"they saw the same intelligence as the President"
Fatback
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NOT. Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq ArgumentBy Dana Milbank and Walter PincusWashington Post Staff WritersSaturday, November 12, 2005; A01President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.Neither assertion is wholly accurate.The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.[/b] more...
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Stephen Hadley is a Big, Fat Dissembling Piece of Shit
Steven Hadley, running from the twin scandals of TraitorGate and being the go-to guy on the Niger Forgeries, wants to make it a trifecta.
Says Atrios:
I think that the recent statements of Stephen Hadley are really all we need to put the final nail in the coffin of the Bush administration's credibility on anything. These people are just quite literally loathsome.
Hadley argues that Democrats had the same intelligence because "parts of" the NIE "had been made public."
Right, and the parts of the NIE which weren't made public were the parts which suggested that the parts which were made public were full of shit.
Any talking head who overlooks this fact to try to claim that "democrats had the same intelligence as Republicans" is just completely full of shit. They only the had the bits that made their case, not the bits which took away from it.
He's absolutely right. And just so I won't feel I slogged through that 568 page SSCI report for nothing, I would like to add my two cents.
That NIE (or National Intelligence Estimate -- a compilation from the various intelligence departments of all the available information relating to a particular situation) was a crock from the git-go. BushCo. didn't even want to do one, even though they are typically done before launching any major military operation like oh, say, a war. Unbelievably, Dick Durbin had to make a special request to even get one prior to granting Dubya the authority to declare war (p. 12 of the SSCI).
National Intelligence Officers assert that ideally it takes three months to produce an accurate NIE, but Preznit Itchy Trigger Finger and the Stovepipe Posse claimed that the threat Sadaam posed was so imminent that they couldn't wait.
The NIE was produced in less than twenty days, and its findings were never sent out for peer review or to a panel of outside experts because Bush and company said there wasn't time. (p. 13, SSCI).
Hence the most specious claims about aluminum tubing and Curveball that had been waved through by the likes of mediocre-novelist-playing-spy Scooter Libby and his faithful sidekick Big Time as they poked their noses into raw intelligence never got vetted by professionals not under the thrall of the powerful who knew what they wanted to find long before they found it.
To say the Democrats had access to this intelligence is hogwash. Unless someone's got photos of Dick Durbin running around CIA headquarters sniffing at the britches of low-level analysts and eating Mu Shu Pork off Colin Powell's Chinese menu that claim is just bunk.
Dubya had a boner for war, a premature ejaculator who simply couldn't wait. In short order he quickly screwed the Iraqis, the intelligence process, the US military and the American people.
The Democrats had nothing to do with it. The end.
1) On WMD & Nukes. The CIA came to believe ANYTHING that was said about Iraq's WMD program. During the Clinton administration they thought that Iraq had the capability to produce WMD. During the Bush administration they changed to claiming that Iraq HAD WMD and was seeking to advance its programs. They had no quality control over their intelligence. An example, one claim they made was that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program. The evidence, the nuclear power program built a new building next to the old one that had been blown up by U.S. cruise missles and it had the same people working there. There was no reporting on what the people were actually DOING inside the building, it was just the fact that they had a new building. Second piece of evidence was a newspaper clipping that said Saddam met with some of his top nuclear scientists. There was nothing on what they talked about, but the CIA took the fact that Saddam was meeting with the scientists to mean that they must be talking about restarting the nuclear weapons program?!?!?! From what I could tell, the CIA didn't need the Bush administration to jump on any little bit of info that Iraq was actively seeking WMD and nukes
2) On terrorism. This is where there were large disparities between the intelligence and what the Bush administraiton said. The CIA never found any evidence that there was cooperation between al Qaeda and Iraq. There were meetings but nothing came of them. The CIA told the Bush administraiton this over and over, but the Bushies didn't believe them. The Bush administration made all kinds of claims about terrorist links that were not supported by evidence. 2 examples. 1) The Bush administration, and especially Wolfowitz and Cheney claimed that Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. Wolfowitz's own investigation, the FBI, the CIA, etc. said they couldn't find any evidence of the meeting, but both administraiton officials still claimed it happened. I just heard this line on PBS' Newshour TV show last week. The Neocon being interviewed said that US intelligence didn't find any evidence that the meeting DIDN'T take place so therefore Cheney could keep on claiming that it happened. WTF?!?!? 2) Powell and Bush both claimed that Iraq had given weapons, bomb making and WMD training to Al Qaeda. This was based upon one Iraqi defector that not only changed his story, but the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) thought he was lying. It turns out, after the war, he did lie. But the neocons in the administration, especially Scooter Libby ran with the story. There are other examples as well.
3) On intelligence. The Bush administration thought the CIA was trying to undermine them by leaking selected intelligence to the newspapers to make the administration look bad. This led to a couple things, one the creation of the Iraq Group within the administration that led a PR campaign with Congress and the media to convince them of war, the creation of a probably illegal intelligence collection system where the Iraqi National Congress would give intelligence directly to Neocons in the administration, the creation of a Neocon intelligence lobbying group which gave intelligence briefings to Cheney, George Tenet and others that argued the administration's view points, plus Cheney and Libby visiting the CIA HQ several times to question them on their intelligence about Iraq.
4) On public claims. The Bush administration would always stress the worse case scenarios when trying to win public support. Whether it be claiming that Iraq was connected with 9/11 when there was no evidence, to claiming that the administration didn't want to see a "mushroom cloud" because of Iraq's nuclear program being renewed.
5) On criticism. The Bush administration doesn't like anyone calling them out. Anyone who tried to counter their claims about Iraq were attacked. Examples: 1) Joseph Wilson go this wife exposed because he said that Iraq was not trying to buy uranium from Niger. The Bush administration itself had pulled the claim from their public speeches, but went after Wilson anyways because he went public with his criticism. 2) Hans Blix, head of the UN weapons inspectors, was attacked by both Cheney and Wolfowitz over his inspections. The UN said Iraq hadn't cooperated on a number of issues, but overall there were no WMD in Iraq, just some violations on long range missiles. Cheney said it didn't matter what the UN inspectors found, and Wolfwotiz opened an investigation into him. 3) El Baradei, head of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation group found no evidence of Iraq restarting its nuke program. The Bush administration tried to get him fired.
Overall, in a political Washington I very much doubt that Bush will be called on his shit.
Iraq had renewed its nuclear and WMD programs[/b]
A) After U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, U.S. intelligence was basically blind about activities within Iraq.
B) The U.S. never knew what Iraq had before the Gulf War, yet made claims that Iraq had not only renewed its WMD program, but that it was larger than it had been before the Gulf War based on little good intelligence.
C) 2 of the leading assertions the intelligence community used for their claim that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program (that Iraq had bought aluminum tubes for centrifuges and that Iraq bought uranium from Niger) not only turned out to be false, the intelligence community was almost incompetent in researching them.
D) The administration and intelligence community made four claims about Iraq???s WMD program that proved to be false (Iraq bought aluminum tubes for centrifuges for its nuclear weapons program, Iraq had developed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to deliver WMD that could be used to attack the U.S., Iraq had mobile WMD labs, and Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger). Two were complete exaggerations, and the others the administration had been warned about not to use, but did anyway. All three are examples of the anti-Iraq bias of most of the intelligence community and the administration???s willingness to use any claim to support their call for war.
E) One of the administration???s claims was that Iraq could give WMD or a nuclear weapon to terrorists to be used against the U.S. This ignored four facts. 1) Iraq never developed the technology to make a practical nuclear bomb, let alone one they could give to terrorists, 2) Iraq only had battlefield WMD, they never had the technology nor sophistication to develop WMD that an individual or terrorist could use, 3) Iraq had supported Palestinian and anti-Iranian terrorists and never given them WMD, 4) The intelligence community thought there was little chance that Iraq would give WMD to a terrorist group, and only then if the government was about to be overthrown in a U.S. invasion.
F) The Senate Intelligence Committee???s report on pre-war intelligence from July, 2004 basically sums up the problems with the claim that Iraq had renewed its WMD programs. The Committee said the intelligence community used questionable sources, exaggerated their claims, stated opinions as fact, ignored reports that didn???t fit their view of Iraq, etc. Almost every single claim U.S. intelligence made about Iraq???s WMD was crap, plain and simple. This was only made worse by groups within the administration that thought the CIA???s reporting was bad, and portrayed the Iraq threat as even larger.
Origins of claim[/b]
Paul Wolfowitz told Vanity Fair in a May, 2003 article, "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." Next to links with Al Qaeda, Iraq???s WMD became a leading argument by the Bush administration for war. I think the Bush administration was biased in their claims about Iraq and Al Qaeda, but when it comes to WMD, there???s shared blame with the U.S. intelligence community. The majority of the Bush Administration already had an anti-Iraq bias, which met its equal in the U.S. intelligence community???s anti-Iraq bias when it came to WMD. Together they came up with a long list of arguments that Iraq not only had WMD, but that its programs had been renewed and It was even larger than it had been before the Gulf War.
The basic genesis of this claim was that when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the U.S. intelligence community came to assume that Iraq must be renewing its WMD programs. According to former CIA analyst and National Security Council member under Clinton, Kenneth Pollack, the U.S. relied on the inspectors for up to 90% of their intelligence on Iraq. Afterwards, the U.S. came to rely more and more on Iraqi defectors who mostly came from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who had an agenda to get the U.S. to invade Iraq. The INC provided defectors that claimed Iraq was renewing its WMD program. The State Department???s intelligence unit was the only agency to consistently question these defectors and claims that Iraq had renewed its WMD programs. Pollack believed that this view that Iraq was restarting its WMD programs because inspectors had left, came to shape all the intelligence reporting leading up to the war. Pollack also believed that after the inspectors left U.S. intelligence began turning worst-case scenarios about Iraq into facts. This was supported by the findings of the July 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee report as well.
One problem with this claim was that in 1995 Hussein Kamal, head of Iraq???s WMD programs defected to Jordan. In August 1995 he told the U.N. that not only had he destroyed all of Iraq???s WMD stockpiles, but also dismantled much of the equipment. He also said that work on Iraq???s nuclear program had ended after the Gulf War, and that Iraqi defectors working for the Iraqi National Congress that claimed the program was still active were liars. He told the U.N. that the two nuclear bomb plans Iraq had worked on turned out to be impractical because one weighed 5 tons and the other 12 tons, far too heavy to be used by any delivery system that Iraq had. Iraq was only maintaining the WMD technology, know how and research and development in the hopes that they could be restarted sometime in the future. The U.S., U.N. and Western government, never believed these claims. U.N. inspectors even came to the view that Iraq would never give up its WMD programs, which was later shared by the Bush administration.
Not only was there an anti-Iraq bias within the administration however, many of the neoconservatives were anti-CIA. During the Cold War, neoconservatives argued that the CIA had consistently under estimated the threat posed by the Soviet Union. They believed that the CIA was a status-quo organization that maintained long standing estimates rather than change them with time. As it turned out the CIA was closer to the truth about the Soviets military than the neoconservatives, but this never stopped them. When it came to Iraq, the neoconservatives held the worst-case beliefs. Not only did they believe many of the Iraqi defectors that turned out to be fakes, they set up their own alternative intelligence agency, the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, which later became part of the Office of Special Plans, in the Pentagon that not only gave an alternate analysis of Iraq???s WMD, but raw, unchecked intelligence directly from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to the White House and Pentagon leadership.
WMD ??? chemical and biological weapons[/b]
???There is no doubt that he has chemical weapons stocks??? Powell, Fox News Sunday, 9/8/02
???Baghdad has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Saddam probably has stocked a few hundred metric tons of CW [chemical weapons] agents.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???All key aspects - R&D, production, and weaponization ??? of Iraq???s offensive BW [biological weapons] program are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War.??? Iraq White Paper 10/4/02
???Iraq probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Our intelligence o fficials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.??? Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
During the Clinton administration, the U.S. thought Iraq was still working on its WMD program. This view was shared by the U.N. when the inspectors left on 12/19/98. There was no actual intelligence to base this on however. It was an assumption that revealed the anti-Iraq bias that had built up within the U.S. and U.N. because of the years of Iraqi non-compliance with U.N. inspections. Within 7 months of the inspectors leaving, the intelligence community had begun reporting that Iraq was probably restarting its WMD program in a July, 1999 memo. The claim was repeated in the August, 1999 National Intelligence Estimate on foreign WMD. A February 2000 CIA intelligence report to Congress summed up the Clinton administration???s view, ???We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has ???. Reconstitute[d] its WMD programs, although given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as likely.??? To support this claim the CIA reported that Iraq had bought numerous dual-use items that could be converted to the production of WMD. The problem with this claim was that almost any chemical facility can be used to produce WMD, so the purchase alone of chemical equipment was not proof of a reinstated WMD program. This reveals the lack of intelligence the U.S. had on Iraq after inspectors left in 1998, and the assumption that would become fact later on within the intelligence community and Bush administration that Iraq had reconstituted its WMD program.
The intelligence that the U.S. was able to collect inside Iraq contradicted the view that it had restarted its WMD program. In 2000 CIA assistant director Charlie Allen began a program to contact family members of Iraqi scientists working on WMD to try to garner intelligence. The relatives told the CIA that scientists were not working on WMD because those programs had ended. The CIA did not believe reports, and they were not included in intelligence assessments nor distributed throughout the government because the CIA believed that they were part of a deception campaign by Iraq.
December 2000 the last major intelligence assessment of Iraq during the Clinton administration claimed: 1) The United Nations inspectors and the International Atomic Energy Agency had destroyed part of Iraq's nuclear weapons program, but that Iraq retained the elements to rebuild its program in the future, 2) Intelligence could not confirm Iraq had produced WMD but a single source claimed it had, 3) Iraq maintained stockpiles of 100 tons or less of WMD from Gulf War including mustard, VX and sarin, plus some WMD munitions, 4) There were multiple sources on new WMD research and development, and trying to buy dual-use equipment from abroad.
That same month the National Intelligence Estimate on foreign WMD developments claimed Iraq???s WMD program had begun to grow based upon a single intelligence report that Iraq had mobile WMD labs. This reveals the anti-Iraq bias within the intelligence community, that a single unconfirmed source would lead them to believe that Iraq had renewed its WMD program. This single source, an Iraqi National Congress (INC) defector in German custody code named CURVEBALL, would later turn out to be a hoax.
One of the first statements about Iraq???s WMD during the Bush administration came on 2/24/01 from Powell while he was on a trip to Egypt. Powell said Iraq had not developed any WMD at a press conference because U.N. sanctions had worked. That was changed the next month in March, 2001 when Richard Perle, head of the Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board, testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying that Iraq had WMD and was trying to hide it. At the end of the year, in December, 2001 the National Intelligence Estimate on foreign missile development said that Iraq had renewed its WMD program and had hidden 6 SCUD missiles from U.N. inspectors that could deliver WMD. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report from the same month said that Iraq had 100 metric tons or less of chemical weapons that it had hidden from U.N. inspectors, but that it didn???t know if they were still usable because of their limited shelf life. The DIA also couldn???t say whether Iraq was producing any new WMD. A separate intelligence report on smallpox said there was a 40-60% chance that Iraq was developing it, but that the information on Iraq was rated as ???poor.??? The smallpox claim came from the fact that Iraq had imported smallpox samples from the U.S. in the 1970s. There was no actual evidence that Iraq had tried to weaponize it, the intelligence community just began to assume that since Iraq could do it, it was.
The intelligence community???s lack of good, solid intelligence about Iraqs WMD program was shown in Early 2002. Photographic intelligence turned up pictures of a water tank truck that was suspected as being used as a decontamination truck during the Gulf War outside a Republican Guard munitions dump suspected of housing WMD during the Gulf War. The truck was later used in Powell???s speech to the U.N. on 2/5/03. In July, 2002 an intelligence report said that the suspected decontamination vehicle could have been used for non-WMD activity as well. The intelligence community had no other intelligence that the activity at the munitions dump had anything to do with WMD. Still, this one photo was used as a major argument for Iraq still possessing WMD in subsequent intelligence reports. CIA analysts later told the Senate Intelligence Committee after the war that the truck was probably there for legitimate reasons, not for WMD, and U.N. weapons inspector told the Associated Press that the truck turned out to be a regular fire truck.
January 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on Iraq's WMD said the program was active and probably larger than before Gulf War. There was no specific intelligence that Iraq had re-activated its program, nor how large Iraq???s WMD stockpile was. Both of these claims were speculations on the part of DIA analysts based on the assumption that Iraq had restarted production of WMD after U.N. inspectors left. This was followed up by a CIA report in the same month, which said Iraq could strike its neighbors with WMD.
One of the main WMD agents that the U.S. claimed Iraq was making new batches of was VX gas. In 1995 Hussein Kamal said that he had destroyed all of Iraq???s stock of VX after the Gulf War and dismantled the equipment for making the agents. Former U.N. inspector Scott Ridder said that in1996 inspectors found the equipment necessary to produce VX and destroyed it, and that Iraq had never been able to recover from that loss. Still, in 1997 U.N. inspectors found that Iraq had could produce up to 750 tons of VX precursor, but by the time they left in 1998 they had found no evidence that Iraq had been able to weaponize it. During the Bush administration, old and new stockpiles of VX would be a major claim.
7/30/02 Rumsfeld testified to Congress saying that air strikes alone would not be sufficient to rid Iraq of its WMD because it had mobile labs and facilities hidden underground. Both of these claims came from Iraqi National Congress defectors.
Niger uranium claim[/b]
???Should this regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.??? Bush, weekly radio address, 9/14/02
???If Baghdad acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
"If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nucle ar weapon in less than a year." Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.??? State Department Fact Sheet on Iraq???s Declaration to U.N., 12/19/02
???The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.??? Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
"The judgment in the NIE was that if Saddam could acquire fissile material, weapons-grade material, that he would have a nuclear weapon within a few months to a year. That was the judgement of the intelligence community of the United States, and they had a high degree of confidence in it." Cheney on Meet The Press after the war on 9/14/03
February 1999 the U.S. received an unverified intelligence report from Italy that Iraq had tried to buy 500 metric tons of yellow cake uranium from Niger. There was no evidence that the uranium arrived. The report gained importance in 2001 when Cheney asked the CIA to confirm the report. The CIA issued its first report on the Niger claim in October, 2001 when they outlined t he documents they found. The report was questioned within the CIA, and by the DIA, Department of Energy for its reliability and the State Department thought it was just not possible.
Despite the differences, the CIA wrote 3 separate reports in 2002 stating that there were questions about the source of the claim, but it could very well be true. These reports were later used as an example of Iraq trying to renew its nuclear weapons program during the Bush administration. The administration asserted that if Iraq got the uranium it could have a nuclear bomb within a year. This claim was a key argument in the October, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which was suppose to be the definitive intelligence report on Iraq as the Congress debated the war resolution. The claim would later be used by Bush in his 1/28/03 State of the Union speech, even though the CIA told the White House it should not be used. On 3/11/03 the CIA finally decided the story was based upon forged documents. In May, 2003 the President???s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board conducted an investigation into how the Niger claim was included in the State of the Union address. They found that the White House had been so desperate to find evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program that it ignored the warnings by the CIA about the Niger claim and included it in the speech anyway.
George Tenet, former head of the CIA, said in July, 2003 after that war that the Niger claim was never a major part of the intelligence community???s analysis of Iraq???s nuclear weapons program. To the administration however, the Niger claim became a major part of their argument that Iraq could acquire a nuclear weapon sooner rather than later. Bush, Cheney and others made the claim that if Iraq could buy enriched uranium from abroad, not what Iraq was supposedly buying from Niger by the way, they could have a bomb within a year. Technically this was possible if Iraq???s nuclear program was as large and active as it had been before the Gulf War. While intelligence estimates said that Iraq had renewed its nuclear program, there was no evidence that it was as large as during the Gulf War when it was estimated that Iraq employed 7,000 scientists and engineers along with 20,000 workers. There were also no reports of Iraq trying to buy enriched uranium. This was a case of the administration exaggerating the threat Iraq posed to argue its case for war.
Aluminum tubes claim[/b]
???We do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.??? Cheney, Meet The Press, 9/8/02
???Iraq???s aggressive attempts to proscribe high-strength aluminum tubes are of significant concern. All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program. Most intelligence specialists assess this to be the intended use, but some believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons programs.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Based on tubes of the size Iraq is trying to acquire , a few tens of thousands of centrifuges would be capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a couple of weapons per year.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Baghdad may have acquired uranium enrichment capabilities that could shorten substantially the amount of time necessary to make a nuclear weapon.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.??? Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempt to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, eve after inspections resumed.??? Powell, U.N. Speech, 2/5/03
4/10/01 the intelligence community found out that Iraq was trying to buy 60,000 high strength aluminum tubes, which were prohibited under U.N. sanctions. There was some dispute within the CIA, but their opinion came to be that the tubes were for centrifuges in Iraq's nuclear program. The Department of Energy???s nuclear experts disagreed on 4/11/01, 5/9/01, 8/17/01, and 4/11/02 saying that tubes were for rocket launchers. The State Department???s intelligence unit agreed with the Dept. of Energy that they were probably for rockets. The DIA went back and forth between the two positions.
The CIA went to great lengths to prove their case including ignoring Iraqi specifications for centrifuges and rocket tubes, misrepresenting U.N. findings, sponsoring their own tests, even though they didn???t give the company full details of the tubes, and other measures. In the Summer of 2002, Wolfowitz tried to influence the debate by meeting with Iraqi National Congress advisor Francis Brooke and former head of Iraq's nulcear program Khidir Hamza about the aluminum tubes. Hamza had never worked on centrifuges but said that the tubes could be used for them. Wolfowitz circulated the results of the meeting throughout the administration.
Despite the disputes, by August, 2002 the CIA???s opinion was the one that appeared in most intelligence reports. In that month the CIA released a report on Iraq???s WMD claiming that it had restarted its nuclear program based on the fact that Iraq had tried to buy the aluminum tubes. This was followed up by several other CIA reports claiming the same thing. The CIA and DIA released two major reports on Iraq???s WMD in September, 2002 agreeing on the aluminum tubes claim, and the issue became a major piece of the administration???s argument for war. On 9/8/02 for example, the administration not only leaked the claim to the New York Times, but Rice, Cheney and Powell all went on TV making the claim, and Bush used it in his U.N. speech on 9/12/02. Someone even leaked a story to the New York Times on 9/13/02 saying that the Department of Energy had agreed with the CIA that the tubes were for centrifuges when the Department had done no such thing.
On 9/23/02 the Institute For Science and International Security made an analysis of the aluminum tubes and said that the intelligence on them was ambiguous and that there were dissenting opinions within the U.S. intelligence community about them, especially the Department of Energy who believed they were for rockets. Institute said that analysts who did not agree with the administrations position that the tubes were for centrifuges were ignored. "ISIS has learned that U.S. nuclear experts who dissent from the A dministration's position are expected to remain silent. The President has said what he has said, end of story, one knowledgeable expert said." The next month the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was given to Congress to influence their vote on a war resolution. It included the claim about the aluminum tubes, largely based upon the September, 2002 DIA report.
and ended up in speeches as an example of Iraq re-starting its nuclear program. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency during inspections of Iraq in early 2003 said that the tubes were for rockets as well. Despite the disputes, the aluminum tube claim became one of the main arguments for Iraq restarting its nuclear program. The CIA???s opinion though became the official position of the intelligence community and the claim included in intelligence estimates and in speeches by Bush, Rice, and Cheney as proof that Iraq was renewing its nuclear program. Senate Intelligence Committee later found that the CIA???s assessments were unfounded.
8/17/01 As part of an assessment of the aluminum tubes claim , the Department of Energy also said that they could not determine whether Iraq had restarted its nuclear program or not.
11/5/01 State Department intelligence brief said Iraq appeared to have resumed chemical
Nuclear Program[/b]
???We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. ??? Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.??? Cheney speech, Nashville, TN, 8/26/02
???Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.??? National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, 10/1/02??????
???The regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons, and is seeking the materials needed to do so.??? Bush, Rose Garden Ceremony, 10/2/02
???If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof ??? the smoking gun ??? that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.??? Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.??? Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???We don???t know whether or not he has a nuclear weapon.??? Bush, Crawford, TX, 12/31/02
???The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.??? Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
???We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.??? Powell, U.N. Speech, 2/5/03
During the Clinton administration, the U.S. thought that Iraq???s nuclear program was dead, having been effectively dismantled by U.N. inspectors. For example, in CIA reports from 1997 and 1999 there was no mention of a nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which had been conducting inspections of Iraq since the Gulf War, reported in 1997 and 1999 that they did not find any indication that Iraq possessed any nuclear weapons nor the material or capability to produce one.
There were worries within the U.S. and U.N. that some of Iraq???s unilateral claims of destroying nuclear equipment had not been confirmed. By the end of the Clinton administration, the U.S. felt that Iraq was carrying out low-level research into nuclear weapons. In December 2000, the last major intelligence report on Iraq during the Clinton administration believed that Iraq continued low-level secret research into nuclear weapons and had attempted to buy dual-use technology and material for its program. It also claimed that if Iraq was able to buy enriched uranium from abroad it could have a nuclear weapon within a year. If not, Iraq could develop a nuclear weapon within 5-7 years if it had foreign help. Overall, the report did not think that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program.
When the Bush administration first came to office the neoconservatives and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) immediately began to claim that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program, but their claims were not yet supported by the intelligence. The CIA and others came around to the administration???s point of view in 2002 however.
One of the early Bush administration statements came in March, 2001 when Richard Perle, head of the Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board, testified to Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying that Iraq had WMD, nuclear program, and that it was trying to hide these programs. In the Fall of 2001 the INC provided a defector to the U.S. named Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri. Haideri said that Iraq secret underground nuclear facilities. The Pentagon released a short assessment on 9/11/02 saying that Iraq had nuclear scientists and was working on dual-use technologies, but could not acquire the enriched uranium necessary to make an actual bomb. In December, 2001 the National Intelligence Estimate on foreign missile development said that Iraq had not renewed its nuclear program.
State Department dissent on nuclear program in the 10/1/02 NIE: "The activities [State] have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an inegrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."
Bush Administration Claims[/b]
In a major foreign policy speech in Nashville, TN to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney asserted that the U.S. knew that Iraq had WMD, and that it was attempting to acquire a nuclear bomb. ???Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
There was one other supporting report. No actually WMD was seen or reported, but these two reports together led the intelligence community to declare that Iraq was moving and hiding WMD munitions.
March, 2002 England prepared an intelligence report on Iraq stating that Iraq might be producing WMD. Originally the English analysts wanted to say that Iraq was producing WMD, but didn't have the evidence.
3/22/02 Bush said that Iraq refused to prove whether it had WMDs or not which led him to believe that it did at Monterey, Mexico press conference.
April 2002 Human intelligence report from Iraq said that there was a new building for Iraq's atomic agency. Report said that the new building was to replace the old one that had been bombed, and that a new PhD school was to be built offering studies in nuclear energy. This report was part of the basis for the CIA's claim that Iraq was expanding its nuclear weapons program despite no direct evidence. All of Iraq???s nuclear facilities were assumed to be dual use working covertly on Iraq???s weapons program.
4/18/02 CIA report on Iraq's chemical weapons said Iraq might have gained agents to produce new chemical weapons.
6/11/02 Rumsfeld said that Iraq had WMD and an active nuclear weapons program at press conference in Kuwait.
7/22/02 Department of Energy published an intelligence report that said the Iraq-Niger deal was one of three events that might prove that Iraq was r econstituting its nuclear weapons program even though there was no evidence that the uranium ever arrived in Iraq and that the amount quoted "far exceeds what Iraq would need for a robust nuclear weapons program." There were also disputes about whether Niger claim was even real or not. Marked changed in opinion by department that had earlier said that Iraq was not restarting its nuclear program.
In September, 2002 the Senate Intelligence Committee held a closed door hearing on the Iraqi threat. They were told that there was no new evidence in the past 6 months of a new threat from Iraq. That same month, the British released a report stating that U.N. sanctions had worked to block Iraq's nuclear weapons program. "While sanctions remain effective, Iraq would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon."
That same month the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and CIA released two reports on Iraq???s WMD. The DIA assessment claimed Iraq was trying to rebuild its nuclear program. It used the Niger claim as an example, as well as attempted buys in Congo and Somalia. It did note that it could not confirm the Niger source. Report also said that the aluminum tubes were probably for centrifuges based upon earlier Iraqi specifications. This would later turn out to be a false assessment, as the tubes matched specifications for Iraqi rockets launchers, not centrifuges, but before that was proven, this section of the report would provide the basis for the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate???s claims about the aluminum tubes. The DIA stated it had, "No reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has or will establish its chemical agent production facilities,??? but the report said that Iraq had probably resumed WMD production. "Although we lack any direct information, Iraq probably possesses chemical agent in chemical munitions," and "probably possess bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent and VX.??? Smallpox was mentioned as another agent that Iraq might possess, but the DIA didn't know whether Iraq could be produced it. This was based on the fact that Iraq had bought smallpox cultures from the U.S. in the 1970s. Iraq had never conducted smallpox tests for its WMD program, but U.S. intelligence believed that since Iraq could do it, they probably were even though the U.S. had no evidence. The general claim that Iraq possessed WMD was based upon two pieces of evidence. One, Iraq had never r accounted for Gulf War WMD munitions to the U.N. At the same time the DIA admitted that it didn???t know the amount of Iraq's WMD stockpile to begin with. Second, the assessment did note the suspicious tanker truck photo as evidence that Iraq was moving WMD munitions. Again, there was no evidence of WMD at the site of the tanker truck, and no evidence that the truck had ever been used for WMD.
The CIA???s paper was another assessment of the aluminum tubes saying that Iraq had tried to hide the purchases, that they matched the specifications for centrifuges, and that they were not for rockets. It was a perfect example of the anti-Iraq bias of the intelligence community. Part of the CIA's claim was based upon a private company that was doing contract work for the CIA, that was asked to do an analysis of the tubes. The company said that the tubes were for centrifuges, but it was later revealed that the CIA did not give them all the specifications or information surrounding the tubes. The CIA also distorted Iraqi records to claim that the tubes matched specifications for Iraqi centrifuges, when in fact they did not. Iraq had also not tried to hide the purchase of the tubes, and their sale was actually posted on the internet. The CIA also had a report that Iraq's nuclear agency complained that Iraq's nuclear program had been stalled since the Gulf War, but they ignored it because it did not fit the Agency???s view of Iraq???s WMD. A foreign government reported that Iraq retained its nuclear establishment, but that many of its engineers and scientists had died, retired or left Iraq since 1999. The report concluded that Iraq probably had not worked on any nuclear weapons since 1999. This too was ignored by the CIA.
Around same time as DIA report, Rumsfeld told Congress Iraq "Has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas,??? and when Bush and Blair met that month they told the press that Iraq was working on its nuclear weapons program.
General Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor in the first Bush administration, and a member of the current Bush administration???s Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board, gave a warning about the U.S. intelligence on Iraq at this time. Scowcroft told a CIA sponsored conference that he thought, "The bulk of opinion now is that the intelligence books are cooked" on Iraq.
Early September saw the beginning of a major propaganda campaign by the administration to convince the public of the Iraq WMD threat. On 9/6/02 the administration told the press about a July, 2002 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that showed that Iraq was carry out large scale construction on its industry, some of which included buildings involved with Iraq???s nuclear program. The administration used this as proof that Iraq was working on its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA complained saying their report found no evidence that Iraq was working on its nuclear weapons. The administration kept the pressure up on 9/8/02 when they leaked word to the New York Times about the aluminum tubes claim. Later that day Rice appeared on CNN's Late Edition and repeated the claim. She said the aluminum tubes, "Are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." Cheney appeared on NBC's Meet The Press and said that Iraq had increased its WMD production, restarted its nuclear program and was a threat to the U.S. He used the aluminum tubes claim as an example. Powell finished it off on Fox News Sunday by saying there was "no doubt" that Iraq had WMD. During Rice???s interview she made the famous claim, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." On 9/9/02 the State Department and the White House Information Group, which had been set up to coordinate the propaganda war against Iraq, both claimed that Iraq had bought the aluminum tubes for its nuclear weapons program. Rumsfeld finished the propaganda blitz by telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq was a threat that wanted to attack the U.N. with WMD. He also said that Iraq was hiding its WMD, had dozens of SCUD missiles, was developing UAVs to deliver WMD, and had plans for at least 2 nuclear bombs. Rumsfeld claimed that the only thing Iraq needed for a nuclear bomb was fissile material which it was trying to buy from abroad or produce domestically. Rumsfeld also rejected the idea that the U.S. needed a "smoking gun" to prove that Iraq was a threat. "I suggest that any who insist on perfect evidence are back in the twentieth century."
9/10/02 Rumsfeld told Senate Armed Services committee that Iraq was a threat because it had hidden WMD, dozens of SCUD missiles, was working on UAVs to delivery WMD, and had designs for at least 2 nuclear bombs. Rumsfeld claimed that the only thing Iraq needed for a nuclear bomb was fissile material, which it was trying to buy from abroad or produce domestically. Rumsfeld also rejected the idea that the U.S. needed a "smoking gun" to prove that Iraq was a threat. Rumsfeld: "I suggest that any who insist on perfect evidence are back in the twentieth century." Rumsfeld was probably referring to the 2 bomb designs that Hussein Kamal had told the U.N. about when he defected in 1995. What Rumsfeld failed to mention was that Kamal said the two plans were not practical because one bomb weighed 5 tons and the other weighed 12 tons, making them too heavy to be used anything Iraq had.
9/12/02 During Bush???s speech to the U.N. he claimed that Iraq was expanding its production of WMD. Bush said Iraq hiding information about its nuclear program, employed nuclear scientists, had infrastructure for a nuclear weapon, made attempts to buy aluminum tubes, and Saddam had met with his top scientists. Bush claimed that Iraq could build a bomb within a year if it bought enough fissile material. Before the Gulf War, Iraq had 7,000 scientists and engineers, along with 20,000 workers on its nuclear weapons team. There were no reports that these types of numbers were working on nuclear weapons during the Bush administration. CIA also only had one report that Saddam had met with his nuclear scientists, which came from the Iraqi press.
9/16/02 Time magazine ran an article citing administration and CIA sources that contradicted most of the U.S???s previous claims about Iraq???s weapons arsenal. One source said the U.S. didn't believe that Iraq could use its missiles to deliver WMDs, but it had developed UAVs rigged to spray toxic agents at low altitudes. A CIA source believed that Iraq could begin new production of WMD "within a few weeks to months," but that it had no delivery systems. Another intelligence source claimed that before the Gulf War Iraq had paid German scientists to work on centrifuges, but after war, scientists left, and about a dozen centrifuges were taken apart and hidden from U.N. inspectors. The source said that Iraq would need foreign help to put the centrifuges back together and even then in five years Iraq would not have enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. Time acknowledged that the CIA was relying on guesswork for its intelligence on Iraq after U.N. inspectors left in 1998 and had turned to relying on Iraqi defectors that were hard to verify, and attempts by Iraq to buy equipment on the black market overseas. These sources finished by saying that Iraq didn???t have the technology to make a nuclear bomb or WMD small enough to be given to terrorists, and that any such act might reveal Iraq???s involvement anyway. Almost all of these statements contradicted assertions made by the administration and intelligence community. First, the U.S. claimed that not only did Iraq have SCUD missiles that violated the 90 km limits imposed by U.N. sanctions, but that it had been hiding warheads that could deliver WMD from U.N. inspectors. The U.S. had also been saying that Iraq???s WMD program was up and running since inspectors left and was producing new batches of WMD. The U.S. had also relied on shoddy intelligence such as the Niger and aluminum tubes incidents to say that Iraq???s nuclear program was also up and running. Finally, one of the main arguments tying Iraq to the war on terror was the threat that Iraq could give WMD or a nuclear weapon to terrorists. After that sobering half of the article, it continued with a neoconservative source in the administration that said Iraq's WMDs alone was not the reason why Iraq deserved to be invaded, but rather the evil nature of Iraq because it had used WMD against its own people and might give WMD to terrorists.
Beginning on 9/18/02 the administration began a new series of testimonies to the Congress and the press on the Iraq threat. First, General Myers, Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to the House Intelligence Committee that Iraq was a threat because of its WMD, nuclear program and missiles. The next day on 9/19/02 Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq was trying to buy fissile material and that it was all they needed for a nuclear bomb. Rumsfeld also said that Iraq had WMD, had an active nuclear program and was working on missiles that violated U.N. sanctions. The same day Powell told the House International Relations Committee that there had been some debate about what the aluminum tubes were for, but that in fact they were for nuclear weapons. Later Bush told reporters that Iraq had WMD and that the "battlefield had now shifted to America."
9/24/02 England's Joint Intelligence Committee published a White Paper on Iraq's WMD on the request of Prime Minister Tony Blair to argue the case for war. The report claimed that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa although it noted that it did not know whether the uranium was for Iraq???s nuclear weapons program or not. It made the famous claim that Iraq could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes 4 times, was continuing to develop WMD, and had 20 missiles that could deliver WMD, and that violated U.N. sanctions. It also said that Iraq had the capability to produce WMD. All of these had been hidden from U.N. inspectors. The paper also said that there was no definitive opinion about whether the aluminum tubes the U.S. had found were for centrifuges or not, but that Iraq did have the capability to produce WMD. The 45 minute claim ended up being from a single source and was about battlefield artillery and rockets, but it was not explain as such in the White Paper. The group that provided the information, the Iraqi National Accord, later said that the claim might not have been true. The uranium from Africa claim was the same one U.S. intelligence had been dealing with about Niger. The CIA had actually tried to have the British remove the claim because of its questionable source, but the British, even to this day, claim that they had more the initial documents that made the claim. These documents later turned out to be forgeries. Bush would repeat the 45 minute claim to reporters and in his weekly radio address. A postwar review by House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee found that the White Paper had misleading information about Iraq's WMDs, especially the 45-minute claim, and failed to state that Iraq was not an imminent threat.
9/26/02 Bush said in the Rose Garden "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemicals weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons." Rumsfeld told reporters Iraq had an active WMD program along with weapon stashes.
October 2002 CIA published a classified handbook with data about Iraq to be used by policymakers, intelligence officers and the military. The CIA paper said Iraq was working on WMD and mobile labs. Intelligence community report said Iraq expanding dual-use equipment, secretly buying overseas, and expanding WMD program and stockpiles. It also included the Niger uranium claim. Tenet, head of the CIA, also briefed Congress on Iraq's WMD and claimed that Iraq had UAVs that could be used to attack the U.S. homeland.
10/1/02 The 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was supposed to be the definitive intelligence document on Iraq. It was released at the request of Congress, which was debating the war resolution. The NIE was rushed together in just a few weeks and after the war, analysts told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the short time frame probably affected the analysis and language used in the document. The major claims of the NIE were that: 1) Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, 2) had WMD, was developing its research and development of WMD, that this was larger and more advanced than before the Gulf War, was expanding its dual-use facilities, 3) that Iraq had UAVs to deliver WMD, 4) that it had mobile labs, 5) was trying to buy uranium from Niger, 6) had tried to buy aluminum tubes for centrifuges, and 7) that it was working on prohibited missiles. The NIE was a shift in opinion by the intelligence community on Iraq's WMD because it did away with the uncertainties of previous reports and changed from Iraq "could" to "has" WMD. This statement was an assessment , but was stated as a fact in the NIE. As the major report on Iraq???s WMD, the NIE deserves a thorough assessment of each on of its claims.
1) The NIE claimed that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The U.S. found evidence that Iraq was buying dual use equipment that could be used fo r nuclear weapons, but there was no evidence that any of it was going to nuclear facilities. The NIE claimed that Iraq was expanding its research and development on nuclear weapons because Iraq's nuclear agency had moved into a new building because the old one had been bombed, a new school in atomic energy had opened, and that more scientists had been assigned to the nuclear agency. The NIE also reported that there was suspect activity at some of Iraq's nuclear sites. That suspicious activity was the fact that the regular staff was still working there. The NIE held that Iraq would not have a nuclear weapon until 2007 to 2009, which had been the estimate of the intelligence community since the end of the Gulf War. After the war, the Senate Intelligence Committee found that there was no evidence that any of these events had to do with expanding Iraq's nuclear program. The Committee found that there was no evidence that the scientists stated in the NIE had worked on centrifuges nor that the materials were related to Iraq's nuclear program.
2) The NIE rated its intelligence on Iraq's WMD as high to medium reliability. The WMD section was the largest part of the report, so the claims will be broken down individually.
2) A. The NIE said that when the U.N. inspectors pulled out, Iraq expanded its research and development into WMD. This was based upon 5 sources: 1st source was foreign reports on WMD expanding, 2nd source was in 1999 U.N. inspectors said Iraq had a large research community for WMD, 3rd source was 8 intelligence reports on research and development. One wasn't even about WMD, but was included because it noted "secret" activity in Iraq. Another was from an Iraqi intelligence officer on non-WMD research, but was included because he was an intelligence officer. 3rd was an Iraqi research paper on antibiotics . It was included because the author had alleged ties to Iraqi intelligence and the Ba'th party. 4th source was a 1996 report on WMD testing on death row inmates. A DIA analyst later said there wasn't much to the report, but it was included because it allegedly took place at a suspect WMD facility. 5th source was 19 reports on Iraq trying to buy dual-use equipment abroad. Analysts later told the Senate Intelligence Committee after the war that the purchases were probably legitimate and the DIA and CIA had no evidence that any of the dual-use equipment was ever used for WMD, it was just assumed that it was.
2) B. The NIE noted that it had no direct intelligence on Iraq's WMD stockpile, but estimated that Iraq had between 100 to 500 metric tons of WMD. A footnote stated that this figure was based upon speculation. This judgment was based on the fact that Iraq had not accounted for all of its WMD after the Gulf War and intelligence reports that Iraq was moving and hiding WMD munitions. The claim of hidden WMD was based upon a flawed equation, which started with Iraq???s original stockpile before the Iran-Iraq war. The problem was that the U.S. never knew how large this original amount was. Therefore all of their calculating turned out to be speculating, because the first number was never known. The claim that Iraq was moving WMD munitions was based upon a photograph of a truck that was suspected of being a decontamination vehicle during the Gulf War parked outside a Republican Guard munitions dump that was suspected of holding WMD during the Gulf War, and that photo alone. The NIE also based this opinion upon the fact that U.N. inspectors said Iraq could not account for 1500 metric tons of precursors and 550 WMD shells, Iraq claimed that these had been destroyed, but the U.N. and U.S. did not believe the claim. The NIE also reported new construction at a chlorine plant used before Gulf War for WMD. Analysts claimed Iraq didn't need domestic production of chlorine at that factory, and that there were reports that it had buried equipment. Analysts also mentioned that the same staff had worked at the chlorine plant before the Gulf War were still there as evidence that it was being used for WMD production. After the war, this was proved to be a false assumption by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The intelligence community also had 30 reports on Iraqi foreign purchases of equipment. Some noted the equipment could be used for legitimate purposes. Others didn't show whether Iraq even received the equipment or whether they were meant for the WMD program. During the drafting of the NIE, some analysts had argued against Iraq maintaining a large stockpile of WMD since they had a limited shelf-life. They argued that Iraq had a ???just-in-time??? production capability, which would be easier to maintain.
2) C. The NIE claimed that Iraq was expanding its dual use facilities for WMD even though the intelligence community had no evidence that any facilities were being used for WMD after the Gulf War.
2) D. The NIE claimed that Iraq was hiding small-scale production of WMD at legitimate labs based upon limited intelligence of suspicious activity. Again, this was based upon ???suspicious??? activity, not any specific intelligence that said WMD production was actually taking place.
2) E. The NIE claimed that Iraq was expanding its WMD program based upon heavy activity at 3 factories that had been used for WMD before the Gulf War, and a report by CURVEBALL, the Iraqi defector in German custody that made the mobile labs claim, who said he saw WMD tests. There was no hard intelligence that this heavy activity had anything to do with WMD, and CURVEBALL was already a questionable source. After the war, an intelligence analyst told the Senate Intelligence community that activity at the suspected sites could have been legitimate activity.
2) F. The NIE claimed Iraq had produced mustard, VX, and sarin based on fact that was what Iraq had made in the past. There was no new evidence that Iraq was still producing any of these WMD however. The NIE claimed Iraq was working on smallpox based on the fact that Iraq had samples from the U.S. in the 1970s. A previous intelligence report on Iraq's WMD from May, 2002 did not mention smallpox. The claim was based on several human intelligence reports on research and development, none of which had to do with WMD. The CIA later told the Senate Intelligence Committee after the war that it had no evidence of "weaponized smallpox". The report was based upon an assumption that since Iraq could use the samples for WMD, it must be doing it. The NIE had a chart on 21 biological agents that Iraq had researched. Some dangerous, others not researched for WMD, and others not usable for WMD. Only 1 (anthrax) had been weaponized by Iraq and declared to the U.N., 3 had been weaponized pre-1991 but were of questionable use (aflaxtoxin, ricin, botulism), 1 was a fungus to attack crops.
2) G. The NIE said Iraq could produce WMD equipment domestically based on a European journal report and CURVEBALL's claim of mobile labs. The journal report wasn't even about WMDs, and CURVEBALL???s credibility was already questioned before the NIE was published.
2) H. The NIE said Iraq???s unaccounted for WMD included 30,000 liters of WMD agents and 4 modified Mirage F-1 drop tanks to deliver WMD. U.N. inspectors actually destroyed 3 of the 4 modified drop tanks, but found evidence that 20 more were to be produced. They did not know whether they had been made. Again, the 30,000 liters was based upon a flawed equation.
3) 12/17/98 a British Tornado bombed an Iraqi air base near Baghdad. Intelligence photos showed a dozen Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), remote controlled plans. During the Gulf War, that air base was supposedly used for a planned WMD air raid. The NIE said the UAVs were probably for WMD delivery, which could threaten the U.S. if close enough. The NIE also noted that Iraq tried to buy topography software on the U.S. The NIE believed that the two together was evidence that the UAVs co uld attack the U.S. The CIA had actually come up with two possibilities for the topography software, but the different views were too late to be included in the NIE. The NIE went on to misstate U.N. weapons inspectors report on UAVs, and the CIA did not share all of its information about the topography software at first with other intelligence agencies. There was no specific intelligence that the UAVs were for delivering WMD. In fact there were 11 reports that claimed the UAVs were not for WMD. The DIA, CIA and State Department said the UAVs could be used for other purposes than WMD, but these dissenting views were not included in the NIE. The Air Force included a footnote in the NIE stating that they believed that UAVs were for reconnaissance, not WMD. The UAV claim was based on tests done with jets before the Gulf War and work on a jet trainer after the war.
4) NIE claimed that Iraq had up to 7 mobile labs, but it was mostly based on a single source, CURVEBALL, an Iraqi defector working for German intelligence. CURVEBALL gave answers in English and Arabic, which was translated into German, then back into English and given to the U.S. that led to confused meanings. The U.S. only had one direct contact with CURVEBALL in May 2000, when a DIA biological weapons analyst went to interview him and give him a polygraph test. The DIA analyst said that CURVEBALL was inconsistent and might be an alcoholic, which troubled the analyst about his reliability. The Intelligence community had 4 additional sources supporting CURVEBALL. The 1st was CIA photographic intelligence supposedly showing the 7 mobile labs. A CIA analyst later reviewed those photos and couldn't find any evidence of mobile labs. Second source came from 1996 notes of 2 Iraqi military officers who had defected. Third source was an Iraqi National Congress (INC) defector who claimed that in 1996 he witnessed Iraqis trying to conceal biological weapons from U.N. inspectors. He never mentioned mobile labs however, just concealment. He was later deemed a "fabricator" by the CIA and DIA in 2002 before the publication of the NIE. Despite this, the source was still cited in the NIE. Fourth source was a single report by an Iraqi wanting to defect who said Iraq had mobile labs. The DIA analyst who had questioned CURVEBALL later questioned the credibility of the Iraqi wanting to defect because he had not been evaluated and his report had inconsistencies. The mobile labs claim was also given credibility because of the biases of the CIA analyst in charge of the reports. He already believed that Iraq had WMD, so when these reports came in they supported his preconceived views. The trailers found after the war were given 5 studies. The first three believed that the labs were mobile labs although they found no evidence of WMD. The last two were given by the CIA???s senior analysts who said that trailers were not for WMD, and by David Kay???s Iraqi Survey Group who agreed.
5) The NIE said Iraq had been trying to buy uranium from overseas, specifically Niger. As early as 2001 the NIE claimed, Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, but NIE did not know if the deal had gone through. Iraq also tried to buy uranium from Somalia and Congo, but the NIE couldn???t confirm whether these deals went through either. The State Department intelligence service was the only one that disagreed with the uranium section of the NIE. The CIA, DIA and Department of Energy all agreed with the section. The State Department had a separate text boxes where they voiced their questions and disagreement with the Niger claim. This was based on the fact that the original documents making the claim were questionable, that Niger officials had all denied the sale, that Niger???s uranium mines were tightly controlled by a French consortium, and supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency. There was also the fact that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium already in the country. Some analysts questioned why Iraq would need to buy another batch from Niger. The Niger claim had in fact been the source of a long standing dispute within the intelligence community with analysts from all of the agencies going back and forth. The NIE was the first time there was a majority opinion. This proved to be a false claim however, as the documents proved to be forgeries.
6) The NIE said that the one of the main reasons why it said Iraq???s nuclear program was active and growing was based on the facts that Iraq had tried to buy aluminum tubes for centrifuges. Like the Niger claim, the aluminum tubes had been an on-going debate within the intelligence community, really championed by the CIA. The NIE said that Saddam had a personal interest in buying the tubes, which was based upon one uncorroborated report from a foreign intelligence service that lacked details. The NIE claimed that the tubes matched specifications for centrifuges, but this was false and that there were several reports by U.N. inspectors that matched the specifications for rockets that they found in Iraq that matched the tubes. The NIE had a chart comparing the tubes to centrifuge designs, but omitted important specifications to make it look like the tubes were similar. The Department of Energy???s centrifuge scientists had consistently said that the tubes were for rocket launchers and included a sidebar noting their dissenting opinion. The Department of Energy noted that the tubes included the word ???rocket??? on them. Later, but before the war, the International Atomic Energy Agency studied the tubes and found that they could be used for centrifuges but that it would take years of work to make them suitable. It was more likely that they were for rockets.
7) NIE said that Iraq had a few dozen SCUDs not declared to the U.N. inspectors. There was human intelligence on hiding the missiles from U.N. inspectors. The actual number of SCUDs Iraq possessed was a pure guess, again, based upon the flawed equation that the intelligence community had been using for Iraq???s WMD. The missile section was the only part of the NIE that would later prove true as U.N. inspectors did find missiles that violated U.N. sanctions during inspections from November , 2002 to March, 2003.
The NIE was a top-secret document. Members of Congress could only read it in a secure vault. It???s vary unlikely that many members of Congress read the full 90-pages of the NIE. If anything, they probably read the key assessments or had their aides read it.
The next day after the NIE was released, Congress began holding hearings on its content. Senator Levin asked Deputy Director of CIA John McLaughlin when he though tIraq would attack with WMD. McLaughlin said that if Saddam didn???t feel threatened the threat was low, but if Saddam felt like he was going to lose power than the threat was high. This was just repeating the assessments in the NIE.
That day, 10/4/02 the intelligence community also released its White Paper on Iraq. Unlike the October, 2002 NIE, which is still classified to this day, the White Paper was publicly released to the Congress, and was relatively short. Writing the White Paper actually began before the drafting of the NIE. Both documents shared many of the same points. The main difference was that the White Paper took many of the key assessments of the NIE and stated them as fact. The White Paper also had no dissenting views about Iraq???s weapons program and painted a worst picture of Iraq than the NIE did. Interestingly enough, the White Paper did not make the Niger uranium claim that the NIE had made. Perhaps because analysts were already realizing that the claim was too questionable to be included. Since this was the main document used by Congress to debate the war resolution, it will be broken down into its main parts. The White Paper???s main claims were: 1) Iraq was continuing to develop WMD, 2) Iraq had missiles that violated U.N. limitations, 3) Iraq could have a nuclear weapon within the decade. "Iraq ha s continued
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.[/b] The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.[/b] We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."
dave
I miss Vitamin. What fun is it talking to a bunch of people who all agree, or who (GG) are idiots.
Dan
loathsome is the word that keeps coming to my mind. especially after his bullshit veterans day "stop practicing revisionist history" crap...i find it hard to imagine how people can still be swallowing the administration line. but there are still true believers and people who, despite all evidence to the contrary, rigidly cling to the notion that iraq is better off without saddam, and therefore this is all justified. WHERE IS VITAMIN???? anyone see what he has been writing about recently in his newspaper?
i wake up everyday waiting for the bush house of cards to fall in under the weight of its lies and cheekiness. i want to throw eggs at this man so badly. everywhere he goes. would type of public actions need to be taken to call attention to administration bullshit? burning bush in effigy?
what short slogans can yall come up with that would make stinging commentary for banners, wheatpastes, etc. Its tricky, cause you want to carry a message, keep things simple, but not be childish (e.g. F*cK Bush!) or cliched (no blood for oil).
i wish there was one statement that could highlight bush selling out popular interests to corporate interests.
Dear Senator Lieberman...
By ELI LAKE
November 11, 2005
Dear Senator Lieberman: By now it's apparent that the majority of your party has taken leave of its senses with regard to the war. It was bad enough that Senator Kerry courted the likes of Michael Moore to energize the base in last year's presidential election. But now it's as if the leaders of the Democratic Party have morphed into those marginal bedfellows it befriended in 2004.
The latest talking points are reviving those canards about a cabal deceiving the public and its representatives to fight an optional war. It must make you nauseous. Senator Reid has now made it a priority to pressure the intelligence committee to release a report on how the administration used the intelligence from the CIA that you know full well supported the claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Senator Durbin is now saying the Justice Department ought to subpoena Ahmad Chalabi, a man you know well. Sadly, the party of Truman and Kennedy today looks like a gaggle of spoiled children pandering on about their pre-war gullibility. "We were lied to," so many Democrats now say.
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"I wouldn't waste the dime." LBJ
The Bush administration is the one that actually practiced "revisionist history." At first they charged Iraq with not only possessing WMD, but expaning it and its nuke program. While the war was going on and immediately afterwards, Rumsfeld said, "we know where their WMD is," we'll find it. When nothing was found they changed their story to "Iraq had the capability to make WMD," that justifies the war. What a bunch of bullshit.
Actually, most of Vitamin's talking points have proven false. I can't remember all of them, but here's some.
1) Everyone including the Democrats believed that Iraq had WMD.
TRUE, except no one said that Iraq was a real threat. The British in the secret documents quoted above said that Iraq's WMD were much smaller than other countries and they posed no threat.
2) Bush wasn't the first to call for regime change, Clinton did.
TRUE, except Clinton tried to forment a coup using the CIA, Alawai (sp?) and manipulating the U.N. inspectors. That failed. He never called for a U.S. invasion, and even Bush's dad understood that overthrowing Hussein would cause more problems then good in the first Gulf War.
3) Vitamin personally thought Hussein should've been overthrown for his crimes against the Kurds.
After the Gulf War however, the Kurds were basically independent and free from Hussein's intimidation with the no fly zone in Northern Iraq. Since the end of the war as well, the Kurds have shown that they can be as bad as Hussein with secret detention centers, mass sweeps and arrests of fighting age Arabs, evictions of Arabs from disputed territories such as the cirty of Kirkuk, laying claim to territory where there are basically no Kurds, but lots of oil, +the call for independence from Iraq, the refusal of the Kurdish battalion within the Iraq defense forces to wear Iraqi flags on their uniforms or take independent orders from the government, etc.
4) Not complying with U.N. weapons inspectors.
TRUE, but even without fully complying the U.N. inspectors were able to do their work. Not only that, but the inspectors forced Hussein to destroy all his WMD, something that most didn't believe in. Case in point, the head of Iraq's WMD and Nuke program defected to the West and told intelligence that everything had been destroyed, but his comments weren't believed. He said that Iraq had tried to cover up their WMD program, that's the only part that the U.S. and others really believed in.
In the last inspections before the war, Iraq couldn't account for a collection of old WMD shells and some WMD agents, but overall Hans Blix said that they could not find any evidence of WMD in the country. Baredi (sp?) head of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation agency found no evidence of a Nuke program. Not only that, but the U.S.'s own claims of hiddden Iraqi weapons was based on faulty assumptions. Namely, that the U.S. never knew how much WMD Iraq had before the first Gulf War, so they could never be sure whether Iraq had accounted for everything or not. Also, many of the unaccounted for WMD agents had a limited shelf life, which had expired. This was blindly overlooked by many of the U.N. inspectors themselves.
Vitamin also overlooks the fact that 1) According to the British, they planned the U.N. inspectors as a way to provke a war, not prevent it. Something I'm sure they shared with their American allies, and 2) Cheney said that it didn't matter what the inspectors found, Hussein was a liar and the U.S. was going to do what it wanted to do regardless.
5) The U.S. didn't want war until Iraq finally didn't comply with the U.N. inspectors.
FALSE. The British Downing Street memos show that the U.S. was ready for war by the summer of 2002.
I think those were his main talking points.
Iraq had links to terrorists.
TRUE, except the only known links with terrorists were old and retired Palestinian groups, namely 2 groups/individuals. The last terrorist act either organization carried out, happened in the late 1990s when they assassinated a member of Arafat's Fatah group. The claims that Iraq was training terrorists, and probably Al Qaeda in an old airfield, turned out to be the training of Iraqi military and Fedayeen (sp?) troops for the planned guerrilla war after the U.S. invasion which happened. There never was a working relationship with Al Qaeda, only a few meetings in the 1990s which led to nothing.
you can take this back even further if you beleive Richard Clarkes allegations that W's admnistration was talking about this shorty after Bush first entered office in 2001
The Bush administration had a dysfunctional National Security team. Basically, he let everyone do whatever they wanted even if one side contradicted the other. Rice was suppose to coordinate things but didn't. All she cared about was being a yes woman for George Bush. In the beginning of the adminisration, at the very first meeting of the National Security Council, the Neocons were arguing for an attack on Iraq, but Powell was for sanctions. Bush let them follow both paths. The actual decision by the president to attack Iraq didn't happen until right after 9/11. That convinced him.
Here's a breakdown of the Neoconservatives and their push for war with Iraq.
Neoconservatives and Lead Up To Iraq War, Partial Timeline[/b]
A) Neoconservatives are not a monolithic group, and some people???s names are included with them who are not members. For example, I don???t think Rumsfeld is or was a neoconservative. I think he just wanted to get rid of Saddam. Cheney has become a neoconservative during the current administration. Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Stephen Hadley, have all been neoconservatives since the beginning and are generally considered ideologues who believed that invading Iraq could transform the entire Middle East.
B) The Clinton administration and others were for regime change in Iraq, but they did not advocate an invasion to accomplish it.
Early days of neoconservatives[/b]
1990s Neoconservatives championed regime change in Iraq right after first Gulf War. American Enterprise Institute center for neconservatives such as Dick Cheney, Irving Kristol, Richard Perle, and Newt Gingrich. They argued that regime change in Iraq would end Islamist terrorism and bring democracy to the Middle East.
March 1992Secretary of Defense Cheney in the first Bush administration asked Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, to overhaul the Pentagon's strategic planning document, Defense Planning Guidance. March, 1992 a copy of Guidance was leaked to the New York Times. It said that U.S. should not allow another country to challenge U.S. power, and that Iraq and North Korea were countries that might have to face pre-emptive strikes to defend against the threat of WMD. Also said that the U.S. might have to act unilaterally to maintain its power in the world. The report caused such controversy, Cheney had to re-write the Guidance.
Mid-1990sOut of the first Bush administration Wolfowitz went to work at Johns Hopkins school of Advanced International Studies during Clinton years. Continued to write and talk about Iraq.
1997Wolfowitz co-authored Weekly Standard article which stated the Clinton's Iraq policy was only letting Saddam grow stronger.
1998 Clinton authorized $97 million for regime change in Iraq. This mostly went to covert operations by the CIA to support Iraqi opposition groups and try to foment a coup.
Richard Perle, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asian and Pacific affairs under Reagan, and David Wurmser, head of the American Enterprise Institute???s Middle East division, signed letter calling for all out U.S. support for Iraqi National Congress for an insurgency in Iraq.
1/26/1998 Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and 15 other neconservatives of the Project For A New American Century sent letter to Clinton urging regime change in Iraq. Letter said, "The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy." Also said that U.N. not working: "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided instance on unanimity in the U.N. Security Council."
1999 Head of American Enterprise Institute's Middle East division, David Wurmser, wrote book, Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein. Wurmser would later became Cheney's Middle East advisor and head of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, an independent intelligence unit set up within the Pentagon that took a hard line stance on intelligence reporting about Iraq.
Early Bush Administration[/b]
March, 1999Bush sets up exploratory committee for foreign policy during campaign for presidency. Neoconservatives such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are on board as well moderates such as Powell and Rice.
Fall 2000Cheney was running as vice presidential candidate and had to focus on foreign policy issues for campaign. Focused on Iraq and its defiance of U.N. resolutions. Cheney told campaign aide, "We have swept that problem under the rug for too long,??? and "We have a festering problem there."
Early January, 2001Vice ???President elect Cheney told out going Secretary of Defense William Cohen that president-elect Bush needed a thorough defense briefing before taking office. Cheney emphasized Iraq. 1/10/01 Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell were given a briefing at the Pentagon about Iraq and other defense issues. Bush did not see Iraq as a priority.
1/20/01Cheney was put in charge of picking officials for the new Bush administration. Neoconservatives gain key positions especially in the Pentagon and Cheney???s office. Rumsfeld became Sec. Of Defense, Cheney became Vice President, Wolfowitz became Deputy Sec. Of Def., Douglas Feith became Undersecretary of Def. For Policy, Stephen Hadley became Deputy National Security Advisor, I. Lewis Libby became Cheney???s Chief of Staff, William Luti became Deputy Undersecretary of Def. For Near East and South Asia, Richard Perle became Chairman of Defense Policy Board.
During his confirmation hearings, Wolfowitz said, "I would certainly think it was worthwhile" if there were a real possibility to overthrow Saddam.
Neoconservatives began work on developing a military option against Iraq and pushed for more aid to Iraqi exiles. Powell on the other hand advocated "smart sanctions" that would allow humanitarian aid, but limit dual purpose technology from being imported.
During the first meeting of the Principals Committee, consisting of the major Assistant Secretaries such as Wolfowitz, the Clinton policy of containment of Iraq was given a failing grade, and arguments were made for removing Saddam.
Harold Rhode, Islamic specialist who would eventually go to work at the Pentagon???s Office of Net Assessment, began working in Douglas Feith???s office on anti-Iraq plans even though he wouldn???t be officially confirmed until July 2001. Critics have claimed that Rhode told Feith???s office that the Pentagon???s new policy would be anti-Iraq and anti-Arab, and that he got rid of officials who didn???t support this new program.
1/30/011st National Security Council meeting, 10 days after inauguration, main topic was Iraq. Rice spoke about Iraq destabilizing the Middle East and how a change in Iraq could change the entire region. Tenet gave an intelligence briefing on Iraq with "fuzzy" photos of a supposed WMD factory. Tenet later talked about Iraq's links with Palestinian terrorists and the intifadah. Discussion moved on to need for better intelligence about Iraq, putting more pressure on Saddam, and possible fomenting a coup or backing opposition groups. Powell said that the current U.N. sanction s were ineffective because they blocked all kinds of goods, not just military ones. He wanted "smart sanctions." At the end of the meeting Bush told Powell to draw up new sanctions, Rumsfeld and Head of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Shelton to look into military options including using troops in northern and southern Iraq and backing opposition groups, Tenet to look into better intelligence, and Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neal to come up with financial options. Treasury Sec. O???Neal believed that Bush had a dysfunctional National Security Team with each faction carrying out its own policies at the same time, so Powell worked on ???smart sanctions??? at the same time that Rumsfeld was working on attacking Iraq. Overall, O???Neal said that Bush didn???t seem in a rush to deal with Iraq.
After the meeting O'Neal went back to his office and received a memo from Rumsfeld about the proposed Defense budget. The memo outlined the Pentagon's new defense strategy first. It said that the collapse of the Soviet Union had left a more dangerous world for the U.S. Memo mentioned Iraq as one of a few countries that were trying to gain nuclear weapons and WMD and that this was a threat to U.S. security. Memo outlined the asymmetric threat theory. O???Neal came to believe that this was why Rumsfeld was for invading Iraq.
2/1/01 2nd National Security Council meeting of new Bush administration was all about Iraq. Powell made argument for "smart sanctions" again and deterrence and containment towards Iraq. Powell also asked about the motivations for the new Iraq policy. During Powell's presentation Rumsfeld said sanctions were fine, but the real issue was getting rid of Saddam. Rumsfeld then outlined a vision of the Middle East without Saddam and how that could be a demonstration of U.S. policy. Rumsfeld said he wasn't for regime change but getting rid of Iraq's WMDs. Treasury Sec. O'Neal brought up ways to convince banks to halt transactions with Iraqi banks, Defense Department and CIA focused on fomenting a coup, the Kurds, and possible war crimes charges if Saddam was overthrown. Tenet said that the CIA was hoping for a coup, but the chances were unlikely. Rice, Rumsfeld and General Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked about rebuilding the Gulf War coalition.
2/5/01 National Security Council reviewed Clinton's Iraq policy. Powell argued for "smart sanctions" again, but policy basically kept the same.
February 2001Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) drew up plans for a post-war Iraq with what foreign companies would get rights to Iraqi oil, while Rumsfeld was thinking of possible incidents that could be used to strike Iraq. Wolfowitz began arguing for a U.S. invasion of southern Iraq and supporting Iraqi opposition to overthrow Saddam.Wolfowitz disagreed with Powell's "smart sanctions" policy calling the U.N. a do-nothing pawn of the 3rd World and Europe. Wolfowitz and the neoconservatives found an ally in Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), who called for a partial invasion of southern Iraq that would hopefully lead to an uprising against Saddam.
Mid-February 2001 National Security Council meeting, Bush asked about progress in plans for Iraq and each department gave a report, which hadn't much changed from last NSC meeting.
3/1/01National Security Council met to discuss Iraq again. Powell was to work on "smart sanctions" but Pentagon didn't want any changes. Powell and Rumsfeld got into an argument over dual use equipment being sent to Iraq and the no fly zones.
March 2001 Richard Perle testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying that Iraq had WMD, nuclear program, and that it was trying to hide these programs. Perle went on to argue against the "smart sanctions" Powell advocated saying they would be no different or effective than what had been done in the past. Cheney at the time seemed to be supporting Powell when he said U.N. weapons inspections could be effective if ???You've got other measures [I.e. sanctions and import controls] in place and you've got a [system] that people are willing to support."
Mid-March 2001U.S. began making plans for an occupation of Iraq.
April 2001Richard Clarke, head of Counterterrorism, made his first briefing to deputy Cabinet secretaries about terrorism and the threat of al Qaeda. Clarke said the U.S. should pressure the Taliban and go after Al Qaeda, especially trying to kill Bin Laden. Wolfowitz argued that Iraq sponsored terrorism was the real threat since he believed Iraq was the main state supporter in the world. Wolfowitz said, "Well, I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden." Clarke claims Wolfowitz said, "You give bin Laden too much credit." Wolfowitz also said, "He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor." Wolfowitz believed that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. This claim is not supported by any intelligence and Wolfowtiz???s own investigation of this claim came back with no evidence, but he still believes it. Clarke told Wolfowitz, "I'm unaware of any Iraqi-sponsored terrorism directed against the United States, Paul, since 1993."
May 2001Cheney in interview by New Yorker said that Iraq, Iran and North Korea were threats to American security.
5/31/01 to 7/26/01Deputy National Security advisor Stephen Hadley held 4 deputies meetings on Iraq. 1 main topic was support of the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The Pentagon thought that it could lead to an insurgency, but the State Department and CIA didn't trust Chalabi, the head of the INC. In 1996 the CIA had even cut off payments to the CIA because it found it unreliable.
Fall 2001 Iraqi National Congress produced a series of Iraqi defectors to the U.S., which caught the attention of Cheney. The most important defector was Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri who claimed that Iraq had secret labs producing WMD and was working on nuclear weapons hidden underground. His report of secret WMD labs was later distorted by intelligence services to support their claim that Iraq had mobile labs. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) later came to conclude that much of the information provided by the defectors "was of little or no value. ??? Several Iraqi defectors introduced to American intelligence ??? invented or exaggerated their credentials as people with direct knowledge of the Iraqi government and its suspected unconventional weapons programs."
8/1/01"A Liberation Strategy" paper presented at deputies meeting. Advocated increased pressure on Iraq mostly through opposition groups along with continuing much of Clinton's policy. Powell asked for contingency plans if the U.S. had to attack Iraq since Pentagon already revising war operations against Iraq. Wolfowitz brought up his old plan that the U.S. invade the southern oil fields in Iraq which would be supported by the Shiites. Iraqi opposition would then lead to a revolt and the overthrow of Saddam. Powell thought the idea absurd and meeting became deadlocked between Wolfowitz and Powell.
9/11[/b]
9/11/01CBS News reported that within 5 hours of 9/11 Rumsfeld demanded "the best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein]." Rumsfeld later brought up attacking Iraq as a response to 9/11 not just going after Bin Laden at a national security meeting. Rumsfeld told Pthe entagon lawyer to have Wolfowitz look into connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Bush would later go on TV and make an address to the U.S. States that U.S. would "Make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." This of course would later be one of the arguments for the Iraq war.
9/12/01 neocons from the Defense Department, including Wolfowitz, William Lutti, Chief of Pentagon's Near Eastern and South Asian Policy, and Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense Policy at Pentagon were in Europe or the Middle East on 9/11. They were f lown back to Washington on same plane. Discussed who would be the enemy. Decided that invading Afghanistan and overthrowing the Taliban should be the policy, but also decided that U.S. had to find out about state sponsors of terrorism. Iraq was brought up as one of these state sponsors.
Later at National Security Meeting Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq because there were no good targets in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld believed U.S. would have to go after Iraq eventually, why not use 9/11 as an opportunity to do it now. Clarke wrote in his book, "Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq." Clarke said, "No, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan." Powell also argued that the U.S. had to stay focused on Al Qaeda because that was what the U.S. public and international community supported. After meeting, Powell told General Shelton, Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff, "What the hell, what are these guys thinking about?" Shelton told Powell that he had been arguing with Wolfowitz about practicalities and priorities of attacking Iraq but Wolfowitz was determined. At the end of meeting, Bush said it was not the time to resolve the dispute about Iraq.
However, Bush later pulled Clarke over and said, "I want you to find whether Iraq did this." When Clarke told Bush, "Mr. President al Qaeda did this," and "we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq," Bush "testily" urged Clarke to "Look into Iraq, Saddam." Clarke was left with the impression that Bush wanted to find a connection no matter what. Clarke and FBI experts later wrote a report finding no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Report was rejected by either Rice or her deputy Stephen Hadley, and told "Wrong answer ??? Do it again."
Neoconservative James Woolsey, former CIA director under Clinton, told reporter from the Atlantic that no matter who was responsible for 9/11 the solution had to include invading Iraq because it was likely to be involved in the next attack on the U.S.
9/13/01Wolfowitz conducted Pentagon press conference saying, "It's not just simply a matter of capturing people, and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism." Wolfowitz believed Iraq was as serious a problem as Afghanistan. He was afraid Iraq might attack U.S. bases or launch terrorists after 9/11. Bob Woodward believes this was another step to push the U.S. towards attacking Iraq since Wolfowitz considered it the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Powell responded in a separate press briefing, "Ending terrorism is where I would like to leave it, and let Mr. Wolfowitz speak for himself." General Shelton, Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was against attacking Iraq because it would anger moderate Arabs who the U.S. needed. Would only support attack if found direct link with 9/11.
Same day, Wolfowitz in conference calls with officials also started asking if Iraq was involved in 9/11. He also began lobbying Cheney that Iraq was involved in 9/11 and that it was involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Cheney was skeptical.
After 9/11 Wolfowitz tried to prove a theory proposed by Laurie Mylroei, former Harvard professor and American Enterprise Institute fellow, that Iraq was responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center even though idea had been dismissed by many, including the FBI and CIA. Wolfowitz sent Jim Woolsey, former CIA director under Clinton, to London to look for evidence with British intelligence. Woolsey found nothing. Wolfowitz's office also told the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to investigate the charge. The DIA's Middle East analysts were familiar with the book but they were convinced Islamists, not Iraq was responsible for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Wolfowitz's office replied that the DIA needed to prove the theory. Vice Adm. Wilson, head of the DIA, ordered this Middle East analysts to go back through the book, but found nothing.
9/15/01Bush and his advisors met at Camp David to discuss response to 9/11. Rice afraid that the U.S. might get bogged down in Afghanistan like the English did in the 19th Century. Rice brought up attacking Iraq because the U.S. needed an early victory after 9/11. Wolfowitz argued the U.S. might get bogged down as well. Wolfowitz estimated that there was a 10-50% chance Iraq was involved in 9/11 and that the U.S. had to go after Iraq if it was serious about the war on terror. Wolfowitz had no evidence to support his claim, it was pure speculation. Andrew Card, Bush's Chief Of Staff, thought Wolfowitz was, "Banging a drum, not providing additional information or new arguments." During break, Bush talked with Cheney, Cheney???s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis Libby, and Wolfowitz.Wolfowitz again brought up how Iraq would be easier than Afghanistan. Wolfowitz advocated his plan of invading southern Iraq because it was Shiite and 60 km from Kuwait and had 60% of Iraq's oil production. Bush said that he'd like to hear more about it during the meeting. After break Rumsfeld asked if this was not the time to attack Iraq. Powell objected saying that it would cost the U.S. its allies and support. Powell said the U.S. could deal with Iraq later if they were involved in 9/11, but right now there was no connection between the 2. Bush thought neconservatives might be trying to settle old scores with Iraq and each other after Gulf War because Powell, Cheney and Wolfowitz were all involved. Cheney supported Powell and argued that the U.S. most first focus on bin Laden. He thought that if the U.S. attacked Iraq so soon after 9/11 it would make the U.S. look bad. Cheney didn???t rule out attacking Iraq in the future. White House chief of staff Andrew Card and George Tenet agreed with Powell. Voted 4 to 0 with Rumsfeld abstaining against attacking Iraq. Bush said discussion over Iraq was over and meeting needed to focus on Afghanistan.
9/16/01Bush told Rice Afghanistan would be the 1st priority, but that the U.S. would have to deal with Iraq in the future. Same day, Cheney said that the U.S.'s focus was on al Qaeda and that Iraq was "bottled up." on NBC's Meet The Press.
9/17/01NSC meeting held at White House, Bush said, "I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now. I don't have the evidence at this point." Bush said that the U.S. should continue making military plans against Iraq, but main focus was to be Afghanistan.
9/18/01Richard Perle holds 2 day meeting of Defense Policy Board, group that advises Pentagon, in Rumsfeld's conference room. Policy Board given briefing by CIA on 9/11 then heard presentation by neconservative Prof. Bernard Lewis that the U.S. had to respond with strength otherwise it would be seen as weak in the Middle East. U.S. also had to support democracy in Middle East. Lewis introduced Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi claimed that there was no link between Iraq and 9/11 but that Iraq was a failed state that sponsored terrorism and had WMDs.
9/19/01According to Perle, Rumsfeld agreed to idea of invading Iraq after 2 day meeting.
9/20/01Bush addressed Congress, "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United State as a hostile regime." Tony Blair met with Bush at White House where they discussed both Afghanistan and Iraq. At dinner party Bush made it clear to Blair that he wanted to invade Iraq. British Ambassador to the U.S. Meyer said, "Rumors were already flying that Bush would use 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq." Blair told Bush to concentrate on Afghanistan. Bush replied, "I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."
9/25/01At NSC meeting Rumsfeld against hinted at striking Iraq. Didn't think that Afghanistan would be successful, not much to bomb. Bush said Iraq was out of the question at this point.
Fall 2001 Cheney had begun studying Islam, Middle East and Iraq. Cheney aide said Cheney was discussing "How might a postwar Iraq take shape and what are the prospects for democracy in the region." Two of biggest influences in Cheney's change of mind about neoconservatives ideas about Iraq were professors Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami.
October 2001Jim Woolsey , neconservat ive and former CIA director under Clinton, wrote Op. Ed. Piece for Wall Street Journal claiming that Mohamed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence in Czech Republic as evidence that Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Rumsfeld upset with intelligence about terrorism and state sponsors so Feith set up the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group in the Pentagon to go through existing intelligence from the CIA and DIA for links between Iraq and terrorism. David Wurmser, head of American Enterprise Institute???s Middle East division, became first head of the Policy Group. Wurmser had written a series of books and articles advocating regime change in Iraq and even wrote policy paper to Israel???s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu advocating that Israel invade and overthrow Saddam. Other member of group was Michael Maloof, who had worked with Richard Perle during Reagan administration. Professor Abram Shulsky later became director of group in December 2001 to January 2002. Shulsky had served under Richard Perle during Reagan administration. Maloof said, "We discovered tons of raw intelligence," and, "We were stunned that we couldn't find any mention of it in the CIA's finished reports." Group claimed that divisions within Muslim world were breaking down, and that various Islamic terrorist groups and states were all working together to attack the U.S. One conclusion group came to was that Iraq, Al Qaeda and 9/11 hijackers were all connected. The Group was also openly crrritical of the CIA for overlooking these connections. The Group gave a series of briefings to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, the CIA and others. Their analysis was used by Cheney when he visited and questioned CIA analysts at least 10 times during 2002. Members of the CIA and DIA believed that the Policy Group became a rival intelligence unit within the administration. A the Senate Intelligence Committee later found that not only had the Policy Group reviewed intelligence, but it analyzed it, and collected its own intelligence which is illegal. With the help of Perle, the Group contacted Ahmad Chalabi to have INC reports about Iraq delivered directly to them.
11/21/01Bush met with Rice in the morning about plans for Iraq. Iraq was not an issue because Rice was thinking about Afghanistan and 9/11. Bush told Bob Woodward that Cheney had been thinking about Iraq since 9/11. Woodward said Iraq was a "fever" and "obsession" with Cheney. Bush asked Rumsfeld how the battle plans for Iraq were going. Rumsfeld said he didn't like them because they were the same as the Gulf War. Bush wanted revised plans and that they be kept secret. Rumsfeld said that he was ordering the review of all war plans at the Pentagon and that could be the cover. Rumsfeld had Joint Chiefs of Staff send letter to General Tommy Franks, head of CENTCOM the military command in charge of the Middle East and Central Asia, to start new war plans for Iraq. Franks was not happy with the request because he was still conducting a war in Afghanistan.
12/9/02 Cheney told Meet The Press, "It's been pretty well confirmed" that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001. In fact, intelligence community had said the exact opposite. At CENTCOM the initial plans for an Iraq war were first aired.
January 2002Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith ordered a DIA analyst to review recent CIA report on connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The analyst gave a critical assessment of the CIA???s reporting on Al Qaeda and Iraq links, and her findings were passed along to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
Same month, Wolfowitz ordered the CIA to investigate Hans Blix to try to find evidence that while Blix was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency in the 1990s he had been soft on Iraq. CIA found that Blix had done a good job, which made Wolfowitz "Hit the ceiling" according to a former State Department official. Wolfowitz denied that he ordered an investigation of Blix. Wolfowitz said he only wanted to check on his performance as head of the IAEA.
1/29/02 Bush gives his ???Axis of Evil??? State of the Union speech. Bush claimed that Iraq had enough to produce 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum, and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, that it supported terrorism, and was a threat to the U.S.
Days after the speech, intelligence community reported that Iraq was importing heavy trucks, capable of carrying tanks and artillery that were banned by U.N. sanctions. Rumsfeld wanted a tough response, while the State Department didn???t want to do anything.
February 2002, serious contingency planning for an invasion of Iraq begin at Pentagon. Iraq plan code named "1003 Victor." Had been drawn up in early 1990s and basically followed 1st Gulf War. Pentagon was already working on revising the plan as part of a review of all old plans ordered by Rumsfeld. Members of the Defense Policy Board argued that Iraq should be invaded by Fall 2002. There was an intense debate between Rumsfeld and civilian leadership of the Pentagon and generals on how to fight Iraq war, with Rumsfeld arguing for a light force of as few as 75,000, while the military argued for an overwhelming force similar to the Gulf War.
In early 2002 Cheney, sometimes accompanied by his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, paid at least 10 visits to the CIA to discuss intelligence reports on Iraq. Cheney discussed why the CIA was not finding the same kind of information the Pentagon???s Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was finding about Iraq???s ties with Al Qaeda. There were also questions about Iraq???s WMD. Some analysts claimed this was political pressure by the administration to tailor their reports to the administration???s views. Others have said that the meetings were fact finding and good for the agency.
Around the same time Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith set up the Operations of Special Plans for Iraq planning in the Pentagon???s Office of Near East and South Asia Affairs (NESA). The new group was under the direction of Undersecretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia Affairs Willliam Luti, a neoconservative. The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, now headed by Abram Shulsky was incorporated into the new group. Shulsky got rid of 4 Pentagon experts in the NESA office because they were not behind the war policy enough. Luti brought in Navy Lt. Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein, Arab specialist who went through Arabic TV to find articles linking Iraq with terrorism. Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, and other members of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board had direct input into the Office of Special Plans. The Office of Special Plans and Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group also collected intelligence directly from the Iraqi National Congress, and fed it to the White House, specifically Cheney???s office, and reported it to Rumsfeld. Luti brought in Colonel Bruner, former military aide to Newt Gingrich, as a link with Chalabi and the INC. Collecting such intelligence is illegal and the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group is currently under investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
2/13/02 On going battles within the administration continue as Powell and Rumsfeld argue about going to war during White House meeting.
2/16/02 National Security Council ratified a Nation al Security Policy Directive on Iraq to foment a coup and to provide military aid to insurgents.
Mid-February, 2002 Initial plans for a CIA covert operation against Iraq and early contingency planning for war are delivered to White House. Cheney went on tour of the Middle East to try to garner support for an Iraq invasion where he got little support. In March, Cheney traveled to Europe and the Middle East to gain support for an Iraq war, but only gained support from England, Israel and Qatar. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Western European nations gave no support and warned Cheney against a war.
March or April, 2002 Cheney sent on tour of Middle East to gain support for conflict with Iraq. Arab countries were more concerned about Israel than Iraq.
April, 2002 Tony Blair met with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, TX where he said that he would back Bush on any action against Iraq, but that it needed the backing of the U.N. Blair said that U.N. inspectors would have to return to confirm WMDs to gain support of Parliament and English public for an invasion. Blair expected the U.S. to move towards the U.N. after meeting, but nothing happened. Neoconservatives in the Pentagon and Cheney's office didn't think the U.S. needed to go to the U.N. Neoconservatives believed that mere fact that Iraq had WMD programs was enough of a violation of U.N. resolutions to justify an invasion. Neoconservatives wanted to issue an ultimatum to Iraq to disarm or be invaded. English Ambassador to the U.S. Ambassador Christopher Meyer said, "They didn't see why they had to prove what they already knew." A Cheney aide said, "The imminence of the threat from Iraq's WMD was never the real issue [for us]. WMD were on our minds, but they weren't the key thing. What was really driving us was our overall view of terrorism, and the strategic conditions of the Middle East."
May 2002 Joint Chiefs of Staff carried out a series of war games about Iraq called "Prominent Hammer.??? CIA began their own set of war games on Iraq. When senior officials at the Department of Defense found that representatives from their department were taking part in the CIA???s war games, they were reprimanded and told not to participate any more in the summer of 2002. Senior officials like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believed that postwar planning for Iraq was an impediment to war.
Same month, Bush traveled to Europe to try to gain support for Iraq war. Germany and France were against war, while Eastern Europe supportive. The Intelligence community began work on White Paper on Iraq by request of the National Security Council.
Spring, 2002 Divisions within the administration continue. A White House official told the press, "The dirty little secret of Iraq is that there is no plan." Bush received the first presentation of CENTCOM's Iraq war plan, which Rumsfeld and members of his staff, and the National Security Council criticized for being too conventional, especially in terms of troop numbers. General Tommy Franks, head of CENTCOM was sent back to draw up on a new war plan. At the same time Powell was arguing against the war option. Tony Blair had told Bush that he had to go to the U.N. first.
In April, 2001 the intelligence community found out that Iraq was trying to buy 60,000 high strength aluminum tubes, which were prohibited under U.N. sanctions. There was some dispute within the intelligence community, but the CIA rammed through the idea that they were for centrifuges to refine uranium for Iraq???s nuclear weapons program. In the Summer of 2002 Wolfowitz held a meeeting with INC advisor Francis Brooke and former head of Iraq's nulcear program Khidir Hamza about the aluminum tubes. Hamza, who had never built a centrifuge, said that the tubes could be used for processing uranium and that Saddam was pursuing centrifuge research. Wolfowitz circulated the results of meeting throughout the administration. Story was leaked to the New York Times and made the front page.
June 2002 The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group said that the CIA's reports on Iraq and terrorism should be ignored. The Group???s findings were sent to Douglas Feith, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld.
In June Rumsfeld also traveled to the Persian Gulf to gain Saudi support for war but got none. While in Kuwait, Rumsfeld said that Iraq had WMD and an active nuclear weapons program.
6/1/02 Bush gave a speech at West Point outlining a new national security strategy based upon preemption. Bush said, "Our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." The policy followed many of the points Wolfowitz made in his Defense Planning Guidance from 1992.
6/19/02 General Franks presented a revised war plan to the White House. Later in the month, General Franks visited Jordan in preparation for Iraq war.
July 2002 Wolfowitz visisted Turkey in preparation of the Iraq war.
7/22/02 Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith prepared a secret brief for Rumsfeld based upon the Policy Counterterrorism Group's findings. The presentation became a slideshow that claimed that there were close ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, which the intelligence community had ignored. The main point of the presentation was that after the end of the Soviet Union many of the most radical groups in the Middle East had begun to band together including the PLO, Saudi Wahhabists, Hezbollah, Saddam Hussein and Iran. The Group argued that all of these groups and nations had put aside their differences and agreed to work together to destroy the U.S. The slideshow claimed Mohamed Atta, head of the 9/11 hijackers, met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in 2001, and that Iraq and al Qaeda had numerous contacts and cooperated with each other in WMD and 9/11. Because of these connections Policy Group argued that Iraq was the natural place to attack because it was the easiest to justify. The presentation was put together by Wolfowitz???s office.
Beginning in early August to September, 2002 the Policy Group???s presentations was made to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Cheney???s Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, the CIA, and others. The basics of the briefings were leaked to the neoconservative Weekly Standard to make the case for war. During a briefing of Rumsfeld the Policy Group said that the CIA???s evaluations of Iraq???s ties with Al Qaeda ought to be ignored because they denied there was a connection.
Fall 2002 Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith began lobbying Congress for $97 million for the INC's intelligence on Iraq's WMD. The State Department and CIA persuaded the Senate Appropriations Committee not to commit the money because they didn't think the INC's intelligence was worth it. That might have come out of the fact that an intelligence assessment in August, 2002 of 300 pages of documents provided by the INC found that they were not confirmable, out of date, and had errors.
8/5/02 General Franks gave the White House a full briefing on CENTCOM's war plan. Rumsfeld was satisifed with the changes in the war plan with a smaller amount of soldiers being used. At the same time, Powell decided he needed to meet with Bush to present the arguments against unilaterally attacking Iraq since neoconservatives had acquired the upper hand in policy discussions. He met with Rice and Bush that night for dinner and argued that attacking Iraq would destabilize the Middle East, would detract from all other U.S. policies, that the U.S. couldn't act unilaterally, the U.S. should be focusing on Israel, and if there was going to be war, had to work with the U.N. to gain international support. Rice approved of Powell's message after the meeting. This again proved that Bush???s national security team was dysfunctional with war plans going on at the same time that the administration agreed to start a new policy of going to the U.N. The next day Bush gave a speech at a high school in Mississippi where he said that the U.S. would be patient in its plans against Iraq and would consult Congress and its allies.
Rumsfeld turned around and made his push for war at a speech on 8/9/02 where he said that containment of Iraq had not worked and implied that war might be necessary.
On 8/12/02 Time magazine reported on the splits in the administration saying that it was divided between moderates (Powell, State Department, Joint Chiefs Of Staff and General Richard Myers, and George Tenet) and neconservatives (the civilian leaders in the Pentagon), and that arguments between the two camps were being aired in the New York Times and Washington Post, and obviously through Time as well. The article went on to say that Powell and State Department believed in more aggressive containment policy rather than war. Powell also believed that attacking Iraq would only increase the negative view of the U.S. in the world and could destabilize entire Muslim world. Powell able to forge an alliance with the military at the Pentagon, and Joint Chiefs of Staff generals, all of which are Vietnam-era officers. The group also believed that if war occurred the U.S. must follow Powell doctrine of overwhelming force in an invasion of Iraq. Rice was placed in the middle. One official noted, she, "Has said little on Iraq." The neoconservatives believed that containment and U.N. inspectors had failed and that the U.S. would have to deal with Iraq sometime so better to do it now rather than later.
The administration???s policy began worrying members of Congress as well in the beginning of August, 2002. Democrat Joe Biden called for 2 days of hearings on the Iraqi threat and what action was needed. Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who had called for the overthrow of Saddam, feared the consequences of an Iraq war.
The divisions within the administration came to a head on 8/14/02 during a Principals Committee meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) at the White house led by Rice, which included Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and George Tenet, head of the CIA. Powell said Bush should go to the U.N. and ask for an international coalition against Iraq. Cheney said that any U.N. speech should warn the United Nations that if it did nothing about Iraq it would no longer be important. He also said that the U.N. was already failing on Iraq but not enforcing its sanctions and resolutions. Rice, who was suppose to be the leader of the national security team, showed her indecision by agreeing with Powell that Bush should focus on coalition building, but also with Cheney's point that it should warn the U.N. on doing nothing. All agreed that Bush should not ask for a war resolution. The next day at a NSC meeting, Bush was told about the plan for his U.N. speech to focus on Iraq, WMD and its ties with Al Qaeda. Bush agreed.
In Mid-August 2002 Cheney and Rumsfeld met with Iraqi exiles and promised that Saddam would be overthrown.
8/20/02 The CIA, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group met to discuss Iraq's links with Al Qaeda. The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group wanted the alleged Mohamed Atta meeting with Iraq intelligence to be included in new report and, but they were upset that their ideas were not going to be included because they were not part of the intelligence community.
8/21/02 The back and forth within the administration was high-lighted again when Bush was at his Crawford, TX ranch and told reporters that "Regime change is in the interests of the world" and that the U.S. would work with Congress and its allies to achieve that goal. Rumsfeld went to Fort Hood for a speech to soldiers, where he told a soldier during questions and answers that the U.S. had not made the decision to go to war yet. By the end of August however, Rumsfeld was back on his message when he told reporters, "There are al-Qaeda in a number of locations in Iraq." He continued, "It's very hard to imagine the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country."
8/26/02 Bush held a National Security Council meeting via video-conferencing from Crawford, TX. Powell again argued that the U.S. had to go to the U.N. to gain international support for any action against Iraq. Cheney and Rumsfeld actually agreed this time.
Later that day however, Cheney undercut Powell at a major foreign policy speech in Nashville to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Cheney argued that the old containment policy only gave Iraq more time to develop its WMD. "The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action,??? said Cheney. He argued that asking the U.S. to prove that Iraq had nuclear weapons was "deeply flawed" because the U.S. knew that Saddam was dangerous and trying to prove that he was a threat would only give Iraq more time to build WMD. Cheney continued, "Many of us are convinced that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon ??? and subject the United States and any other nation to nuclear blackmail. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."Cheney also attacked the U.N. saying, "A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of [Saddam's] compliance with U.N. resolutions.??? In fact, Cheney claimed U.N. inspectors were a waste of time and actually comforted Iraq because it knew how to deceive them. Cheney believed that asking the U.N. for action would only work if the Security Council was convinced that the U.S. would act unilaterally if they didn't help, and inspections would only work if Iraq was afraid that the U.S. would attack if thy weren't allowed back in. Cheney ended with a classic neoconservative argument. He said regime change in Iraq could transform the Middle East. "Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving people of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab 'street', the Middle East expert Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are 'sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.' Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991."These comments were made just as Powell and the State Department was working on a new U.N. resolution on Iraq and a return of U.N. inspectors. Powell felt betrayed. Later that day White House spokesman Ari Fleischer tried to temper Cheney???s speech by saying Cheney was speaking on Bush's "Pre-Emptive Doctrine" not stating the U.S. had decided to go to war.
Cheney???s speech was followed by Rumsfeld???s on 8/27/02 when he met with 3000 Marines at Camp Pendleton, CA. He said he didn't know how many nations would support the U.S.'s war with Iraq, but not acting was a greater risk than acting.
8/28/02 Bush hosted the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar al Faisal at Crawford to try to gain Saudi support for war, but got none.
8/29/02 Bush approved the initial Iraq war planning with orders, goals, objectives and strategy.
One of the neoconservatives main arguments for an Iraq-Al Qaeda link was a report that 9/11 leader Mohamed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April, 2001. In September, 2002 Wolfowitz and other Pentagon officials met with FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, Pat D'Amuro about the reported meeting. Wolfowitz pressured D'Amuro to acknowledge that the meeting was at least possible, even though he didn???t feel that it happened.
In September, 2002 Tony Blair went to the U.S. to meet with Bush over Iraq policy. Blair again pushed Bush towards going to the U.N. Together, the two told the press that Iraq was working on its nuclear pr ogram, that there needed to be an international coalition against Iraq, and that there needed to be regime change.
9/2/02 Powell met with Bush and Rice and asked whether Bush still supported weapons inspectors. Bush said yes but he was skeptical. Bush agreed though, that he would go to the U.N. and ask for support.
The 9/2/02 issue of Time magazine continued with the in fighting within the administration, this time over Iraq???s ties with Al Qaeda. Aides at the Pentagon, a reference to the neoconservatives, leaked the story that the U.S. was considering commando strikes in Kurdish Iraq to attack an Ansar al-Islam camp that was producing chemical weapons. These officials claimed that dozens of middle level al-Qaeda operatives had fled to northern Iraq after the Afghanistan war. The neoconservatives believed that Ansar al-Islam was the crucial link between al Qaeda and Iraq. Ansar al Islam was formed in the 1990s, led by cleric Najmadin Fatah, who started a holy war against Kurdish groups that took over in the north after the Gulf War. Some of Ansar's troops trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Conservative columnist William Safire claimed in one of his New York Times columns that Iraq secretly ran Ansar. He claimed that Iraqi intelligence and a senior bin Laden agents planned to assassinate a pro-American Kurdish leader in 2001, but both assassins were captured. Safire also claimed that Iraq was the one behind Ansar's attempts to make chemical weapons. Time noted that most of the reports about Iraq and al Qaeda were repeated over and over and came from unconfirmed sources and the INC. Some of the wild claims of the INC were repeated in the article. The INC provided a former army officer that claimed there was a terrorist training camp in Salman Pak, outside Baghdad where Iraqi secret police trained terrorists on plane hijacking. The Salman Pak claimed had been disputed since 2001 when a former CIA station chief and a military intelligence analyst said that the Salman Pak camp was set up for counter-terrorism in the mid-1980s with the help of the English MI6 and CIA. The analysts said terrorists didn???t need to train in the open like at Salman Pak, the 9/11 hijackers after all went to a gym. The analyst said that you do need to train on a real airplane for counterterrorism, which is what the CIA and MI6 trained Iraqi forces to do in the past on an airplane fuselage at Salman Pak. Another Iraqi defector told Vanity Fair that Saddam's son Uday controlled a 1200 man commando force of al-Qaeda, which was trained to attack American targets. The defector was probably talking about the Fedayen irregular forces in Iraq, never the less, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials didn???t believe him. The article said, "CIA officials, while not ruling anything out, say meaningful ties between Saddam and bin Laden are tenuous at best." The intelligence community countered the claimed by stating that these al-Qaeda operatives were based in the Kurdish North where the Iraqi government had no presence. "The al-Qaeda people are not official guests of the Iraqi government," according to senior intelligence official. Senator Habel said, "Saddam is not in league with al-Qaeda."
The administration began lobbying Congress for war in early September, 2002 when they gave the four most senior members of Congress given a top secret briefing by Tenet on Iraq's WMD on 9/5/02. Cheney also attended the briefing.
9/6/02 At a Principals Committee meeting of the National Security Council Cheney again argued that asking for a new U.N. resolution would lead to nothing. Bob Woodward wrote that Cheney was intent on attacking Iraq. Rumsfeld agreed with him. Powell argued against unilateralism. That night Bush called the leaders of France, Russia and China who backed a U.N. resolution and U.N. weapons inspectors to deal with Iraq. The next day there was another National Security Council meeting. Bush heard arguments for and against going to U.N, but in the end, agreed to go to the U.N. During the drafting of Bush???s U.N. speech, Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to argue against asking for a new U.N. resolution. Tony Blair supported Bush???s move to ask for a new resolution.
9/10/02 Bush asked Congress for a resolution for the use of force against Iraq. That day Powell read the 21st draft of Bush's U.N. speech and was shocked to find that calls for a new U.N. resolution were not included. Rumsfeld on the other hand, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq was a threat because it praised 9/11, had repressed its own people, and wanted to attack the U.S. and its allies with WMD. Rumsfeld also said that Iraq was hiding its WMD, had dozens of SCUD missiles, was developing UAVs to deliver WMD, and had plans for at least 2 nuclear bombs. Rumselfd continued by claiming that Al Qaeda was operating in Iraq and that there had been a number of contacts over the years, and that the U.S. didn???t need to find a link with 9/11 to advocate regime change in Iraq. Rumsfeld also said a pre-emptive attack would not violate international law claiming that the U.S. had the right to "Anticipatory self-defense." During questioning he said that Bush had not decided on war yet however.
For the next two days Cheney and Powell argued over the content of Bush???s U.N. speech. Cheney was still against a call for a new U.N. resolution on Iraq arguing that the U.S. would lose power if it failed to gain one.
On 9/12/02 Bush finally delivered his speech to the U.N. Bush said that the U.S.'s greatest fear was that a terrorist would gain WMD from a government, and Iraq posed just this threat. He then cited Security Council resolutions Iraq had broken. Bush claimed that not only had Iraq openly praised 9/11, Al Qaeda operatives had fled to Iraq after the Afghan war. Bush said Iraq was hiding up to 3 metric tons of WMD from U.N. inspectors, and was expanding the production of WMD. Iraq???s nuclear program was also growing as Iraq hid its information, employed nuclear scientists, had the infrastructure for a nuclear weapon, attempted to buy aluminum tubes for centrifuges , all of which could lead to a nuclear bomb within a year if it was able to buy enough fissile material. Bush also claimed that Iraq had a force of SCUD missiles that were banned by U.N. sanctions and was attempting to build new ones. The U.S. and England started working on a new U.N. resolution immediately.
9/16/02 Time magazine ran an article that quoted neoconservative sources within the administration that did not believe in U.N. Inspectors or Hans Blix because Iraq had been able to fool them before and Iraq had worked on nuclear weapons while Blix was head of the IAEA. The sources argued argue that it was not Iraq's WMD alone that deservde an invasion, but the evil nature of Saddam, because he had used WMD on his own people, and might give them to terrorists.
9/17/02 33-page National Security Strategy (NSS) released outlining the Bush Doctrine. It said that the U.S.will rely on pre-emption to deal with rogue states and terrorists, and that the U.S. will never allow another country to challenge American power. This will mean that the U.S. will act unilaterally when necessary. The new NSS was very close to Wolfowitz's 1992 Defense Planning Guidance draft.
Mid-September, 2002 Genearl Franks presented Bush with the latest war plan and then went on a tour of the Middle East. By 9/19/02 Franks was in Kuwait where the actual deployment of troops for the Iraq war were under way. A forward command center for CENTCOM was to be deployed in Qatar by November. Franks set up rehearsals for his war plan, and he also coordinated the deployment of support staff, construction, and transportation facilities necessary for his forces.
9/25/02 saw the beginning of another propaganda offensive by the administration. Bush told reporters, "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." Rice claimed there were contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda establishing a relationshi p. On 9/26/02 Bush said in the Rose Garden "The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemicals weapons. The Iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons." Rumsfeld told reporters Iraq had active WMD programs along with weapon stashes. Rumsfeld also said that al Qaeda had tried to get WMD from Iraq. This was based upon a report that turned out to be false. On 9/28/02 Bush, during his weekly radio address, warned that each day could be the one that Iraq gives WMD or a nuclear weapon to terrorists. This ignored the fact that Iraq did not have the technology not sophistication to make a nuclear weapon or WMD small enough to be used by terrorists.
During October, 2002 at meeting of Bush's top aides, Cheney complained that "We are nickel-and-diming the INC (Iraqi National Congress) when they are providing critical intelligence" on Iraq's WMD. In fact, almost all of the information that the INC was providing turned out to be false and exaggerated. The oversight of INC's intelligence changed from State Department that was skeptical of their reports to the Pentagon, which was pro-INC.
November 2002, Rumsfeld cut the "Time-Phased Force and Deployment Data" for deployment of troops to Iraq so that he could make changes in the number of total troops to be used.
Early, January 2003 CIA???s National Intelligence Council ran two ???day exercise on postwar planning. Like the earlier CIA war games, senior officials at the Defense Department forbid their staff from attending. Likewise, on 1/15/03 humanitarian groups that had been meeting with USAD asked for a meeting with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to discuss post-war planning, they were denied.
7/7/04
Senate Intelligence Committee released report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Committee claimed intelligence analysts in CIA were not pressured or changed reports due to administration, but did report examples of pressure from Rumsfeld's office that believed al Qaeda supported by Iraq and Iraq was responsible for 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 9/11.
You are fucking amazing!
The idea that overthroughing Saddam would bring democracy to the ME was just ludicrius. Every few months my paper still has a letter to the editor claiming that Democracy is much stronger in the Middle East now. You could slap these people with a severed hand and they still wouldn't see it.
Dan
By the way, yesterday my local paper had Bush's attack on the front page. Today they have the fact that it was all lies on page 4.
Dan
Jeebus Joel....I think if you could get the vinyl monkey off your back you could run for Senate. I don't know where you find the time (or brainpower) to get a handle on all of that info.