Events Leading Up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Members of the 9/11 Commission’s team focusing on counterterrorism issues are appalled at a rewrite of a report by executive director Philip Zelikow. Zelikow rewrote the report, about the history of US efforts to contain al-Qaeda during the Clinton years, to imply that direct links exist between Iraq and al-Qaeda (see January 2004). Staffer Scott Allan, who wrote the original report, thinks that if the report is allowed to stand, it will become an important propaganda tool for the White House and its neoconservative backers in justifying the Iraq war, with headlines trumpeting the commission’s “discovery” of evidence linking al-Qaeda and Iraq. Many of Allan’s colleagues are equally disturbed, especially senior staffer Les Hawley. Hawley, a retired colonel, is a veteran of the military and civilian bureaucracies in Washington, and was a senior official in the State Department under Bill Clinton. Hawley, Allan, and the rest of the team directly challenge Zelikow’s rewrite. In author Philip Shenon’s words: “It would be remembered as an all-important showdown for the staff, the moment where they would make it clear that Zelikow could take his partisanship only so far. The staff would not allow him to trade on their credibility to promote the goals of the Bush White House—not in these interim reports, nor in the commission’s final report later that year.” The staff soon confronts Zelikow on the issue (see January 2004). [Shenon, 2008, pp. 317-324]

Entity Tags: Philip Shenon, 9/11 Commission, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration, Clinton administration, Les Hawley, US Department of State, Scott Allan, Philip Zelikow

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow rewrites a commission staff statement to imply there are ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Zelikow often rewrites many of the staff statements, but usually mainly to improve the style (see January 2004), and the addition of the Iraq-related material is unusual. The statement dealing with Iraq was originally compiled by international law expert Scott Allan, a member of the 9/11 Commission’s counterterrorism investigation, which is a strong focus of Zelikow’s attention. Allan writes the statement on the history of US diplomatic efforts to monitor and counteract al-Qaeda during the Clinton years, and the difficulties encountered by the government in working with “friendly” Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia to keep al-Qaeda at bay. Allan and other members of Team 3 are horrified at Zelikow’s rewrite of this report. Zelikow inserts sentences that allege direct ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda (see July 9, 2003), suggest that al-Qaeda officials were in systematic contact with Iraqi government officials in the years before 9/11, and even allege that Osama bin Laden had seriously considered moving to Iraq after the Clinton administration pressured the Taliban to oust him from Afghanistan (see April 4, 2000 and December 29, 2000). Zelikow’s additions are subtle and never directly state that Iraq and al-Qaeda had any sort of working relationship, but the import is clear. The effect of Zelikow’s rewrite would be to put the commission on record as strongly suggesting that such a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda—long a White House argument to justify the war in Iraq—existed before 9/11, and therefore Iraq bore some of the responsibility for the attacks. Allan never made any such allegations in his original draft. Moreover, he knows from his colleagues who have pored over the archives at the CIA that no evidence of such a connection exists. Allan and the other Team 3 staffers confront Zelikow on the rewrite (see January 2004), and Zelikow eventually backs down (see January 2004). [Shenon, 2008, pp. 317-324]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, 9/11 Commission, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Philip Zelikow, Osama bin Laden, Clinton administration, Scott Allan

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

In response to a question at a news conference, Secretary of State Colin Powell says, “I have not seen a smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection [between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda], but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.” [Associated Press, 1/8/2004; Independent, 1/11/2004]

Entity Tags: Colin Powell

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

Vice President Dick Cheney tells Rocky Mountain News that a November 2003 article published in the conservative Weekly Standard (see November 14, 2003) represents “the best source of information” on cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The article was based on a leaked intelligence memo that had been written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith in 2002 and was the product of the Office of Special Plans (see August 2002). Cheney also insists that the administration’s decision to invade Iraq was “perfectly justified.” [Rocky Mountain News, 1/10/2004; Knight Ridder, 3/9/2004]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Douglas Feith

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Office of Special Plans, Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld telephones former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill and warns him that it might be against his best interest to go ahead with the publishing of The Price of Loyalty, an insider account of how Iraq quickly became the administration’s focus once in office. The book, authored by journalist Ron Suskind, is based upon O’Neill’s experience as secretary of the treasury. [Atlantic Monthly, 10/2004]

Entity Tags: Ron Suskind, Paul O’Neill, Donald Rumsfeld

Category Tags: The Decision to Invade, Key Events Related to DSM, Decision to Invade Quotes

In an interview with Time magazine, former US Secretary of Treasury Paul O’Neill says he never saw or heard of any real evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. “In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterize as evidence of weapons of mass destruction,” he explains. “There were allegations and assertions by people…. But I’ve been around a hell of a long time, and I know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions and conclusions that one could draw from a set of assumptions. To me there is a difference between real evidence and everything else. And I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterize as real evidence.” [Time, 1/11/2004]

Entity Tags: Paul O’Neill

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence, Alleged WMDs

George Bush gives the third state of the union address of his presidency. He states that the Iraq Survey Group found “weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” in Iraq and claims that had his administration “failed to act, the dictator’s weapons of mass destruction program would continue to this day.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs

In an interview with NPR’s Juan Williams, Vice President Dick Cheney says: “In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we’re quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We’ve found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program. Now it’s not clear at this stage whether or not he used any of that to produce or whether he was simply getting ready for the next war. That, in my mind, is a serious danger in the hands of a man like Saddam Hussein, and I would deem that conclusive evidence, if you will, that he did, in fact, have programs for weapons of mass destruction.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/23/2004; Washington Post, 1/23/2004]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Chemical & Bio Weapons Allegations

David Kay quits his job as head of the Iraq Survey Group. [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]

Entity Tags: David Kay

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Alleged WMDs

David Kay tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Iraq Survey Group has failed to find any evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. “Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong,” he says in his opening remarks, before revealing that the inspection teams had found no weapons of mass destruction. “I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarized chemical and biological weapons there,” he says. [CNN, 1/28/2003; Guardian, 1/29/2003; US Congress, 1/28/2004 ]

Entity Tags: David Kay

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs

David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, meets with President Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Andrew Card. The day before (see January 28, 2004), Kay had told Congress, “We were almost all wrong” about intelligence on Iraq’s presumed arsenal of illegal weapons. Bush wants to know what went wrong, but shows no anger. “The president accepted it,” Kay later recalls. “There was no sign of disappointment from Bush. He was at peace with his decision to go to war. I don’t think he ever lost ten minutes of sleep over the failure to find WMDs.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 349]

Entity Tags: David Kay, Andrew Card, Condoleezza Rice, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs

CIA Director George Tenet says in a speech that while there is “no consensus” among intelligence officials that the two trailers found in Iraq (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) were mobile biological weapons factories, the trailers “could be made to work” as weapons labs. [Central Intelligence Agency, 2/5/2004; Washington Post, 4/12/2006]

Entity Tags: George J. Tenet

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Chemical & Bio Weapons Allegations

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who served as the first US administrator in post-Saddam Iraq, says in an interview with the National Journal Group that the US will probably keep troops in Iraq for “the next few decades.” He adds that “one of the most important things we can do right now is start getting basing rights” in northern and southern Iraq. “To me that’s what Iraq is for the next few decades. We ought to have something there… that gives us great presence in the Middle East. I think that’s going to be necessary.” [National Journal, 2/6/2004]

Entity Tags: Jay Garner

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence

The CIA sends a memo to top Bush administration officials informing them that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaeda operative being held in custody by the CIA, recanted his claim in January that Iraq provided training in poisons and gases to members of al-Qaeda (see September 2002). [New York Times, 7/31/2004; Newsweek, 7/5/2005; Washington Post, 11/6/2005] The claim had been used in speeches by both President George Bush (see October 7, 2002) and Secretary of State Colin Powell (see February 5, 2003).

Entity Tags: White House, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, Colin Powell, George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Poisons and Gases

Ahmed Chalabi, president of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), tells the London Telegraph during an interview in Baghdad that he has no regrets that the intelligence he fed to the US turned out to be wrong. Though his group has been accused of intentionally providing misleading information to US intelligence through the Pentagon offices under Douglas Feith, he believes its members should be regarded as “heroes in error.” “As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful,” he contends. “That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants.” One of the most significant claims Secretary of State Colin Powell had made to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, had been supplied by a source supplied by the INC. In that case, a defected Iraqi major had claimed that Iraq possessed mobile biological weapons labs. [Daily Telegraph, 2/19/2004]

Entity Tags: Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence, Chalabi and the INC

CIA Director George Tenet tells Congress regarding an alleged meeting between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi government agent in Prague, “We can’t prove that one way or another.” [New York Times, 7/9/2004]

Entity Tags: George J. Tenet

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

New York Times reporter Judith Miller is interviewed for an article in the New York Review of Books. Miller wrote a series of stories promoting intelligence that would justify an invasion of Iraq; all the content of these stories were later found to be false. Miller says: “The fact that the United States so far hasn’t found WMD in Iraq is deeply disturbing. It raises real questions about how good our intelligence was. To beat up on the messenger is to miss the point.” She says that as an investigative reporter dealing with intelligence: “[M]y job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.” Michael Massing, author of the New York Review of Books’ story, will comment, “Many journalists would disagree with this; instead, they would consider offering an independent evaluation of official claims one of their chief responsibilities.” [New York Review of Books, 2/26/2004]

Entity Tags: Judith Miller

Timeline Tags: US Military, Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Media Coverage

Katharine Gun, who leaked an NSA memo to the British press in February 2003 that revealed the existence of an elaborate US plan to “bug” UN delegates (see January 31, 2003), is arrested and charged with violating the Official Secrets Act for giving a copy of the memo to the press. Gun was a translator for British intelligence, who worked at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) before losing her job over the leak in June. Gun does not dispute leaking the memo, instead calling it “justified.” Any leaks she made exposed “serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US Government,” she says, and were made to prevent “wide-scale death and casualties among ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces.” [BBC, 11/13/2003] Gun has had the support of a wide array of antiwar and civil rights activists, led in the US by actor Sean Penn and activist Jesse Jackson, who signed a statement shortly before her court appearance praising her as a whistleblower. [Observer, 1/18/2004] The British government decides to drop the charges against her. No official explanation for this is forthcoming, though it may have been precipitated by the defense’s intent to argue that Gun leaked to the media in order to save lives from being lost in a war, an argument that would cause political damage to the government. Liberty spokeswoman Shami Chakrabarti says the decision to charge Gun may itself have been politically motivated, perhaps to cow future whistleblowers, and observes, “One wonders whether disclosure in this criminal trial might have been a little too embarrassing.” Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesman, says the reason for dropping the charges might be to keep the Attorney General’s legal advice for war with Iraq a secret. Prosecutor Mark Ellison merely tells the court, “There is no longer sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. It would not be appropriate to go into the reasons for this decision.” The only thing needed for a successful prosecution under the Official Secrets Act is for the prosecution to show that Gun is covered by the act, which she is, and that she revealed information covered by the Act, which she has admitted. Gun’s lawyer, James Webb, calls the prosecution’s excuse “rather lame.” [BBC, 11/13/2003; Evening Standard, 2/25/2004] Gun says that leaking the NSA memo was “necessary to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi civilians and British soldiers would be killed or maimed.… I have only ever followed my conscience.” [ZNet, 12/28/2005] A month before the court proceedings, the New York Times’s Bob Herbert writes in defense of Gun, “We are not talking about a big-time criminal here. We are not talking about someone who would undermine the democratic principles that George W. Bush and Tony Blair babble about so incessantly, and self-righteously, even as they are trampling on them. Ms. Gun is someone who believes deeply in those principles and was willing to take a courageous step in support of her beliefs. She hoped that her actions would help save lives. She thought at the time that if the Security Council did not vote in favor of an invasion, the United States and Britain might not launch the war.” [New York Times, 1/19/2004] And just days before the court proceedings begin, liberal columnist Molly Ivins wrote, “…Gun may be sentenced to prison for doing precisely what we all hope every government employee will try to do: Prevent the government from committing an illegal and immoral act. Some dare call it patriotism.” [AlterNet, 2/18/2004]

Entity Tags: Katherine Gun, Jesse Jackson, Government Communications Headquarters, George W. Bush, Bob Herbert, James Webb, Tony Blair, United Nations, Sean Penn, Molly Ivins, National Security Agency, Walter Menzies Campbell, New York Times, Mark Ellison, Shami Chakrabarti, Liberty

Category Tags: Legal Justification, Spying on the UN

A CIA officer in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) instructs Rod Barton, a former UN weapons inspector who is contributing to an upcoming ISG report, not to mention the two trailers (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) that the administration previously claimed were biological weapons factories. Since the trailers were discovered in April and May of 2003, experts have concluded that they were actually designed to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. Barton later recalls the officer telling him, “You don’t understand how difficult it is to say anything different.… I don’t care that they are not biological trailers. It’s politically not possible.” [Associated Press, 5/13/2006]

Entity Tags: Rod Barton, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Politicization of Intelligence

L. Marc Zell, a former law partner of Douglas Feith, tells Salon magazine: “Ahmed Chalabi is a treacherous, spineless turncoat. He had one set of friends before he was in power, and now he’s got another.” Salon notes that Zell’s “remarks… represent his first public break with the would-be Iraqi leader.” Zell believes Chalabi pulled a deliberate bait and switch, telling neoconservatives what they wanted to hear so they would back his bid to be the future leader of Iraq. [Salon, 5/5/2004]

Entity Tags: L. Marc Zell, Ahmed Chalabi

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC

Hamish Killip, a British army officer and biological weapons expert, resigns from the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, in protest of the CIA’s refusal to acknowledge that the alleged mobile biological weapons labs found by US forces in April (see May 9, 2003) and May (see April 19, 2003) of 2003 were in fact designed to produce hydrogen, not biological weapon agents. Two other members of the Iraq Survey Group—Rod Barton, an Australian intelligence officer and another bio-weapons expert—also quit this month for similar reasons. [Age (Melbourne), 3/26/2005; Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]

Entity Tags: Rod Barton, Hamish Killip

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers

The CIA sends one of its best officers to Germany to interrogate the Iraqi defector known as Curveball (see November 1999 and November 4, 2007). Until now, both Curveball and German intelligence officials have resisted allowing the US to interview Curveball for themselves, but evidence that Curveball is not who he says he is has already surfaced (see June 2003-Late 2003). The CIA officer, fluent in German and experienced at questioning reluctant sources, quickly determines that Curveball is a fabricator. Each night, the officer files a report summarizing the day’s interrogation session, and then follows up with a phone call to Tyler Drumheller, the head of CIA spying in Europe. “After the first couple of days, he said, ‘This doesn’t sound good,’” Drumheller later recalls. “After the first week, he said, ‘This guy is lying. He’s lying about a bunch of stuff.’” [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005] One key item was Curveball’s inability to explain the discrepancies between his description of the supposed mobile bioweapons facility at Djerf al Nadaf, in particular why there was a wall blocking what Curveball claimed was a secret entrance to a warehouse where mobile bioweapons trucks entered (see Mid- and Late 2001). Drumheller says in 2007, “[T]he key thing, I think, was the wall. He showed him pictures of the wall.” Curveball retorts, according to Drumheller, “‘You doctored these pictures.’ And [the CIA interrogator] said, ‘No, we didn’t.’” Curveball would have no way of knowing about the wall because it had been built in 1997, two years after he had left Djerf al Nadaf. Drumheller recalls, “… Curveball said, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna say anything else.’” [CBS News, 11/4/2007] Curveball never admits he’s lying. “He never said, ‘You got me,’” according to Drumheller. “He just shrugged, and didn’t say anything. It was all over. We told our guy, ‘You might as well wrap it up and come home.’” [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]
In October 2007, reporter Bob Drogin, author of Curveball: Spies, Lies and the Con Man Who Caused a War, calls Curveball “a twitchy, possibly mentally disturbed drunk who was prone to rapid mood-swings and whose story tended to shift according to what he thought investigators wanted to hear.” [Alternet, 10/22/2007]

Entity Tags: Tyler Drumheller, ’Curveball’

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Curveball Fabrications

At a conference in Berkeley, California, examining the media’s approach to the Iraq war, New York Times Baghdad Bureau chief John Burns says, “We failed the American public by being insufficiently critical about elements of the administration’s plan to go to war.” Other journalists at the conference concur. For instance, Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist Robert Scheer says: “This has been the most shameful era of American media. The media has been sucker-punched completely by this administration.” [Daily Californian, 3/18/2004] However, such sentiments are rarely covered in major newspapers. For instance, Burns makes no similar comments in the New York Times.

Entity Tags: John Burns, Robert Scheer

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Media Coverage

Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, who remained in that position up until days before the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan began, states in an interview that the Bush administration’s real focus at the start of the Afghanistan war was Iraq. “The reason they had to do Afghanistan first was it was obvious that al-Qaeda had attacked us. And it was obvious that al-Qaeda was in Afghanistan. The American people wouldn’t have stood by if we had done nothing on Afghanistan. But what they did was slow and small. They put only 11,000 troops into Afghanistan.… To this day, Afghanistan is not stable. To this day, we’re hunting down Osama bin Laden. We should have put US special forces in immediately, not many weeks later. US special forces didn’t get into the area where bin Laden was for two months.… I think we could have had a good chance to get bin Laden, to get the leadership, and wipe the whole organization out if we had gone in immediately and gone after him.” [Good Morning America, 3/22/2004]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Richard A. Clarke

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: The Decision to Invade

The CIA recalls more than 100 intelligence reports that were based on information provided by Iraqi defector Curveball. A notice to CIA stations around the world states: “Discrepancies surfaced regarding the information provided by… Curveball in this stream of reporting, which indicate that he lost his claimed access in 1995. Our assessment, therefore, is that Curveball appears to be fabricating in this stream of reporting.” The CIA now believes that Curveball’s descriptions of the make-believe trailers were based on various piece of information that he obtained through Internet research and what his former co-workers refer to as “water cooler gossip.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005]

Entity Tags: Bundesnachrichtendienst, Central Intelligence Agency

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Curveball Fabrications

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh informs his listeners of a Harris poll showing a majority of those surveyed believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when the war began over a year before (see March 19, 2003). Limbaugh blames the misconception on the “liberal media,” not on the government officials and conservative pundits, including Limbaugh, who pushed the idea of Iraqi WMD on the public before the invasion (see July 30, 2001, Mid-September, 2001, Mid-September-October 2001, October 17, 2001, November 14, 2001, December 20, 2001, 2002, February 11, 2002, Summer 2002, July 30, 2002, August 26, 2002, September 4, 2002, September 8, 2002, September 8, 2002, September 12, 2002, September 12, 2002, September 24, 2002, September 28, 2002, October 7, 2002, December 3, 2002, December 19, 2002, January 2003, January 9, 2003, February 5, 2003, February 17, 2003, March 16-19, 2003, March 23, 2003, May 21, 2003, May 29, 2003, and June 11, 2003), and uses the incident to warn his listeners about getting their news from the “liberal media.” [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 151]

Entity Tags: Rush Limbaugh, Saddam Hussein

Category Tags: Media Coverage

Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office issues a “code of practice” arguing that Iraq will need to work with foreign oil companies to increase the daily production level of the oil industry. “It has been estimated that a minimum of US$ 4 billion would be needed to restore production to its 1990 levels of 3.5 million barrels per day (mbd), and perhaps US$ 25 billion to achieve 5 mbd,” the statement says. “… Given Iraq’s needs, it is not realistic to cut government spending in other areas, and Iraq would need to engage with the International Oil Companies (IOCs) to provide appropriate levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to do this.” [Muttitt, 2005]

Entity Tags: UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

Rocco Martino, an Italian information peddler, reportedly admits his involvement in the forged Niger documents scandal: “It’s true, I had a hand in the dissemination of those [forged Niger] documents, but I was duped. Both Americans and Italians were involved behind the scenes. It was a disinformation operation.” [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/25/2005]

Entity Tags: Rocco Martino

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Category Tags: Africa-Uranium Allegation

Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence agent, was captured by US forces in Iraq at some point after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. His arrest was not announced and he was put in a secret CIA prison. It is unknown when he was arrested exactly, but in June 2004, the FBI is allowed to interrogate him. Al-Ani gained notoriety after 9/11 when Bush administration officials claimed he had a meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Prague, in the Czech Republic (see April 8, 2001). He tells the FBI that he never saw or heard of Atta until Atta’s face appeared in the news shortly after 9/11. [US Senate and Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006, pp. 100 ] The allegations that the meeting took place have been slowly dying despite the efforts of some Bush administration officials to promote them (see September 18, 2001-April 2007). Also in June 2004, the 9/11 Commission publicly asserts that the alleged meeting never took place (see June 16, 2004). Nonetheless, al-Ani is kept in a secret CIA prison until 2006 and then quietly released (see 2006). His denials are kept secret until September 2006 (see September 8-10, 2006).

Entity Tags: Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Atta in Prague Connection

Thamir al-Ghadban is appointed as Iraq’s minister of oil. Al-Ghadban is a British-trained petroleum engineer and former senior adviser to Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, Iraq’s previous oil minister under the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. [Muttitt, 2005]

Entity Tags: Thamir al-Ghadban

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, finally accepts the fact that he cannot successfully spin or browbeat the commission staff into reporting links between Iraq and al-Qaeda as factual (see July 12, 2004). His most recent efforts to rewrite a report claiming such links was thwarted by angry commission staffers (see January 2004), and for months he has dodged charges that he is a White House “plant,” there to ensure the commission makes the kind of conclusions that Bush officials want it to make. Now, he finally admits that there is no evidence to support the claim of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, although there was some minor contact. Author Philip Shenon will later write: “The intelligence showed that when bin Laden wanted to do business with Iraq, Iraq did not want to do business with al-Qaeda…. Saddam Hussein saw [Osama] bin Laden… as a threat to his own very brutal and very secular rule in Iraq.” The widely reported story about 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta meeting an Iraqi spy in Prague (see April 8, 2001 and September 14, 2001) has been examined and re-examined, and found to be unsupported (see December 2001). Zelikow is forced to admit the reality of the situation. Shenon will write: “Even if he wanted to, there was little Zelikow could do to rescue the administration now…. If Zelikow tried to tamper with the report now, he knew he risked a public insurrection by the staff, with only a month before the commission’s final report was due.” Bush officials are horrified at the prospect of the commission reporting flatly that there are no verifiable links of any kind between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Since the failure of the US to find WMDs in Iraq, the Bush administration has shifted its rationale for invading that nation—now it was a punitive measure against one of the backers of the 9/11 attacks, and senior Bush officials, most notably Vice President Cheney, have been advocating that point for over a year. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 381-385]

Entity Tags: Philip Shenon, 9/11 Commission, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration, John Kerry, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Philip Zelikow

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

In an op-ed piece defending Ahmed Chalabi, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute writes that “throughout the 1990s, Chalabi was regularly accused of malfeasance by his enemies,” and asserts that the conviction in Jordan (see April 9, 1992) “has never been documented.” [Los Angeles Times, 6/4/2004]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Chalabi, Danielle Pletka

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC

A Harris Poll conducted among 991 adults finds that 69 percent of the American public believe that Saddam Hussein was providing support to al-Qaeda while only 22 percent believe that he did not. [Harris Poll, 6/17/2004]

Category Tags: Public Opinion on Iraqi Threat

Former British official Carne Ross tells the Butler inquiry, which is investigating the British government’s use of intelligence during the lead-up to war with Iraq, that during his tenure as Britain’s key negotiator at the UN “at no time did HMG [Her Majesty’s Government] assess that Iraq’s WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests. On the contrary, it was the commonly-held view among the officials dealing with Iraq that any threat had been effectively contained. I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed).… With the exception of some unaccounted-for Scud missiles, there was no intelligence evidence of significant holdings of CW [chemical warfare], BW [biological warfare] or nuclear material” being stockpiled or produced by Iraq. “There was, moreover, no intelligence or assessment during my time in the job that Iraq had any intention to launch an attack against its neighbors or the UK or the US,” he adds. Ross also says in his testimony that British officials warned their US counterparts that toppling the Iraq government would result in chaos. “At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that ‘regime change’ was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos.” The Foreign Office will warn Ross that if he goes public with his testimony he will be charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. [Independent, 12/15/2006; Independent, 12/15/2006; Guardian, 12/16/2006]

Entity Tags: Carne Ross

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Predictions

During a speech before the James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Florida, Vice President Dick Cheney states that Saddam Hussein “had long-established ties with al-Qaeda.” [Associated Press, 6/14/2004]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations, Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

President Bush repeats the US government claim that al-Qaeda had links to the Saddam Hussein government of Iraq, suggesting that militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the link between the two. “Al-Zarqawi’s the best evidence of a connection to al-Qaeda affiliates and al-Qaeda. He’s the person who’s still killing.” [CNN, 6/15/2004]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Al-Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Al Zarqawi Allegation, Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations

President Bush defends Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim this week that Saddam Hussein had longstanding ties with al-Qaeda. Speaking at a news conference with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Bush asserts that Hussein “had ties to terrorist organizations.” He does not mention al-Qaeda by name. The day before, Cheney claimed that Hussein was “a patron of terrorism” and said “he had long established ties with al-Qaeda” (see June 14, 2004). [Boston Globe, 6/16/2004]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

A staff statement by the 9/11 Commission concludes that the alleged meeting between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague never happened. It claims cell phone records and other records show Atta never left Florida during the time in question. [9/11 Commission, 6/16/2004] The same claim is made in the 9/11 Commission’s final report one month later (see July 12, 2004).

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, 9/11 Commission

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

President Bush forcefully disputes statements by the 9/11 Commission (see July 12, 2004) that there was no evidence of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda. “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda,” Bush says. [CNN, 6/17/2004; Washington Post, 6/18/2004]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations

Vice President Dick Cheney, infuriated by the 9/11 Commission’s intent to report that no serious connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda ever existed (see July 12, 2004) and the media’s acceptance of the same position, decides to launch a media counterattack. His first target is not the Commission itself, but the media, particularly the New York Times, which has just published a front-page article entitled “Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie.” Cheney’s first appearance is on CNBC’s Capital Report. Correspondent Gloria Borger notes, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you… as exercised about something as you seem today.” Cheney leads off by calling the Times reporting “outrageous,” and accuses the newspaper of manufacturing a division between the administration’s claims of a “Qaeda-Iraq tie” and the Commission’s report that no such ties ever existed. “There’s no conflict,” he says. He asserts that “[W]e don’t know” if Iraq was involved in 9/11 and adds that no one has “been able to confirm” or “knock… down” the claim that 9/11 plotter Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April of 2001. Reporters who doubt the connection are “lazy,” he says. When Borger notes that Commission investigators have found no evidence to support that allegation, Cheney asserts that he “probably” knows information the 9/11 Commission does not. [CNN, 6/18/2004; Shenon, 2008, pp. 381-385] A few days later, the Commission says that after asking Cheney for any additional evidence he might have, they stand by their position. Cheney maintains his position as well, but does not turn over any new evidence. [Los Angeles Times, 7/2/2004; Shenon, 2008, pp. 381-385]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Gloria Borger, Al-Qaeda, 9/11 Commission, Mohamed Atta, New York Times

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations, Atta in Prague Connection, Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations, Atta in Prague Connection, Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

Several 9/11 Commission members, including chairman Thomas Kean and vice-chairman Lee Hamilton, are alarmed at Vice President Dick Cheney’s response to the commission’s claim that no link exists between Iraq and al-Qaeda (see June 17, 2004). They have no desire to go toe-to-toe with an enraged White House over the question. Hamilton privately asks Doug MacEachin, the principal author of that portion of the report, to go back and sift the evidence again to ensure that he missed nothing that might bear out the White House’s arguments. Publicly, Kean and Hamilton are much more resolute. If Cheney has information that he has not shared with the commission, as Cheney has implied, he needs to turn it over promptly. “I would like to see the evidence that Mr. Cheney is talking about,” Hamilton says. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 381-385] No more evidence is found, and the commission ultimately sticks by their conclusions.

Entity Tags: Doug MacEachin, Thomas Kean, Lee Hamilton, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Bush administration, 9/11 Commission

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

In a statement to Congress on July 1, 2004, CIA Director George Tenet doubts that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in April 2001. He says, “Although we cannot rule it out, we are increasingly skeptical that such a meeting occurred.” He adds that Atta “would have been unlikely to undertake the substantial risk of contacting any Iraqi official” at such a date. [New York Times, 7/9/2004]

Entity Tags: George J. Tenet

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

Mohammed al-Zubaidi, a former Iraqi National Congress (INC) official who worked until April 2003 to prep INC defectors with falsified stories to link the Saddam Hussein regime to the 9/11 attacks (see November 6-8, 2001), admits that the INC intentionally exaggerated information it provided to journalists. (His former boss Ahmed Chalabi has admitted the same; see February 18, 2004). “We all know the defectors had a little information on which they built big stories,” he says. INC officials will respond by calling al-Zubaidi “loony” and “childish.” [Mother Jones, 4/2006]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Chalabi, Saddam Hussein, Mohammed al-Zubaidi, Iraqi National Congress

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Media Coverage, Chalabi and the INC

The 9/11 Commission publicly concludes that there was “no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States” and that repeated contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda “do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.” It also again confirms that it does not believe the alleged April 2001 Prague meeting between Mohamed Atta and Iraqi diplomat Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani (see 1999) ever took place, a conclusion it had made in a public staff statement the month before (see June 16, 2004). [New York Times, 7/12/2004]

Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

Despite having told shareholders that it has no immediate plans to do business in Iraq, Shell Oil appoints Wolfgang Stroebl, a Dubai-based exploration and production executive, as “country chairman” for Iraq. According to the British organization PLATFORM, the “country chairman role is the most senior coordinating job in a country where Shell operates, and indicates a significant amount of activity by the company there.” The company also places an ad with the recruitment firm Glenn Irvine International seeking a “person of Iraqi extraction with strong family connections and an insight into the network of families of significance within Iraq” to work as a public relations officer for Shell Iraq. The person would bring “suitable opportunities to fruition on behalf of the company” and draw up a “reputation management plan,” the advertisement says. [Guardian, 8/11/2004; Muttitt, 2005]

Entity Tags: Royal Dutch/Shell, Wolfgang Stroebl

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

Joseph Cirincione. [Source: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]The nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) releases a comprehensive study called WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, written by Joseph Cirincione, the director of CEIP’s Nonproliferation Project; Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president of CEIP; and George Perkovich, vice president for global security and economic development studies at CEIP. The study takes a critical look at the arguments used by the Bush administration to support the claim Iraq had WMDs. Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean writes: “All of their key assertions are examined in detail and found to be wanting. Established evidence is lined up in charts beside the assertions of Bush-Cheney, making the administration’s dishonesty obvious.” The study finds that the administration “systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq’s WMD and ballistic missile program”; conflated bits of evidence of pre-1991 weapons programs into arguments that Iraq had viable and growing WMD programs; distorted intelligence findings by “routinely dropping caveats, probabilities, and expressions of uncertainty”; and “misrepresent[ed UN] inspectors’ findings in ways that turned threats from minor to dire.” Despite the study’s precision, it is all but ignored by the mainstream media. [Dean, 2004, pp. 139-140; Cirincione et al., 8/2004]

Entity Tags: Joseph Cirincione, Bush administration, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, George Perkovich, John Dean, Jessica Tuchman Mathews

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Media Coverage, Politicization of Intelligence

Former president Bill Clinton questions the priorities of the Bush administration’s “war on terror,” asking why the administration is issuing groundless terror alerts “[b]ased on four-year-old information” (see August 1, 2004). He asks rhetorically, “Now, who is the threat from? Iraq? Saddam Hussein? No. From bin Laden. And al-Qaeda. How do we know about the threat? Because the Pakistanis found this computer whiz [Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan and got his computer and gave it to us so it could be analyzed (see August 2, 2004). … [W]e basically are dependent on [Pakistan] to find bin Laden…to break in and find the computer people and give it to us because we got all our resources somewhere else in Iraq.” He continues to ask why Bush isn’t focusing on bin Laden: “Why did we put our number one security threat in the hands of the Pakistanis with us playing a supporting role and put all of our military resources into Iraq, which was, I think, at best, our number five security threat[?] After the absence of a peace process in the Middle East, after the conflict between India and Pakistan and all the ties they had to Taliban, after North Korea and their nuclear program. In other words, how did we get to the point where we got 130,000 troops in Iraq and 15,000 in Afghanistan? It’s like saying… Okay, our big problem is bin Laden and al-Qaeda. We now know from the 9/11 Commission, again, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it. Right? We now know that al-Qaeda is an ongoing continuing threat, even though when I was president we took down over 20 of their cells, they still had enough left to do 9/11, and since then, in the Bush years, they’ve taken down over 20 of their cells. But they’re operating with impunity in that mountainous region going back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan and we have only 15,000 troops in that country.…[W]e would have a better chance of catching them if we had 150,000 troops there rather than 15,000.” Asked if the US could have captured bin Laden in the days and months after 9/11, he replies, “[W]e will never know if we could have gotten him because we didn’t make it a priority….” [Canadian Broadcast Corporation, 8/6/2004]

Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, 9/11 Commission, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Diversion of Resources to Iraq

An unnamed senior national security professional at one of America’s military-sponsored think tanks tells journalist James Fallows: “Let me tell you my gut feeling. If I can be blunt, the administration is full of sh_t. In my view we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent, and I have had a very close perspective on what is happening. Certainly in the long run we have harmed ourselves. We are playing to the enemy’s political advantage. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this will prove to be a strategic blunder.” [Atlantic Monthly, 10/2004]

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Internal Opposition

Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office sends advisers to Iraq to work with the country’s oil ministry on “fiscal and regulatory” issues. [Muttitt, 2005] Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, describing the ministry’s role, will tell Parliament in July 2005, “We discuss with the Iraqi ministries their priorities on a regular basis.” [UK Parliament, 7/12/2005] But the office will never publish a formal policy statement and will refuse to comply with Freedom of Information requests for related documents. One of the exemptions the office will use to refuse a request is that its advice to the Iraqis is “voluminous.” [Muttitt, 2005]

Entity Tags: UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

On September 13, after two months of legal argument in court, the British trial begins against Kamal Bourgass and his alleged co-conspirators Mouloud Sihali, David Khalef, Sidali Feddag and Mustapha Taleb. The trial reveals the true extent of the capabilities of the so-called “ricin ring.” The same day of the raid, January 5, 2003, chemical weapons experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in Wiltshire had discovered in more accurate tests that the initial positive result for ricin was false: there was no ricin in the flat (see January 5, 2003). This finding was not released publicly for two years. [Independent, 4/17/2005] The trial also reveals that the results of the Porton Down test were not released to police and ministers until March 20, 2003, the day after the war in Iraq begins (see January 7, 2003). [BBC, 9/15/2005] George Smith, a scientist and senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, serves as an expert for some defendants in the trial and confirms that the discovery that the initial ricin finding was a “false positive” was made “well before the outbreak of the war in Iraq.” The alleged ricin plot was used by authorities, including Colin Powell, as evidence against Saddam Hussein’s regime in the build-up to war with Iraq. [Washington Post, 4/14/2005] The “poison recipes” discovered in the raid are found to have come from a website in Palo Alto, California, and are the invention of right-wing survivalist Kurt Saxon. His website sells books and CDs with bomb and poison manufacturing instructions. Journalist Duncan Campbell of the Guardian, called as an expert witness, further demonstrates that the instructions could have come from the Mujahedeen Poisons Handbook, which was written by veterans of the Afghan war and had been on the Internet since 1998. In fact, these recipes were useless in the production of weapons of mass destruction. [Guardian, 4/15/2005] The hysteria over the capabilities of ricin is also laid to rest during the trial. It is made clear that ricin is not a weapon of mass destruction and has only ever been used for one-on-one killings and attempted assassinations. Ricin was used by the Bulgarian secret service to kill dissident Georgi Markov on the streets of London in 1978. Professor Alistair Hay, a prominent authority on toxins, says Bourgass’s attempts to manufacture chemical weapons were “incredibly amateurish and unlikely to succeed.” He dismisses the allegations of suspected Algerian al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Meguerba that ricin would be smeared on door handles. To reliably kill, ricin has to be directly injected; swallowing ricin could kill, but is a thousand times less effective, while touching ricin is even less likely to kill. Hay’s testimony leads to the prosecution dropping Meguerba’s claims. They then suggest that Bourgass planned to smear ricin on toothbrushes, and put them back on a shop’s shelves. Professor Hay tells The Independent that this was a highly ineffective method. “The claims made before the trial about this major ricin plot were very, very questionable,” he says. [Independent, 4/17/2005]

Entity Tags: Duncan Campbell, Sidali Feddag, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Alistair Hay, David Khalef, Mouloud Sihali, Mustapha Taleb, Maxwell Hutchkinson, Globalsecurity.org, Kamal Bourgass, Mohammed Meguerba, Kurt Saxon, George Smith

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Poisons and Gases

The New York Times reports on the recent issuance of a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq by the US intelligence community. It is the first NIE to be issued since before the invasion (see October 1, 2002). The report was leaked to the Times by unnamed government officials.
Civil War a Strong Possibility - The NIE’s findings are grim. Civil war is a strong possibility, the NIE finds. Even the best-case scenario is an Iraq whose political, economic, and national security stability is tenuous and fragile. One government official says of the report, “There’s a significant amount of pessimism.” This NIE was initiated by the National Intelligence Council under the aegis of then-CIA Director George Tenet, who has since resigned. Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin approved the final report. The NIE stands in contrast to recent pronouncements by White House officials, who have insisted that the situation in Iraq is improving daily.
Critics 'Pessimists and Hand-Wringers' - The day before the NIE was released, White House press secretary Scott McClellan called critics of the occupation “pessimists and hand-wringers” who are being “proven… wrong.” [New York Times, 9/16/2004]
White House Ignores NIE - The NIE was prepared in July 2004 and not circulated until August, indicating that the White House had little use for the document. “It was finished in July, and not circulated by the intelligence community until the end of August,” one senior administration official says. “That’s not exactly what you do with an urgent document.” [New York Times, 9/28/2004]
This NIE Closer to CIA's Own Assessments than Earlier Report - Senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar will later say that the agency’s own prewar assessments “foretold a long, difficult, and turbulent transition,” assessments more in line with the current NIE than with the 2002 estimate (see January 2003 and September 28, 2004). “It projected that a Marshall Plan-type effort would be required to restore the Iraqi economy, despite Iraq’s abundant oil resources. It forecast that in a deeply divided Iraqi society, with Sunnis resentful over the loss of their dominant position and Shi’ites seeking power commensurate with their majority status, there was a significant chance that the groups would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power prevented it. And it anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks—including by guerrilla warfare—unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam” Hussein. The NIE, and the White House’s blase response to it (see September 21-23, 2004), will deepen the tension and distrust between the White House and the CIA. [Roberts, 2008, pp. 153, 244]

Entity Tags: Scott McClellan, John E. McLaughlin, George J. Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration, National Intelligence Council, New York Times, Paul R. Pillar, Saddam Hussein

Category Tags: Internal Opposition, Politicization of Intelligence, Predictions, The Decision to Invade

Responding to a New York Times article which described how the CIA and the White House ignored expert opinions that the tubes were not meant for use as rotors in a gas centrifuge, Condoleezza Rice says on ABC’s “This Week” program: “As I understand it, people are still debating this. And I’m sure they will continue to debate it.” [Washington Post, 10/4/2004]

Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Aluminum Tubes Allegation, Nuclear Weapons Allegations

Knight Ridder Newspapers reveals that a new CIA report released to top US officials the week before says there is no conclusive evidence linking Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The CIA reviewed intelligence information at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney some months before. One official familiar with the report says it does not make clear judgments, and the evidence of a possible link is murky. For instance, the report claims that three of al-Zarqawi’s associates were arrested by the Iraqi government before the Iraq war, and Hussein ordered one of them released but not the other two. The report doubts that al-Zarqawi received medical treatment at a Baghdad hospital in May 2002, and flatly denies reports that al-Zarqawi had a leg amputated there or anywhere else (see January 26, 2003). One US official says, “The evidence is that Saddam never gave al-Zarqawi anything.” Several days after the report is given to top officials, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld backs away from previous claims he had made of a link between Hussein and al-Qaeda, saying, “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.” It is widely acknowledged that al-Zarqawi spent time in Iraq before the start of the Iraq war, but he generally stayed in a border region outside of Hussein’s control. [Knight Ridder, 10/4/2004]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Central Intelligence Agency, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Al Zarqawi Allegation

A US PSYOP leaflet disseminated in Iraq showing a caricature of al-Zarqawi caught in a rat trap. The caption reads: “This is your future, Zarqawi.” [Source: US Department of Defense]The Telegraph reports that US military intelligence agents in Iraq believe that the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the supposed leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, has been greatly exaggerated. The Bush administration has used al-Zarqawi as a villain to blame post-invasion troubles in the Iraq war and to connect the Iraqi insurgency to al-Qaeda (see February 9, 2004). [Daily Telegraph, 10/4/2004] For instance, in April 2004, US military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said that more than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq were carried out by terrorists recruited and trained by al-Zarqawi. [Washington Post, 6/10/2006] The Telegraph reports: “US military intelligence agents in Iraq have revealed a series of botched and often tawdry dealings with unreliable sources who, in the words of one source, ‘told us what we wanted to hear… We were basically paying up to $10,000 a time to opportunists, criminals, and chancers who passed off fiction and supposition about al-Zarqawi as cast-iron fact, making him out as the linchpin of just about every attack in Iraq… Back home this stuff was gratefully received and formed the basis of policy decisions. We needed a villain, someone identifiable for the public to latch on to, and we got one.’” Millitary intelligence officials believe that the insurgency is dominated by Iraqis and that the number of foreign fighters such as al-Zarqawi could be as low as 200. However, some of these officials complain that their reports to US leaders about this are largely being ignored. [Daily Telegraph, 10/4/2004] In 2006, leaked classified US military documents will show that the US military ran a propaganda campaign from at least early 2004 to exaggerate al-Zarqawi’s importance in the US and Iraqi media (see April 10, 2006).

Entity Tags: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Bush administration, Al-Qaeda, Rick Lynch

Timeline Tags: US Military, Complete 911 Timeline, Iraq under US Occupation, Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Al Zarqawi Allegation

In a vice-presidential debate between Vice President Cheney and Senator John Edwards, Cheney says of Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: “We know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We know that when we went into Afghanistan that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad, where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Khurmal, where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use.… He was, in fact, in Baghdad before the war, and he’s in Baghdad now after the war.” [Commission on Presidential Debates, 10/5/2004] It is true that al-Zarqawi was running a camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 (see Early 2000-December 2001). But just days before this debate, the CIA gave Cheney a new report about possible links between al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein’s government, a report that Cheney himself had requested several months before (see October 4, 2004). The report doubts there were any such links, and also doubts that al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad getting medical treatment in the months before the Iraq war (see October 4, 2004). [Knight Ridder, 10/4/2004]

Entity Tags: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Central Intelligence Agency

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Al Zarqawi Allegation, Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations

The Iraq Survey Group concludes in its final report, authored by Charles Duelfer, that Saddam Hussein wanted to acquire weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent against the United States and Iran, but that there is no evidence that Iraq had a WMD stockpile or program at the time of the invasion. Rather evidence indicates that Iraq’s WMD capability was destroyed in 1991. Roughly 1,750 experts have inspected some 1,200 potential WMD sites since the war began. [CNN, 10/7/2004] With regard to the alleged biological weapon labs, the report says that an “exhaustive investigation” has demonstrated that the trailers found shortly after the invasion of Iraq by US forces (see May 9, 2003) (see April 19, 2003) were not “part of any BW [biological weapons] program.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 9/30/2004; Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005] Rather they were “almost certainly intended” for the production of hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. [Washington Post, 4/12/2006]

Entity Tags: Charles Duelfer, Iraq Survey Group

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Biological Weapons Trailers

British Prime Minister Tony Blair formally admits that he was wrong to have claimed that Saddam Hussein could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of giving the order (see September 24, 2002 and September 24, 2002). Blair’s Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, reveals that MI6, the British intelligence agency, has formally withdrawn the claim, as well as other intelligence concerning Iraq’s ability to produce biological weapons. The claim has been heavily refuted for well over a year (see Late May 2003 and August 16, 2003). Straw refuses to say that it was a mistake to overthrow the Saddam government, saying instead that “deciding to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt would have required a huge leap of faith.… I do not accept, even with hindsight, that we were wrong to act as we did.” He notes that other governments, most notably the US government, were also convinced that Saddam had an array of WMD which could have been quickly deployed against targets in the region. Conservative MP Gary Streeter says the Blair administration owes the nation a “full apology”: “Not an apology for the intelligence but an apology for the way that the intelligence was conveyed by the government to the country.” [Age (Melbourne), 10/14/2004] Liberal Democrat Party leader Charles Kennedy accuses Blair of “avoiding answering” questions about the absence of Iraqi WMD. Liberal Democrat deputy leader Menzies Campbell says: “The withdrawal of the 45-minute claim drives a horse and cart through government credibility.… The building blocks of the government’s case for military action are crumbling before our eyes.” [Belfast Telegraph, 10/13/2004]

Entity Tags: Jack Straw, Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair, Walter Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy, Gary Streeter

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Politicization of Intelligence, Propaganda

A nationwide Harris Poll conducted among 1,016 US adults finds that 63 percent of the respondents “believe that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was a serious threat to US security.” Slightly less, 62 percent, say they believe that Saddam Hussein “had strong links to al-Qaeda.” 41 percent of those polled say that Saddam Hussein “helped plan and support” the 9/11 hijackers and 37 percent believe that several of the hijackers were Iraqis. 38 percent say that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the US invasion. [Harris Poll, 10/21/2004]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 2004 Presidential Election

Category Tags: Public Opinion on Iraqi Threat

Islamist militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group al-Tawhid pledges loyalty to bin Laden in a statement posted on the Internet. He states, [Let it be known that] al-Tawhid pledges both its leaders and its soldiers to the mujahid commander, Sheikh Osama bin Laden…” [Bergen, 2006, pp. 364] Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi began discussing the possibility of an alliance in early 2004 (see Early 2004). There had been other occasional contacts and linkages between al-Zarqawi and his group in years past, but al-Zarqawi had generally maintained his independence from al-Qaeda. Just one month earlier, al-Zarqawi stated, “I have not sworn allegiance to [bin Laden] and I am not working within the framework of his organization.” [Newsweek, 4/4/2005] The Atlantic Monthly will later report that at the same time al-Zarqwai made his loyalty oath, he also “proclaimed himself to be the ‘Emir of al-Qaeda’s Operations in the Land of Mesopotamia,’ a title that subordinated him to bin Laden but at the same time placed him firmly on the global stage. One explanation for this coming together of these two former antagonists was simple: al-Zarqawi profited from the al-Qaeda franchise, and bin Laden needed a presence in Iraq. Another explanation is more complex: bin Laden laid claim to al-Zarqawi in the hopes of forestalling his emergence as the single most important terrorist figure in the world, and al-Zarqawi accepted bin Laden’s endorsement to augment his credibility and to strengthen his grip on the Iraqi tribes. Both explanations are true. It was a pragmatic alliance, but tenuous from the start.” [Atlantic Monthly, 6/8/2006] In December 2004, an audiotape said to be the voice of bin Laden acknowledges al-Zarqawi’s comments. “It should be known that the mujahid brother Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the emir of the al-Qaeda organization in [Iraq]. The brothers in the group there should heed his orders and obey him in all that which is good.” [Bergen, 2006, pp. 364-365]

Entity Tags: Al-Tawhid, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Osama bin Laden

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Al Zarqawi Allegation

President Bush reportedly asks King Abdulla of Jordan to pardon Ahmed Chalabi for his role in the 1989 collapse of Petra Bank (see August 2, 1989). In 1992, a military court found Chalabi guilty on 31 counts of embezzlement and other charges, sentencing him to 22 years of hard labor and ordering him to return $230 million in embezzled funds (see April 9, 1992). According to Seymour Hersh, the king is “stunned” by the request. “How can he pardon Chalabi after what he had done?” Hersh asks. “The money he stole was from old women and children… and he was reviled.” [Democracy Now!, 5/11/2005]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Chalabi, Abdullah II ibn al-Hussein, George W. Bush

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC

According to Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Vice President Dick Cheney applies “constant” pressure on Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan) to stall the inquiry that is looking into the Bush administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq. The investigation, known as the Phase II investigation, was supposed to have been completed shortly after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finished the first phase in July 2004. Cheney’s office denies that the vice president tried to influence the pace of the investigation in anyway. [McClatchy Newspapers, 1/25/2006]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, John D. Rockefeller, Pat Roberts

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence

Ariel Cohen, who co-authored a September 2002 paper (see September 25, 2002) recommending the privatization of Iraq’s oil industry, explains to reporter Greg Palast how his privatization plan would have ended OPEC’s control over oil prices. He says that if Iraq’s fields had been sold off, competing companies would have quickly increased the production of their individual patches, resulting in over production which would have flooded world oil markets, thrown OPEC into panic, and destabilized the Saudi monarchy. [BBC Newsnight, 3/17/2005; Democracy Now!, 3/21/2005; Harper's, 4/2005, pp. 75]

Entity Tags: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Ariel Cohen, Greg Palast

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

In an interview with Greg Palast, Robert Ebel, a former Department of Energy and and CIA oil analyst, acknowledges that the invasion of Iraq was driven by oil interests. “The thought was, ‘Why are you going into Iraq? It’s about oil isn’t it?’ And my response was, ‘No, It’s about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. The morning after, it’s about oil.’” [Democracy Now!, 3/21/2005]

Entity Tags: US Department of Energy, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Ebel, Greg Palast

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

ConocoPhillips reports record profits for its 2004 fourth quarter, over double the amount it posted twelve months before. Income from continuing operations rose to $2.5 billion compared with $985 million in 2003. The dramatic increase in profits is attributed to record high oil prices. [Marketwatch, 1/26/2005]

Entity Tags: ConocoPhillips

Category Tags: Motives

CIA Director Porter Goss tells the Senate: “Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-US jihadists. These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in, and focused on, acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries.” [New York Times Magazine, 9/11/2005]

Entity Tags: Porter J. Goss, US Congress

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, US International Relations

Category Tags: Legal Justification

ExxonMobil reports $298 billion in revenue for 2004, claiming title as the world’s largest firm by revenue. Walmart, who held the number one position for 2003, generated $288 billion in 2004. The dramatic increase in revenue is attributed to record high oil prices. [Agence France-Presse, 2/1/2004; Knight Ridder, 2/12/2004]

Entity Tags: ExxonMobil

Category Tags: Motives

Shell Oil reports that its 2004 fourth-quarter net income rose 133 percent to $4.48 billion compared with the same period a year before. The dramatic increase in profits is attributed to record high oil prices. [Agence France-Presse, 1/26/2004]

Entity Tags: Royal Dutch/Shell

Category Tags: Motives

In an op-ed piece published by the Washington Post, David Kay, formerly of the Iraq Survey Group, recommends five steps the US should follow in order to avoid making the same “mistake” it made in Iraq when it wrongly concluded that Iraq had an active illicit weapons program. Three of the points address the issue of politicized intelligence. He implies that the US should learn from the experience it had with the Iraqi National Congress (see 2001-2003), which supplied US intelligence with sources who made false statements about Iraq’s weapon program. “Dissidents and exiles have their own agenda—regime change—and that before being accepted as truth any ‘evidence’ they might supply concerning Iran’s nuclear program must be tested and confirmed by other sources,” he says. In his fourth point, Kay makes it clear that the motives of administration officials should also be considered. He says it is necessary to “understand that overheated rhetoric from policymakers and senior administration officials, unsupported by evidence that can stand international scrutiny, undermines the ability of the United States to halt Iran’s nuclear activities.” And recalling the CIA’s infamous 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq (see October 1, 2002), he says that an NIE on Iran “should not be a rushed and cooked document used to justify the threat of military action” and “should not be led by a team that is trying to prove a case for its boss.” [Washington Post, 2/9/2005]

Entity Tags: Iraqi National Congress, David Kay, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC, Politicization of Intelligence

Journalist and radio host Ian Masters asks former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro during an interview, in reference to the question of who forged the Niger documents (see March 2000), “If I were to say the name Michael Ledeen to you, what would you say?” Cannistraro replies, “You’re very close.” After the radio show, Ledeen denies in a statement that he has any connection to the documents. [Ian Master's Background Briefing, 4/3/2005]

Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Vincent Cannistraro

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Category Tags: Africa-Uranium Allegation

The London Sunday Times publishes the secret “Downing Secret Memo.” The memo contains the minutes from a July 23, 2002 meeting (see July 23, 2002) revealing that several of Britain’s top officials believed the Bush administration had already decided to go to war with Iraq by the summer of 2002. The minutes also reveal that the head of the British intelligence service believed at the time that US intelligence was being “fixed” around Washington’s plan to topple the Iraqi government. [United Kingdom, 7/23/2002] The memo will be ignored by the US press, even though many believe it represents the best evidence so far that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence prior to the war. Much of the existing evidence on politicized intelligence consists of accounts provided by former officials and unnamed sources. The Downing Street minutes, however, meet a higher standard of proof because it is the official classified record of a meeting attended by the security cabinet of America’s closest ally. [Salon, 6/10/2005] “The memo is significant because it was written by our closest ally, and when it comes to writing minutes on foreign policy and security matters, the British are professionals,” notes Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel. “We can conclude that the memo means precisely what it says. It says that Bush had already made the decision for war even while he was insisting publicly, and for many months thereafter, that war was the last resort.” [Knight Ridder, 6/12/2005]

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM

White House press secretary Scott McClellan says accusations stemming from the “Downing Street Memo” (see May 1, 2005) that intelligence was “being fixed” to support a policy of regime change in Iraq are “flat out wrong.” Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was “very public,” McClellan insists. “The president of the United States, in a very public way, reached out to people across the world, went to the United Nations and tried to resolve this in a diplomatic manner. Saddam Hussein was the one, in the end, who chose continued defiance. And only then was the decision made, as a last resort, to go into Iraq.” [CNN, 5/17/2005; United Press International, 5/17/2005]

Entity Tags: Scott McClellan

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM

During a joint press conference with President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a Reuters reporter asks both leaders whether comments made by Sir Richard Dearlove, recorded in the minutes of a July 23 British cabinet meeting (see July 23, 2002), were accurate. According to the minutes, Dearlove said that the “intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy [of regime change].” Responding to the question, Blair insists that the facts were not fixed “in any shape or form at all.” Bush’s response, however, does not answer the question. Instead, he addresses another issue that was raised by the Downing Street minutes. The minutes, along with several other recently published Downing Street documents, called into question the Bush administration’s claim that the decision to use military force against Iraq did not take place until shortly before the invasion began. In his response to the reporter’s question, Bush chooses to discuss this issue instead. “And somebody said, ‘Well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam.’ There’s nothing farther from the truth… [Saddam Hussein] made the decision.” Significantly, neither Bush nor Blair, in their responses, attempt to challenge the authenticity of the memo. [New York Times, 6/8/2005; US President, 6/13/2005]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Tony Blair

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM

Vice President Dick Cheney tells a National Press Club luncheon, “Any suggestion that we did not exhaust all alternatives before we got to that point, I think, is inaccurate.” [MSNBC, 6/14/2005]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, The Decision to Invade, Decision to Invade Quotes

Lord William Goodhart, vice-president of the International Commission of Jurists and a world authority on international law, says that the United States’ and Britain’s intensified bombing of Iraq’s “no-fly” zones before the invasion was illegal if it was meant to put pressure on Iraq’s government. The two countries have cited UN Resolution 688 to justify the patrolling of the “no-fly” zones, but Goodhart explains that the resolution was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter dealing with all matters authorizing military force, and therefore does not provide any legal basis for the use of military force. “Putting pressure on Iraq is not something that would be a lawful activity,” he says. [London Times, 6/19/2005]

Entity Tags: William Goodhart

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, Pre-war Attacks against Iraq, Legal Justification

Mother Jones reporter Jack Fairweather and his Iraqi colleague, Aqil Hussein, use tribal records to track down the real Lieutenant General Jamal al-Ghurairy. After 9/11, the Iraqi National Congress prepared an Iraqi defector to pose as al-Ghurairy for a sensational, and false, story claiming that the Hussein regime was training Islamist terrorists (see November 6-8, 2001). The general lives in his home town of Mahmudiya, and meets with the reporters. During their interview, al-Ghurairy grows increasingly angry. He says he never worked at the Salman Pak military installation, where the supposed terrorist training took place, but had been the commandant at the Suwara military base from 1993 until 2000. He says he has never spoken to US intelligence agents or military officials, and until now was unaware that someone had borrowed his identity to disseminate fabrications. “I have never met these people!” he storms. “I have not left Iraq. The people who say this were trying to use my name to make war!” Fairweather notes that he cannot independently verify al-Ghurairy’s identity, writing, “[R]ecords in Iraq are in considerable disarray, and many people have incentive to conceal the truth about their activities before and after the war—former generals are likely high on that list.” But Fairweather was able to corroborate al-Ghurairy’s information with other senior Iraqi officials, who confirmed that the training at the Salman Pak facility was for Iraqi special forces preparing to retake hijacked planes from terrorists. (They do confirm that some foreign fighters were housed at the facility in preparation for the US’s March 2003 invasion.) [Mother Jones, 4/2006]

Entity Tags: Aqil Hussein, Jamal al-Ghurairy, Jack Fairweather, Iraqi National Congress

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Media Coverage, Chalabi and the INC

A CIA report completed this month concludes that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq government “did not have a relationship, harbor, or even turn a blind eye toward [Islamist leader Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi and his associates.” The report will be made public one year later as part of a bipartisan Senate investigation. That investigation will conclude that Hussein regarded al-Qaeda as a threat rather as a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.” The New York Times will later report that “The disclosure undercuts continuing claims by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” But despite this report, President Bush will continue to allege such a link existed. For instance, in August 2006, he will claim in a news conference that Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.” [New York Times, 9/8/2006]

Entity Tags: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Al Zarqawi Allegation, Iraq Ties to Terrorists Allegations

Speaking at the New America Foundation, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, argues that power in Washington has become so concentrated, and the inter-agency processes within the Federal government so degraded, that the government is no longer capable of responding competently to threatening events—whether such events are natural disasters or international conflicts. He describes how successive administrations over the last five decades have damaged the national security decision-making process and warns that new legislation is desperately needed to force transparency on the process and restore checks and balances within the federal bureaucracy. The process has hit a nadir with the Bush administration, he says, whose secrecy and disregard for inter-agency processes has resulted in disastrous policies, such as those toward Iraq, North Korea, and Iran, and the policies that resulted in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib. “Fundamental decisions about foreign policy should not be made in secret,” he says. “You don’t have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you’ve condoned it.” He says, “[T]he case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, and perturbations in the national-security [policy-making] process.” This approach to government also contributed to the failures in responding to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “Decisions that send men and women to die, decisions that have the potential to send men and women to die, decisions that confront situations like natural disasters and cause needless death or cause people to suffer misery that they shouldn’t have to suffer, domestic and international decisions, should not be made in a secret way.” His speech includes a very direct and open attack on the Bush administration. “What I saw was a cabal between the Vice President of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made. And then when the bureaucracy was presented with those decisions and carried them out, it was presented in such a disjointed incredible way that the bureaucracy often didn’t know what it was doing as it moved to carry them out.” Wilkerson contrasts the current president with his father, George H.W. Bush, “one of the finest presidents we have ever had,” who, in Wilkerson’s opinion, understood how to make foreign policy work. Wilkerson likens George W. Bush’s brand of diplomacy to “cowboyism” and notes that he was unable to persuade US allies to stand behind his policies because “it’s hard to sell shit.” He explains that Bush is “not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either. There’s a vast difference between the way George H. W. Bush dealt with major challenges, some of the greatest challenges at the end of the 20th century, and effected positive results in my view, and the way we conduct diplomacy today.” Wilkerson lays the blame for the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse directly at the feet of the younger Bush and his top officials, whom Wilkerson says gave tacit approval to soldiers to abuse detainees. As for Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser and now Powell’s successor at the State Department, she was and is “part of the problem.” Instead of ensuring that Bush received the best possible advice even if it was not what Bush wanted to hear, Rice “would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president.” Wilkerson also blames the fracturing and demoralization of the US military on Bush and his officials. Officers “start voting with their feet, as they did in Vietnam,” he says, “and all of a sudden your military begins to unravel.” Wilkerson is particularly scathing in his assessment of the Pentagon’s supervisor of the OSP, Douglas Feith, one of the original members of the Cabal. Asked if he agrees with General Tommy Franks’s assessment of Feith as the “f_cking stupidest guy on the planet.” Wilkerson says, “Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man. And yet, after the [Pentagon is given] control, at least in the immediate post-war period in Iraq, this man is put in charge. Not only is he put in charge, he is given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw themselves in a closet somewhere.…That’s telling you how decisions were made and…how things got accomplished.” [American Strategy Program, 10/19/2005; Financial Times, 10/20/2005; Inter Press Service, 10/20/2005; Salon, 10/27/2005]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lawrence Wilkerson, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, George Herbert Walker Bush

Category Tags: Internal Opposition, Office of Special Plans

After meeting with President George Bush in Washington, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tells Italian reporters, “Bush himself confirmed to me that the USA did not have any information [about alleged uranium sales from Niger to Iraq] from Italian [intelligence] agencies.” [White House, 11/2/2005]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Silvio Berlusconi

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Category Tags: Africa-Uranium Allegation

Italian lawmaker Senator Massimo Brutti states that in January 2003 (see November 20, 2005) Italy’s military intelligence service, SISMI, warned the United States that its reporting (see March 25, 2002) (see October 15, 2001) (see February 5, 2002) on Iraq’s purported attempts to procure uranium from Niger were wrong. Brutti says he is not sure whether this warning was sent before or after President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). “At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they (Italy’s SISMI secret services) said that the dossier doesn’t correspond to the truth,” Sen. Massimo Brutti tells journalists after he and other lawmakers on a parliamentary commission were briefed by SISMI’s head, Nicolo Pollari, and Gianni Letta, a top aide to Premier Silvio Berlusconi. [Associated Press, 11/3/2005] Shortly after making the statement, Brutti calls the Associated Press and says these comments were made in error. There was no warning in January 2003, he says. He also says lawmakers were told during the briefing that Italian intelligence did not have “a role in the dossier that was supposed to have demonstrated that Iraq was in an advanced phase of possession of enriched uranium.” [Associated Press, 11/3/2005; Reuters, 11/3/2005]

Entity Tags: SISMI, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Category Tags: Africa-Uranium Allegation

The Los Angeles Times concludes a 6-month investigation on how misinformation provided by Curveball was used to bolster the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction. In a front-page article summarizing the investigation, the Times reports: “An investigation by the Times based on interviews since May [2005] with about 30 current and former intelligence officials in the US, Germany, England, Iraq and the United Nations, as well as other experts, shows that US bungling in the Curveball case was worse than official reports have disclosed. The White House, for example, ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball’s account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq’s biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.” [Los Angeles Times, 11/20/2005 Sources: Massimo Brutti]

Entity Tags: SISMI

Category Tags: Biological Weapons Trailers, Curveball Fabrications

(Show related quotes)

Former CIA Director George Tenet will write in 2007, “It is my understanding that in 2006, new intelligence was obtained that proved beyond any doubt that the man seen meeting with [a] member of the Iraqi intelligence service in Prague in 2001 was not Mohamed Atta.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 355]

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, George J. Tenet

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence agent captured by the US after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (see June 2004), is quietly released. Al-Ani gained notoriety after 9/11 when Bush administration officials claimed he had a meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Prague, in the Czech Republic (see April 8, 2001). These allegations were eventually debunked (see September 18, 2001-April 2007). He had been secretly detained by the CIA at an unknown location since his capture. He will make the news again in mid-2007 when Czech officials reveal that he has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Czech government, charging that unfounded Czech intelligence reports resulted in his imprisonment by the CIA. [Washington Post, 10/27/2007]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Atta in Prague Connection

John Maguire, former deputy chief of the Iraq Operations Group, says the Bush administration made a huge mistake alleging that Saddam Hussein’s government had supported al-Qaeda. According to Maguire, US intelligence “never had anything that said that.” He says that while there had been an occasional meeting between Iraqis and Osama bin Laden’s organization, it was nothing significant because that’s what intelligence agencies do. But “the way this was cast [by the White House] created a picture that was different than reality.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 418]

Entity Tags: John Maguire

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties

The National Security Council rejects a request from the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) to interview Stephen Hadley. The OIG is conducting an investigation into whether the Defense Department’s Office of Special Plans had been engaged in inappropriate intelligence activities prior to the invasion of Iraq. [Think Progress, 2/9/2007; US Congress, 2/9/2007] During the time period in question, Hadley had been deputy national security adviser, and was reportedly one of the Pentagon office’s main contacts in the National Security Council (see, e.g., Shortly After September 11, 2001 and September 2002).

Entity Tags: Office of Special Plans, Stephen J. Hadley, Office of the Inspector General (DoD), National Security Council

Category Tags: Office of Special Plans

A Zogby poll conducted in conjunction with Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies finds waning support among US troops in Iraq for the occupation. According to the survey, which polled 944 soldiers and had an error margin of 3.3 percent, 72 percent of US soldiers in Iraq think troops should be withdrawn from the country within the next twelve months. On the question of why the US invaded Iraq, 77 percent said it was “to stop Saddam from protecting al-Qaeda in Iraq.” The poll also indicated that soldiers had different interpretations of the US military’s current mission in Iraq. Of those polled, 85 percent said the mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9/11 attacks,” (No official US statement has ever tied Saddam Hussein to 9/11) and 24 percent said they believe the mission is to establish “a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World.” Others said they think the mission is to secure oil supplies (11 percent) or establish long-term military bases in the Middle East (6 percent). [Zogby, 2/28/2006]

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Motives

In an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine, former CIA senior analyst Paul Pillar says that prewar-intelligence was misused by the administration to support its case for war. Pillar, the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, writes: “In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made.” The administration “went to war without requesting—and evidently without being influenced by—any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq.” According to Pillar, it was not until a year after the invasion that he first received a request for such an assessment. He also says that there was pressure on intelligence analysts to make their assessments conform to the administration’s policy, a claim that several others have made as well (see September 11, 2001-March 17, 2003; September 11, 2001-March 17, 2003). He describes a “poisonous atmosphere,” which “reinforced the disinclination within the intelligence community to challenge the consensus view about Iraqi WMD programs; any such challenge would have served merely to reaffirm the presumptions of the accusers.” Pillar also rejects the view that the administration went to war because of Iraq’s presumed ties to al-Qaeda. Rather the White House “hitch[ed] the Iraq expedition to the ‘war on terror’ and the threat the American public feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country’s militant post-9/11 mood.” Pillar suggests that the decision to go to war was instead driven by the idea that shaking up the Middle East would hasten the “spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region.” [CNN, 2/10/2006; Foreign Affairs, 3/2006]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Paul R. Pillar

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the US’s top envoy to Iraq, tells the Los Angeles Times that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has opened a “Pandora’s box.” Iraq is currently embroiled in violence fueled by ethnic and sectarian tensions. Khalilzad says the “potential is there” for the situation to become a full-blown civil war. [Los Angeles Times, 3/7/2006] Four years earlier, Philip Gordon of the Brooking Institution had used the same exact words in warning about the potential for civil war if the US were to invade Iraq. In March 2002, he said, “Removing Saddam will be opening a Pandora’s box, and there might not be any easy way to close it back up” (see Late March 2002).

Entity Tags: Brookings Institution, Philip Gordon, Zalmay M. Khalilzad

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Predictions

In an interview, Vice President Cheney says, “We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we’ve never made the case, or argued the case that somehow [Saddam Hussein] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there—that’s a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al-Qaeda organization.” [White House, 3/29/2006] This is a reversal for Cheney, who strongly argued that the meeting took place, even after most experts concluded that it did not (see June 17, 2004).

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

A map drawn by one of the defectors, showing his version of the Salman Pak facility. [Source: PBS]The story told by three Iraqi defectors in November 2001, of a terrorist training camp in Salman Pak, outside of Baghdad, has long been disproven (November 6-8, 2001) and one defector has been shown to have pretended to be former Iraqi general Jamal al-Ghurairy, the key source for the story. But only now are the news reporters and pundits beginning to acknowledge—however grudgingly—that they were duped, and that their credulous reportings helped cement the Bush administration’s fabricated case for invading Iraq. The story was one of at least 108 planted in the US and British press by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) between October 2001 and May 2002, a number audaciously provided by the INC itself in its attempts to persuade Congress to continue its funding (see June 26, 2002). The New York Times eventually admitted some faults with its prewar reporting, but only admitted that its coverage of the Salman Pak story had “never been independently verified.” PBS, similarly gulled by the defectors and their fraudulent claims (see October 2005), amended its Frontline Web site for its “Gunning for Saddam” story, which featured interviews with the defectors, to note that the defector’s claims have “not been substantiated,” and later will admit to the likelihood that its reporter, Christopher Buchanan, was duped. New York Times reporter Chris Hedges now says he took the word of producer Lowell Bergman as to the validity of the defector, and was further convinced by one of the defector’s military appearance. As for Bergman, Hedges says, “There has to be a level of trust between reporters. We cover each other’s sources when it’s a good story because otherwise everyone would get hold of it.” Hedges admits he was not aware at the time of how close Bergman, and other Times reporters such as Judith Miller, was to INC head Ahmed Chalabi. “I was on the periphery of all this. This was Bergman’s show.” [Mother Jones, 4/2006] In 2004, Hedges noted that he attempted to get confirmation from the US government about the defectors and their story, and government officials confirmed the claims: “We tried to vet the defectors and we didn’t get anything out of Washington that said ‘these guys are full of sh*t.’” [Columbia Journalism Review, 7/1/2004] Hedges says he later rejected an attempt by Chalabi to convince him that UN inspectors were spying for Saddam Hussein. He also says that he never believed the stories placing 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Prague (see April 8, 2001). He no longer trusts Chalabi as a source of information: “He’s a sleazy guy who I was not comfortable working around, but there was nothing right after 9/11 to indicate he was an outright liar.” [Mother Jones, 4/2006] Hedges notes that Chalabi seemed to have an “endless stable” of defectors to talk with reporters. “He had defectors for any story you wanted. He tried to introduce me to this guy who said he knew about Iraqi spies on the UN inspection teams: the guy was a thug. I didn’t trust either of them.” [Columbia Journalism Review, 7/1/2004] However, none of this uncertainty made it into Hedges’s Times report. Bergman says, “You’ve got to remember that back then there really was only one show in town, and that was Chalabi’s. If you were doing a story on Saddam’s Iraq, you would speak to the Iraqi government, the White House, and the INC.” Bergman tried to confirm the al-Ghurairy story with former CIA director and prominent neoconservative James Woolsey, and Woolsey told him that “al-Ghurairy” had met with the FBI in Ankara. (At the time, Woolsey was hardly a neutral source since it was already reported that he was aggressively trying to drum up connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda (see Late September 2001 and Mid-September-October 2001).) “Chalabi was dangerous goods in the sense you know he’s advocating war” Bergman recalls. “But that label is up-front. I think Chalabi is given too much credit for influencing the march to war.” Many conservative pundits still cite the al-Ghurairy tale as justification for the Iraq invasion. And the White House still lists “shutting down the Salman Pak training camp where members of many terrorist camps trained” in its “Progress Report on the Global War on Terrorism” Web page. In 2004, Chalabi boasted, “As far as we’re concerned, we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants. We are heroes in error.” [Columbia Journalism Review, 7/1/2004; Mother Jones, 4/2006]

Entity Tags: Jamal al-Ghurairy, Chris Hedges, Bush administration, Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi National Congress, Christopher Buchanan, Saddam Hussein, Mohamed Atta, New York Times, Public Broadcasting System, Lowell Bergman, Judith Miller, James Woolsey

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Media Coverage, Chalabi and the INC

The Washington Post reports that leaked documents show the US military is conducting a propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. According to the Post, “The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the [Iraq] war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.” According to Col. Derek Harvey, who has been a top advisor on Iraq intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, although al-Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted some deadly bombing attacks, they remain “a very small part of the actual numbers…. Our own focus on al-Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will—made him more important than he really is, in some ways.” Since at least 2004, the US military has manipulated the Iraq media’s coverage of Zarqawi in an effort to turn Iraqis against the insurgency. But leaked documents also explicitly list the “US Home Audience” as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign. Additionally, sections of leaked military briefings show that the US media was directly used to influence view of al-Zarqawi. For instance, one document notes that a “selective leak” about al-Zarqawi was made to New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, which resulted in a 2004 front page story about a letter supposedly written by al-Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq (see February 9, 2004). [Washington Post, 4/10/2006] The Daily Telegraph reported in 2004 that “senior diplomats in Baghdad claim that the letter was almost certainly a hoax.” The Telegraph also reported the US was buying extremely dubious intelligence that exaggerated al-Zarqawi’s role and was treating it as fact, even in policy decisions (see October 4, 2004). [Daily Telegraph, 10/4/2004] One US military briefing from 2004 states, “Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response” and lists three methods: “Media operations,” “Special Ops (626)” (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite US military unit) and “PSYOP,” meaning psychological operations and propaganda. One internal US military briefing concluded that the “al-Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date… primarily for the Iraqi audience but also with the international audience.” It is supposedly US military policy not to aim psychological operations at Americans, but there appears to be no punishment for the violation of this policy in the wake of this media report. [Washington Post, 4/10/2006]

Entity Tags: Derek Harvey, Al-Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Timeline Tags: US Military, Complete 911 Timeline, Iraq under US Occupation, Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Al Zarqawi Allegation

A year after retiring from the CIA, Tyler Drumheller, the agency’s former head of spying in Europe, tells CBS 60 minutes that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence leading up to the war with Iraq. “The idea of going after Iraq was US policy,” Drumheller says. “It was going to happen one way or the other.… The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.” As an example, Drumheller notes how administration officials would accept single-sourced intelligence when it supported their views, but reject it as uncorroborated when it did not. [CBS News, 4/23/2006]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Tyler Drumheller

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence, The Decision to Invade

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, former CIA senior analyst Paul Pillar says the Bush administration’s prewar allegations concerning Iraq were part of an “organized campaign of manipulation.” This was especially the case with the administration’s claims that Iraq was working with al-Qaeda, he says. “It was this that most strongly affected public opinion in the United States, and which would keep alive the images of September 11, 2001. The administration’s voracious appetite to obtain material about this non-existent alliance cost a great deal of time and work to senior intelligence staff and the most highly experienced analysts in the CIA.” Pillars also tells the newspaper the decision to invade Iraq was made “for other reasons and did not depend on weapons of mass destruction or the results of United Nations inspections.” [Agence France-Presse, 5/4/2006; El Pais, 5/4/2006]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Paul R. Pillar

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence

Investigative journalist Craig Unger reports that nine US officials believe “the Niger documents were part of a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public.” The officials are 30-year CIA veteran Milt Bearden; Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a former DIA defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and terrorism; Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell; Melvin Goodman, a former division chief and senior analyst at the CIA and the State Department; Ray McGovern, a veteran CIA analyst; Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who served in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia division in 2002 and 2003; Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993; former CIA official Philip Giraldi; and Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of operations of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center. [Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150]

Entity Tags: Craig Unger, Karen Kwiatkowski, Melvin A. Goodman, Patrick Lang, Larry C. Johnson, Lawrence Wilkerson, Ray McGovern, Vincent Cannistraro, Philip Giraldi, Milton Bearden

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Category Tags: Africa-Uranium Allegation

The Senate Intelligence Committee, reporting on the pre-invasion intelligence on Iraq, finds that the US intelligence community had no evidence whatsoever of terrorist training facilities or activities at Iraq’s Salman Pak military base. The report says, “Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qaeda training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qaeda operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations.” The report will note testimony from both CIA and DIA officials that found “no indications that training of al-Qaeda linked individuals took place there.” The DIA told the committee in June 2006 that it has “no credible reports that non-Iraqis were trained to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations at Salman Pak after 1991.” [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ] The base was found to be just what the Iraqis said it was: a training camp for counterterrorism operations, focused on foiling terrorist hijackings of jetliners (see April 6, 2003).

Entity Tags: Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Senate Intelligence Committee, Al-Qaeda

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Politicization of Intelligence, Poisons and Gases

A bipartisan Senate report concludes that “Post-war findings… confirm that no such meeting ever occurred” between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague. It notes that “Post-war debriefings of [the alleged Iraqi agent, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani,] indicate that he had never seen or heard of Atta until after September 11, 2001, when Atta’s face appeared on the news.” [US Senate and Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ] But two days later Vice President Cheney is asked if the meeting ever took place and he still maintains that it could have (see September 10, 2006).

Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Atta in Prague Connection

Vice President Cheney appears on Meet the Press two days after a bipartisan Senate report asserts that there was no link of any sort between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda before 9/11, except for one meeting held in 1995. Cheney claims he has not read the report yet, but he says, “whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet’s testimony before the Senate Intel Commission, an open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern of relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al-Qaeda.… [Militant leader Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, poisons facility, ran by Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.… [The Iraqi government] was a state sponsor of terror. [Saddam Hussein] had a relationship with terror groups. No question about it. Nobody denies that.” [Meet the Press, 9/10/2006] In fact, the Senate report determined that although al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad, the Iraqi government tried hard to find him and catch him, and that Ansar al-Islam was in a part of Iraq outside the control of the Iraq government and the government was actively opposed to them as well. The report claims there was no meeting between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague in April 2001. [US Senate and Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ] But regarding that meeting, Cheney still does not deny it took place, even though it has been widely discredited. “We don’t know. I mean, we’ve never been able to, to, to link it, and the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say, at this point, nobody has been able to confirm…” [Meet the Press, 9/10/2006] Earlier in the year, Cheney had conceded that the meeting “has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place” (see March 29, 2006).

Entity Tags: Ansar al-Islam, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, Mohamed Atta, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Al Zarqawi Allegation, Atta in Prague Connection

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) holds a press briefing offering its analysis of the 9/11 attacks. Speaking at the event are former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, AEI fellow David Wurmser, AEI fellow Michael Ledeen, and one-time Harvard assistant professor Laurie Mylroie. Speaking first is Mylroie, who argues that al-Qaeda could not have pulled the attacks off without the help of Saddam Hussein. “There has been no clear demonstration that Osama bin Laden was involved in Tuesday’s assault on the United States, but there’s been a lot of speculation to that effect, and it may turn out that he is. So assume that he is because I think the key question will be, how likely is it that Osama bin Laden’s group or any other group carried out these attacks alone, unassisted by a state? I’d like to suggest that it is extremely unlikely—in fact, next to impossible.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 67]

Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Newt Gingrich, Laurie Mylroie, David Wurmser, American Enterprise Institute

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: The Decision to Invade, Atta in Prague Connection

Rumsfeld leaving the Defense Department. [Source: Boston Globe]Donald Rumsfeld resigns as US defense secretary. On November 6, he writes a letter telling President Bush of his resignation. Bush reads the letter the next day, which is also the date for midterm elections in the US, in which the Democratic Party wins majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives. Bush publicly announces the resignation the next day. No explanation is given for the delay in making the announcement. [Reuters, 8/15/2007]
Replaced by Gates - Rumsfeld is formally replaced by Robert Gates on December 18, 2006. According to a retired general who worked closely with the first Bush administration, the Gates nomination means that George H.W. Bush, his close political advisers—Brent Scowcroft, James Baker—and the current President Bush are saying that “winning the 2008 election is more important than any individual. The issue for them is how to preserve the Republican agenda. The Old Guard wants to isolate Cheney and give their girl, Condoleezza Rice, a chance to perform.” It takes Scowcroft, Baker, and the elder Bush working together to oppose Cheney, the general says. “One guy can’t do it.” Other sources close to the Bush family say that the choice of Gates to replace Rumsfeld is more complex than the general describes, and any “victory” by the “Old Guard” may be illusory. A former senior intelligence official asks rhetorically: “A week before the election, the Republicans were saying that a Democratic victory was the seed of American retreat, and now Bush and Cheney are going to change their national security policies? Cheney knew this was coming. Dropping Rummy after the election looked like a conciliatory move—‘You’re right, Democrats. We got a new guy and we’re looking at all the options. Nothing is ruled out.’” In reality, the former official says, Gates is being brought in to give the White House the credibility it needs in continuing its policies towards Iran and Iraq.
New Approach towards Iran? - Gates also has more credibility with Congress than Rumsfeld, a valuable asset if Gates needs to tell Congress that Iran’s nuclear program poses an imminent threat. “He’s not the guy who told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he’ll be taken seriously by Congress.” Joseph Cirincione, a national security director for the Center for American Progress, warns: “Gates will be in favor of talking to Iran and listening to the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the neoconservatives are still there [in the White House] and still believe that chaos would be a small price for getting rid of the threat. The danger is that Gates could be the new Colin Powell—the one who opposes the policy but ends up briefing the Congress and publicly supporting it.” [New Yorker, 11/27/2006]

Entity Tags: Robert M. Gates, Joseph Cirincione, Brent Scowcroft, George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, James A. Baker, George Herbert Walker Bush, Donald Rumsfeld

Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, US Military, Complete 911 Timeline, Iraq under US Occupation, Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence

Robert Gates. [Source: US Defense Department]In its final report, the Iraq Study Group (ISG) recommends significant changes to Iraq’s oil industry. The report’s 63rd recommendation states that the US should “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and “encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.” The recommendation also says the US should “provide technical assistance to the Iraqi government to prepare a draft oil law.” [Iraq Study Group, 2006, pp. 57 ] The report makes a number of recommendations about the US occupation of Iraq, including hints that the US should consider moving towards a tactical withdrawal of forces from that beleaguered nation. President Bush’s reaction to the report is best summed up by his term for the report: a “flaming turd.” Bush’s scatological reaction does not bode well for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s own hopes that the administration will use the ISG report as a template for revising its approach to Iraq. This does not happen. Instead, Vice President Dick Cheney organizes a neoconservative counter to the ISG’s recommendations, led by the American Enterprise Institute’s Frederick Kagan. Kagan and his partner, retired general Jack Keane, quickly formulate a plan to dramatically escalate the number of US troops in Iraq, an operation quickly termed “the surge” (see January 10, 2007). The only element of the ISG report that is implemented in the Bush administration’s operations in Iraq is the label “a new way forward,” a moniker appropriated for the surge of troops. Administration officials such as Rice and the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, quickly learn to swallow their objections and get behind Bush’s new, aggressive strategy; military commanders who continue to support elements of the ISG recommendations, including CENTCOM commander General John Abizaid and ground commander General George Casey, are either forced into retirement (Abizaid) or shuttled into a less directly influential position (Casey). [Salon, 1/10/2007]

Entity Tags: American Enterprise Institute, Condoleezza Rice, Fred Kagan, Iraq Study Group, Robert M. Gates, Jack Keane, George Casey, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, John P. Abizaid

Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

Category Tags: Motives

The British government admits it should have credited a postgraduate student’s article as being part of its so-called “Dodgy Dossier” on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (see February 3, 2003). “In retrospect we should have acknowledged” that sections of the document were based on an article by Ibrahim al-Marashi, says a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair. Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, says the incident is “the intelligence equivalent of being caught stealing the spoons.… The dossier may not amount to much but this is a considerable embarrassment for a government trying still to make a case for war.” Labour leader Glenda Jackson, an outspoken opponent of war with Iraq, calls the dossier “another example of how the government is attempting to mislead the country and Parliament on the issue of a possible war with Iraq. And of course to mislead is a Parliamentary euphemism for lying.” Blair’s spokesman disputes the allegation that the government lied; instead, he says, “We all have lessons to learn.” The Blair administration insists the dossier is “solid,” no matter what its sources. “The report was put together by a range of government officials,” says a Downing Street spokesman. “As the report itself makes clear, it was drawn from a number of sources, including intelligence material. It does not identify or credit any sources, but nor does it claim any exclusivity of authorship.” Conservative Party shadow defense secretary Bernard Jenkin says his party is deeply concerned about the dossier. “The government’s reaction utterly fails to explain, deny, or excuse the allegations made in it,” he says. “This document has been cited by the prime minister and Colin Powell as the basis for a possible war. Who is responsible for such an incredible failure of judgment?” [Associated Press, 2/7/2003; BBC, 2/7/2003; Office of the Prime Minister, 2/7/2003; New York Times, 2/8/2003]

Entity Tags: Walter Menzies Campbell, Bernard Jenkin, Blair administration, Glenda Jackson, Ibrahim al-Marashi, Tony Blair

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Politicization of Intelligence, Propaganda