime Minister Tony Blair gives a speech to Parliament concurrent with the just-released dossier on Iraqi WMD (see September 24, 2002). Blair combines fact—such as Iraq’s lengthy defiance and deception of UN weapons inspections since the 1991 Gulf War, the possible existence of tons of chemical and biological weapons material left unaccounted for in 1998, and the attempts by Iraq to subvert the UN’s Food for Oil program—with speculation that Saddam Hussein’s “chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons program is not an historic leftover from 1998.… His WMD program is active, detailed, and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The WMD program is not shut down. It is up and running.” Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “The world had to recognize that the potential connection between terrorists and weapons of mass destruction moved terrorism to a new level of threat. In fact, that nexus became the overriding security concern of our nation. It still is and it will continue to be our overriding concern for some years to come.” [US Department of State, 9/26/2002] But Paul Anderson, spokesman for Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells reporters that Graham, who has access to highly classified reports, has seen no evidence that Iraq has ties to al-Qaeda. [USA Today, 9/26/2002] Entity Tags: Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Graham, Colin Powell, Paul Anderson Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
The National Estimate on Intelligence (NIE) on Iraq (see October 1, 2002 and October 4, 2002) suffers from what CIA case officer and Iraq WMD specialist Valerie Plame Wilson will call “intellectual sloppiness.” In her 2007 book Fair Game, Plame Wilson will write that it was intellectually dishonest for the NIE authors to relegate the deep dissensions and counterarguments over the WMD claims to “footnotes in tiny type at the bottom of the” report. The footnotes are not “adequate pushback when building a case for something as serious as war,” she will write. “The CIA failed to demonstrate convincingly to the administration that there was a serious and sustained debate over this issue.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 123] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion CIA Director George Tenet sends a letter to Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In the letter, Tenet acknowledges declassifying some “material available to further the Senate’s forthcoming open debate on a joint resolution concerning Iraq” (see October 7, 2002). Tenet says that the declassified information supports the following contentions: Entity Tags: Bob Graham, George J. Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, Al-Qaeda, Senate Intelligence Committee Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Iraqi Minister Abdul Tawab Mullah Hawaish, who is in charge of Iraq’s weapons programs, invites reporters and members of the Bush administration to visit two of the alleged WMD sites, Furat and Nasser al-Azim. Bush had referred to the sites in his October 7 speech (see October 7, 2002). “The American administration are invited to inspect these sites,” Hawaish says, “As I am responsible for the Iraqi weapons programs, I confirm here that we have no weapons of mass destruction and we have no intention to produce them…. I am saying here and now that we do not have weapons of mass destruction and we do not have programs to develop them.” [BBC, 10/10/2002; Reuters, 10/10/2002] But the White House rejects the offer. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says, “This matter is not up to Iraq…. It is… up to the United Nations to decide.” [White House, 10/10/2002] Reporters, however, accept the offer and tour the Nasser State Establishment, a facility that Iraq claims produces goods for civilian use as well as components for conventional weapons. [Reuters, 10/10/2002] Entity Tags: Ari Fleischer, Bush administration, Abdul Tawab Mullah Hawaish Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, meet with White House officials to discuss the status of the UN inspections of alleged Iraqi WMD stockpiles (see October 8 and 11, 2002). The White House opposes further inspections, while the UN and IAEA feel further inspections could be valuable even in light of Iraqi duplicity. Blix will later recall that he and ElBaradei were surprised that they met first with Vice President Cheney before meeting with President Bush. Blix assumes that the meeting with Cheney is “sort of a courtesy call.” Instead, Cheney lays out the US position in stark terms. As Blix will later recall: “Much of it was a fairly neutral discussion, but at one point [Cheney] suddenly said that you must realize that we will not hesitate to discredit you in favor of disarmament. It was a little cryptic. That was how I remembered it, and I think that’s also how Mohamed [ElBaradei] remembered it. I was a little perplexed, because it was a total threat, after all, to talk about the discrediting of us. Later, when I reflected on it, I think what he wanted to say was that if you guys don’t come to the right conclusion, then we will take care of the disarmament.” [Vanity Fair, 2/2009] Entity Tags: Bush administration, Hans Blix, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Mohamed ElBaradei Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that if there is to be a war with Iraq, it will be short and relatively painless: “The idea that it’s going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind, I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990 (see August 7, 1990). Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that. It won’t be a World War III.” Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Steve Kroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Saddam Hussein Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Two months after the September 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency report (see September 2002)—which found there was no conclusive evidence Iraq has chemical weapons—another secret document titled, “Iraq’s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapon and Missile Program: Progress, Prospects, and Potential Vulnerabilities,” is completed. It also says in very clear terms that there is no solid proof that Iraq has chemical weapons. One passage from the report says, “No reliable information indicates whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where the country has or will establish its chemical agent production facility.” [US Department of Defense, n.d.; US News and World Report, 6/13/2003] White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says during a press briefing: “I will say this is something that the president has said publicly, that Iraq did, in fact, seek to buy these tubes for the purpose of producing, not as Iraq now claims conventional forces, but for the purpose of trying to produce nuclear weapons. And so it’s, on the one hand, mildly encouraging that Iraq would now admit to what it’s been doing. But on the other hand, a lie is still a lie, because these—they sought to produce these for the purpose of production of nuclear weapons, not conventional.” He also states that the evidence of WMD is that Saddam Hussein will claim there are no WMD and that proves there are WMD because Hussein is a liar. “Saddam Hussein does not exactly have a track record of telling the world the truth. So he, on December 8th, has to indicate whether or not he has weapons. Let’s see what he says. If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.” When asked how he knows Iraq has WMD, Fleischer says, “We have intelligence information about what Saddam Hussein possesses… It’s no secret. We’ve said many times—you’ve heard the President say repeatedly that he has chemical and biological weapons, and he has missiles that can reach an access of 150 kilometers, all three of which are violations of his sworn commitments to the United Nations.” [White House, 12/2/2002] Iraq reiterates its claim that it has no weapons of mass destruction in the country, foreshadowing the content of its formal declaration, which is due in five days. Responding to the statement, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says, “Any country on the face of the earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” And President Bush says, “He [Saddam Hussein] says he won’t have weapons of mass destruction; he’s got them.” [BBC, 12/4/2002] White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says: “The president of the United States and the Secretary of Defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.” When pressed for details, he adds: “President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Richard Butler has said they do. The United Nations has said they do. The experts have said they do. Iraq says they don’t. You can choose who you want to believe.” [CBC News, 12/5/2002; Associated Press, 12/5/2003] Entity Tags: Richard Butler, Donald Rumsfeld, Ari Fleischer, Tony Blair, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion The UN Security Council decides that it will not release Iraq’s declaration to any of the member states once it has been received. “UN experts would first scrutinize the document—expected to run to several thousand pages—to check that sensitive information is not made public,” explains the London Times, adding, “That could take weeks.” [London Times, 12/7/2002; New York Times, 12/7/2002] The Guardian of London reports that according to unnamed sources in New York and London, “the US and Britain lack ‘killer’ intelligence that will prove conclusively that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” The article quotes one source as saying, “If we had intelligence that there is a piece of weaponry at this map reference, we would tell the inspectors and they would be there like a shot.” [Guardian, 12/10/2002] Entity Tags: United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion A senior British security source suggests to the London Independent that US officials are “talking up” the evidence they say they have against Iraq. “We know [of] material which is unaccounted for,” says the source. “But we have not got a definite site, a grid reference, where we can say Saddam is hiding it. If the US administration does indeed have that kind of specifics, it has not been passed on to us. The main problem is known to us all. After all, it was Paul Wolfowitz the hawkish deputy US Defense Secretary who said, ‘Iraq isn’t a country where we’ve had human intelligence for years.’” [Independent, 12/20/2002] Entity Tags: Paul Wolfowitz, UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, George W. Bush, John E. McLaughlin Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Associated Press reporter Charles Hanley, an award-winning news veteran with over 30 years of weapons issues coverage on his record, accompanies the UN weapons inspectors combing through Iraq to find the suspected weapons of mass destruction. In 2007, Hanley will recall: “What we did was go out everyday with the inspectors. These guys would roar out on these motorcades at very high speed and roar through towns and do sudden U-turns and drive over land and do all of these things to confuse the Iraqis about where they were going so that there wouldn’t be a call ahead telling them to put away all the bad stuff. The inspectors then would issue a daily report. And as it turned out, of course, inspection after inspection, it turned out to be clean. They had nothing to report, no violations to report.” Hanley files repeated reports with statements such as, “No smoking guns in… almost 400 inspections.” But, Hanley will later say, his editors often refuse to print his work. “[T]hat would be stricken from my copy because it would strike some editors as tendentious. As sort of an attack or some sort of allegation rather than a fact. You know and we don’t want our reporters alleging things. We, you know, we just report the facts. Well it was a fact. It was a very important fact that seemed to be lost on an awful lot of journalists unfortunately.” Instead, Hanley says, “The media just continued on this path of reporting, ‘Well, the Bush administration alleges that there are WMD,’ and never really stopped and said ‘It doesn’t look like there are. There’s no evidence.’ That should have been the second sentence in any story about the allegations of WMD. The second sentence should have been, ‘But they did not present any evidence to back this up.’” [PBS, 4/25/2007] Entity Tags: Charles Hanley, Associated Press Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda At a press briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says, “There is no doubt in my mind but that they [Iraq] currently have chemical and biological weapons.” [Associated Press, 1/7/2003] UNMOVIC inspectors say they have yet to uncover evidence indicating that Iraq has resumed its production of weapons of mass destruction. After providing the UN Security Council with a summary of the inspectors’ findings, Hans Blix tells reporters in New York, “We have now been there for some two months and been covering the country in ever wider sweeps and we haven’t found any smoking guns.” [Guardian, 1/10/2003] But Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, insists that the absence of evidence is of little concern, asserting, “The problem with guns that are hidden is you can’t see their smoke. We know for a fact that there are weapons there.” [Guardian, 1/10/2003] When asked how he knows this, Fleischer quotes from the UN weapons inspectors’ report and notes, “So while they’ve [UN Inspectors] said that there’s no smoking gun, they said the absence of it is not assured. And that’s the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem is Iraq is very good at hiding things.” [White House, 1/9/2003] John Negroponte, the US ambassador to the UN, accuses Iraq of “legalistic” cooperation, claiming that it needs to act proactively. He also says, “There is still no evidence that Iraq has fundamentally changed its approach from one of deceit to a genuine attempt to be forthcoming.” [Guardian, 1/10/2003] Colin Powell also seems undaunted by Blix’s remarks. “The lack of a smoking gun does not mean that there’s not one there,” he says, “If the international community sees that Saddam Hussein is not cooperating in a way that would not allow you to determine the truth of the matter, then he is in violation of the UN resolution [1441] (see November 8, 2002)…You don’t really have to have a smoking gun.” [News24, 1/10/2003] Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the UN, echoes views from Washington, asserting that the “passive cooperation of Iraq has been good in terms of access and other procedural issues,” and adds, “But proactive cooperation has not been forthcoming—the kind of cooperation needed to clear up the remaining questions in the inspectors’ minds.” [Guardian, 1/10/2003] Two Pentagon offices—the Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Office and the Office of Special Plans—prepare a white paper and slide presentation recommending the creation of a “Rapid Reaction Media Team” (RRMT) that would maintain control over major Iraqi media organizations while still projecting an Iraqi “face.” The first phase of the one-to-two-year “strategic information campaign” would last six months and cost $51 million. The paper states that the “RRMT concept focuses on USG-UK [“USG” stands for US government] pre-and post hostilities efforts to develop programming, train talent, and rapidly deploy a team of US/UK media experts with a team of ‘hand selected’ Iraqi media experts to communicate immediately with the Iraqi public opinion upon liberation of Iraq.” The “hand-picked” Iraqi experts would help “select and train the Iraqi broadcasters and publishers (‘the face’) for the USG/coalition sponsored information effort,” the paper explains. Media stories produced by this campaign would be based on US-approved information and would focus on topics like “the De-Baathification program”; “recent history telling (e.g., ‘Uncle Saddam,’ History Channel’s ‘Saddam’s Bomb-Maker,’ ‘Killing Fields,’ etc.)”; US government-approved “Democracy Series”; “Environmental (Marshlands re-hydration)”; “Mine Awareness”; “Re-starting the Oil”; “Justice and rule of law topics”; “War Criminals/Truth Commission”; “prisoners and atrocity interviews”; “Saddam’s palaces and opulence,” and “WMD (weapons of mass destruction) disarmament.” For its “Entertainment and News Magazine programming,” the plan says the media should do stories on “Hollywood,” “Arab country donations,” and “Sports.” According to the paper, “having professional US-trained Iraqi media teams immediately in place to portray a new Iraq (by Iraqis for Iraqis) with hopes for a prosperous, democratic future, will have a profound psychological and political impact on the Iraqi people.” It is not clear whether or not this particular plan is implemented. However, after the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon will contract a firm called the Lincoln Group to plant stories in the Iraqi media (see September 2004-September 2006) and will purchase an Iraqi newspaper and take control of an Iraqi radio station, using them to disseminate pro-American messages to the Iraqi public. [US Department of Defense, 1/2003 Entity Tags: Office of Special Plans, Office of Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Timeline Tags: US Military, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went to Niger almost a year ago to determine the truth or falsehood of the story that Iraq attempted to secure 500 tons of uranium from Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and his wife, CIA case officer and WMD specialist Valerie Plame Wilson, both watch President Bush’s State of the Union address (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). According to Plame Wilson’s 2007 book Fair Game, Wilson watches from a Canadian television studio, brought there to comment on the address immediately afterwards. His wife watches from their Washington, DC, home. Plame Wilson will recall being dumbstruck at Bush’s “16 words” claim that British intelligence had found a clandestine attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from an African nation. She will write: “What? Had I heard him correctly? Hadn’t Joe’s report on his trip to Niger nearly a year ago (see March 4-5, 2002 and March 5, 2002), distributed throughout the intelligence community, including presumably the vice president’s office, proved the emptiness of these charges?” When Wilson returns home, he and his wife, according to Plame Wilson’s recollection, “briefly discussed what we thought the president’s claim could have meant. It seemed so odd.” The next day, Wilson asks a friend at the State Department about the claim, and notes that Bush’s assertion is not borne out by the facts. If Bush had indeed referred to Niger in the speech, then his report, along with those of the US Ambassador to Niger and General Carlton Fulford (see February 24, 2002), “had all been wrong. Or had the president misspoken? In that case, the record needed to be corrected.” Wilson’s friend replies that Bush may have been speaking of one of the other African countries that produce uranium—Gabon, South Africa, or Namibia. Wilson accepts the explanation for the time being. As a side note, Plame Wilson adds at this point in her book, “Several years later, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs told Joe, ‘You don’t think that if we had seen the State of the Union address before it was delivered, that we would have allowed that phrase to remain in it, do you?” [New York Times, 7/6/2003; Wilson, 2004, pp. 313-314; Wilson, 2007, pp. 125-126] Entity Tags: US Department of State, Valerie Plame Wilson, George W. Bush, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Tyler Drumheller, head of CIA spying in Europe, reviews a classified draft of the speech Secretary of State Colin Powell will be delivering to the UN Security Council on February 5. He is surprised to see the allegation that according to an unnamed “chemical engineer,” Iraq has mobile biological weapons factories. Drumheller recognizes the description of the source as that of Curveball, an Iraqi defector living in Germany who is suspected of being a fabricator. Only a few days before, CIA’s Berlin station chief warned CIA headquarters that Curveball’s statements could not be verified (see January 27, 2003). Drumheller takes his pen and crosses out the entire paragraph referring to Curveball, and then calls CIA Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin who meets with him immediately. McLaughlin, concerned, admits that Curveball is the CIA’s “only tangible source” for the story. “This is the heart of the case,” he says to the surprise of Drumheller. [Risen, 2006; Washington Post, 6/25/2006] Drumheller recalls, “And John said, ‘Oh my, I hope not. You know this is all we have,’ and I said, ‘This can’t be all we have.’ I said, ‘There must be another, there must be something else.’ And he said, ‘No, this is really the only tangible thing we have.’” [ABC News, 3/13/2007] According to Drumheller, McLaughlin says he will take care of the issue. McLaughlin later says he does not recall the meeting, but the final report of the Silberman-Robb commission cites e-mails and interviews with other CIA officials who back Drumheller’s account. [Risen, 2006; Washington Post, 6/25/2006] Despite the warning, the claim remains in Powell’s speech (see February 5, 2003). Colin Powell’s chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, meets with other administration officials and aides at the CIA’s Langley headquarters in a conference room down the hall from George Tenet’s office to review two White House reports on Iraq’s alleged illegal activities. The team includes George Tenet, John McLaughlin, William Tobey and Robert Joseph from the National Security Council, and John Hannah from Vice President Cheney’s office. (Tenet had intended to leave for a Middle East junket, but Powell stopped him from going, insisting on his input and participation.) The two dossiers are meant to serve as the basis for Powell’s upcoming speech at the UN (see February 5, 2003). One of the reports—a 48-page dossier that had been provided to Powell’s office a few days earlier (see January 29, 2003)—deals with Iraq’s supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction while the other, a slightly more recent report totaling some 45 pages, addresses the issue of Iraq’s history of human rights violations and its alleged ties to Islamic militant groups. Shortly after Wilkerson begins reviewing the 48-page report on Iraq’s alleged WMD, it becomes apparent that the material is not well sourced. [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 230; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 177; Unger, 2007, pp. 276] Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Office of the Vice President, National Security Council, Richard A. Clarke, White House Iraq Group, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert G. Joseph, William H. Tobey, Lawrence Wilkerson, John Hannah, Michael Isikoff, Iraqi National Congress, Colin Powell, Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Chalabi, Craig Unger, David Corn, Donald Rumsfeld, John E. McLaughlin, George J. Tenet, Douglas Feith Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet at the White House to discuss Iraq. Also present at the meeting are Blair’s foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning; his aid Matthew Rycoft; his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell; US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Dan Fried; and Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card. [Sands, 2005; Independent, 2/2/2006; Channel 4 News (London), 2/2/2006; New York Times, 3/27/2006] Entity Tags: David Manning, George W. Bush, Jonathan Powell, Daniel Fried, Tony Blair, Andrew Card, Condoleezza Rice, Phillippe Sands, Matthew Rycroft Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion The British government releases a dossier titled “Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation.” The government says the dossier is based on high-level intelligence and diplomatic sources and was produced with the approval of Prime Minister Tony Blair; it also wins praise from US Secretary of State Colin Powell (see February 7, 2003). Unfortunately, the dossier is almost wholly plagiarized from a September 2002 article by university student Ibrahim al-Marashi. [Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2/23/2003] Al-Marashi was doing postgraduate work at Oxford University when he wrote it. [International Policy Fellowships, 10/1/2006] The article is entitled “Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis,” and was published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal (MERIA). [Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2/23/2003] The British dossier plagiarizes two other articles as well, both from Jane’s Intelligence Review (see February 8, 2003), some of which were published as far back as 1997. MERIA is based in Israel, which even moderate Arabs say makes it a suspect source, and all the more reason why the origin of the information should have been cited. [Guardian, 2/7/2003] MERIA, an Internet-based magazine with about 10,000 subscribers, is edited by Jerusalem Post columnist Barry Rubin. [Jerusalem Post, 2/8/2003] Rubin will responds dryly: “We are pleased that the high quality of MERIA Journal’s articles has made them so valuable to our readers.… As noted on the masthead of each issue and all our publications, however, we do appreciate being given credit.” [Middle East Review of International Affairs, 2/23/2003] Al-Marashi, currently working at California’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies, describes himself as an opponent of Saddam Hussein’s regime: “As an Iraqi, I support regime change in Iraq,” he says. [Reuters, 2/8/2003; Associated Press, 2/7/2007] Entity Tags: Hans Blix, UK Security Service (MI5), David Omand, Glen Rangwala, Ibrahim al-Marashi, Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal, Jerusalem Post, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Mukhabarat, David Manning, Colin Powell, Blair administration, Christopher Aaron, United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Coalition Information Center, Alastair Campbell, Saddam Hussein, Barry Rubin, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, British Foreign Office, Tony Blair Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda On the evening of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council (see February 5, 2003), Powell’s chief of staff Larry Wilkerson (see January 30-February 4, 2003) conducts a dress rehearsal on the top floor of the US Mission to the United Nations. He rearranges the furniture to look like the seating arrangements in the UN Security Council. This is Wilkerson’s last change to get the presentation right and weed out everything that cannot be verified. One item that worries him is an intercept of a conversation between two members of Iraq’s elite Republican Guards. Wilkerson will later say, “They were very classy, rat-tat-tat-tat, hitting you fast, like all the TV crap Americans are used to these says, nine-second sound bites.” But Wilkerson is not sure they say what the CIA and the White House claim they say. “You have this guy at a chemical factory saying, ‘Get rid of it.’ Suppose he’s actually trying to get rid of [the WMD]… [But] all the intercepts could have been interpreted two or three or even more ways. Believe me, I looked at it fifty times.” Wilkerson is doubly worried about the claims that Iraq has mobile bioweapons labs (see February 3, 2003). In a dramatic sequence, Powell will present sketches of the mobile labs based on descriptions from an undisclosed source. Wilkerson is not sold: “Powell and I were both suspicious because these weren’t pictures of the mobile labs,” he will later recall. Wilkerson asks CIA Director George Tenet and Tenet’s deputy John McLaughlin about the sourcing, and both officials agree that the sourcing is “exceptionally strong” (see February 4, 2003). McLaughlin fails to tell Wilkerson about CIA official Tyler Drumheller’s concerns (see Late January, 2003). Wilkerson will recall, “I sat in the room, looking into George Tenet’s eyes, as did the secretary of state, and heard with all the firmness only George could give… I mean eyeball-to-eyeball contact between two of the most powerful men in the administration, Colin Powell and George Tenet, and George Tenet assuring Colin Powell that the information he was presenting to the UN was ironclad.” At the end of the rehearsal, Powell asks Tenet, “Do you stand by this?” “Absolutely, Mr. Secretary,” Tenet replies. “Good,” says Powell, “because you are going to be in camera beside me at the UN Security Council tomorrow.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 282-283] Senior CIA official and WMD specialist Valerie Plame Wilson watches Secretary of State Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations (see February 5, 2003). In her memoir Fair Game (partially redacted by the CIA), she will later write: “I assumed Powell’s presentation would be, in a sense, a Kabuki-like performance, in which the secretary of state’s sterling reputation would persuade the world of the righteousness of a decision the administration had already made. Still, I had enormous respect for [Powell]—I had heard him speak in the Agency’s bubble-shaped auditorium and had been quite impressed with his eloquence and natural charisma.” Plame Wilson and several other analysts watch Powell’s presentation on a television in their CIA office complex. Plame Wilson calls Powell’s presentation a “bravura performance… but I knew key parts of it were wrong.” She finds “shocking” his claims about Iraq’s mobile bioweapons labs. She knows that information comes from an Iraqi defector code-named “Curveball,” who has already been discredited by CIA analysts. Plame Wilson will recall: “When the program ended and we all drifted back to our desks, I was deeply upset, my head was spinning. I was experiencing what I can only call cognitive dissonance: ‘a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation.’ I had been tracking Iraqi WMD efforts carefully for some time [REDACTED] and the facts I knew simply did not match up with what Powell had just presented.” Powell had presented as direct and verified fact a body of arguments that had been seriously questioned and heavily caveated by CIA and other intelligence agencies’ analysts. His presentation was, Plame Wilson will observe, “at a minimum much too optimistic and almost glib. It seemed he had only used the most sensational and tantalizing bits as evidence, without any of those appropriate caveats or cautions.” Plame Wilson will later write that for the rest of the day, she attempts to come to grips with Powell’s presentation. She realizes that others above her have access to information of which she is unaware. “The idea that my government, which I had served loyally for years, might be exaggerating a case for war was impossible to comprehend. Nothing made sense.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 128-130] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, ’Curveball’, Valerie Plame Wilson, Colin Powell Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, sits behind Powell during the UN presentation (see February 5, 2003). As Powell begins, Wilkerson eyes the Iraqi delegation. “I knew they didn’t know squat, Saddam Hussein wouldn’t have told those guys anything,” Wilkerson will later recall. “But I’m sitting there watching them. Are they going to say, ‘Oh, God, they’ve got us!’?” Wilkerson and his team have thrown out the entire Cheney-provided dossier on WMD (see January 29, 2003 and January 30-February 4, 2003). They have thrown out three-quarters of the dossier on Iraq’s connections with Islamist terrorism. What’s left will give Powell about 80 minutes of material. The audio and video displays Powell uses to show his evidence and reinforce his speech are slick and dramatic, with fast cuts and professional editing shown on big-screen monitors. Wilkerson feels that what is left is relatively strong, but worries that there is not all that much there. “Because we had cut it so severely,” he will later recall, “I felt that the presentation was fairly solid. But my biggest concern was the efficacy of the presentation. We had thrown out so much crap—rightfully so. But now the presentation wasn’t very effective.… I felt like I’d failed.” But, author Craig Unger will note, Wilkerson is forgetting the tremendous presence, charisma, and stature of Colin Powell. For Powell to come before the UN and lend his gravitas and moral authority to the Bush administration’s case for war gives that case tremendous credence it had heretofore lacked (see Early February, 2003). Reflecting on this, Wilkerson will say: “There’s no question in my mind that Vice President Cheney knew that. That’s why he had Powell do it.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 284-285] Entity Tags: Colin Powell, Bush administration, US Department of State, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lawrence Wilkerson, Craig Unger Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, writing in his 2004 memoir The Politics of Truth, reflects on Secretary of State Colin Powell’s UN speech (see February 5, 2003), comparing his impressions of Powell’s presentation with those of former CIA official Patrick Lang, a specialist in the area of Middle East terrorism and WMD. Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Bush administration, Patrick Lang, Colin Powell Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies, criticizes the use of a plagiarized dossier as a source for Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN on Iraq’s supposed WMD programs and efforts at concealment (see February 5, 2003). Powell explicitly mentioned the dossier, complied by the British government, as one of the sources for his speech, “I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed… which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” But the dossier is almost wholly plagiarized from publicly available, out-of-date sources (see February 3, 2003). [Guardian, 2/7/2003] “It’s embarrassing for the prime minister [Tony Blair] and for poor old Colin Powell,” says Heyman, adding: “[The dossier] was clearly prepared by someone in Downing Street and it’s obviously part of the prime minister’s propaganda campaign. The intelligence services were not involved—I’ve had two people phoning me today to say, ‘Look, we had nothing to with it.’” [Washington Post, 2/8/2003] Entity Tags: Charles Heyman, Colin Powell, Blair administration Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion In a radio address to the US nation, President Bush reiterates the two main reasons for military action against Iraq, named the certain existence of WMD and al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq. He says, “We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons—the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.… We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al-Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad.” [President Bush, 8/2/2003] Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion A Labour Party lawmaker storms out of the House of Commons after saying the Blair administration lied about a recent dossier it released that purported to show Iraq’s deceiving UN weapons inspectors about its presumed cache of WMD (see February 3, 2003). Tam Dalyell, the longest-serving member in the Commons and a member of Tony Blair’s Labour Party, thunders, “To plagiarize an out of date Ph.D. thesis and to present it as an official report of the latest British intelligence information, surely it reveals a lack of awareness of the disastrous consequences of such a deception.” Dalyell calls for an emergency debate on the issue. “This is not a trivial leak. It is a document on which is the basis of whether or not this country goes to war and whether or not young servicemen and servicewomen are to put their own lives at risk and indeed thousands, tens of thousands of innocent civilians.” [Associated Press, 2/10/2003] Entity Tags: Tam Dalyell, Blair administration Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Domestic Propaganda In early February, David Corn, an editor of the progressive magazine The Nation, asks former ambassador Joseph Wilson to write an editorial for the magazine. Corn believes that Wilson’s “establishment credentials” give credibility to the antiwar views that Wilson and the magazine share. Wilson publishes an op-ed in the magazine titled “Republic or Empire?” Wilson, who staunchly supported the 1991 Gulf War (see After February 28, 1991), argues that the US has already succeeded in large part in its efforts to contain and disarm Saddam Hussein. Also, the US’s new military basing agreements throughout the region give it what Wilson calls a “[h]egemony in the Arab nations of the Gulf… a dominant presence astride strategic oil reserves that would enable us to respond to crises in the region much more quickly and efficiently in the future than we had ever been able to in the past. Thus, the conquest of Iraq would not materially improve our influence from southern Asia to the Horn of Africa.” The war is not about Iraqi WMD, nor Iraq’s alleged ties to terrorism, or even about liberating an oppressed populace, Wilson writes. “The underlying objective of this war is the imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and installation of vassal regimes that will control restive populations.” The neoconservatives in the Bush administration, Wilson asserts, “want to go beyond expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region. American pre-eminence in the Gulf is necessary but not sufficient for the hawks. Nothing short of conquest, occupation and imposition of handpicked leaders on a vanquished population will suffice. Iraq is the linchpin for this broader assault on the region. The new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our worldview are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme. Arabs who complain about American-supported antidemocratic regimes today will find us in even more direct control tomorrow. The leader of the future in the Arab world will look a lot more like Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf than Thomas Jefferson.” He concludes: “[W]ith the costs to our military, our treasury and our international standing, we will be forced to learn whether our republican roots and traditions can accommodate the administration’s imperial ambitions. It may be a bitter lesson.” [Nation, 3/3/2003; Wilson, 2004, pp. 318-319, 469-472] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Saddam Hussein, David Corn Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Newsweek reports: “In recent weeks a small group of CIA analysts have been meeting as part of a ‘predictive analysis project’ to divine if and when Saddam might strike the United States with a weapon of mass destruction. The theory is that Saddam might slip one of his chem-bio or radiological weapons to al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group to create a massive diversion, a crisis in the American homeland that could stall an attack on Iraq.” The CIA has no hard evidence supporting this idea, but the CIA has calculated the odds, and in a report obtained by Newsweek, these analysts predict “that under the stipulated scenario there is a 59 percent probability that an attack on the US homeland involving WMD would occur before March 31, 2003, a 35 percent probability an attack would occur at a later date, and a 6 percent probability an attack would never occur.” But Newsweek will comment that “it is important to remember that the odds are determined by averaging a bunch of guesses, informed perhaps, but from experts whose careers can only be ruined by underestimating the threat.” [Newsweek, 2/17/2003] No such attack occurs. Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Neoconservative Richard Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, has a simple explanation as to why UN inspectors are not finding WMD in Iraq (see February 8, 2003): skullduggery. “UN weapons inspectors are being seriously deceived,” he declares in an essay published on the American Enterprise Institute’s Web site entitled “Take Out Saddam—It’s the Only Way.” Perle’s contentions are similar to those he has extolled in the past (see March, 2001 and November 20, 2002). This time he escalates the rhetoric even farther: “It reminds me of the way Nazis hoodwinked Red Cross officials inspecting the concentration camp at Theresienstadt in 1944.” [American Enterprise Institute, 2/25/2003; Unger, 2007, pp. 289] Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Defense Policy Board Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence A CIA analyst who is investigating intelligence reports suggesting that Iraq is seeking US mapping software that could be used to guide its drones to the US, interviews the Iraqi procurement agent who placed the order for the software. He concludes from the interview that the Iraqi agent’s purchase order for the mapping software was likely inadvertent, and that he was actually trying to obtain other pieces of equipment from the manufacturer’s online store. The CIA reports in a memo addressed to the House intelligence committee that it now has “no definite indications that Baghdad is planning to use WMD-armed UAVs against the US mainland.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 206] ENTITIESAndrew Wilkie Analyst at the Office of National Assessments (Australia) Joern Siljeholm Norwegian UN weapons inspector Melvin A. Goodman Senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington Senior Analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency Intelligence specialist at the National War College Patrick Lang Head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Scott Ritter UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector (Summer of 1997 until August 1998) US Marine Intelligence Officer Unnamed senior official Unnamed senior official in Dick Cheney’s office Unnamed US Department of Defense official Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate
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Attorney General John Ashcroft says on CNN: “We believe there are substantial risks of terrorism still in the United States of America. As we as a nation respond to what has happened to us, those risks may in fact go up.” 
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