The Short Version of How Bush Lied About Iraq
motown67
4,513 Posts
Bush Lied About Iraq, the What???s and How???s
I first became skeptical about the Iraq war when on the day of 9/11 I saw former CIA director James Woolsey say that the U.S. needed to attack Iraq after the tragedy. He was asked whether Iraq was involved in the attack, and Woolsey replied it didn???t matter. Now was the time for the U.S. to take on Saddam. From that point on I began collecting articles and reading on the internet about the case for war. I???ve always been very conservative when talking about what the administration said about Iraq tending to say that they exaggerated or only repeated the mistakes of the intelligence services, but after going through all my Iraq notes and writing several long reports about the steps to war, I can say that yes indeed, the administration lied about several issues to get the country to go to war with Iraq in March 2003. The administration said things about Iraq not based upon any intelligence. The administration said things about Iraq that intelligence told them didn???t happen. In one case they said things even though the CIA directly told them not to because the story was being questioned. Here they are.
Lie 1: Iraq was a threat because it possessed WMD and had a nuclear program and could give them to terrorists to attack the U.S.[/b]
First, U.S. intelligence told the administration several times that it was unlikely that Iraq would use terrorists against the U.S. because it would lead to U.S. retaliation.
Second, intelligence said that it was also unlikely that Iraq would give WMD to a terrorist group that it did not control. If it wanted to attack the U.S. or other it would use its own intelligence organization like it had done in the past.
Third, the only confirmed links Iraq had with terrorists were to two notorious Palestinian groups that had been inactive since the mid-1990s and attacks on Iraqi exiles. Iraq also gave millions to families of Palestinian suicide bombers and supported the Intifadah, but every Arab country supports the Palestinians. Iraq had not participated in any anti-Western terrorism since 1993.
Fourth, Iraq only had battlefield WMD that required hundreds of rockets and artillery shells to be fired to blanket an area to kill. Iraq never had the sophistication to make WMD small enough to be used by an individual or terrorist group.
Fifth, Iraq only had two plans for nuclear bombs. They were so heavy that they could never be used. Again, not only did Iraq not have nuclear weapons, they didn???t even have plans for bombs that they could use themselves, let alone give to a terrorist group.
Therefore the claim that Iraq was a threat because it could give WMD or a nuclear device to terrorists was a lie, not supported by anything the administration heard from the intelligence community.
Lie 2: Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda and 9/11[/b]
First, from the beginning of the administration Bush was told that Iraq and Al Qaeda were not connected. When 9/11 happened Bush and others told officials to look into such a collaboration but were told there was none over and over.
Second, Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz came to claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in the Spring of 2001 as proof that Iraq was behind 9/11. They were told again and again that this did not happen, but continued to say it was true.
Third, the administration claimed that Iraq had a long standing relationship with Al Qaeda, was hiding Al Qaeda operatives after the Afghan war, and gave Al Qaeda training. While there were Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq, U.S. intelligence said that they were in northern Iraq where the government had no control because of the U.S. enforced no fly zone.
Fourth, the only group saying that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda was an organization within the Pentagon called the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, staffed by two neoconservatives with no background in intelligence. They said that Iraq had been connected with Al Qaeda since the mid-1990s and had met and worked together over 50 times. U.S. intelligence said this was not true.
Therefore the claim that Iraq was connected to Iraq was a lie. Only neoconservatives within the Pentagon claimed that it was true, no intelligence report supported their claims, but the Bush administration made it one of their leading arguments for war.
Lie 3: Iraq was working on building an atomic bomb that could threaten the U.S.[/b]
First, as stated above, Iraq never had plans for a workable nuclear bomb.
Second, U.S. intelligence said that Iraq could have a bomb within a year if it got enriched uranium from abroad and received foreign help to process it. There were faked reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from abroad, but they were not receiving any foreign help.
Third, at one point Bush said that the U.S. didn???t know whether Iraq had already built a bomb or not. No intelligence reports ever said this.
Therefore the clam that Iraq could threaten the U.S. with a nuclear bomb was a lie. Iraq didn???t have the plans, nor the material to make one.
Lie 4: Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger[/b]
First, the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger was the reason why administration officials said that Iraq could have a nuclear bomb within a year.
Second, the administration was told again and again not to use the story in its public speeches because the intelligence community was not sure that the story was true. In the end, it proved to be based upon forged documents.
Third, the administration ended up using it in a 2003 State of the Union speech by Bush. The CIA didn???t want them to use the claim, so they changed it from Iraq was looking to buy uranium from Niger, to buying it from Africa. The speech also said that they got the report from England rather than U.S. intelligence. The president???s own Foreign Intelligence Board did an internal review of how this claim ended up in the State of the Union address and found that the administration was so desperate to find evidence of Iraq???s wrong doing and WMD program that it used the Niger story even though the CIA told them not to.
Therefore the administration purposefully used a story they were told not to use because it probably wasn???t true. They went ahead and used it anyway to argue their case that Iraq was building a nuclear bomb and was a threat.
Lie 5: Iraq had unmanned jets that could attack the U.S. with WMD[/b]
First, the story was based upon incompetent intelligence work at the CIA that assumed that unmanned jets (UAVs) they had seen at an air base could be used for WMD with no actual proof, followed by a report that Iraq had bought topography software that included maps of the U.S. The CIA put the two together and said that Iraq could use the UAVs to attack the U.S. with maps from the software. The CIA didn???t even know what the software was bought for, it just connected them to together.
Second, when Secretary of State Powell was drafting his 2/5/03 speech to the U.N. his own staffers warned him not to make the UAVs claim. His staff found out that there was no proof that the software was delivered to Iraq. There was no proof that the software was meant for the UAVs. The software came with maps of the U.S., Iraq did not request them. The Air Force, State Department and others all said that the UAVs were probably for reconnaissance as well. Despite all these objections, Powell went ahead and made the UAVs claim,
mostly at the request of the White House.
Therefore the administration knowingly made a claim that was widely questioned within the intelligence community just to argue their case that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. and should be attacked.
Lie 6: Iraq was not cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors[/b]
First, like all weapons inspections, the Iraqis tried to limit their activities when they first arrived. However by the beginning of 2003 the inspectors had got almost all of their demands met for interrogation of scientists, access to sites, use of planes and helicopters for surveillance, etc. U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in their last reports before the war began said that Iraq was finally cooperating and that no evidence had been found of a WMD or nuclear program.
Second, the U.S. claimed that Iraq was hiding a stockpile of WMD from inspectors. The U.N. never found this stockpile and the amounts were based upon a faulty equation based upon what Iraq originally had before the Iran-Iraq war. The problem was, the U.S. never knew what this amount was so depending on the speech, U.S. officials were likely to say different amounts of Iraq WMD themselves.
Third, all the sites the U.S. told U.N. inspectors to look at nothing was found, yet the U.S. continued to say they knew Iraq had stockpiles of WMD, an active program, and knew where they were.
Therefore, the U.S. lied when it said that Iraq was not cooperating with U.N. inspectors and a war was necessary as Iraq had run out of time. Iraq was finally cooperating just when the U.S. said that Iraq???s time was up and war was necessary.
Lie 7: War was the last resort against Iraq[/b]
First, Bush claimed that the U.S. only went to war because Iraq failed to comply with the last U.N. resolution 1441 in March 2003, in fact, he had decided on war long before that.
Second, the neoconservative elements in his administration had been advocating attacking Iraq militarily since the very first meetings of his national security team in early 2001.
Third, when 9/11 happened Bush believed that Iraq had something to do with it and said that Iraq would be next after Afghanistan.
Fourth, on 9/21/01, just ten days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to invade Iraq after Afghanistan.
Fifth, the British Down Street memo from 7/23/02 about a meeting of England???s top foreign policy advisors says that Bush had decided upon military action against Iraq. , ???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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime???s record.??? The memo also said that England should go to the U.N. to get new inspectors, not to disarm Iraq but to create a controversy that would help justify a war.
Therefore the claim that Bush saw war as a last resort was not true. Many of his advisors had been talking about attacking Iraq from the beginning of his administration. He believed Iraq was involved with 9/11 somehow, the neoconservatives were urging an attack on Iraq, and he said that he wanted to go after Iraq after Afghanistan. Finally, by the summer of 2002 the British said that Bush was set on military action. His other actions, such as going to the U.N. can be seen as further pretexts to justify this war, not ways to try to stop it from happening.
I first became skeptical about the Iraq war when on the day of 9/11 I saw former CIA director James Woolsey say that the U.S. needed to attack Iraq after the tragedy. He was asked whether Iraq was involved in the attack, and Woolsey replied it didn???t matter. Now was the time for the U.S. to take on Saddam. From that point on I began collecting articles and reading on the internet about the case for war. I???ve always been very conservative when talking about what the administration said about Iraq tending to say that they exaggerated or only repeated the mistakes of the intelligence services, but after going through all my Iraq notes and writing several long reports about the steps to war, I can say that yes indeed, the administration lied about several issues to get the country to go to war with Iraq in March 2003. The administration said things about Iraq not based upon any intelligence. The administration said things about Iraq that intelligence told them didn???t happen. In one case they said things even though the CIA directly told them not to because the story was being questioned. Here they are.
Lie 1: Iraq was a threat because it possessed WMD and had a nuclear program and could give them to terrorists to attack the U.S.[/b]
First, U.S. intelligence told the administration several times that it was unlikely that Iraq would use terrorists against the U.S. because it would lead to U.S. retaliation.
Second, intelligence said that it was also unlikely that Iraq would give WMD to a terrorist group that it did not control. If it wanted to attack the U.S. or other it would use its own intelligence organization like it had done in the past.
Third, the only confirmed links Iraq had with terrorists were to two notorious Palestinian groups that had been inactive since the mid-1990s and attacks on Iraqi exiles. Iraq also gave millions to families of Palestinian suicide bombers and supported the Intifadah, but every Arab country supports the Palestinians. Iraq had not participated in any anti-Western terrorism since 1993.
Fourth, Iraq only had battlefield WMD that required hundreds of rockets and artillery shells to be fired to blanket an area to kill. Iraq never had the sophistication to make WMD small enough to be used by an individual or terrorist group.
Fifth, Iraq only had two plans for nuclear bombs. They were so heavy that they could never be used. Again, not only did Iraq not have nuclear weapons, they didn???t even have plans for bombs that they could use themselves, let alone give to a terrorist group.
Therefore the claim that Iraq was a threat because it could give WMD or a nuclear device to terrorists was a lie, not supported by anything the administration heard from the intelligence community.
Lie 2: Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda and 9/11[/b]
First, from the beginning of the administration Bush was told that Iraq and Al Qaeda were not connected. When 9/11 happened Bush and others told officials to look into such a collaboration but were told there was none over and over.
Second, Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz came to claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in the Spring of 2001 as proof that Iraq was behind 9/11. They were told again and again that this did not happen, but continued to say it was true.
Third, the administration claimed that Iraq had a long standing relationship with Al Qaeda, was hiding Al Qaeda operatives after the Afghan war, and gave Al Qaeda training. While there were Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq, U.S. intelligence said that they were in northern Iraq where the government had no control because of the U.S. enforced no fly zone.
Fourth, the only group saying that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda was an organization within the Pentagon called the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, staffed by two neoconservatives with no background in intelligence. They said that Iraq had been connected with Al Qaeda since the mid-1990s and had met and worked together over 50 times. U.S. intelligence said this was not true.
Therefore the claim that Iraq was connected to Iraq was a lie. Only neoconservatives within the Pentagon claimed that it was true, no intelligence report supported their claims, but the Bush administration made it one of their leading arguments for war.
Lie 3: Iraq was working on building an atomic bomb that could threaten the U.S.[/b]
First, as stated above, Iraq never had plans for a workable nuclear bomb.
Second, U.S. intelligence said that Iraq could have a bomb within a year if it got enriched uranium from abroad and received foreign help to process it. There were faked reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from abroad, but they were not receiving any foreign help.
Third, at one point Bush said that the U.S. didn???t know whether Iraq had already built a bomb or not. No intelligence reports ever said this.
Therefore the clam that Iraq could threaten the U.S. with a nuclear bomb was a lie. Iraq didn???t have the plans, nor the material to make one.
Lie 4: Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger[/b]
First, the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger was the reason why administration officials said that Iraq could have a nuclear bomb within a year.
Second, the administration was told again and again not to use the story in its public speeches because the intelligence community was not sure that the story was true. In the end, it proved to be based upon forged documents.
Third, the administration ended up using it in a 2003 State of the Union speech by Bush. The CIA didn???t want them to use the claim, so they changed it from Iraq was looking to buy uranium from Niger, to buying it from Africa. The speech also said that they got the report from England rather than U.S. intelligence. The president???s own Foreign Intelligence Board did an internal review of how this claim ended up in the State of the Union address and found that the administration was so desperate to find evidence of Iraq???s wrong doing and WMD program that it used the Niger story even though the CIA told them not to.
Therefore the administration purposefully used a story they were told not to use because it probably wasn???t true. They went ahead and used it anyway to argue their case that Iraq was building a nuclear bomb and was a threat.
Lie 5: Iraq had unmanned jets that could attack the U.S. with WMD[/b]
First, the story was based upon incompetent intelligence work at the CIA that assumed that unmanned jets (UAVs) they had seen at an air base could be used for WMD with no actual proof, followed by a report that Iraq had bought topography software that included maps of the U.S. The CIA put the two together and said that Iraq could use the UAVs to attack the U.S. with maps from the software. The CIA didn???t even know what the software was bought for, it just connected them to together.
Second, when Secretary of State Powell was drafting his 2/5/03 speech to the U.N. his own staffers warned him not to make the UAVs claim. His staff found out that there was no proof that the software was delivered to Iraq. There was no proof that the software was meant for the UAVs. The software came with maps of the U.S., Iraq did not request them. The Air Force, State Department and others all said that the UAVs were probably for reconnaissance as well. Despite all these objections, Powell went ahead and made the UAVs claim,
mostly at the request of the White House.
Therefore the administration knowingly made a claim that was widely questioned within the intelligence community just to argue their case that Iraq was a threat to the U.S. and should be attacked.
Lie 6: Iraq was not cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors[/b]
First, like all weapons inspections, the Iraqis tried to limit their activities when they first arrived. However by the beginning of 2003 the inspectors had got almost all of their demands met for interrogation of scientists, access to sites, use of planes and helicopters for surveillance, etc. U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in their last reports before the war began said that Iraq was finally cooperating and that no evidence had been found of a WMD or nuclear program.
Second, the U.S. claimed that Iraq was hiding a stockpile of WMD from inspectors. The U.N. never found this stockpile and the amounts were based upon a faulty equation based upon what Iraq originally had before the Iran-Iraq war. The problem was, the U.S. never knew what this amount was so depending on the speech, U.S. officials were likely to say different amounts of Iraq WMD themselves.
Third, all the sites the U.S. told U.N. inspectors to look at nothing was found, yet the U.S. continued to say they knew Iraq had stockpiles of WMD, an active program, and knew where they were.
Therefore, the U.S. lied when it said that Iraq was not cooperating with U.N. inspectors and a war was necessary as Iraq had run out of time. Iraq was finally cooperating just when the U.S. said that Iraq???s time was up and war was necessary.
Lie 7: War was the last resort against Iraq[/b]
First, Bush claimed that the U.S. only went to war because Iraq failed to comply with the last U.N. resolution 1441 in March 2003, in fact, he had decided on war long before that.
Second, the neoconservative elements in his administration had been advocating attacking Iraq militarily since the very first meetings of his national security team in early 2001.
Third, when 9/11 happened Bush believed that Iraq had something to do with it and said that Iraq would be next after Afghanistan.
Fourth, on 9/21/01, just ten days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he wanted to invade Iraq after Afghanistan.
Fifth, the British Down Street memo from 7/23/02 about a meeting of England???s top foreign policy advisors says that Bush had decided upon military action against Iraq. , ???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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime???s record.??? The memo also said that England should go to the U.N. to get new inspectors, not to disarm Iraq but to create a controversy that would help justify a war.
Therefore the claim that Bush saw war as a last resort was not true. Many of his advisors had been talking about attacking Iraq from the beginning of his administration. He believed Iraq was involved with 9/11 somehow, the neoconservatives were urging an attack on Iraq, and he said that he wanted to go after Iraq after Afghanistan. Finally, by the summer of 2002 the British said that Bush was set on military action. His other actions, such as going to the U.N. can be seen as further pretexts to justify this war, not ways to try to stop it from happening.
Comments
Thank you for this!
could you reference your last more exhaustive post that was fascinating and i would not like to lose it
never saw that cartoon until today. Good smart stuff. will be checkin daily
I know you posted it before can you up the link to the thread if not PM me
Much respect for good citizen work
If you email, send me one to dan at jump jump dot com.
I just e-mailed them to you.
Thanks, I'll be PM'ing you for the extended cut.
In the last year or so a series of secret British documents have become public about the lead up to the war. The first set of documents are known as the Downing Street memos.
British Professor Philippe Sands first made the second memo public in his book Lawless World in January 2006. Recently this second memo has returned to the news as the New York Times obtained a copy of the 5-page secret document. The importance of these memos is that they expose the secret planning for the war going on behind the public statements by the two governments. What they reveal is the British government???s skepticism over the Bush administration???s justifications for war, and both Bush???s and British Prime Minister Blair???s desire to go to war despite publicly claiming that it was a last resort.
Downing Street Memos[/b]
The first set of documents was the Downing Street memos. These became public in mid-2005, and consist of of memos detailing a series of high-ranking meetings between British and American officials in March and July 2002.
According to the memos head of British foreign intelligence MI6, Sir Lord Richard Dearlove, after meeting with CIA Chief George Tenet believed that the U.S. had decided upon war. The memo said, ???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.??? English Foreign Secretary Jack Straw believed, ???It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action.??? The U.S. military was expected to brief Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Bush in August 2002 on the war plans. The British speculated that the war would begin by January 2002 after U.S. Congressional elections.
To this day, Bush claims that he did not want war as he recently said in a press conference. Leading up to the invasion he said that war was a last resort. The Downing Street memos reveal that at least by the summer of 2002 that decision had already been made.
After hearing the U.S. plans the British thought that the case against Iraq was flimsy. MI6 Chief Dearlove said that, ???The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.??? Critics of the war have taken this to mean that the administration was pressuring the intelligence community or lying about intelligence to convince the public for war. I take that statement to mean that the administration was only using reports that supported their argument for attacking Iraq.
One of the Bush administration???s major claims was that Iraq was linked with Al Qaeda. The British found no evidence to support this however. One memo states, ???US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Aaida is so far frankly unconvincing.??? Another memo by Foreign Secretary Straw said, ???In addition, there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL [bin Laden] and Al Qaida.??? This supports U.S. intelligence reports that found no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Bush administration received over 30 assessments to this effect, yet the Bush administration made it one of their main claims. If U.S. intelligence and the British didn???t believe this claim, what was the Bush administration basing their statements upon?
On the case against Iraq???s WMD the memos state, ???But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.??? One of the major claims by war supporters is that most countries in the world believed that Iraq had WMD. These memos don???t doubt that claim, but it shows that England, America???s closest ally in the war, not only didn???t think that Iraq was a threat, but that it was a weak justification for attacking Iraq. U.S. intelligence and the administration also claimed that Iraq not only had WMD, but that it had restarted its WMD and nuclear programs, and these were now larger than before the first Gulf War. The Downing Street memos question this claim as well by stating, ???Iraq???s nuclear & WMD programs had not advanced in recent years.???
Since this was one of the main parts of the U.S. case against Iraq, the British pushed for a return of U.N. weapons inspectors. If they found weapons that would be a legal justification for the war, something that was very important to British officials working within the Blair government. The British Attorney General said that simply wanting regime change was not a legal basis for invasion. The Attorney General summarized that only a U.N. resolution would provide cover for war. The Attorney General also said that relying upon old U.N. resolutions against Iraq would be difficult, thus advocating for a new resolution to the Security Council. Blair added that it would be easier to go to war if Saddam rejected any kind of U.N. resolution or inspectors. The memos noted that the U.S. did not think the U.N. was necessary.
Within the Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell and the State Department were the only ones pushing for a similar U.N. route. Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives throughout the administration were staunchly anti-U.N. dating back several years. They advocated unilateral military action by the U.S., and did not want to be entangled by international bodies or agreements. The memos say, ???The NSC [National Security Council] had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraq regimes record.???
What the Downing Street memos reveal is that the U.N. route was a means to an end, war, not a way to avoid it. Blair, as late as February 2003, a month before the war started, was saying that a war could be avoided if Saddam complied with the U.N. The Downing Street memos show that Blair was hoping that U.N. resolutions and inspections would provide the justification for an attack either by Saddam rejecting them or the U.N. finding WMD. As Foreign Secretary Jack Straw argued, ???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.??? The main issue became convincing the U.S. to go to the U.N. To this end, Blair sent a personal memo to Bush and several advisors to meet with the White House in late-July 2002 to convince the U.S. of this strategy. Several days later Bush and Blair spoke on the phone and agreed they were going to invade Iraq. Publicly Bush and Blair both said that no decision had been made whether to go to war or not.
Blair-Bush Meeting Memo[/b]
The second secret document reveal was a 5-page memo about a meeting in the White House between Blair, Bush and top aides on 1/31/03. It was written by David Manning, Blair???s top foreign policy advisor. At the time, U.N. inspectors were looking for WMD and other illegal materials in Iraq under a new U.N. resolution that the U.S. had successfully gotten passed. There was a debate within the U.S. administration and between the U.S. and England about whether a second U.N. resolution was needed to authorize war or not.
The Blair-Bush meeting reveals that Bush did not think that a second memo was needed. Manning wrote, ???Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning.??? Manning continued by saying that the U.S. and England had already agreed upon a start date for the war, ???The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,??? 2003. According to the memo, ???This was when the bombing would begin.??? Bush repeatedly said that the U.S. and England did not need a second U.N. resolution to start this attack, but if one were to be passed it needed to be soon so that the war could start.
The main problem Bush and Blair discussed was finding an excuse to start the war. Both Bush and Blair acknowledged that U.N. inspectors had found no WMD, and that none might be found in the fut ure. This robbed the U.S. and England of one of its main justifications for war. Faced with this dilemma Bush came up with several different scenarios to provoke an armed conflict. One plan was to paint a U.S. spy plane in U.N. colors and fly it over Iraq with U.S. fighter protection in hopes that Saddam would order an attack on it. Bush also hoped that an Iraqi defector might be found that would go public with claims about Iraq???s WMD. Another faint hope was that Saddam would simply be assassinated.
Both Bush and Blair thought the war would be over quickly and that creating a new Iraqi government would be difficult, but not impossible. Bush predicted that it was, ???Unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups.???
This second memo provides further evidence that Bush and Blair were lying when they said that war was a last resort. Iraq was a war of choice backed by various elements within the U.S. administration with a variety of motivations from eliminating a threat to the supply of oil to the West, to provide another example of the transformation of the U.S. military to a high-tech force, to promoting democracy in the Middle East to stem the tide of Islamic terrorism. Claims about WMD, links with terrorism, and U.N. resolutions and inspectors were all just excuses to justify the war, not the cause.
i think you may wanna switch one of those to "al qaeda"... it was in lie #2.
was a good read though.
Hey Motown,
When I read this (above link), for some reason I thought of you... I also figured it's a case of journalism blowing up a few cases into looking like a pandemic, but if it reverses the brain-drain, you can always come over hear and teach!
Great research btw, always ready to see the long version on SS.
Crap, the above link doesn't seem to work, so I copied+pasted below:
Silence in class
University professors denounced for anti-Americanism; schoolteachers suspended for their politics; students encouraged to report on their tutors. Are US campuses in the grip of a witch-hunt of progressives, or is academic life just too liberal? By Gary Younge
Tuesday April 4, 2006
The Guardian
A student at Overland high school in Aurora, Colorado, protests at the suspension of a teacher, Jay Bennish, for not being "objective". Photograph: AP
After the screenwriter Walter Bernstein was placed on the blacklist during the McCarthyite era he said his life "seemed to move in ever-decreasing circles". "Few of my friends dropped away but the list of acquaintances diminished," he wrote in Inside Out, a memoir of the blacklist. "I appeared contaminated and they did not want to risk infection. They avoided me, not calling as they had in the past, not responding to my calls, being nervously distant if we met in public places."
As chair of African American studies in Yale, Paul Gilroy had a similar experience recently after he spoke at a university-sponsored teach-in on the Iraq war. "I think the morality of cluster bombs, of uranium-tipped bombs, [of] daisy cutters are shaped by an imperial double standard that values American lives more," he said. "[The war seems motivated by] a desire to enact revenge for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon ... [It's important] to speculate about the relation between this war and the geopolitical interests of Israel."
"I thought I was being extremely mealy-mouthed, but I was accused of advocating conspiracy theories," says Gilroy, who is now the Anthony Giddens professor of Social Theory at the London School of Economics.
Scot Silverstein, who was once on the faculty at Yale, saw a piece in the student paper about Gilroy's contribution. He wrote to the Wall Street Journal comparing Gilroy to Hitler and claiming his words illustrated the "moral psychosis and perhaps psychological sadism that appears to have infected leftist academia". The Journal published the letter. Gilroy found himself posted on Discoverthenetworks.org, a website dedicated to exposing radical professors. The principle accusation was that he "believes the US fabricated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein".
Then the emails started coming to him and his colleagues, denouncing him. "Only one person said anything," says Gilroy. "Otherwise, nobody looked me in the eye. There was something about the way it never came up that made me realise how nervous and apprehensive they were."
Few would argue there are direct parallels between the current assaults on liberals in academe and McCarthyism. Unlike the McCarthy era, most threats to academic freedom - real or perceived - do not, yet, involve the state. Nor are they buttressed by widespread popular support, as anticommunism was during the 50s. But in other ways, argues Ellen Schrecker, author of Many Are the Crimes - McCarthyism in America, comparisons are apt.
"In some respects it's more dangerous," she says. "McCarthyism dealt mainly with off-campus political activities. Now they focus on what is going on in the classroom. It's very dangerous because it's reaching into the core academic functions of the university, particularly in Middle-Eastern studies."
Either way, a growing number of apparently isolated incidents suggests a mood which is, if nothing else, determined, relentless and aimed openly at progressives in academe.
Earlier this year, Fox news commentator Sean Hannity urged students to record "leftwing propaganda" by professors so he could broadcast it on his show. On the web there is Campus Watch, "monitoring Middle East studies on campus"; Edwatch, "Education for a free nation"; and Parents Against Bad Books in School.
In mid January, the Bruin Alumni association offered students $100 to tape leftwing professors at the University of California Los Angeles. The association effectively had one dedicated member, 24-year-old Republican Andrew Jones. It also had one dedicated aim: "Exposing UCLA's most radical professors" who "[proselytise] their extreme views in the classroom".
Shortly after the $100 offer was made, Jones mounted a website, uclaprofs.com, which compiled the Dirty 30 - a hit list of those he considered the most egregious, leftwing offenders. Top of the list was Peter McLaren, a professor at the UCLA's graduate school of education. Jones branded McLaren a "monster". "Everything that flows from Peter McLaren's mouth and pen is deeply, inextricably radical," wrote Jones. "In keeping with the left's identity politics he has been a friend to the gay community."
McLaren was shocked. "I was away when the story broke and when I came back there were 87 messages waiting for me. I was surprised a list like that could be created in these times. I thought, 'Wow, somebody's out there reading my work fairly carefully.'" The main impact, he says, was to try to insulate those close to him from the fallout. "I had to take down lots of things from my website - family pictures and contacts with other people. I didn't want other people to pay the price."
Also among the Dirty 30 was history professor Ellen DuBois. She was described as, "in every way the modern female academic: militant, impatient, accusatory and radical - very radical". DuBois told the Los Angeles Times, "This is a totally abhorrent invitation to students to participate in a witch hunt against their professors."
McLaren, who describes himself as a marxist-humanist, agrees. He believes the list was a McCarthyite attack on academe, with the aim of softening up public hostility for a more propitious moment: "This is a low-intensity campaign that can be ratcheted up at a time of crisis. When there is another crisis in this country and this country is in an ontological hysteria, an administration could use that to up the ante. I think it represents a tendency towards fascism."
Six weeks after Jones released his list, two Los Angeles county sheriffs arrived unannounced at Professor Miguel Tinker-Salas's office at Pomona College and started asking questions. Tinker-Salas, a Latin American history professor, was born in Venezuela and is a vocal critic of US policy in the region. The sheriffs, part of a federal anti-terrorism task force, told him that he was not the subject of an investigation. Then, for the next 25 minutes they quizzed him on whether he had been influenced in any way by or had contact with the Venezuelan government, on the leadership within the local Venezuelan community, the consulate and the embassy. Then they questioned his students about the content of his classes, examined the cartoons on his door. "They cast the Venezuelan community as a threat," says Tinker-Salas. "I think they were fishing to see if I had any information they could use."
Pomona's president, David Oxtoby, says he was "extremely concerned about the chilling effect this kind of intrusive government interest could have on free scholarly and political discourse."
Last year, some students at the Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University ran a campaign against alleged anti-Israeli bias among professors, criticising the university as a place where pro-Israeli students were intimidated and faculty members were prejudiced. A f aculty committee appointed by Columbia concluded that there had been no serious misconduct.
These issues are not confined to university campuses: it is also happening in schools. Since February, the normally sleepy, wealthy district of Upper St Clair in Pennsylvania has been riven with arguments over its curriculum after the local school board banned the International Baccalaureate (IB), the global educational programme, for being an "un-American" marxist and anti-Christian. During their election campaign, the Republicans of Upper St Clair referred to the IB, which is offered in 122 countries and whose student intake has risen by 73% worldwide in the past five years, as though it was part of an international communist conspiracy, suspicious of a curriculum that had been "developed in a foreign country" (Switzerland). "Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian values and we have to be careful about what values our children are taught," said one Republican board member. Similar campaigns have also sprung up recently at school boards in Minnesota and Virginia.
Meanwhile, in January in Aurora, Colorado, social studies teacher Jay Bennish answered questions in his world geography class about President George Bush's speech from his students at Overland High School. Caricaturing Bush's speech, Bennish said, "'It's our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the world like us.'" He then continued: "Sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say: 'We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backwards and it's our job to conquer the world and make sure they all live just like we want them to.' Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously they're not, OK? But there are some eerie similarities to the tones they use."
Unbeknown to him, one 16-year-old student, Sean Allen, recorded part of the class on his MP3 player. When his Republican father heard it he was so incensed that he shopped it around to local conservative radio stations, where it finally found a home with radio talk-show host Mike Rosen.
Later in Bennish's class, the teacher had told his students, "I am not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think, all right, about these issues more in depth, and not just take things from the surface. And I'm glad you asked all your questions because they're all very good, legitimate questions." Rosen only played the first part of the tape on his programme. He also put it on the internet.
The next day, the Cherry Creek school district suspended Bennish, arguing that he had at least breached a policy requiring teachers to be "as objective as possible and to present fairly the several sides of an issue" when dealing with religious, political, economic or social issues.
The suspension sparked rival demonstrations at school. Hundreds of students staged a walkout, a few wearing duct tape over their mouths while some chanted, "Freedom of speech, let him teach." A smaller demonstration was staged against Bennish, with students writing "Teach don't preach" on their shirts.
But it has primarily been universities that have been on the frontline. And on the other side of the trenches has been the rightwing firebrand David Horowitz. Horowitz, who had Jones on his payroll but fired him after the taping controversy, was raised by communist parents and was himself a marxist as a teenager. He is involved with Campus Watch, Jihad Watch, Professors Watch and Media Watch; he was also connected to discoverthenetworks.org, which targeted Gilroy. A few years ago he founded a group, Students for Academic Freedom, which boasts chapters promoting his agenda on more than 150 campuses. The movement monitors slights or insults that students say they have suffered and provides an online complaint form. Students are advised to write down "the date, class and name of the professor", get witnesses, "accumulate a list of incidents or quotes", and lodge a complaint. Over the past three years Horowitz has led the call for an academic bill of rights in several states. The bills would allow students to opt out of any part of a course they felt was "personally offensive" and force American universities to adopt quotas for conservative professors as well as monitor the political inclinations of their staff.
The bill has been debated in 23 states, including six this year. In July, Pennsylvania approved legislation calling on 14 state-affiliated colleges to free their campuses from the "imposition of ideological orthodoxy". Meanwhile, House Republicans have included a provision in the Higher Education Act which calls on publicly funded colleges to ensure a diversity of ideas in class - code for countering the alleged liberal bias in classrooms.
"The aim of the movement isn't really to achieve legislation," says Horowitz. "It's supposed to act as a cattle prod, to make legislators and universities aware. The ratio of leftwing professors in Berkeley and Stanford is seven to one and nine to one. You can't get hired if you're a conservative in American universities."
Reliable empirical, as opposed to anecdotal, evidence to back up Horowitz's claim of political imbalance is patchy but rarely contested. The most detailed study, conducted by California economist Daniel Klein and Swedish scientist Charlotta Stern, did reveal a significant Democratic bias which varied depending on the course they taught. It showed that 30 times as many anthropologists and sociologists voted Democrat as Republican, while for those teaching economics the ration plummeted to three to one.
But these results gave only a partial account of campus life. Limiting their research to the social sciences and the humanities excluded a substantial portion of the university experience. According to the Princeton Review, four of the top 10 most popular subjects - business administration and management, biology, nursing and computer science - are not in the social sciences or humanities. Republicans are probably more inclined to find a home in some of these disciplines. In any case, most academics do not deny that there is a progressive, liberal bias in academe. "Of course," says Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at the Columbia School of Journalism. "There's a lot of conservatives in oil. But there aren't a lot of conservatives planning on studying sociology."
And while liberals may be more numerous, argues Schrecker, a professor of history at Yeshiva University in New York, that does not necessarily mean they are more powerful. "Progressive academe is like the ninth ward of New Orleans before the levees break - neither secure nor particularly safe. It's one of the few areas left with some kind of progressive culture."
That, rather than protection of free expression on campus, is precisely why it remains a target for the right, they say.
In February, Horowitz published a book, The Professors: the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, in which he lists, in alphabetical order, the radical academics whom he believes are polluting academe with leftwing propaganda. "Coming to a campus near you: terrorists, racists, and communists - you know them as The Professors," reads the blurb on the jacket. "Today's radical academics aren't the exception - they're legion. And far from being harmless, they spew violent anti-Americanism, preach anti-semitism and cheer on the killing of American soldiers and civilians - all the while collecting tax dollars and tuition fees to indoctrinate our children."
The book is a sloppy series of character assassinations, relying more heavily on insinuation, inference, suggestion and association than it does on fact. Take Todd Gitlin, a journalism and sociology professor at Columbia University. Gitlin was the leader of Students for Democratic Society, a radical anti-war movement in the 60s. Today, his politics could be described as mainstream lib eral. He supported the war in Afghanistan but not in Iraq and hung out the Stars and Stripes after the terrorist attacks on September 11. He has recently written a book, The Intellectuals and the Flag, calling for progressives to embrace a patriotic culture that distinguishes between allegiance to one's country, which he supports, and loyalty to one's government, which he does not.
None the less, Horowitz slams him for participating in an anti-war teach-in in March 2003 at which his colleague Nicholas de Genova called for "a million Mogadishus" to be visited on American soldiers in Iraq - referring to the murder of US military in Somalia. But Gitlin has never met or spoken to Genova and was not participating in the teach-in when Genova spoke. Horowitz also slates Gitlin for "immersing students in the obscurantist texts of leftists icons like J??rgen Habermas", but omits to mention that Gitlin also teaches from the works of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Burke, Adam Smith and the gospels.
"Horowitz's idea of research is cherry-picking," says Gitlin. "And he can't even be trusted to find cherries. He comes up with bitter prunes."
Victor Navasky, the Delacorte professor of journalism at Columbia University, is also on Horowitz's hit list. Navasky, publisher emeritus of the leftwing magazine The Nation and chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, is accused of "bankrolling" the review and denounced for organising lectures by "prominent leftists" such as Michael Tomasky of American Prospect and Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker. Navasky points out that he has also hosted a lecture by Fox news anchor Bill O'Reilly and the editor of the rightwing Weekly Standard at Columbia, and that the only cheque he ever sent the Review was one he returned after the magazine paid him for an article.
"Were it not for all the inaccuracies I would say that I would be flattered to be on the list, but I don't think I earned it," says Navasky. "I don't think anyone seriously considers me a clear and present danger to the republic."
Horowitz accuses those who accuse him of McCarthyism of being McCarthyites themselves. "All they do is tar and feather me with slanders," he says. "It's the politics of Stalinism."
Evidence to back up his central argument - that these political leanings are at all related to a teacher's ability to be fair, balanced or competent in class - are non-existent. Most of the criticisms of lecturers on both the Dirty 30 list and in Horowitz's book are levelled at comments professors have made outside the classroom and rarely do they provide any evidence of the accused actually criticising or ridiculing students with rightwing ideas.
Nobody denies that bad leftwing lecturers exist. As Russell Jacoby argued in The Nation, "Higher education in America is a vast enterprise boasting roughly a million professors. A certain portion of these teachers are incompetents and frauds; some are rabid patriots and fundamentalists - and some are ham-fisted leftists. All should be upbraided if they violate scholarly or teaching norms. At the same time, a certain portion of the 15 million students they teach are fanatics and crusaders." It is not their work as professors Horowitz does not like; it is the ideologies they espouse, whether in or outside the classroom.
Political assaults on intellectuals are not new. Nor are they specific to the US. At the dawn of western civilisation, Socrates was executed for filling "young people's heads with the wrong ideas". Mao targeted professors for particular humiliation during the cultural revolution.
Mark Smith, the director of government relations for the professor's union, the American Association of University Professors, says that these broadsides vary according to the political climate. Shortly after world war one, the litmus test was those who opposed America's participation in the war or backed the fledgling Russian revolution; during the 50s, it was communists; during the 80s, it was leftwing professors in Latin American studies departments. During the early 90s, Lynne Cheney, the wife of the current vice-president, was chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, when she lead the bureaucratic charge against "political correctness". In many humanities faculties, she claimed, the common thinking is that "there is no truth. Everything we think is true is shaped by political interests ... Since there is no truth ... faculty members are perfectly justified in using the classroom to advance political agendas."
"These things go in cycles," says Smith. "Horowitz did not invent this. He's capitalising on an ongoing anti-intellectualism and fear of the other."
Many believe that this current cycle has intensified as a result of the official response to 9/11. Two months after the terrorist attacks, the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), founded by Lynne Cheney in 1995, branded colleges and universities the "weak link in America's response" to the terrorist attacks and called on lecturers and professors to defend western civilisation. In a report entitled Defending Civilization: how our universities are failing America and what can be done about it, ACTA president Jerry Martin and vice-president Anne D Neal, wrote: "While faculty should be passionately defended in their right to academic freedom, that does not exempt them from criticism. The fact is: academe is the only section of American society that is distinctly divided in its response to the attacks on America."
Regardless of their accuracy, integrity and provenance, some believe that these assaults do have an effect. "There is a cunning behind the battyness," says Gitlin. "It's not just the self-aggrandisement. It's an assault on one of the few social enclaves that the right doesn't control. There is a scattershot bellicosity whether the fortunes of the political right are up or down. They find it useful for fundraising if nothing else."
Others argue that while the individual accounts are troubling, their ultimate effect on academe can be exaggerated. The response to the recent article in the London Review of Books by two prominent American professors arguing that the pro-Israel lobby exerts a dominant and damaging influence on US foreign policy may be a case in point. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer have been accused of being anti-semites and bigots, prompting accusations of a McCarthyite witch-hunt. Shortly after publication, it was announced that one of the authors, Walt, was stepping down from his job as academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the school removed the piece from the front page of its website. But the Kennedy School and Walt's colleagues said that the move had long been planned. Meanwhile, the school explained the website change thus: "The only purpose of that removal was to end public confusion; it was not intended, contrary to some interpretations, to send any signal that the school was also 'distancing' itself from one of its senior professors."
"The University of Chicago and Harvard University have behaved admirably in difficult circumstances. We have had the full support of our respective institutions," Mearsheimer said. So all that is left are the accusations which, given the nature of the original article, not even the authors say surprised them. People have a right to be offended. It is when that offence is either based on flawed information or mobilised into an institutional or legislative clampdown that accusations of a witch-hunt truly come into play.
"Clearly these things are disturbing," says Jon Wiener, professor of history at UCLA. "But I don't think they are happening because students are demanding it. The Bruin Alumni Association [turned out] to be one ambitious, well-funded guy. There are some frightening moments, but then things seem to return to normal."
"It's not even clear this is much other than the ill-considered action of a handful, if that, of individuals," says DuBois.
B ut however many people are involved, the attacks do make a difference, claims Gilroy. "Of course it has an effect," he says. "There's a pre-written script you have to follow and if you chose not to follow it, then there are consequences, so you become very self-conscious about what you say. To call it self-censorship is much too crude. But everybody is looking over their shoulder".
[email]vinylarc@hotmail.com[/email]
thanks!
All regular newspapers, magazines and a few books. The facts are out there, you just need to read a lot.
Here's the bibliography for the original post at the beginning of the thread:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Associated Press, ???Blix: Don???t assume Saddam had weapons of mass destruction,??? 6/6/03
- ???Pentagon Expands Weapons Hunt,??? 5/30/03
Atlantic Monthly, ???Interviews: Weapons of Misperception,??? The Atlantic Monthly Online,
1/13/04
Atlas, James, ???A Classicist???s Legacy: New Empire Builders,??? New York Times, 5/3/03
Auster, Bruce, Mazzetti, Mark and Pound, Edward T., ???Truth And Consequences,??? U.S.
News & World Report, 6/9/03
Bender, Bryan, ???2002 report found no Iraqi arsenal,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/7/03
- ???Bush aides press ???preemptive deterrence??? in Mideast,??? Boston Globe, 4/13/03
Bernstein, Dennis, ???Made in America,??? San Francisco Bay Guardian, 2/25/98
Broad, William, ???Some Skeptics Say Arms Hunt Is Fruitless,??? New York Times, 4/18/03
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David, and Wise, David, ???Path To War,??? Vanity
Fair, May 2004
Chivers, C.J., ???Terrorist manual may link Iraqi group to al Qaeda,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 4/27/03
Chronicle News Services, ???Bush: No evidence of Hussein, 9/11 link,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 9/18/03
- ???CIA Leak Probe: Libby Indicted,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/29/05
- ???Iraq war rationale questioned anew??? San Francisco Chronicle, 5/31/03
- ???Iraqi weapons may be gone, Bush says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/25/03
- ???Panel reveals 10-plane plot, finds no Iraq-al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 6/17/04
Cirincione, Joseph, Mathews, Jessica T., Perkovich, George, with Orton, Alexis, ???WMD
In Iraq Evidence and Implications,??? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004
Clarke, Richard A., Against All Enemies (Free Press: New York, 2004)
Coile, Zachary, ???Ex-aide???s charges spark blame game on 9/11, Iraq,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 3/23/04
Collier, Robert, ???Seeds of leak scandal sown in Italian intelligence agency,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 10/30/05
Conetta, Carl, ???Disarming Iraq: What Did the UN Missions Accomplish???? Project on
Defense Alternatives, 4/25/03
Cowell, Alan, ???Blair Says Illicit Weapons May Never Be Found, but ???We Know??? Hussein
Had Them,??? New York Times, 7/7/04
Cowell, Alan and Marquis, Alan, ???British report assails intelligence, clears Blair,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 7/15/04
Danner, Mark, ???The Secret Way to War,??? New York Review of Books, 6/9/05
Davidson, Keay, ???Intelligence failure, misinterpretation or deceit???? San Francisco
Chronicle, 3/17/04
Dickinson, Tim, ???West Wing Pipe Dreams,??? Mother Jones, 7/28/03
Donnelly, John, ???Vice president makes case for war on Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
8/27/02
Dreyfuss, Robert, ???The Thirty-Year Itch,??? Mother Jones, April 2003
Dreyfuss, Robert and Vest, Jason, ???The Lie Factory,??? Mother Jones, January/February
2004
Drogin, Bob, ???Chalabi allegedly used defectors to dupe West,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
5/23/04
Duffy, Michael, ???Leaking With A Vengeance,??? Time, 10/13/03
- ???One Expert???s Verdict: The CIA Caved Under Pressure,??? Time, 6/14/04
- ???So Much For The WMD,??? Time, 2/9/04
- ???Theater Of War,??? Time, 8/12/02
- ???Weapons Of Mass Disappearance,??? Time, 6/9/03
Eisner, Alan, ???Bush Officials Change Tune on Iraqi Weapons,??? Reuters, 5/14/03
Elliott, Michael and Carney, James, ???First Stop, Iraq,??? Time, 3/31/03
Epstein, Edward, ???Little evidence of banned weapons found so far,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 4/6/03
Evans, Dominic, ???Blair aide doubted level of Iraqi threat,??? Boston Globe, 8/19/03
Fallows, James, ???Bush???s Lost Year,??? The Atlantic Monthly, October 2004
Fang, Bay, ???Northern Iraq???s Other War,??? U.S. News & World Report, 3/24/03
Frankel, Glenn, ???Blair warned of Iraq attack dangers,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/12/03
- ???Top judge absolves Britain???s Tony Blair,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/29/04
Frontline - PBS, ???A Necessary War???? 10/9/03
- ???Analysis 1992: First Draft Of A Grand Strategy,??? January 2003
- ???Analysis: Going It Alone???? January 2003
- ???Analysis: Iraq, The Middle East, and Beyond???? January 2003
- ???Chronology: The Evolution Of The Bush Doctrine,??? January 2003
- ???In Their Own Words: Who Said What When,??? 10/9/03
- ???Interview: Mark Danner,??? January 2003
- ???Introduction,??? 1/22/04
- ???Is This Victory???? 10/9/03
- ???Middle East, Democracy, and Dominoes,??? 10/9/03
- ???Selective Intelligence,??? 10/9/03
- ???Turf Wars and the Future of Iraq,??? 10/9/03
- ???We Want a Government and We Want It Now,??? 10/9/03
Gellman, Barton, ???Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq,??? Washington Post, 5/11/03
Gibbs, Nancy, ???Unfinished Business,??? Time, 4/28/03
Gibbs, Nancy and Ware, Michael, ???Chasing A Mirage,??? Time, 10/6/03
Hanley, Charles, ???Iraqis deny weapons claims made by U.S.??? San Francisco Chronicle,
12/1/03
- ???Powell???s ???thick file??? looking thin,??? Associated Press, 8/9/03
Hayes, Stephen F., ???Al Qaeda link exists ??? despite the fog,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
6/28/04
Healy, Gene, ???Why Hussein Will Not Give Weapons of Mass Destruction to Al Qaeda,???
Cato Institute, 3/5/03
Hersh, Seymour, ???Selective Intelligence,??? New Yorker, 5/12/03
Independent Online, ???Locating Iraq???s weapons not vital, says UK,??? 5/14/03
Jehl, Douglas, ???2002 report doubted Iraq-al Qaeda informer,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
11/6/05
- ???CIA chief admits failings on Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/6/04
- ???CIA doubts hijacker met with Iraq agent,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/9/04
- ???Evidence of intent ??? but no WMD program,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/17/04
- ???Prewar reports said Iraq had no illicit weapons,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
3/6/04
- ???U.S. cuts back crew searching for Iraq weapons,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
1/8/04
Jervis, Robert, ??????Groupthink??? Isn???t the CIA???s Problem,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/11/04
Kemper, Bob, ???Experts review, poke holes in case for war,??? Chicago Tribune, 8/10/03
Kerr, Jennifer C., ???Bush aides twisted findings on Iraq, former envoy says,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 7/7/03
Kessler, Glenn and Priest, Dana, ???Bush advisors defend Iraq intelligence,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 9/29/03
Leiken, Robert S., ???The Truth about the Saddam ??? al Qaeda Connection,??? National
Interest, November 2004
Lindlaw, Scott, ???Bush Planned Iraqi Invasion Pre-9/11, O???Neill Says,??? Associated Press,
1/11/04
Linzer, Dafna, ???Before Iraq war, U.S. ignored work of U.N. arms inspectors, panel says,???
Seattle Times, 4/4/05
- ???No unconventional arms, Iraqi scientists still insist,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
5/4/03
Lockhead, Carolyn, ???Ex-inspector: Intelligen ce to blame for claim on Iraq,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 1/29/04
- ???Illegal Weapons: What if U.S. forces don???t find any???? San Francisco
Chronicle, 4/18/03
Los Angeles Times, ???Panel to probe failure to find banned arms,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 6/2/03
- ???Powell says bad data misled him on Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/3/04
Lynch, Column, ???Blix Downgrades Prewar Assessment of Iraqi Weapons,??? Washington
Post, 6/22/03
Lynch, Column and Graham, Bradley, ???Security Council pushes for return of inspectors,???
San Francisco Chronicle, 6/6/03
Marshall, Joshua Micah, ???Practice to Deceive, Chaos in the Middle East isn???t the Bush-
hawks??? nightmare scenario ??? its their plan,??? Washington Monthly, April 2003
McGeary, Johanna, ???6 Reasons Why So Many Allies Want Bush To Slow Down,??? Time,
2/3/03
- ???Dissecting The Case,??? Time, 2/10/03
- ???Looking Beyond Saddam,??? Time, 3/10/03
- ???What Does Saddam Have,??? Time, 9/16/02
Milbank, Dana, ???Bush Remarks Confirm Shift in Justifying War,??? Washington Post,
6/1/03
- ???War in Iraq Was ???Right Decision,??? Bush Says,??? Washington Post, 6/10/03
Miller, Greg, ???Agent claims push to link Iraq, al Qaeda,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
7/1/04
- ???Cheney claims al Qaeda link to Hussein,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23/04
- ???CIA chief was out of loop on Iraq special briefing,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
3/10/04
- ???CIA experts on Iraq arms shifted to different jobs,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
6/14/03
- ???Senate Panel Looking at Administration Claims,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/11/04
- ???Uranium claim linked to aide at White House,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
7/18/03
Miller, Greg and Drogin, Bob, ???Head of U.S. weapons search quits,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 1/24/04
- ???Iraqi defector duped CIA, report says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/1/05
Miller, Greg and Gerstenzang, James, ???White House releases spy report on Iraq arms,???
San Francisco Chronicle, 7/19/03
Miller, Greg and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Probe into Pentagon???s pro-war team begins,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/05
Miller, Judith, ???Chaotic search for Iraq???s weapons,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/20/03
- ???Ex-counterterrorism chief says Bush politicized response to 9/11,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 3/22/04
- ???Scientist says Iraq destroyed illicit arms,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/21/03
Miller, Judith and Broad, William J., ???Some experts doubt trailers were germ lab,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 6/7/03
Moran, Michael, ???Bush team united Iraq front unravels,??? MSNBC.com, 7/11/03
MSNBC, ???9/11 panel sees no link between Iraq, al-Qaida Commission opens final
hearing before release of report,??? MSNBC.com6/16/04
The Nation, ???Scott Ritter and Seymour Hersh: Iraq Confidential,??? TheNation.com,
10/26/05
Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???WMD claims were ???totally implausible,?????? Guardian, 6/20/05
OnlineNewsHour, ???Cabinet Office Document,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???Confidential And Personal,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???Confidential And Personal: British Embassy Washington,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???Confidential And Personal: PR. 121,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???Secret ??? Strictly Personal,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???Secret And Personal: PM/02/019 Prime Minister,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???Text Of Downing Street Memo,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
- ???War Memos,??? PBS.org, 6/16/05
Pincus, Walter, ???British memo shows pre-invasion doubts,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
6/12/05
- ???Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation,??? Washington Post, 8/8/03
- ???Doubts about Iraq???s arms lost in march to war,??? San Francisco Chronicle,
5/22/05
- ???Intelligence panel sees no intention to lie on Iraq arms,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 12/24/03
- ???No proof of Powell???s arms claims,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/26/03
- ???Officials Defend Iraq Intelligence,??? Washington Post, 6/9/03
- ???Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection,??? Washington Post, 6/22/03
Pincus, Walter and Allen, Mike, ???Tenet had kept claim out of earlier Bush speech,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 7/13/03
Pincus, Walter and Milbank, Dana, ???Iraq destroyed arms, ex-inspector says,??? San
Francisco Chronicle, 1/28/04
Pincus, Walter and Priest, Dana, ???Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits,???
Washington Post, 6/5/03
Pollack, Kenneth M., ???Spies, Lies, And Weapons: What Went Wrong,??? The Atlantic
Monthly, January/February 2004
Prados, John, Hoodwinked: The Documents that Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War (New
Press: New York, London, 2004)
Priest, Dana, ???2 congressional panels echo Kay on Iraqi weaponry,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 1/30/04
- ???House panel skewers intelligence community on Iraq,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 9/28/03
- ???Political pressure ruled out in Iraq analyses,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/31/04
Priest, Dana, and Pincus, Walter, ???Bush Certainty On Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts???
Views,??? Washington Post, 6/7/03
- ???No illegal weapons found in Iraq, U.S. investigator says,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 10/3/03
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Bush???s Brainiest Hawk,??? Time, 1/27/03
- ???Iraq & Al Qaeda Is There A Link???? Time, 9/2/02
Ratnesar, Romesh, Kucera, Joshua, Waller, Serget and Douglas, ???What???s Behind a
Sinister Flirtation,??? Time, 2/17/03
Richter, Paul, ???Iraq-Al Qaeda Link Discounted,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/10/04
Risen, James, ???2-man committee put Iraq in spotlight,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/28/04
- ???C.I.A. Held Back Iraqi Arms Data, Officials Say,??? New York Times, 7/6/04
- ???Ex-arms hunter wants answers on Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/26/04
- ???Spy???s Notes on Iraqi Aims Were Shelved, Suit Says,??? New York Times, 8/1/05
Risen, James and Jehl, Douglas, ???Politics challenged analysis of Iraq, official tells
panels,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/25/03
Sanger, David, ???Bush Says It Will Take Time to Find Iraq???s Banned Arms,??? New York
Times, 5/3/03
- ???White House shrinks its Iraqi nuclear claim,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/8/03
Sanger, David and Risen, James, ???Bush holds to his view of Iraq threat,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 10/4/03
Sanger, David and Shane, Scott, ???Panel Criticizes C.I.A. For Failure On Iraq Weapons,???
New York Times, 3/29/05
Sanger, David and Toner, Robin, ???Bush insists on Iraq-al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 6/18/04
Schlesinger, Robert, ???CIA director takes blame for false Iraq claim,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 7/12/03
- ???US edges closer in search for arms,??? Boston Globe, 4/13/03
Schmitt, Eric, ???Pentagon adviser denies politicizing Iraq intelligence,??? San Francisco
Chronicle, 6/5/03
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4/18/03
Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, ???Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community???s
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York Times, 6/25/04
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Chronicle, 2/4/04
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5/23/03
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5/29/03
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I try to proof read stuff, but stuff slips through. In that last piece I wrote I found 3 or 4 errors already. Oh well, you can understand the main points and that's what's important.
Introduction to Iraq Reports[/b]
In October 2004 the New York Times Magazine reported on an interview with a ???senior advisor??? to President Bush. The article stated:
The aide said that guys like me [i.e. reporters and commentators] were ???in what we call the reality ??? based community,??? which he defined as people who ???believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.??? I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ???That???s not the way the world really works anymore,??? he continued. ???We???re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you???re studying that reality ??? judiciously, as you will ??? we???ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that???s how things will sort out. We???re history???s actors ??? and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
This elitist statement on the ability of the powerful to shape reality is in a nutshell, what happened in the lead-up to the Iraq war.
In March 2003 the Bush administration launched a pre-emptive war against Iraq. The Administration???s attack was based upon 2 inter-related claims: 1) After 9/11 a country like Iraq could not maintain Weapons Of Mass Destruction (WMD) and Nuclear Weapons because 2) They may give them to a terrorist group like Al Qaeda, which had just destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and struck the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Despite early opposition within the Administration, the U.S. eventually went to the U.N. where Resolution 1441 was passed to set up a new set of weapons inspectors for Iraq. According to Bush, Iraq never complied with the Resolution leaving the U.S. with no other choice but to invade. These claims were widely accepted by the U.S. public and media, while being questioned in much of Europe, Asia and Africa, and were part of the Administration???s attempt to shape reality.
However, after the war Bush ran into a major problem, both of his claims proved false. People began questioning the reality that the Administration had spent so much time creating about Iraq and its ???threat??? to the U.S.
The following reports discuss in depth the claims of the Administration, the intelligence it was based upon, the problems with the claims, the mechanizations of the neoconservatives and its allies in the Administration to argue for war, and some analysis.
I started this project in the summer of 2004 out of personal interest and skepticism about the war. It is based upon mainstream press reports, some of the early books on the war, and the Senate Intelligence Committee???s July 2004 report on pre-war intelligence. This is by no means a comprehensive review of all the material available on Iraq. After 2004 I didn???t have the time to keep up with the wealth of material that became available, especially in books. It does try to cover most of the major issues behind the war.
In broad terms the following conclusions can be made:
1) There was little evidence from U.S. intelligence that Iraq was connected to Al Qaeda yet the administration, especially Vice President Cheney, again and again made the connection between the two and implied that Iraq was somehow behind 9/11.
2) The claim that Iraq could give WMD or nuclear devices to any terrorist group, let alone Al Qaeda had major flaws. First, Iraq never developed the technology to make a practical nuclear bomb. Second, Iraq only had battlefield WMD that had to be widely dispersed in mass quantities to be effective. They never had the expertise to develop WMD that could be used by a terrorist group or an individual. Third Iraq had supported Palestinian and anti-Iranian terrorists and never given them WMD. Last, U.S. intelligence thought there was little chance that Iraq would give WMD to a terrorist group.
3) The U.S. and Western Europe all believed that Iraq had some kind of WMD, yet the U.S. was the only country that said it was a threat big enough to warrant an invasion. Even the British, the U.S.???s closest ally, in the secret Downing Street memos said that Iraq was not a real threat, other countries had much larger arsenals, and that the case against Saddam Hussein was weak.
4) The U.S. had no good intelligence about Iraq???s WMD and nuclear program after U.N. inspectors had left the country in December 1998, yet made claims that not only did Iraq possess these weapons, but was attempting to expand their arsenal.
5) Many of these intelligence claims were based upon Iraqi defectors that were questioned again and again about their authenticity, yet their remarks were included in top-level intelligence reports.
6) Much of the U.S. intelligence community involved with Iraq???s weapons programs, especially the CIA, seemed to have an anti-Iraq bias that led to the acceptance of any little rumor that could prove that Iraq had WMD and nuclear weapons. The Senate Intelligence Report on pre-war intelligence summed it up best. They said that U.S. intelligence used questionable sources, exaggerated their claims, stated opinions as fact, and ignored reports that didn???t fit their view of Iraq. When it came to Iraq and terrorism, however, U.S. intelligence had a much more skeptical view.
7) When it came to WMD and nuclear weapons, the Bush administration chose to use the worst-case scenarios and state them as facts. There were also a couple cases where they made claims that were not supported by any legitimate intelligence to argue their case against Iraq. For example, the Administration was told not to use the claim that Iraq had tried to buy yellow cake uranium from Africa in Bush???s January 2003 State of the Union address, but used it anyway because they were desperate to find evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. This was all part of a public relations campaign to scare the public and gain Congressional support for the war.
8) Even though U.S. intelligence was ready and willing to accept almost any claim against Iraq???s WMD and nuclear programs, the pro-war faction in the Administration was not satisfied. It seemed that many of them believed that the CIA was actually against the Administration. Because of this skepticism, Cheney and his advisors continually visited CIA headquarters in Virginia to pressure analysts to come up with conclusions about Iraq that went along with the Administration???s assumptions and claims. It also created its own intelligence unit to find even more evidence against Iraq. This unit???s findings seemed to be based mostly upon neoconservative ideology, and badly supported claims against Iraq that U.S. intelligence had dismissed.
9) Three main groups/individuals within the Bush administration had been looking for a war with Iraq since the beginning of the Bush administration in 2001. The first was the neoconservatives such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Vice President Dick Cheney. At the beginning of Bush???s presidency, his administration was divided in two when it came to Iraq. On one side were Colin Powell and the State Department. They wanted to maintain the old policy of containing Iraq and argued for tougher, ???smart??? sanctions using the U.N. and other coalitions and organizations. The neoconservatives, Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted to attack Iraq if not have an outright war. After 9/11 the neoconservatives and company won the bureaucratic battle within the administration. According to the British Downing Street memos, by the summer of 2002 Bush had decided on war while publicly claiming that they were still exploring all avenues to deal with the Iraq crisis, which it itself had created.
Major Findings:[/b]
A. When the Bush administration first started it did not take Al Qaeda seriously. Rather members of the Defense Department thought that Iraq was the real threat to the U.S.
B. When 9/11 happened the Bush and others in the administration automatically believed that Iraq was behind it.
C. The administration continually made claims of Al Qaeda-Iraqi links when they were either questioned or even after they had been told there was no evidence. Three specific claims that proved to be not supported were that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in April 2001, and that Iraq gave training to Al Qaeda operatives. Despite continued reports that these incidents did not happen, some in the administration continued to repeat them.
Early Bush Administration[/b]
When the Bush administration first started it did not take Al Qaeda seriously.
In April 2001, Richard Clarke, chief of Counterterrorism gave his 1st briefing to the new administration. He said that Al Qaeda was the number one threat to the U.S. and outlined plans to deal with it. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told Clarke, "Well, I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden." Clarke told Wolfowitz, "I'm unaware of any Iraqi-sponsored terrorism directed against the United States, Paul, since 1993." Wolfowitz argued that Iraq sponsored terrorism was the real threat since it was the main state supporter in the world. Wolfowitz went on to claim that Iraq was behind Al Qaeda???s terrorism. This became the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney???s position when 9/11 happened, that Iraq was the real threat to the U.S.
Claim 1: Iraq Was Behind 9/11[/b]
When 9/11 happened, Bush and the neoconservatives automatically assumed that Iraq was behind it, but no links were found. After the war the administration finally began backing away from this claim, although Cheney still supported it.
Trying to tie Iraq to 9/11 happened within hours of the attack. According to CBS News within 5 hours of 9/11 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld demanded "The best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein]." Rumsfeld told a Pentagon lawyer to have Wolfowitz look into connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda the day of 9/11, and suggested that the U.S. attack Iraq as well as Al Qaeda.
On 9/12/01 a group of 7 top officials in the Department of Defense were flown back to U.S. from Europe or the Middle East to coordinate a response to 9/11. The group included Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Undersecretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia Policy William Luti. They said that the U.S. had to look into state sponsors of terrorism like Iraq.
The same day Richard Clarke said that Bush and neoconservatives in the administration asked about a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Clarke said, "I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection." Clarke told them, "There's just no connection. There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda." Bush later pulled Clarke over during a break in a National Security Council meeting 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. The report was rejected by either National Security Advisor Rice or her deputy Stephan Hadley, and told "Wrong answer ??? Do it again." 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 [9/11] to promote their agenda about Iraq."
That began immediately on 9/13/01 when Wolfowitz started asking if Iraq was involved in 9/11 in conference calls with officials. He also began lobbying Cheney on this issue. On 9/15/01 Bush held a national security meeting at Camp David to discuss responses to 9/11. 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. He had no evidence to support his claim it was pure speculation. Powell argued that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Bush seemed to be swayed by Wolfowitz???s arguent when on 9/17/01 during a National Security Council meeting at the White House Bush said that he believed Iraq was involved with 9/11 but he didn???t have the evidence to strike Saddam yet.
There was still no evidence to support this claim however. On 9/21/01 during Bush???s Daily Brief he was told by U.S. intelligence that they had no evidence linking Iraq with 9/11 and that there was little evidence of cooperation between the two because Iraq considered Al Qaeda a threat to the government. The briefing was prepared at the request of Bush who wanted the latest information about Iraq???s involvement in 9/11.
Members of the administration who claimed Iraq was behind 9/11 had no evidence for their claims. Rather it was a manifestation of their anti-Iraq bias that they immediately jumped to this conclusion.
Claim 2: 9/11 Hijacker Mohammad Atta Met With Iraqi Intelligence Before Attack[/b]
After 9/11 some administration officials jumped on the claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, Czech Republic in the Spring of 2001. The report originally came from Czech intelligence with follow up reports by the Czech Prime Minster and the Czech Interior Minister. The claim was not believed by the Czech President Havel or U.S. intelligence. The CIA actually had a credit card receipt for a car rental by Atta in Florida the day one of the alleged meetings with Iraqi intelligence happened in Prague. Despite this, administration officials continued to make this claim all the way to June 2004.
In the Fall of 2001 White House officials began an investigation into whether Mohammad Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence based upon a report from Czech intelligence. Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress (INC) promoted the story and even provided two Iraqi defectors that claimed the 9/11 hijackers had been trained in Iraq in October 2001. The Claim proved to be false. The CIA and FBI also issued reports that said the meeting did not happen because Atta was in Florida during the alleged meetings.
The claim went public in October 2001 when former CIA chief Woolsey wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the Atta-Iraq meeting. This was followed by another editorial by columnist William Safire in the New York Times. Safire wrote that the Atta meeting was an ???undisputed fact connecting Iraq???s Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks.???
In November and December 2001the administration seemed to gain more support for this claim when the Czech Prime Minister and Interior Minister visited the U.S. and gave more information on the alleged meeting. The Interior Minister said that an Arab student saw Atta with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. The problem with the student was that he didn???t make the report until after 9/11 and that he was considered an unreliable intelligence source. Further investigation found that the Iraqi intelligence official used a driver that resembled Atta and thus could have led to a case of mistaken identity. The CIA and FBI continued to say that the meeting never happened.
Armed with the reports by Czech officials however, Cheney said on TV in November and December 2001 that Atta had met with Ir aqi intelligence.
In 2002 a State Department report said there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11 but that the Atta claim was under investigation. Wolfowitz, during a meeting with the British Ambassador to the U.S. on 3/17/02 asked whether the British had any info on the Prague meeting, but they didn???t. Internal British documents said that the Administration???s efforts to find Al Qaeda-Iraq links were ???unconvincing??? and lacked ???credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL [bin Laden] and Al Qaida.???
In July 2002 the Defense Department???s Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group included the Atta claim in its briefings to administration officials. On 8/17/02 the Group gave its presentation to CIA Chief George Tenent. Tenet agreed to create a ???red team??? with members of the Group and CIA and DIA officials to review intelligence on Iraq and terrorism. On 8/20/02 Group members argued for including the Atta meeting into an intelligence report, but the CIA and DIA analysts rejected it as unsubstantiated.
In September 2002 administration officials continued to put pressure on intelligence officials to support its belief in the Atta meeting when Wolfowitz met with FBI Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Pat D???Amuro. D???Amuro said that the Spring 2001 meeting didn???t happen. Wolfowitz pressured him to at least acknowledge that the meeting was possible. D???Amuro didn???t agree.
In January 2003 Bush had agreed to go to the U.N. and ask for a new resolution on Iraq. In that month and February Cheney, his Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, and sometimes Rice???s Deputy Stephen Hadley began to make a series of visits to the CIA headquarters in Virginia to go over intelligence on Iraq that would be included in Powell???s speech that was to be given to the U.N. They lobbied to include the Atta meeting, but Powell and his aides rejected it as unreliable.
Despite the effort, the intelligence community still did not believe in the meeting. In February 2003 the CIA issued a report on Iraq and terrorism saying the Atta meeting never took place.
After the war in July 2003 U.S. forces captured the Iraqi intelligence officer that allegedly met with Atta. He denied the meeting ever took place.
By September of 2003 administration officials publicly changed their views by saying that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a long-standing relationship, but that Iraq was not involved in 9/11. The only official to not stick to the administration???s line was Cheney who as late as June 2004 continued to say that the Atta meeting happened when interviewed on TV. A few days later the preliminary report of the 9/11 Commission was released and it said that the Atta meeting did not take place.
Again, the administration was told again and again by U.S. intelligence that the Atta meeting did not happen but continued to make the claim. The neoconservatives continue to believe in the meeting to this day saying that U.S. intelligence never proved that the meeting didn???t happen, therefore they can say that it did.
Claim 3: Relationship Between Iraq and Al Qaeda: Long Standing or Non-Existent?[/b]
Still fixated about the claim that Iraq was behind 9/11, the Bush administration began to claim that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a long-standing relationship beginning in the 1990s, although it was not supported by any in the intelligence community.
From 1994 and 1995 Iraq and Al Qaeda had several meetings. There were at least 3 in Sudan when Al Qaeda was first getting started in 1994 and 1995. Sudan was the middleman as it was hosting Al Qaeda and had close ties with Iraq. A top Iraqi intelligence officer met with Bin Laden during the third meeting. They met because they were both opposed to Saudi Arabia. After these meetings Iraq agreed to rebroadcast an anti-Saudi speech that bin Laden had made, but Bin Laden???s request that Iraq help with training camps and buying weapons was ignored. There are also reports that Iraqi officials may have met with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1996, but they did not result in any cooperation. In 1993 the CIA issued a report that Iraq and Al Qaeda had signed a non-aggression pact as well, but the claim was never proven.
During the Clinton administration there were conflicting reports of links between Iraq and al Qaeda. A 1998 review of Iraq called for the by National Security Council found no relationship with Iraq. In August 1998 however, Clinton bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan after Al Qaeda attacked 2 American embassies in Africa and claimed that the plans were linked to Iraq???s WMD program. They alleged that there were phone conversations between the plant owned by Al Qaeda and the head of Iraq???s WMD program. Clinton officials still claim that this link exists but there is no hard intelligence to prove it.
U.S. intelligence, the British, and post-war U.S. commissions all believed that these early meetings led to no cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Neoconservatives in the Defense Department and Vice President Cheney???s office however claimed that this was the beginning of a long-standing relationship between the two in which the two sides cooperated on terrorism, training, and WMD.
Richard Clarke said that there was no relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He let the administration know this during his first briefing on terrorism in April 2001. He repeated it to them on 9/12/01, the day after the 9/11 attacks. A few days later on 9/21/01 during the President???s Daily Brief U.S. intelligence told Bush that there was little evidence of any collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. In fact, U.S. intelligence told Bush that Iraq considered Al Qaeda a threat to his government because of its radical Islamist ideology. According to the briefing, Saddam had thought about infiltrating Al Qaeda to keep tabs on its activities. In April, when questioned by Wolfowitz about Iraq-Al Qaeda connections he said that Iraq had not taken part in any anti-Western terrorism since 1993 when it tried to assassinate former President Bush.
From 2001 to 2003 U.S. intelligence issued 9 reports on terrorism and Iraq, sometimes at the direct request of administration officials such as Wolfowitz. None of these reports found an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection.
9/3/02 U.S. intelligence interrogated two captured Al Qaeda operatives including Al Qaeda???s chief of operations. He said that bin Laden opposed cooperation with Iraq.
Unhappy with this intelligence, neoconservatives in the Defense Department created its on intelligence group called the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group. Rumsfeld believed that the CIA was purposefully trying to discredit a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, so he agreed to the formation of the Policy Group. Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith created the Policy Group in October 2001 in the Pentagon. The first head of the Group was David Wurmer, former head of the American Enterprise Institute???s Middle East studies department. Wurmer was a noted neoconservatives who had argued for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The other member of the group was journalist Michael Maloof, another neoconservative. Neither had any formal training in telligence work. By January 2000 both Wurmer and Maloof had left and were replaced by Professor Abraham Shulsky another neoconservatives, and Chris Carney, a reserve Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer and Political Science Professor at Penn State. Undersecretary of Defense for Near East and South Asian Policy William Luti oversaw the Group???s activities.
Originally the Group was suppose to go through CIA and DIA reports to find links between Iraq and terrorism that the established intelligence agencies might have overlooked. Eventually it began to receive raw intelligence directly from Iraqi exiles, mostly supplied by Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who was a favored group by neoconservatives in the Defense Department. This was illegal.
Beginning o n 7/22/02 the Policy Group???s major findings were presented to leading members of the administration including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, CIA Chief George Tenet, CIA operatives, and Secretary of State Colin Powell and his aides. One of the Group???s major claims was that Iraq and Al Qaeda had up to 50 meetings after the original ones in 1994, 1995 and 1996 proving that there was a long-standing relationship. Powell???s office and the intelligence community rejected this claim, while the Vice President and Defense Department embraced it.
In November 2005 the Defense Department began an internal investigation into the Policy Group for ???conduct[ing] unauthorized, unlawful or inappropriate intelligence activities.???
The claim of long-standing cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda received its first public hearing on 8/17/02 when the Policy Group???s findings were leaked to the neoconservative Weekly Standard who wrote a piece about it. By September, there was a flurry of news reports on these alleged ties, all coming from within the administration and its neoconservatives allies. On 9/25/02 Bush told reporters, ???You can???t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror,??? and on 10/7/02 in a foreign policy speech to Cincinnati he said Al Qaeda and Iraq had ???high-level contacts that go back a decade.??? Bush followed that on 10/14/02 when he gave a speech saying Al Qaeda was using Iraq as a ???forward army??? in a new war of terrorism against the U.S. Powell also used the claim in his 2/5/03 speech to the U.N.
Even after the invasion and no Al Qaeda operatives had been found in Iraq, Bush administration officials continued to claim Iraq-Al Qaeda ties. In September 2003 Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice all went on TV and repeated it. As late as June 2004 Cheney was still making these remarks. When asked how he could continue to make these claims after the 9/11 Commission had found no such cooperation, Cheney replied that he had intelligence the 9/11 Commission didn???t.
The charge that Iraq-Al Qaeda had a long-standing relationship was the first of many unsupported claims the administration made.
Claim 4: Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing[/b]
As one piece of evidence of this long-standing relationship, Paul Wolfowitz argued that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. There was no intelligence to support his belief and his own investigation found no evidence, but he continued to make the claim.
Paul Wolfowitz had read a book by Laurie Mylroie, a former Harvard professor and American Enterprise Institute fellow that theorized that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. After the bombing the CIA and FBI had found no such connection.
In April 2001 when Richard Clarke gave his first briefing to the administration on terrorism, Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clarke replied that it was not true.
Wolfowitz repeated this claim on 9/13/01 when administration officials were discussing a response to the 9/11 attack. Wolfowitz sent former CIA chief under Clinton James Woolsey to Europe to investigate the claim. Woolsey found nothing. At the same time Wolfowitz asked the DIA to look into the book???s theory. The DIA reported that Islamists, not Iraq was behind the bombing. Wolfowitz told them they had to prove that the book was true. This never happened.
Despite this lack of evidence Wolfowitz continued to believe in the book???s theory. On 3/17/02 Wolfowitz met with British Ambassador to the U.S. Christopher Meyer and told him that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing, and on 3/22/04 Wolfowitz???s spokesman told the press that Abdul Rachim Yasir, a member of the 1993 bombing was protected in Iraq.
On 1/22/04 Cheney repeated this new Wolfowitz???s claim to NPR when he said a member of the 1993 bombing was on the Iraqi payroll.
As late as November 2004 in an interview with the New Yorker Wolfowitz was still claiming that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing
This was the second and less well-known claim by administration officials of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Despite Wolfowitz finding no evidence he stuck to this claim.
Claim 5: Iraq gave bomb, poison and WMD training to Al Qaeda, and harbored its fighters.[/b]
As part of the claim that Iraq and a long-standing relationship with Al Qaeda, the administration began making allegations that Al Qaeda not only received training from Iraq, but that Al Qaeda operatives were receiving safe-haven within the country. It was true that there were Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq, but the intelligence never came up with evidence that they were supported by Iraq, yet the administration continued to make this claim.
The earliest report of training came in February 2002 when the CIA interrogated an Al Qaeda operative who had been captured in Pakistan. He said that Iraq gave Al Qaeda training in bomb and poison use. The DIA felt that he was lying and went on to speculate whether Iraq would ever cooperate with Iraq because of their various differences. This report was probably the basis for the Defense Department???s Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group to include a claim that Iraq had given Al Qaeda training with WMD in its presentation.
8/21/02 U.S. intelligence began investigation connections between Ansar Al Islam, an anti-Kurdish Islamist group in northern Iraq, Al Qaeda, and Iraq. They found evidence that Ansar sent fighters to Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan from 1999-2000, and that after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan Al Qaeda fighters fled to Ansar camps in northern Iraq. Rumsfeld said publicly that Ansar couldn???t be taking in Al Qaeda operatives without the Iraqi government knowing and supporting it.
By September 2002 the CIA and the administration said that Ansar Al Islam was part of Al Qaeda. A CIA report said that Al Qaeda/Ansar was trying to acquire WMD from Iraq. Another intelligence report said that Al Qaeda fighters had gone to northern Iraq to join Ansar after the Afghanistan invasion, but that they were ???not official guests of the Iraq government.??? Beginning late September 2002 the administration claimed that this was an example of Iraq-Al Qaeda cooperation.
This was followed by a flurry of reports in the press about alleged Iraq-Al Qaeda ties. William Safire said that Ansar Al Islam was secretly controlled by Iraq, that Iraq and Al Qaeda were planning assassinations, and that Iraq was giving WMD to Ansar. The Iraqi National Congress came up with an Iraqi defector that claimed Saddam???s son controlled a force of 1,200 Al Qaeda commandos. This was not believed by U.S. intelligence and after the war it turned out that the ???commandos??? were Saddam???s Fedayeen. Neoconservatives claimed that bin Laden???s deputy met with Saddam in 1992, but at that time this deputy was not a member of Al Qaeda however. The CIA told the media that there was little evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda were connected, and that most of the claims came from Iraqi exiles and neoconservatives who wanted a war.
9/3/02 U.S. intelligence interrogated an Al Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan who claimed that Iraq gave Al Qaeda members weapons training in December 2000. The DIA thought that he was lying, but the report was still used in intelligence reports such as the 10/1/02 National Intelligence Estimate, which did note the report had not been confirmed.
In October the administration added the claim that Iraq was harboring Abu Zarqawi who they claimed was an Al Qaeda leader. This was first aired in a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati. At the same time the intelligence community said that Zarqawi was not a member of Al Qaeda, but rather led his own terrorist organization that had occasionally cooperated with bin Laden. A January 2003 CIA report found that Zarqawi had a good relationship with Iraq, but that he did not constitute a link with Al Qaeda. It also found that many of the claims of Iraq training Al Qaeda operatives proved to be false. It did say that 100-200 Al Qaeda fighters had found haven with Ansar Al Islam in northern Iraq since the Fall of 2001, and that Iraq knew and allowed it. A 2/5/03 CIA report found another claim of Iraq giving WMD training to Al Qaeda was false.
Despite all the conflicting reports Powell included many of them in his 2/5/03 speech to the U.N. including claims that Iraq had given training to Al Qaeda, that Zarqawi headed an Al Qaeda cell in Iraq, and that Ansar Al Islam was proof that Iraq and Al Qaeda were connected.
After the war on 4/27/03 U.S. found proof that Ansar Al Islam had received training and fighters from Al Qaeda. However there was no proof that it was supported by Iraq.
Again, Cheney was the only administration official who stuck with the claims after they had been widely accepted to be false. On 10/10/03 Cheney told the Heritage Foundation for example, that Iraq had given Al Qaeda training in poisons, bombs and WMD.
In 2004 the captured Al Qaeda operative who claimed that Iraq had given Al Qaeda bomb and poison training recanted his statement. The CIA withdrew all of their reports based upon this captive.
In the end, the Administration proved to be partly correct in that Ansar Al Islam had received support from Al Qaeda. In its other claims that both Ansar and Al Qaeda received training from Iraq proved to be false.
Major Findings:[/b]
A. The groups Iraq had contacts were with were mostly Palestinians that had not been active since the early 1990s.
B. Intelligence reports said that Iraq wouldn't use terrorist groups because it would probably lead to a U.S. attack.
C. If Iraq wanted to carry out terrorist attacks it would use its own intelligence service, not a terrorist group.
One of the administrations??? major claims for war with Iraq was that it was a state sponsor of terrorism. Combined with Iraq???s WMD arsenal, the administration claimed that Iraq???s government could not stand because it might give some of these weapons to terrorists that would attack the U.S. Itw as true that Iraq supported terrorists, but these were mostly Palestinians and attacks on Iraqi exiles. Not only that but several intelligence reports said that Iraq would not conduct terrorist attacks because it would likely lead to a U.S. attack. Not only that, intelligence also said that if Iraq really wanted to attack the U.S. it would use its own intelligence service rather than use a third party terrorist organization. Despite that, the administration said that any connection with terrorism made Iraq a threat to the U.S.
April 2001, Richard Clarke, head of Counterterrorism, gave his first briefing on terrorism to the Bush administration at a deputies meeting. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense claimed that Iraq was the main state sponsor of terrorism in the world and that Saddam, not Al Qaeda should be the center of discussion. Clarke told him, ???I'm unaware of any Iraqi-sponsored terrorism directed against the United States, Paul, since 1993." According to Clark, Wolfowitz went on to say, "He [bin Laden] 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 World Trade Center bombing although the intelligence community did not believe this and Wolfowitz???s own investigation found no evidence either. Clarke said that Al Qaeda, not Iraq was the greatest terrorist threat to the U.S.
That same month the State Department???s annual report on terrorism said that Iraq supported terrorism, but it was mostly against Iraqi exiles. Iraq had not attempted any anti-Western terrorism since 1993 when it plotted to assassinate ex-President Bush.
The intelligence community put out 3 major reports on Iraq's links with terrorism during the Bush administration.
The first was given on 9/19/02 in a CIA report called "Iraqi Support for Terrorism" It was given to 12 senior administration officials. It said that Iraq would not conduct terrorist attacks out of fear that it could be traced back to Iraq and lead to a U.S. attack.
The 10/1/02 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq said the same thing. Iraq would not use terrorist attacks because it would lead to a war with the U.S. Iraq would only use terrorist attacks if it thought it would stop a U.S. invasion. The NIE also said that Saddam kept tight control over WMDs and would probably use them on the battlefield when "He perceived he irretrievably had lost control of the military and security situation."
The last major report was a revised version of the 9/19/02 report given in January 2003 "Iraqi Support for Terrorism" which was given to Congress. It said that Iraq had supported and provided safe haven to various terrorist groups, mostly Palestinians. Those groups were mostly older ones that had been inactive since the early 1990s. Iraq tried to reach out to newer Palestinian groups, but was unsuccessful. Iraq did give millions to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers however. Iraq also supported an anti-Iranian group that the U.S. listed as a terrorist group. The report said that if Iraq was going to carry out any terrorist attacks it would use its own intelligence service, which it had done in the past rather than rely on a terrorist group.
Overall, the argument that Iraq had ties to terrorists was weak. The two Palestinian terrorist groups that were in Iraq had not be active for almost 10 years, plus the intelligence said that Iraq would probably not use terrorists anyways. The opinion that Iraq would use its own intelligence service if pushed also came true as can be seen in the current insurgency.
Major Findings:[/b]
A) In 1995 the head of Iraq???s WMD program Hussein Kamal defected to Jordan. He said that Iraq had destroyed all of its WMD stockpiles and dismantled most of the equipment. The U.S. did not believe him, although they did believe it when he said that Iraq had an elaborate deception campaign to keep the U.N. inspectors from finding the WMD equipment.
B) After U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, U.S. intelligence was basically blind about activities within Iraq.
C) 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.
D) 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. The administration had been warned not to use the Niger claim after a certain period because there were too many questions about it, but Bush used it anyways in his State of the Union speech.
E) The administration and intelligence community made two claims about Iraq???s WMD program that proved to be false: 1) Iraq had mobile WMD labs, and 2) Iraq had developed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to deliver WMD. Theres were complete exaggeration.
F) 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.
G) The Senate Intelligence Committee???s report on pre-war intelligence from July, 2004 basically summed up the problems by saying the intelligence community used questionable sources, exaggerated their claims, stated opinions as fact, ignored reports that didn???t fit their view of Iraq, etc. The 2005 Robb-Silberman Commission on U.S. intelligence on WMD found similar faults with U.S. intelligence. Almost every single claim U.S. intelligence made about Iraq???s WMD was crap, plain and simple. This was 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]
Deputy Secretary of Defense 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. The Bush administration was biased in their claims about Iraq and Al Qaeda, but when it came to WMD, there was 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 bias against Iraq???s WMD and nuclear programs. 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 and the March 2005 Robb-Silberman report on U.S. intelligence on WMD as well.
One problem with the Administration???s 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. What they did believe was when Kamal said that Iraq had tried to hide its WMD programs from U.N. inspectors. President Bush even repeated this claim in one of his speeches. 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, 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.
Colin Powell and the State Department countered the neoconservatives. On 2/24/01 Powell told a press conference in Egypt that Iraq had not developed any WMD because sanctions were working. Iraq "Has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors,??? said Powell.
Since the war has ended and no WMD were ever found, the Administration has come to admit that their claims were wrong. However, in an attempt to justify the war, Bush has repeatedly argued that the U.S. and its allies all believed that Iraq had WMD. That???s true, but the U.S. was the only country to claim that this threat was large enough to constitute a pre-emptive war. The Britis h, the U.S.???s closest ally, in s secret Downing Street memo from July 23, 2002 stated that, ???The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.??? More importantly, ???The case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.??? This goes to the heart of the argument over the war. Did the U.S. see a new threat in Iraq after 9/11 or did they want a war because of long standing beliefs of a major group (the neoconservatives, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney) within the administration? It would seem the latter is true.
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.??? Vice President 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.??? President 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.??? President Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.??? President Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???We don???t know whether or not he has a nuclear weapon.??? President Bush, Crawford, TX, 12/31/02
???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.??? Secretary of State Powell, U.N. Speech, 2/5/03
One of the major reasons why the Bush administration argued for war against Iraq was that it had restarted its nuclear program. Several administration officials made the famous claim that the U.S. could not wait for Iraq to detonate a nuclear ???mushroom cloud.??? According to the administration, Iraq could build a bomb within a year, and they could either blackmail the U.S. with it or pass a nuclear device to a terrorist group. This was using the worst-case scenarios to scare the public into supporting the war. Not only that, but the intelligence on Iraq???s nuclear program was pure speculation, based on no solid facts. Iraq also never developed plans for a usable nuclear bomb, let alone, one small enough to pass on to a terrorist group. These specifics of course were ignored by the administration.
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 Bush took over the administration and the intelligence community began to change its opinion from claiming that Iraq???s nuclear program was inactive to that Iraq was attempting to build a nuclear bomb and could have one within a year. Several administration officials made the famous comment that the U.S. did not want to wait to see a nuclear ???mushroom cloud??? caused by Iraq.
This change in opinion started off slowly in the beginning of 2001 when administration officials and U.S. intelligence began to claim that Iraq was working on parts of its nuclear program. One of the early Bush administration statements came 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 nuclear programs, and that it was trying to hide them. In the Fall of 2001 the Iraqi National Congress (INC) provided a defector to the U.S. named Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri. Haideri said that Iraq had 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.
Claims about Iraq renewing its nuclear program were met by skepticism in the Department of Energy. In an 8/17/01 report, the Department said that it could not determine whether Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. That was followed up by a December 2001 National Intelligence Estimate on foreign missile development that said Iraq was probably working on enriching uranium, but that it had not restarted its nuclear weapons program.
Beginning in 2002 the claims on a renewed program quickly accelerated. These claims were not based no new intelligence, but guess work by analysts. For example, in March 2002 the CIA claimed that Iraq had restarted its centrifuge program and could have a nuclear weapon by ???mid-to-late decade.??? More bad intelligence work was shown in April 2002 when there was a human intelligence report that said Iraq had a new building for its atomic agency. The new building was to replace the old one that had been bombed by the U.S. The report also said that a new PhD school was to be built offering studies in nuclear energy. Based on this report the CIA claimed that Iraq was expanding its nuclear weapons program.
The administration used these new intelligence reports in its propaganda campaign to gain support for the war. On 8/26/02 Vice President Cheney gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville, TN where he said, "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." In September 2002 Tony Blair and Bush gave a press conference where they said that Iraq was working on its nuclear program, and Vice President Cheney claimed twice that there was ???irrefutable evidence??? that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. 9/6/02 the administration told press that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had found evidence that Iraq was refurbishing its nuclear industry, which proved that it was renewing its nuclear weapons program. The IAEA complained that the White House had misrepresented its report because the work on Iraq???s nuclear industry was not for its nuclear weapons program. Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 9/10/02 that Iraq had plans for 2 nuclear bombs. He didn???t mention that these two bombs were impractical because they were too heavy for the Iraqis to use. Rumsfeld also said that the only thin g Iraq needed for those bombs was fissile material, which it was trying to produce domestically or buy overseas. 9/18/02 the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Meyers told the House Intelligence Committee that Iraq was a threat because of its nuclear program. The next day, 9/19/02 Rumsfeld again told the Committee that Iraq was looking to build a nuclear bomb, and Powell told that House International Relations Committee that Iraq was working on its nuclear weapons.
At the same time that this propaganda campaign was moving ahead, there were several reports that contradicted intelligence and White House claims about Iraq???s nuclear program. In September 2002 the CIA received information that Iraq???s nuclear program had been stalled since the Gulf War. 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." A foreign government also 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. All three of these reports were ignored by the CIA and not included in two major intelligence reports on Iraq???s WMD released that month, one by the CIA and the other by the DIA that claimed Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program.
During Bush???s 9/12/02 speech to the U.N. calling for new weapons inspectors he claimed that Iraq was hiding its nuclear program. He said that Iraq could build a bomb within a year if it could acquire the fissile material necessary. The same day the White House Information Group, which coordinate the public relations campaign on Iraq, released a document, ???A Decade of Deception and Defiance??? that claimed Iraq was on a worldwide hunt for material to build an atomic bomb. 9/14/02 Bush repeated his claims during his weekly radio address. Claims were all repeated in an October 2002 CIA handbook meant for use by government officials. Before the Gulf War Iraq had 7,000 scientists and engineers along with 20,000 workers on its nuclear weapons program. 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. The CIA couldn???t identify any of the scientists nor tell what Saddam said to them or if it even had to deal with building weapons.
9/16/02 Time magazine ran an article that showed the differing views within the intelligence community on Iraq???s nuclear program. An intelligence source said that Iraq had been working on centrifuges for its nuclear weapons before the Gulf War with German help. Since then the centrifuges had been dismantled and hidden, and even if they were rebuilt Iraq couldn???t use them without foreign help, and even then it would take up to five years for them to produce enough uranium for a bomb. The article also said that Iraq didn???t have the technology to make a nuclear bomb small enough to give to terrorists.
10/1/02 the classified 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was released. It was supposed to be the definitive intelligence document on Iraq. It was released at the request of Congress who was debating a war resolution. Since it was a secret document members of Congress had to read it in a secure vault. Very few members took the time to go there. 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.
One of the major claims of the NIE was that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The U.S. found evidence that Iraq was buying dual use equipment that could be used for 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.
The State Department???s intelligence service (INR) was one of the few that dissented against the view that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. It said, "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 integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons."
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 dual-use materials were related to Iraq's nuclear program.
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 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. One of its claims was that Iraq could have a nuclear weapon within the decade and that it was working on new facilities. After the war the Senate Intelligence Committee would find the claim of new facilities to be an exaggeration. The White Paper said it would only take a few thousand centrifuges in one year to produce the uranium necessary for a couple nuclear weapons. The problem with this claim was that the CIA had only found 550 centrifuges in all of Iraq before the first Gulf War and Iraq never had enough power to run all of them anyway. The White Paper also listed an Iraqi facility as a uranium enrichment plant on a map. A CIA report from 1991 said that the uranium equipment had never even been installed there, in 2002 the British said the U.N. inspectors had dismantled the site after the Gulf War anyways, and that the plant never had anything to do with nuclear weapons. There was another site listed as a nuclear weapons facility, but the DIA claimed that it was a chemical plant, and a third alleged site had been dismantled in 1995. The main nuclear weapons facility listed on the map had so little activity that by 2002 U.N. inspectors did not think it was a high priority anymore. When U.N. inspectors were able to go to these sites in December 2002 they found nothing.
10/7/02 in a speech in Cincinnati Bush said that the U.S. didn???t know whether Iraq could build a nuclear bomb, but that was the problem. Said that if Iraq was able to attain a small amount of uranium it could have a nuclear bomb within a year. U.S. therefore couldn???t wait for a ???mushroom cloud.??? He repeated claims that Iraq had rebuilt buildings for nuclear weapons and that Saddam had met with his nuclear scientists, even though there was no evidence that the rebuilt buildings were being used for weapons or even what Saddam had discussed with the scientists or whether they worked on weapons.
12/19/02 Rumsfeld again told Congress that Iraq had worked on 2 nuclear bomb plans in the past. Bush increased the claims when he said on 12/31/02 that Iraq had been close to getting nuclear weapons before and now the U.S. was not sure if it did not have one already.
2/11/03 Tenet told Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq had a secret procurement program to buy materials for its nuclear program overseas.
3/7/03 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief said that after its inspections of Iraq it had found no evidence of a renewed weapons program. That was followed on 3/10/03 by an Institute for Science and International Security report asking whether administration had "deliberately misled the public and other governments in playing a 'nuclear card' that it knew would strengthen public support for war."
3/14/03 in one of the last statements before the U.S. goes to war, Cheney told Meet The Press that it was only a matter of time before Iraq got a nuclear bomb.
Niger Yellow Cake Uranium Claim[/b]
???Should this regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.??? President 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 nuclear weapon in less than a year." President 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.??? President 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 judgment of the intelligence community of the United States, and they had a high degree of confidence in it." Vice President Cheney on Meet The Press after the war on 9/14/03
One of the two major foundations for the U.S. claim that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program and could have a bomb within a year was the claim that Iraq had tried to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger beginning in 1999. This turned out to be based upon forged documents turned over to the U.S. by Italy. Despite the major questions about its authenticity, the U.S. intelligence community first grew to accept it, then move away from the claim. The Bush administration however, was looking so hard for evidence of Iraq???s nuclear program that they went public with the Niger claim in Bush???s State of the Union address in January 2003 despite the intelligence services telling them not to. After the war ended the administration and CIA played a blame game about how the claim ended up in Bush???s speech. An even larger controversy emerged as the White House tried to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson who went public with his criticism of the Niger case by exposing his wife as a CIA analyst. Cheney???s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby has been indicted over this. The Niger story became a perfect example of the administration exaggerating the threat about Iraq with no solid evidence, and then trying to cover it up and later attacking its critics for exposing them.
The Niger claim began in February 1999 when 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, and the CIA questioned the veracity of the report. When Bush came into office the Italians tried to pass the information directly to the White House. The head of Italian intelligence met with a neoconservative Michael Ledeen, who passed the yellow cake story on to Rice???s Deputy National Security Advisor Stephan Hadley.
The CIA issued its first report on the Niger claim on 10/11/01 when they outlined the documents they received. The intelligence community was divided about whether the claim was true or not, but all noted that it was not corroborated.
The administration first heard about the claim on 2/12/02 when Cheney read a DIA report about the Niger deal and asked the CIA for more info. The CIA told him that it lacked details and further proof.
Because of Cheney???s inquiry the CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate the claim in February 2002. Wilson???s wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA analyst, suggested his name. Wilson found no evidence of the deal, but did mention Iraq contacting a Niger business about buying uranium in 1999. Nothing happened though. U.S. intelligence was divided about whether Wilson???s report proved or disproved the Niger story.
7/22/02 The Department of Energy released a report on Niger saying that it was one of three pieces of evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. It did note that the uranium had never been delivered and that the quantity was far larger than Iraq actually needed but used it as evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from overseas. This was the first time the intelligence community used the Niger claim as part of its larger argument that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program.
Beginning in September 2002 the administration tried to use the Niger claim in various speeches, but the CIA always told them to remove it because it was not proven. This was also the month that the Niger claim went public when England released a White Paper on Iraq and Prime Minister Tony Blair made a speech about it saying that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa. The CIA told the British not to use the claim because it was not proven, but England used it anyway. The British had received the same documents as the U.S. had from Italian intelligence.
9/26/02 Secretary of State Powell made the first official administration statement on the Niger deal when he mentioned it in congressional testimony.
10/1/02 the Niger claim was included in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq as proof that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program. It said that it did not know whether the deal ever went through, but it was evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from overseas to build a nuclear bomb. The State Department had a sidebar in the NIE stating its opposition to the claim. On 10/4/02 however, the Iraq White Paper did not use the Niger claim.
The growing belief in the Niger claim was again shown when U.N. inspectors returned to Iraq. The U.S. claimed that Iraq did not include the Niger deal to the inspectors and that this was a violation of the new U.N. resolution in December 2002.
The State Department was the last major intelligence service that did not believe in the Niger claim. They changed their mind on 12/19/02 when they released a report on the new U.N. inspections saying that Iraq had not reported the Niger claim. This was the first public mention of the story in the U.S. Internally there were still disputes over the Niger story within the intelligence community
Late January 2003 the debate over Niger continued as the National Security Council began writing Bush???s State of the Union speech. The administration wanted to use the report, while the CIA didn???t. First the White House changed the claim from Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger, to trying to buy it from Africa since the British White Paper had already made that public. Then because the CIA still objected, the speech claimed that England had found evidence of Iraq trying to buy uranium from Africa to remove the U.S. completely from the story. The speech was given on 1/28/03. Bush said that it was proof that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program. An internal investigation by the President???s Foreign Intelligence Board in May 2003 found that the administration included the Niger claim because it was desperate to find evidence against Iraq.
In February 2003 the N iger claim was finally proven false by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which took 10 days to find out the agreement between Niger and Iraq could not have been honored and just a few hours using a Google search to find that the documents from Italy were forged.
The IAEA???s findings heated up the internal debates within the intelligence community. On 2/11/03 the senior African analyst at the CIA circulated a memo speculating that the Niger deal was fake followed by a 3/11/03 CIA assessment agreeing with the IAEA report, while the DIA wrote a memo to Rumsfeld on 3/8/03 defending the claim against the IAEA. Finally on 4/5/03 the National Intelligence Council agreed that the Niger deal was faked.
At the same time Democrats in Congress began demanding the White House and intelligence community explain how the Niger claim ended up in Bush???s State of the Union address beginning in March 2003. By June the speech became a controversy as the administration first claimed that they knew nothing about the controversy over the Niger story even though the CIA had told them to remove it from various speeches. Then they blamed the CIA for letting the story be included, to finally Bush, Rice, and her deputy Hadley taking personal blame.
In May 2003 the Niger story took another turn when Cheney???s office began looking into Joseph Wilson???s trip to Niger. Publicly Cheney claimed that he didn???t know Wilson or about his trip to Niger, but in fact Cheney and his Chief of Staff Libby were deeply interested when Wilson started talking to the press criticizing Bush for using the Niger story in his State of the Union address. Beginning on 5/29/03 Libby had 18 meetings about Wilson with Cheney, the CIA and the media. This included a discussion with New York Times writer Judith Miller on 6/23/05 where he tried to discredit Wilson by saying he only went to Niger because his wife Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. Eventually columnist Robert Novak printed Plame???s name in a column attacking Wilson???s trip on 7/14/03. Miller would go to jail and Libby was indicted for this incident.
Aluminum Tubes For Nuclear Weapons Claim[/b]
???We do know, with absolute certainty, that he [Saddam Hussein] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.??? Vice President 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.??? President 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.??? Secretary of State Powell, U.N. Speech, 2/5/03
The second major piece of evidence used by U.S. intelligence and the Bush administration that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear program was the claim that it had tried to buy aluminum tubes overseas for use as centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. Like the Niger claim, the aluminum tubes were disputed within the intelligence community. Despite these differences, the CIA and administration went public with the claim. The CIA particularly showed incompetence in arguing that the tubes were centrifuges by ignoring dissenting views, distorting tests, and ignoring experts to prove their point. In the end, the tubes ended up being for rocket launchers not centrifuges. The whole story became an example of the incompetence of the CIA to tell fact from fiction when it came to Iraq???s WMD and nuclear programs.
The aluminum tubes claim began on 4/10/01 when the intelligence community found out that Iraq was trying to buy 60,000 high strength aluminum tubes, which were prohibited under U.N. sanctions. That was followed up by a seizure of 3,000 aluminum tubes in Jordan sold to Iraq by China in July 2001. The CIA immediately claimed that the tubes were for centrifuges in Iraq's nuclear program even though they had no proof. The Department of Energy???s nuclear experts always disagreed with this assumption, issuing its own reports beginning in April 2001 saying that they were for rocket launchers. Energy said that the tubes were the same kind that Iraq had used for rockets in the past, that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had found similar tubes in Iraq during weapons inspections, and most importantly the tubes were the wrong size to be used as centrifuges. The State Department???s intelligence unit agreed with Energy. The IAEA also told the U.S. from the beginning that the tubes were not for Iraq???s nuclear program beginning in July 2001. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reviewed the differing opinions and agreed with the CIA. Thus the U.S. intelligence community was split down the middle with the CIA and DIA analysts on Iraq believing that the tubes were for centrifuges, while the analysts for the State Department and nuclear experts of the Department of Energy and IAEA claiming that they were for rockets.
When the administration heard about the claim, they took the CIA and DIA???s position. Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz added his own spin on the story when in the Summer of 2002 he met with the Iraqi National Congress??? advisor Francis Brooke and the former head of Iraq???s nuclear program Khidir Hamza to ask them about the tubes. Hamza had never worked with centrifuges before, but he said that the tubes could be for that use. Wolfwitz circulated his findings within the administration to argue that this was proof that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. The story was leaked to the news by the White House and got front-page coverage. Next, on 9/8/02 the administration launched a major propaganda campaign over the tubes story by leaking another story to the New York Times, followed by National Security Advisor Rice and Vice President Cheney appearing on TV news shows claiming that Iraq was trying to build a nuclear bomb with the tubes and warned about an Iraqi nuclear ???mushroom cloud.??? Administration sources even lied to the media saying that everyone in the intelligence community had agreed that the tubes were for centrifuges in a New York Times story on 9/13/02. This overlooked the fact that the State Department and Department of Energy still did not believe in the story. The claim eventually made its way to Bush???s speech to the U.N. on 9/12/02, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq on 10/1/02, the White Paper on Iraq from 10/4/02, a Bush speech to Cincinnati on 10/7/02, Bush???s 1/28/03 State of the Union address, Powell 2/5/03 speech to the U.N., and various other public statements and testimonies to Congress.
The CIA went to great lengths to prove their case. First, they claimed that the tubes were bought secretly, which was not true because the purchase could be found on the Internet. Second, they said that the tubes met specifications for Iraqi centrifuges. This was not true as well. They had two private companies check the tubes to see whether they could be used for centrifuges. Both said yes, but the CIA never gave them the I raqi specifications, it just asked the businesses whether the tubes could be used as centrifuges or not. Third, the 10/1/02 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claimed that Saddam had a personal interest in buying the tubes, but that was based upon an uncorroborated report from another country that also lacked details. Fourth, the NIE also included a chart to try to prove that the tubes matched Iraqi specifications for centrifuges. The chart in fact, left out the actual Iraqi specifications. Fifth, the 10/4/02 White Paper on Iraq claimed that ???All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program.??? This obviously failed to note the dissenting opinions of State and Energy. The hubris of the CIA was finally shown in January 2003 when the CIA asked the Department of Defense (DOD) to test the tubes. DOD said that they were perfect for rockets. The CIA analyst in charge of the investigation rejected their findings. The DOD expert said that the analyst seemed to have ???had an agenda??? to prove that the tubes were for centrifuges no matter what.
When U.N. weapons inspections began again in the Winter of 2002 the U.S. charged Iraq with noncompliance because they did not notify the U.N. about buying the tubes for its nuclear weapons program.
Nuclear experts however, were still not convinced. On 9/23/02 the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) issued a study on the tubes, which found that the intelligence community was deeply divided over the uses of the tubes. More importantly, they found that the Bush administration was ignoring the difference of opinion in their public statements about the tubes. The ISIS stated, ???ISIS has learned that U.S. nuclear experts who dissent from the Administration???s position are expected to remain silent. The President has said what he has said, end of story, one knowledgeable expert said.??? The report didn???t even find support from the U.S.???s close ally England, which issued a White Paper on Iraq on 9/24/02 that said that there was no definitive intelligence on what the tubes were for. When the NIE was released in October 2001, the State Department and Department of Energy were able to include their dissenting opinions, and intelligence officials leaked a story to the news on 10/5/02 saying that their opposing views were being ignored.
The aluminum tubes became a controversy for the administration when on 1/8/03 the IAEA issued a report as part of their new inspections of Iraq. The IAEA said that the tubes were for rockets. The IAEA stated that they could be used for centrifuges, but they were the wrong size, meaning that a large amount of time and money would have to be done on them to make them work. The White House retorted that the IAEA was being spun by the Iraqis. The Washington Post had a story on 1/24/03 on the IAEA???s report noting that the tubes said ???rocket??? on them in Arabic. The administration and CIA however were unconvinced and in intelligence meetings, speeches, and testimony to Congress they stuck to the story that the tubes were for Iraq???s nuclear program. On 3/14/03 Cheney told Meet The Press that the IAEA was wrong about the tubes and that it had always been fooled by Iraq about its weapons program, and this was just another example.
Even after the war, the CIA stuck to its story. When the CIA interrogated Dr. Obeidi, head of one of Iraq???s leading nuclear facilities in June 2003, he said that the tubes were for rockets, a CIA analyst who had worked on the tubes story called him a liar.
In the end, the tubes turned out to be for rockets, not centrifuges. In its report on pre-war Iraqi intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee found that the CIA???s belief in the tubes claim was based upon faulty assessments, distorted tests, and the failure to acknowledge dissenting views.
WMD ??? Chemical and Biological Weapons[/b]
???There is no doubt that he has chemical weapons stocks??? Secretary of State Colin 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 officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.??? President Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
Besides nuclear weapons, the intelligence community and the Bush administration claimed that Iraq threatened the U.S. with its vast WMD program. The administration claimed that Iraq could give some of its WMD to terrorists and attack the U.S. This ignored the fact that Iraq didn???t have the sophistication to make WMD that an individual or terrorist group could use, and also that U.S. intelligence said that it was very unlikely that Iraq would ever turn over its WMD to a third party terrorist group. Like the nuclear claims, U.S. intelligence assumed that Iraq was working on its WMD program with no real facts to back it up. Beginning in late 1998 when U.N. inspectors left, U.S. intelligence just assumed that Iraq went back to work on its WMD. This grew to the claim that Iraq???s program was larger and more sophisticated than it was before the Gulf War. This proved to be false, just as the nuclear threat proved to be, and another example of the willingness of the intelligence community to exaggerate and simply make facts up about the threat Iraq posed.
The belief that Iraq was working on its WMD program began during the Clinton administration. On 12/19/98 U.N. weapons inspectors left the country over growing disputes between Saddam and the U.S. and England over their work. This blinded U.S. intelligence as the inspectors provided up to 90% of the intelligence on Iraq. Within 7 months, U.S. intelligence began to assume that Iraq had restarted work on its WMD because there were no more inspections, not based upon any hard evidence, but rather the assumption that was what Iraq would do. This case was made in 4 intelligence reports from 1999-2000. The last major intelligence assessment on Iraq given to the Clinton Administration in December 2000 summed up this position well. It said that they had no confirmation that Iraq was producing WMD, but that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD left over from the Gulf War, which they noted may not have been usable anymore because of their limited shelf life. There were reports of 7 mobile WMD labs however from one source named CURVEBALL who U.S. intelligence had not talked to directly, Iraq was buying dual-use equipment that could be used to make WMD, and Iraq???s chemical industry had been rebuilt after the war that could be used to produce WMD again. The position seemed to be that Iraq could make WMD again so they must be doing it.
Evidence to the contrary was dismissed however. The strongest claim that Iraq no longer had WMD came in 1995 when Hussein Kamal, the head of Iraq???s WMD program defected to Jordan. He said that not only had he destroyed Iraq???s WMD stockpile, but that he had dismantled much of the equipment to produce it and hidden it from U.N. inspectors. The U.S. and U.N. jumped on the revelation that Iraq was hiding parts of its program from weapons inspectors, but completely ignored his claim that Iraq no longer had WMD. In 2000, more evidence arrived to support this claim when the CIA???s assistant director began a program to contact families of Iraqi scientists who had worked on WMD before the Gulf War. The families told the CIA that Iraq had dismant led its WMD program. The Assistant Director thought this was an Iraqi disinformation campaign and ignored the reports never even telling the rest of the CIA about his findings. These assumptions would become fact when the Bush administration took over.
At the beginning of the Bush administration, his cabinet was divided between Secretary of State Colin Powell who supported continued sanctions against Iraq and the Defense Department and neoconservatives who wanted war. Powell made the first statement about Iraq while in Egypt on 1/24/01 when he said that Iraq had not developed any new WMD because U.N. sanctions had worked. Richard Perle, head of the Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board, and a noted anti-Iraq neoconservative, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iraq had WMD and was trying to hide it in March 2001, showing the differences within the administration.
In the coming months of 2001 and into 2002 U.S. intelligence became convinced that not only did Iraq possess a stockpile of WMD leftover from the Gulf War, but that its WMD program was larger and more sophisticated than before the war based upon very shoddy evidence and many assumptions about Iraq???s actions rather than specific facts.
The growing chorus over Iraq???s WMD began at the very beginning of 2002. On 12/14/01 the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report saying that Iraq had 100 metric tons of less of WMD, but couldn???t tell whether they could still be used and wasn???t sure whether Iraq was still producing WMD or not. That quickly changed in the new year. In January 2002 the DIA suddenly changed its position saying that Iraq???s WMD program was active and probably larger than before the Gulf War. This was based upon a single source, an Iraqi defector provided by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) who was being held by Germany, called CURVEBALL. CURVEBALL claimed that Iraq had mobile WMD labs. The U.S. never talked to CURVEBALL directly, but his claims of mobile labs made the U.S. believe that Iraq had a new level of technology and sophistication behind its WMD program, leading to the claims of renewed and larger production. The CIA had a similar report in January saying that Iraq could attack its neighbors with WMD. English intelligence expressed similar opinions in a March 2002 intelligence report that said they had no proof, but they suspected that Iraq might be producing WMD again.
The blaring lack of intelligence about Iraq???s WMD however was shown again and again in reports. In early 2002 for example, there was photographic intelligence of a suspicious vehicle that might be a decontamination unit parked outside a Republican Guard munitions dump that had been used for WMD before the Gulf War. There was a follow up report that said the suspected vehicle might be used for other purposes and the U.S. didn???t have any other evidence to believe that this site was being used for WMD. Despite that, the photos were used as proof that Iraq still had WMD munitions. When U.N. inspections were begun again in late 2002 this vehicle turned out to be a fire truck and no traces of WMD were found at the site.
The new claims of Iraq???s WMD arsenal were immediately used by President Bush in his famous ???Axis of Evil??? State of the Union speech on 1/29/02 in which he said countries like Iraq could give their WMD to terrorists to attack the U.S. Bush also outlined Iraq???s WMD stockpile that included anthrax, butolinum, sarin, VX, and mustard gas.
The use of Iraq???s WMD as a new public relations campaign was echoed by secret internal documents written by England???s Prime Minister???s office. On 3/22/02 a secret Downing Street memo noted that Iraq???s WMD program hadn???t advanced in years, but that it was the only way to convince the public that Iraq was a threat. In a follow up memo on 7/23/02 however, after meetings with top Bush administration officials, Tony Blair???s advisors noted that Iraq???s WMD program was weak, that Iraq was not a threat to its neighbors, and that making the WMD case was difficult because there were other countries in the world with much larger and more dangerous arsenals. Still, the U.S. and England plugged away at the WMD program.
On 8/26/02 Vice President Cheney gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Memphis, TN saying that if something wasn???t done about Iraq it would develop more WMD. In September, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told Congress that not only did Iraq have large stockpiles of WMD, but that it wanted to use them against the U.S. and its allies. This was followed by administration briefings of selected members of Congress about the threat Iraq???s WMD posed to the U.S. On the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon released a report saying that Iraq was the greatest threat to the U.S. because of its WMD and its ties to terrorism. Finally, on 9/12/02 Bush gave a speech to the U.N. saying that America???s greatest fear was that Iraq would give its WMD to terrorists and attack the U.S. On 9/19/02 Bush told the media that Iraq had WMD and that the ???battlefield had now shifted to America.???
The public relations campaign against Iraq was echoed in England when its Joint Intelligence Committee released a White Paper on Iraq on 9/24/02. It said that Iraq could launch a WMD attack within 45 minutes 4 times. It also said that Iraq continued to develop WMD, had the means to use them. The 45-minute claim came from a single, uncorroborated source from the Iraqi National Congress. England WMD experts did not want it to be used, but they were overruled. After the war it was revealed that the 45 minute claim was about a battlefield attack using rockets and artillery.
On 10/1/02 the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq was released and two sections on WMD. The report said that after U.N. inspectors left the country in 1998 Iraq had expanded its research and development into WMD. The sources for this were all very questionable and showed the shoddy work being done by analysts in the U.S. The claim was based upon 8 sources. The first were foreign reports on expanding WMD. The 2nd was a 1999 U.N. report that said Iraq had a large research community for WMD. It was assumed that they must still be working on WMD. The 3rd source were 8 intelligence reports on research and development being conducted within the country. Half of those reports turned out not even to be about WMD. The fourth source was an intelligence report that Iraq was testing WMD on death row inmates. The DIA later said this report was not true. The fifth were 19 reports on Iraq buying dual-use equipment. After the war intelligence analysts admitted that the equipment was probably for legitimate uses. Anything that could be used for WMD, however, the analysts just assumed was being used for it. The sixth was that Iraq had not accounted for all of its WMD to U.N. inspectors. The seventh was new construction at a chlorine plant that had been used to make WMD before the Gulf War. There was no evidence that it had gone back to this, but it was assumed that if it had been used for WMD before, it was being used again. The last piece of evidence was a chemical plant that had produced WMD before the Gulf War had the same management staff. Again, analysts assumed that if the same people worked at the plant when it was producing WMD, they must be doing the same thing. The NIE also said that Iraq was producing VX, sarin and mustard gas, not based upon any evidence, but that these were the agents that Iraq had made before the Gulf war. The NIE also included anthrax. The U.S. did not have any evidence that Iraq had ever developed weaponized anthrax, but because Iraq had bought samples in the 1970s it was assumed that Iraq had used them for WMD. Likewise, the report said that Iraq was working on smallpox, again not based upon evidence, but that because Iraq had the capability to do, it must be. The NIE also included a chart of 21 WMD elements Iraq had worked on, only 4 of which Iraq had ever used as weapons. The NIE went on to say that Iraq could produced WMD equipment domestically based upon a European journal article, that turned out not even to be about WMD.
The top-secret NIE was followed by the publicly released White Paper on 10/4/02 that repeated many of the same claims. The White Paper however admitted that the U.S. had very little actual intelligence on Iraq???s WMD, but that didn???t stop the writers from making the same kinds of assumptions about Iraq???s stockpile and development of WMD. The White Paper claimed that Iraq could use this arsenal against the U.S. homeland. It also had a map of WMD sites, which were the same ones that existed before the Gulf War. This ignored the fact that all of these had been checked and dismantled by U.N. inspectors. The White Paper just assumed that they had been rebuilt and were again producing WMD. The White Paper also said that Iraq was actively testing WMD, but the tests listed had all happened before the Gulf War. Again, both the NIE and White Paper showed just how little the U.S. really knew about Iraq, but that didn???t stop the analysts from making wide ranging claims about its WMD program.
The claims of the NIE and White Paper were used in subsequent speeches and public statements by the administration such as Bush???s 1/28/03 State of the Union address and Powell???s speech to the U.N. on 2/5/03. During the drafting of Powell???s speech, his Chief of Staff, Wilkerson, warned him that much of the U.S. claims about Iraq???s WMD lacked proof.
When U.N. inspectors returned to Iraq in late 2002 and began releasing reports they said that Iraq had not fully cooperated but after conducting hundreds of searches they found no evidence of a WMD stockpile, nor an active WMD program. When inspections ended in March 3003 the U.N. had only found 16 empty WMD shells, 16 empty WMD rockets, and one 155mm artillery shell filled with WMD that had been left over from the Iran-Iraq war. The inspectors also reported that Iraq had provided believable evidence that it had destroyed much of is WMD. The Bush administration ignored these findings and only focused on the fact that Iraq had not fully cooperated. To the administration, this was proof that it still had a WMD program.
The problem with this claim was quickly proven when the actual war started in March 2003 and no WMD was found. On 3/21/03 White House Press secretary Ari Fleischer tried to assure the press that WMD would be found within Iraq during a press conference. On 3/30/03 Rumsfeld told the press that the U.S. knew exactly where the WMD was hidden in central Iraq and that the U.S. would find them. This was repeated again and again by officials up and down the administration???s ranks. Eventually Rumsfeld began claiming that Iraq had sent its WMD to other countries to hide it. This was followed by Bush claiming that Iraq might have destroyed its WMD arsenal and equipment before the war.
Finally, in May 2003 the administration gave up completely on its claims that Iraq had a vast WMD program when it said that Iraq might have just had the means to produce WMD rather than an actual arsenal and active production of the weapons. When trailers were found and the preliminary reports said that they might be mobile WMD labs, Bush claimed that the U.S. had found the WMD. Of course, there weren???t any weapons, just trailers, but Bush claimed success anyway. The discontent by the soldiers and inspectors in the field was expressed on 5/30/03 when marine Lt. General Conway said that everything the U.S. said about Iraq???s WMD was wrong. He said that the marines had searched up and down Iraq and found nothing.
The administration went into a defense mode issuing public statements again and again saying that everything they had said about Iraq???s WMD was based upon solid reporting by U.S. intelligence, and that anyone who said that they had exaggerated or lied about their claims were making ???revisionist history.??? By July 2003 Rumsfeld was telling Congress that the U.S. didn???t really go to war over WMD, but rather because Iraq was seen as a greater threat after 9/11.
On 10/2/03 the Iraq Survey Group, the last U.S. organization looking for Iraq???s WMD, released its interim report. It said that Iraq had no WMD, that it had mostly been destroyed by U.N. inspections and bombings during the 1990s. The only thing they found was that Iraq had kept some of its WMD infrastructure, which it hoped to use again after U.N. sanctions had been lifted. Bush said that this report proved that the war was right because Iraq wanted to produce WMD. All claims that Iraq had WMD or even a program had been given up. Cheney, however, was still claiming that Iraq had WMD as late as January 2004 based upon the trailers that by then, had proven not to be WMD labs.
In the end, the Senate Intelligence Committee???s report on pre-war Iraq intelligence said in its final report on 7/7/04 that claims about Iraq???s WMD were based upon speculation, exaggeration, distortion, and bad intelligence work. The Robb-Silbermann Commission on U.S. intelligence on WMD on 3/29/05 came to the same conclusions saying that the U.S. never had any credible intelligence on what was going on in Iraq before the war.
When it came to WMD, the Bush administration???s anti-Iraq bias was matched by the intelligence community???s willingness to believe anything bad about Iraq???s WMD program.
Mobile WMD labs[/b]
???Baghdad has established a large-scale, redundant, and concealed BW [biological weapons] agent production capability, which includes mobile facilities; these facilities can evade detection, are highly survivable, and can exceed the production rates Iraq had prior to the Gulf war.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???The Iraqi declaration provides no information about its mobile biological weapon agent facilities.??? State Department Fact Sheet in response to Iraq???s arms declaration to the U.N., 12/19/02
???From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs.??? President Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
???Iraq???s BW [biological weapons] program includes mobile research and production facilities that will be difficult, if not impossible, for the inspectors to find.??? George Tenet, CIA Director, testimony to Senate Intelligence Committee, 2/11/03
???One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq???s biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used too make biological agents. ??? We have first hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. ??? We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile biological agents factories.??? Secretary of State Powell, U.N. speech, 2/5/03
The claim that Iraq had a larger and more sophisticated WMD program than during the Gulf War was mostly based upon a single report, from a single source, which was never considered reliable by the country that held him and the one U.S. intelligence analyst who met him. Yet, this one source, later backed up by other questionable reports, most of which came from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), became a major part of the argument about Iraq???s WMD. CURVEBALL, as the source was known, and his claims provides another example of the anti-Iraq bias within the CIA and their willingness to use any piece of evidence they could find against Iraq and its WMD program.
In May 2000 a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst went to Germany to interview an Iraqi engineer code named CURVEBALL. The Iraqi National Congress (INC) had handed over CURVEBALL to German intelligence. CURVEBALL claimed Iraq had 7 mobile labs capable of producing WMD. When the analyst met him he didn???t trust his reports and wrote a memo about it, which was never circulated within the DIA. Germany didn???t trust CURVEBALL either and passed its concerns onto the U.S. Despite this, CURVEBALL???s mobile labs story ended up in U.S. intelligence reports and speeches by Bush a dministration
Major Findings:[/b]
A) In the mid-1990s Iraq was actively trying to hide its stockpile of WMD from U.N. inspectors.
B) In 1995 Hussein Kamal, head of Iraq???s WMD programs, defected and said that Iraq had destroyed not only its stockpile of WMD, but most of the equipment to produce it and its SCUD force. These claims were not believed by the U.S. or U.N.
C) When Bush came to power, Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives didn???t believe in the U.N. or its inspectors to begin with.
D) In July 2002 English Prime Minster Tony Blair???s top foreign policy advisors met to discuss plans for Iraq. They said that Bush had decided on war, and they went on to suggest that a new round of U.N. inspectors be used as a justification for war. The U.N. inspectors would make demands on Iraq that they couldn???t comply with and that would be used as the pretext for an invasion. This was brought up again and again in the secret Down Street memos on Cabinet meetings amongst Blair???s top advisors. Blair stressed this point to Bush himself in meetings in April, 2002. The neoconservatives didn???t think a new round of U.N. resolutions were necessary
E) The Bush administration got U.N. Resolution 1441 passed to set up a new series of inspections in Iraq. Iraq didn???t fully comply with U.N. inspectors, but they gave in on many of their objections over time. The weapons inspectors did not find any evidence of a nuclear or WMD program like the U.S. claimed. The did find missiles that violated U.N. limits and some old artillery and rockets that were used for WMD.
F) The U.S. did not really help the U.N. inspectors, and much of the intelligence they did share with the inspectors proved to be wrong, a hint that their claims of Iraq possessing WMD could have been wrong.
G) The April, 2005 Robb-Silberman commission, appointed by Pres. Bush, to look into U.S. intelligence on WMD, found that the Administration and U.S. intelligence routinely ignored the findings of the U.N. inspectors who found many of the U.S???s claims about Iraq???s WMD and nuclear programs to be false.
U.N. Resolutions[/b]
After the Gulf War, the U.N. passed several resolutions saying that Iraq could no longer possess WMD, nor medium or long range SCUD missiles. The first was U.N. Resolution 687 passed on 4/3/91.
Soon after inspectors arrived they found a document from a nuclear-weapons plant that described Iraq???s program to hide its WMD activities from U.N. inspectors. Before the Gulf War, the U.S. believed that Iraq was 5-10 years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon. U.N. inspectors after the war found that Iraq was only 6 months to 2 years away. This shocked American intelligence analysts and made them believe that Iraq would do anything to gain a nuclear weapon and that U.N. inspectors were not effective since they had done checks before the war and not found how advanced Iraq???s nuclear program was.
Despite the non-compliance of Iraq for much of this period, U.N. inspectors were able to destroy much of Iraq???s WMD stockpile, missiles and facilities. The U.N. felt like it had done its job by 1994. The U.S. and most Western intelligence agencies did not share this view.
Clinton Administration[/b]
Kenneth Pollack was a CIA analyst and former member of the National Security Council (NSC) during the Clinton administration. Pollack, in a post-war assessment believed that when inspectors first began, Iraq tried to maintain the maximum possible amount of its WMD program including munitions, scientists, factories, equipment, etc. In the summer of 1991, however, inspectors destroyed a major part of Iraq???s WMD program. Pollack speculates that the success of the inspectors led Iraq to unilaterally destroy most of its WMD munitions and secondary equipment from June 1991 to May 1992. Iraq would later provided documents of this destruction to the U.N, but inspectors were skeptical. According to Pollack, this destruction allowed Iraq to get rid of much of its equipment and munitions that might be found by inspectors and allowed the country to focus on hiding the main equipment used in the WMD program.
In 1995 Hussein Kamal, head of Iraq???s WMD programs, defected. He told the U.N. of various ways Iraq had hidden parts of its WMD program from U.N. weapons inspectors. He also told the U.N. that Iraq had ended all work on its nuclear program after the Gulf War. He also said that he had destroyed all of Iraq???s WMD stockpile and dismantled much of the equipment that went with it. He also said that Iraq???s SCUD force had been destroyed and that there were only 2 SCUD launchers left, one of which was taken apart. He said that Iraq had only maintained the WMD programs and research to hopefully re-start them after U.N. sanctions had ended. This research continued to be hidden from U.N. inspectors. While his claims of deception were reported again and again, and even used in Bush administration documents and speeches, his claim that Iraq no longer had any WMD stockpile was ignored by both the U.S. and U.N.
After Kamal???s defection Iraq admitted that it had a variety of WMD agents, and hard armed a variety of weapons with them during the Gulf War. Iraq said this stockpile was destroyed, but U.N. inspectors didn???t believe them. Interestingly U.N. inspector chief Rolf Ekeus claimed that even if Iraq had not destroyed this stockpile it was only a "marginal" threat because it was such a small number of munitions.
Kamal???s defection also forced Iraq to turn over thousands of documents to the U.N. The new documents revealed that Iraq had destroyed all of its WMD munitions or had them destroyed by the U.N., but that Iraq had saved its production and research and development capabilities. Iraq admitted that it was much closer to a nuclear bomb before the Gulf War than it had acknowledged, and that it had plants producing WMD after the Gulf War. The revelations led to a new wave of U.N. inspections and the destruction of much equipment. After these new revelations, many U.N. inspectors came to the view that Iraq would never give up its WMD programs.
At this point, Kenneth Pollack believes that Iraq scaled back its WMD program, destroying more equipment and just keeping the bare minimum such as documents and key pieces of equipment in order to reduce the risk of inspectors finding them. The U.S. and U.N. did not catch these changes. The confrontational stance of Iraq led the U.S., Europe and the U.N. to believe that Iraq was not complying with U.N. resolutions and inspections and was probably still hiding large parts of its WMD program. Ultimately, Pollack believes that Iraq did not fully cooperate with U.N. inspectors because it would make Saddam look weak to his enemies and allies, and make the public feel like Iraq had suffered under U.N. sanctions for no reason. Iraq also didn???t cooperate because the inspectors were used to gather intelligence for the U.S. and other Western countries. The U.S. even used the inspectors in a failed coup in 1996.
In 1998 General Amer al-Saadi told inspectors that Iraq would not give any excuses for its WMD program and that Iraq had made a political decision to conceal it. Iraq began harassing inspectors and threatening them with violence. In August, 1998 Iraq announced that they would no longer cooperate with inspectors. In October, 1998 they shut down inspections, and in December, 1998 inspectors finally left. The U.N. inspectors still believed that Iraq was working on its WMD and nuclear programs when they left. The loss of the inspectors had a crippling effect upon the U.S. because the inspectors provided up to 90% of U.S. intelligence on Iraq.
December, 2000 the intelligence community released its last major assessment of Iraq during the Clinton Administration. It said the United Nations inspectors and the International Atomic Energy Agency had destroyed par t of Iraq???s WMD and nuclear program, but Iraq could restart them in the future. It also claimed that Iraq still had a stockpile of WMD that they never declared to the U.N. At the same time, it quested whether this stockpile was still usuable as the WMD had a limited shelf life. Overall, the report wasn???t sure about the effectiveness of the U.N inspectors.
Bush Years[/b]
During the Bush administration there were two conflicting trains of thought about Iraq. On the one hand you had Powell and the Department of State, which believed that the U.N. inspection process could work, and if it didn???t, the move could at least gain international support for a later war. On the other hand you had Rumsfeld, Cheney and neoconservatives who disliked the U.N. to begin. They had argued since before the Bush administration that the U.N. inspectors were a failure, and during the Bush administration didn???t even want to ask for a U.N. resolution for inspections or war.
The State Department aired their view first in February 2001 when Powell told the media on a trip to Egypt that, "Though [the Iraqis] may be pursuing weapons of mass destruction of all kinds, it is not clear how successful they have been. We ought to declare this a success. We have kept them contained, kept him in his box." He continued, Iraq "Has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
In early 2001 the neoconservatives countered when Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz called the U.N. a do-nothing pawn of the 3rd World and Europe. In March, 2001 Richard Perle, head of the Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board, told Congress that new "smart sanctions" Powell advocated would be no different or effective than what had been done in the past.
In January 2002 Paul Wolfowitz ordered the CIA to investigate chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix to try to find evidence that while Blix was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the 1990s he had been soft on Iraq. The 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 the investigation of Blix. That same month, a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on Iraq???s WMD program, said that the U.N. inspectors had been ineffective.
April, 2002 British Prime Minister 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 Iraq to confirm WMDs to gain the support of Parliament and the English public for a war. Blair expected the U.S. to move towards the U.N. after the 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 the mere fact that Iraq had WMD programs was enough of a violation of previous U.N. resolutions to justify an invasion. The 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." That skepticism came out in a Department of Defense news briefing where Rumsfeld told the media that the U.N. inspectors had been largely ineffective.
According to the English Downing Street memos, Tony Blair and his top foreign policy advisors met to discuss plans for Iraq on 7/23/02. Head of British Intelligence, Sir Richard Dearlove said that Bush had decided upon war with Iraq. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw than suggested that the British should go to the U.N. to get a new series of weapons inspectors that Iraq would reject and thus help justify war. The memo states, ???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.??? The English were especially interested in finding legal justification for war, as ???The desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.??? Prime Minister Blair, ???Said it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors.??? The memo said that the main issue now was to convince the U.S. to go to the U.N. to help justify the war. The next month, Foreign Secretary Straw would meet with Colin Powell to discuss U.N. action.
August 2002 began the lobbying for going to the U.N. by both Colin Powell within the administration and the British, former National Security advisor Brent Scowcroft, and the European Union from without. Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and the neoconservatives still opposed the U.N. route. For example, on 8/7/02 Cheney said that inspectors wouldn???t provide enough guarantees that Iraq had gotten rid of its WMD.
8/14/02 During a National Security Council meeting at the White House Rice, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and George Tenet, head of the CIA, discussed whether Bush should go to the U.N. Powell said that Bush should ask the U.N. for an international coalition against Iraq by first asking for a new set of U.N. inspections. Cheney said that any speech to the U.N. should warn it that if it did nothing about Iraq it would be irrelevant. Cheney argued that the U.N. was not enforcing its sanctions and resolutions against Iraq. On 8/16/02 Bush agreed with going to the U.N. The National Security Council decided that the main themes should be WMD and Iraq???s ties with Al Qaeda. The battle over the U.N. had not ended however.
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 said, "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 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 they weren't allowed back in. These comments were made just as Powell and the State Department were working on a new U.N. resolution on Iraq and a return of U.N. inspectors. Powell felt betrayed.
In September, 2002 support for U.N. inspectors came from the British and DIA. 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 DIA released a major assessment of Iraq???s WMD where it said that Iraq had hidden a stockpile of WMD from U.N. inspectors, but it went on to say that U.N. inspectors could probably deter Iraq from rebuilding its WMD program.
9/2/02 Powell met with Bush and Rice and asked whether Bush still supported weapons inspectors after Cheney???s speech. Bush said yes but he was skeptical. Bush said that he would go to the U.N. and ask for a new resolution.
9/3/02 Iraq???s Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said that Iraq was willing to accept new U.N. inspectors as long as it wasn???t a pretext for war. The European Union said that Iraq was a dangerous but the way to deal with it was through the U.N. and an international coalition.
9/6/02 At a meeting of the National Security Council Cheney again argued that asking for a new U.N. resolution would lead to nothing. Rumsfeld agreed with him. Bush had already agreed with Powell???s plan however, and that night Bush called the leaders of France, Russia and China who baked a new U.N. resolution. Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives continued to argue against going to the U.N. in further meetings and to Congress. For example, on 9/10/02 Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee
that new U.N. inspectors would not work. The same day Powell read the 21st draft of Bush???s speech to the U.N. He was shocked to find that it did not include a call for a new U.N. resolution or weapons inspector. This led to an argument between Powell and Cheney. Finally, on 9/11/02 Bush decided to call for a new U.N. resolution and inspections.
U.N. Resolution 1441[/b]
On 9/12/02 Bush gave his speech at U.N. He cited previous resolutions that Iraq had broken and said that the U.S. would ask for a new U.N. resolution. Bush also claimed that Iraq was hiding up to 3 metric tons of WMD from U.N. inspectors, including VX and mustard gas, and Iraq also had a force of SCUD missiles that were banned by U.N. sanctions .
After the speech the U.S. began drafting the new resolution 1441 and what the new demands would be on Iraq. Immediately problems arose because the U.S. wanted a single resolution that could lead to war if Iraq refused to cooperate, while the French wanted 2 resolutions, one for inspectors and one to authorize the use of force. The first draft of the resolution was rejected because the U.S. made it so hard that it was impossible to comply with. Security Council members came under immediate pressure by the White House as well during the drafting process. The Mexican U.N. ambassador said, "The U.N. Security Council was under close watch by the White House." "We were constantly told that there were certain positions that could not be changed, because the Defense Department or the White House will not allow this to be changed."
In the opening salvo of what the U.S.???s stance would be to the new inspections, the White House Information Group, a special unit set up to organize the propaganda campaign on Iraq, released a report entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance.??? The report said Iraq had never complied with previous U.N. inspections. Later, Time magazine ran an article that quoted neoconservative sources within the administration that they 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. Rumsfeld continued to undercut the U.N. inspectors in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.N. inspection team was weak. "The more inspectors that are in there, the less likely something's going to happen." Bush also warned that, "If the United Nations Security Council won't deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will."
On 9/16/02 U.N. Chief Kofi Annan announced that Iraq had agreed to allow U.N. inspectors back into the country
To ratchet up the pressure on Iraq, on 10/4/02 the U.S. released a White Paper for Congress to help deliberation on the war resolution. The paper criticized Iraq for hiding and not complying with U.N. inspectors. It said that Iraq had not accounted for 6000 bombs, 15,000 rockets, and 550 artillery shells for WMD, and 100-500 tons of WMD.
On 10/30/02 Hans Blix met with Dick Cheney in the White House. Cheney told Blix that if the UN didn???t find WMD the U.S. would discredit the inspectors as a waste and move onto other methods to disarm Iraq.
New U.N. inspections[/b]
11/8/02 The final draft of U.N. Resolution 1441 was finished, which called for a new round of weapons inspections. The U.S. tried to set strong limits on Iraq in hopes that it would violate them and justify a war. British UN Ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock said that Iraqi violation of 1441 would not be a ???trigger??? to war. In fact, 1441 said that violations would lead to a return to the Security Council to discuss further action.
By mid-November, Blix???s team of 220 inspectors had began their work. Nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) accompanied them as well. Like before, as soon as the inspectors arrived, Iraq tried to limit their activities. For example, there was controversy over whether the inspectors could interview Iraqi scientists in private or not, then if they could be interviewed abroad. The U.S. was especially adamant about this point, even saying that they would not believe any report on Iraq???s WMD if scientists were not allowed to be interviewed in another country. Aerial flights also became an issue when Iraq refused to guarantee their safety. Eventually this was resolved. The U.S. tried to argue that both these cases were breaches of resolution 1441.
The U.S. was not really helping with the process. In November 2002 the U.N. asked for intelligence sharing from the U.S., but Blix eventually grew frustrated because the U.S. would continually make claims about Iraq???s WMD but not share the information with the inspectors. In briefings U.S. intelligence would not provide any hard facts on sites and quantities of WMD. Months after the inspections had ended Blix told the BBC that only 3 of the sites the U.S. told the U.N. about turned up anything, none of which was related to WMD.
Powell also said that the U.S. would not share the most sensitive intelligence that they were collecting. For example, the U.S. was recording the conversations of the Iraqi military and officials during inspections and did not give this information to the U.N. Another point of contention was that the U.S. wanted the inspectors to collect intelligence for them in return for U.S. intelligence. The Senate Intelligence Committee???s July 2004 report found that the U.S. never fully cooperated with the U.N.
Besides not cooperating with the actual inspections, the U.S. also began attacking the whole inspection process. In December 2002 Rice, Cheney and Wolfowitz all questioned whether Iraq was cooperating with the U.N. At the White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer warned that any denial by Iraq that it had WMD was another deception campaign. The White House Information Group, which coordinated the public relations campaign against Iraq, released a report called ???Apparatus of Lies: Saddam???s Disinformation and Propaganda, 1990-2003??? about Iraq???s deception of U.N. inspections and resolutions.
On 12/7/02 Iraq released a 12,000-page report on its weapons programs to meet one of the requirements of 1441. The report was a mess containing both old and new documents, that were often contradictory, and not listing some items that the inspectors already had. It appeared to have been rushed together to meet the December deadline. Overall, the disclosure denied that Iraq had any WMD. The U.S. claimed that the report was incomplete and represented another material breach of 1441.
12/18/02 A meeting of the National Security Council was held to discuss how to respond to Iraq???s disclosure to the U.N. inspectors. They decided that the 12,000-page report was incomplete, but it was not an obvious attempt to deceive the inspectors. They decided to charge it as a material breach anyway.
12/19/02 The Sate Department issued a one-page rebuttal of the Iraqi disclosure report, produced jointly with the CIA. The rebuttal did not directly respond to the Iraqi disclosure, but rather listed 7 charges that the U.S. had been making about Iraq's WMD and nuclear programs in the past. The 7 charges were: 1) Iraq did not account for a stockpile of WMD agents, 2) Iraq did not disclose working on rocket fuel for a type of missile that violated U.N. sanctions, 3) Iraq did not disclose trying to buy uranium from Niger, 4) Did not disclose its production of VX gas, 5) Had not disclosed 550 WMD artillery shells and 30,000 empty munitions that were modified to carry WMD, 6) Denied working on UAVs capable of delivering WMD, 7) Denied having mobile labs. In 1998, Iraq claimed that the agents, fuel and munitions had all been destroyed during the Gulf War or afterwards, but the U.S. and U.N. did not believed them. The U.S. claimed the number of WMD agents came from the U.N., but they actually came from the British. Not only that but the numbers kept on changing. The British claimed that Iraq had enough material to produce 25,000 liters of anthrax. Bush in a 10/7/02 speech said that it was 30,000-120,000. The State Department said that it was 26,000. The UN said that Iraq only had enough for 8500 liters, which Iraq said it had destroyed. Iraq had actually declared the 550 shells and 30,000 empty munitions in 1998 and claimed that they had been destroyed in the Gulf War. Whether the uranium claim was true or not was then an on-going debate within the intelligence community. It was later found that the claim was based upon forged documents. The UAVs were an exaggeration, and the mobile labs story was based upon questionable sources, and the Niger claim was based upon faked documents.
The U.N.???s work continued, and by January 2003 there were up to 20 inspections per day. They found nothing at the alleged WMD sites, but did find Iraq producing long-range missiles that were in violation of U.N. limits. U.N. inspectors also found thousands of documents at an Iraqi scientist???s house about enriching uranium. Out of the huge WMD arsenal that Iraq allegedly possessed, inspectors only found 16 122mm artillery rockets that could delivery WMD, and 12 artillery shells that could be used for WMD.
That same month the U.S. began drafting a second U.N. resolution authorizing war, while Rice began meeting with Blix to pressure him to be harder on the Iraqis.
January also marked the beginning of the inspectors??? reports. Mohamed El Baradei, head of the Interanational Atomic Energy Agency found that the aluminum tubes the U.S. claimed were for centrifuges for Iraq???s nuclear program were for rockets. In response the administration told the New York Times, "I think the Iraqis are spinning the IAEA.??? On 1/20/03 Blix said the U.N. had found no WMDs, but that Iraq had failed to account for old stashes of VX gas, anthrax and 6500 chemical bombs. Blix also said that Iraq violated U.N. sanctions on missiles and wouldn't allow U-2 surveillance flights. Blix said, "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance - not even today - of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and live in peace." France and Germany claimed that the inspections were working and that they only needed more time. The U.S. chose to attack the report because it found no evidence of WMDs. President Bush submitted a report to Congress saying Iraq was not complying with U.N. resolutions to counter Blix's report.
The same day Powell had lunch with France???s U.N. ambassador Villepin. He said that France would not support a war without international support. Powell felt defeated in his attempt to use the U.N. This led to neoconservatives to begin attacking France. Rumsfeld called France and Germany ???Old Europe.??? To counter this lack of support the U.S. put together The Letter of Eight signed by Britain, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Denmark, Portugal, Czech Republic, and Italy supporting the U.S.???s position on tough inspections. There was also a follow up letter signed by 10 Eastern European countries.
1/23/03 Washington???s media campaign against Iraq and U.N. inspections continued. Rice wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times entitled ???Why We Know Iraq Is Lying.??? The White House Information Group released a paper called ???What Does Disarmament Look Like???? and Wolfowitz gave a speech to the Council On Foreign Relations with the same title. All three accused Iraq of hiding its WMD and nuclear program from the inspectors. They said that Iraq was not acting like a country that wanted to disarm. Rice warned that time was running out for Irqa.
On 1/25/03 Rice held a meeting on what should be included in Powell???s 2/5/03 U.N. speech. Cheney???s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby wanted to include huge amounts of claims against Iraq including Iraq being linked to 9/11. During the next few days Powell???s staff rejected all of these claims for lack of evidence.
On 1/27/03 Both Blix and El Baradei reported to the Security Council. The IAEA had inspected 106 sites and made 139 visits. El Baradei said that the IAEA had "made good progress in our knowledge of Iraq's nuclear capabilities." Overall it found no evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. Blix said that inspectors had found no WMD after 300 visits to 230 sites. So far the inspectors had found 16 WMD artillery shells, a small amount of precursor for mustard gas, Al Samoud missiles that violated U.N. limits, some repaired chemical equipment at Al Fallujah site, and documents on refining uranium at the home of a scientist. The next day the IAEA released a report saying that it had conducted 139 inspections at 109 locations and ???Found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990s.???
1/28/03 During State of the Union speech Bush said that Iraq had up to 30,000 WMD munitions and that U.N. inspectors had recently found 16 of them. None of them contained WMD. No other munitions were ever found. Bush also went on to say that Iraq was not complying with the inspections by hiding materials, sanitizing sites, monitoring the inspectors, intimidating witnesses, and using fake scientists in interviews. He said that Iraq was blocking U-2 flights.
In February 2003 Iraq destroyed stocks of the Al-Samoud missiles that U.N. inspectors found to violate limits imposed by U.N. sanctions. The missiles were used by the administration as proof that Iraq had violated U.N. resolutions. Inspectors also found Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), but didn???t have time to determine whether they could be used to deliver WMD like the U.S. claimed. All the UAVs were destroyed.
On 2/3/03 England released a report on Iraqi deception campaigns to hide WMD. It was later revealed that most of it was plagiarized from a U.S. grad student???s paper about inspections in the 1990s.
Blix released a 2nd report on 2/4/03 that found no prohibited materials or evidence that they had been moved.
2/5/03 Powell gave his speech to the U.N. He began by claiming that Blix and the IAEA said that Iraq was not cooperating with weapons inspections. He said that Iraq was not disarming, but rather hiding its WMD. Powell showed satellite photos purporting to be an example of Iraq moving WMD from a site before U.N. inspectors came. The photos were disputed by analysis and discussed after the speech. The activity was found to be unusual, but not definitive of deception. Powell also played 3 tapes allegedly about Iraq???s WMD. 2 of the tapes had no context and listeners couldn't tell what the "modified vehicle" was or whether it was for WMD. Powell claimed the third tape had 2 Iraqi officers saying remove "forbidden ammo." Powell didn't mention that the Iraq had just told U.N. inspectors that they would search ammunition dumps for old WMD munitions to be turned over. Iraq later handed over 4 old warheads. Powell claimed the 3rd tape said the munitions dumps had to be "cleared out," but the official U.S. translation said "inspected." Powell said documents found at a nuclear scientist's Baghdad home proved that Iraq was hiding its WMD program. U.N. inspectors later said the documents were old and "irrelevant." Powell said that there was a missile brigade outside Baghdad hiding WMD, but no such brigade was every found. After the war, an Iraqi general suggested that Powell's claim of Iraq moving around missiles in the western desert might have come from an old account from the Gulf War. Powell said that Iraq was violating the U.N. sanctions by denying U-2 flights and interviews with Iraqi scientists. Powell said that Iraq had hidden its WMD program within legitimate civilian industries. Most of the intelligence on Iraq???s dual use industries proved to be false, unsupported or exaggerations according to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Powell said that a 122mm chemical shell found by U.N. inspectors in January, 2003 was the "tip of an iceberg,??? but only a few other shells were ever found and they were turned over to inspectors. He also claimed that Iraq had authorized field commanders to use WMD. The CIA only had one source for the claim, and it actually said that one Iraqi unit was trying to hide missiles from U.N. inspectors with some kind of ???biological agent.??? He also said that Iraq was hiding documents on its WMD program by having them moved around in cars, also that Iraq had set up a special committee to hide its WMD program before UN inspectors arrived. He claimed most of Iraq???s WMD production was being hidden within dual use factories. Powell said Iraq was buying magnets for its nuclear program. The State Department and IAEA did not believe these magnets were for Iraq???s nuclear program however. The plant that the magnets were supposed to be used in hadn???t even been built yet, and never was. Powell said that Saddam was personally involved in the nuclear program. This claim was based upon a single photograph of Saddam meeting with nuclear scientists from a newspaper. U.S. intelligence couldn???t even verify whether any of those pictured were scientists or not. Powell continued by saying that Iraq had a covert force of SCUD missiles. Actually, the U.S. didn???t know how many SCUDs Iraq had, it was just a discrepancy between what Iraq had imported and what it had used and tested in the past. He also said Iraq was working on new missiles that violated U.N. sanctions. Last, he claimed Iraq had UAVs that could deliver WMDs and attack the U.S. He played a tape of a UAV. He didn???t mention that it had been destroyed during the Gulf War.
Privately France, Germany and even England were critical of Powell???s speech. England???s U.N. Ambassador said, "I remember saying, 'I hope [Powell's] got something really strong to say.' And, of course, he didn't."
On 2/10/03 the British continued the attack on Iraq by releasing a file condemning Iraq for blocking U.N. inspectors. The file claimed that Iraq had 20,000 intelligence officers hiding weapons and disrupting inspections. It was also blocking interviews with scientists.
2/15/03 Iraq issued a ban on all WMD and agreed to destroy its Al Samoud missiles by March since they violated U.N. sanctions. The administration said that the missiles were evidence that Iraq had violated U.N. sanctions.
3/2/03 a senior administration official was quoted in the New York Times attacking the inspectors. He said, "Inspectors have turned out to be a trap. They have become a false measure of disarmament in the eyes of the people. We're not counting on Blix to do much of anything for us."
3/6/03 Bush said that the U.S. would ask the U.N. for another resolution authorizing war since Iraq was not cooperating. Spain, Bulgarian and England supported the U.S.. France, Russia, Germany and China said they would not support such a resolution. The U.S. tried lobbying and threatening the other members of the Security Council to agree with their new resolution. For example, it attacked Mexico???s U.N. ambassador and Powell tried to have him removed. The U.S. promised retaliation against members that did not vote with the U.S. The National Security Agency also bugged the members??? offices to record their conversations. This ended up in a British newspaper turning the undecided Security Council members more against the U.S.
On 3/7/03 Powell told the U.N. that Iraq had not disarmed, while Blix and the IAEA reported the exact opposite. The IAEA found no renewed nuclear program, the magnets Powell brought up in his U.N. speech in February were not for its nuclear program. There was no evidence of Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger, and said that most of Iraq???s nuclear facilities had deteriorated since 1998 rather than been rebuilt and expanded as U.S. intelligence claimed. Blix said that Iraq had destroyed many of its long range missiles and that the inspections were working, Iraq was finally cooperating, and the process just needed more time.
On 3/10/03 the U.S. found out that it didn???t have the votes to gain a 2nd resolution on Iraq and refused to change its deadline of 3/17/03 for Iraq to disarm. Hans Blix also told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council that no matter how much he was pressured there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq.
On 3/17/03 America???s deadline came. After meeting with Tony Blair, Bush said that the U.S. didn???t need a 2nd U.N. resolution to go to war with Iraq. Bush gave Saddam a deadline of 48 hours to leave Iraq. Bush said, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
On 3/19/03 U.N. inspectors told the press that decontamination vehicle Powell quoted in his U.N. speech turned out to be a regular fire truck.
By the time inspections ended in March 2003 when the war started, U.N. inspectors found no evidence of a renewed chemical weapons program. In total, inspectors found 16 WMD artillery shells, 16 122mm WMD rockets, both with no WMD in them, and 155mm artillery shells filled with mustard gas produced during Iran-Iraq war. Iraq also provided substantial proof that they had destroyed its VX gas in 1991.
On 6/6/03 Blix made his last report to the Security Council on the U.N. weapons inspectors after the war had ended. Blix said that Iraq might have hidden WMDs, but might also have also destroyed them since none had been found. The inspectors had looked at 230 suspected sites. The inspectors found no evidence of continuing or resumed WMD programs or WMDs themselves. He warned that just because Iraq had many unaccounted WMDs didn't mean that Iraq still had them, while at the same time they never found anything that pointed to Iraq not having them.
Iraq Had Unaccounted For Stocks of WMD[/b]
Major Findings:[/b]
A. Beginning with the Clinton administration, the U.S. claimed that Iraq had a vast stock of WMD that it had never turned over to the U.N.
B) This unaccounted for stock of WMD was based upon a flawed equation. The U.S. counted how much Iraq had originally, minus the amount used in the Iran-Iraq and Gulf War, minus what the U.N. found, then said the result must still exist. The problem was the U.S. never knew how much Iraq had to begin with, making the whole equation useless. This was shown in the reports and speeches that the administration made where the numbers of WMD went up and down.
C. Hussein Kamal, head of Iraq???s WMD program, defected to Jordan and told the U.N. that he had destroyed all of Iraq???s WMD arsenal. There was therefore no unaccounted for stocks of WMD, but the U.S. and U.N. did not believe him.
D. Intelligence analysts questioned whether the unaccounted for WMD was still usable because it had a limited shelf life and Iraq didn???t have the ability to maintain them. This stockpile was produced before the Gulf War, and by the 2000s would be useless.
Origins Of The Claim[/b]
???Baghdad hides large options of Iraq???s WMD efforts.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Gaps in Iraqi accounting to UNSCOM [the U.N. inspection team from 1991 to 1998] suggest that Saddam retains a covert force of up to a few dozen SCUD.??? Iraq White Paper 10/4/02
???Iraq never has fully accounted for major gaps and inconsistencies in its declarations and has provided no credible proof that it has completely destroyed its weapons stockpiles and production infrastructure.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Iraq probably has concealed precursors, production equipment, documentation, and other items necessary for continuing its CW [chemical weapons] effort.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???UNSCOM discovered a document at I raqi Air Force headquarters in July 1998 showing that Iraq had overstated by at least 6,000 the number of chemical bombs it told the UN it had used during the Iran-Iraq War ??? bombs that remain are unaccounted for.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???Iraq has not accounted for 15,000 artillery rockets ??? nor has it accounted for about 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas.??? Iraq White Paper, 10/4/02
???The regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount.??? President Bush, Cincinnati speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars, 10/7/02
???Iraq did not verifiably, account for, at a minimum, 2160kg of growth media. This is enough to produce 26,000 liters of anthrax ??? 3 times the amount Iraq declared; 1200 liters of botulinum toxin; and, 5500 liters of clostrdium perfirgens ??? 16 times that amount Iraq declared.??? State Department Fact Sheet in response to Iraq???s arms declaration to the U.S., 12/19/02
???In 1999 UN Special Commission and international experts concluded that Iraq needed to provide additional credible information about VX production.??? State Department Fact Sheet in response to Iraq???s arms declaration to the U.S., 12/19/02
???In January 1999, the UN Special Commission reported that Iraq failed to provide credible evidence that 550 mustard gas filled artillery shells and 400 biological weapon-capable aerial bombs had been lost or destroyed.??? State Department Fact Sheet in response to Iraq???s arms declaration to the U.S., 12/19/02
???There is no adequate accounting for nearly 30,000 empty munitions that could be filled with chemical agents.??? State Department Fact Sheet in response to Iraq???s arms declaration to the U.S., 12/19/02
???The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax.??? President Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
???The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.??? President Bush, State of the Union, 1/29/03
When U.N. inspectors first arrived in Iraq in 1991 after the Gulf War, they were able to find most of Iraq's import records, then asked Iraq to produce the materials or account for their destruction. In many cases Iraq couldn't provide the information or said they had destroyed the material. The difference between what they imported and what they could account for was believed to be a hidden WMD stockpile. The U.S. took an even more elaborate equation including what they thought Iraq had produced since the inspectors left in 1998. A major problem with both equations was the belief that Iraq was an efficient dictatorship with good records, when in fact it was not. Even when Iraq provided evidence that they had destroyed some stockpiles, they were often not believed because of their bad behavior towards inspections. This was an element of pure speculation because the U.S. was never sure what size Iraq???s stockpile or program was like to begin with. Therefore the U.S. often had much larger numbers than the U.N. Not only that, but if you examine speeches, intelligence estimates and Congressional hearings you find the numbers go up and down. Two examples, were Iraq???s anthrax stockpile and missiles. When U.N. inspectors left in 1998 they said Iraq only had 2 unaccounted for SCUD missiles. During the Bush administration, Iraq was charged with hiding 6 SCUD missiles, to having 12, to 20, to a couple dozen. Likewise, the U.N. said that Iraq had claimed they had 8,500 liters of anthrax precursor, which Iraq claimed to have destroyed. The U.N. inspectors speculated that Iraq could produce up to 30,000 liters of anthrax if they had not done so. The U.N. never said that Iraq actually produced that much however, just that they had the capability. The intelligence community changed from saying Iraq could produce 30,000 liters of anthrax, to stating that Iraq had produced anthrax with no real proof. Not only that, but the administration came up with a shifting amount of this potential stockpile of anthrax. Bush, in his 1/29/02 State of the Union speech claimed that Iraq could produce up to 25,000 liters of anthrax. Bush would later claim that Iraq had produced 30,000-12,000 liters of anthrax in a speech on 10/7/02. On 12/9/02 the State Department claimed Iraq had 26,000 liters of anthrax. By the time of Bush???s next State of the Union address on 1/29/03 the amount had fallen back to 25,000 liters. The Senate Intelligence Committee also criticized the intelligence community because they took as fact that if WMD were not accounted for they must exist and be usable.
Two problems arose from the unaccounted for WMD. One was the defection of the head of Iraq???s WMD program, Hussein Kamal, and one was the limited shelf-life of Iraq???s WMD.
In 1995 Hussen Kamal, head of Iraq???s WMD program defected to Jordan. He told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had hidden tons of material from them. At the same time he said that Iraq had destroyed all of its WMD after the Gulf War and only maintained the programs and research so that it might restart them after U.N. sanctions had been lifted. He also said that he had destroyed all of Iraq???s functional SCUD missiles, that there were only 2 launchers left and one was taken apart, and that U.N. inspectors had destroyed all the SCUD warheads converted to deliver WMD. The U.N., Clinton and Bush administrations repeatedly brought up Kamal???s claim that Iraq had hidden parts of its WMD program, but completely ignored his claim that Iraq had no more WMD.
Following Kamal???s defection Iraq admitted that it had anthrax, carcinogenic aflatoxin, agricultural toxins and botulinum, and that they had loaded 191 bombs and 25 missiles with poisons for use in the Gulf War. Iraq claimed that this stockpile had been destroyed, but U.N. inspectors did not believe them.
The second problem was the fact that Iraq lacked the technology and sophistication to make WMD that lasted more than a few weeks. Rolf Ekeus, former head of U.N. inspections from 1991 to 1998 told the Washington Post on 6/29/03, ???During its war with Iran, Iraq found that chemical warfare agents, especially nerve agents such as sarin, soman, tabun, and later VX, deteriorated after just a couple weeks??? storage in drums or in filled chemical warfare munitions. The reason was that Iraqi chemists, lacking access to high-quality laboratory and production equipment, were unable to make the agents pure enough.??? UNSCOM found in 1991 that the large quantities of nerve agents discovered in storage in Iraq had lost most of their lethal property and were not suitable for warfare.
Together, these two facts, the head of Iraq???s WMD program saying Iraq had destroyed its stockpiles during U.N. inspections and the head of U.N. inspectors saying that most of Iraq???s WMD stockpile was already deteriorated by 1991 discredit the claim that Iraq had unaccounted for WMD that were still a threat. Of course, neither of these claims were taken into account by U.S. intelligence. After Hussein defected, in fact, U.N. inspectors and U.S. intelligence had a worst view of Iraq, believing that it would do anything to maintain its WMD program. Both seemed to ignore a source they praised, Kamal, while also ignoring basic science. The unaccounted for WMD claim was not disproved until after the war when no WMD was found in Iraq. A few intelligence analysts did bring up the limited shelf life of Iraq???s WMD, but their views were not included in major intelligence reports.
The unaccounted for WMD stockpile began in a 1998 intelligence report that said Iraq had not accounted for over a hundred WMD bombs and 80% of its growth media. In December 1998 when U.N. inspectors left, Iraq had still not accounted for 15,000 artillery rockets capable of holding WMD and 550 artillery she lls full of mustard gas. Iraq also did not provide enough evidence for 43 WMD missile warheads that Iraq claimed to have destroyed.
The last major report on Iraq???s WMD given to the Clinton administration said that Iraq maintained stockpiles of 100 tons or less of WMD from the Gulf War including mustard, VX and sarin, plus some WMD munitions. At the same time it questioned whether this stockpile was still usable because the WMD had a limited shelf life.
During the new Bush administration the December 2001 National Intelligence Estimate on worldwide missile development claimed that Iraq might have 6 SCUD missiles left from Gulf War capable of delivering WMD. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) also released a report on Iraq???s chemical weapons saying that Iraq had 100 metric tons or less of chemical weapons, but didn???t know whether they were still usable.
Bush chimed in on1/29/02 during his State of the Union speech when he 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.
The problems with this unaccounted for WMD stockpile were admitted in a September 2002 DIA assessment of Iraq said that Iraq had hidden WMD after Gulf War, but also said that it had no idea what the size of Iraq???s WMD stockpile was.
During Bush???s speech to the U.N. on 9/12/02 he claimed that Iraq Bush had hidden up to 3 metric tons of WMD from U.N. inspectors, including VX and mustard gas, and had a force of SCUD missiles that were banned by U.N. sanctions.
10/1/02 The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq???s nuclear and WMD programs claimed that Iraq had hidden 100-500 metric tons of WMD, 30,000 liters of WMD agents, 1500 tons of WMD precursors, 550 WMD munitions, 4 modified Mirage F-1 drop tanks, and a few dozen SCUD missiles from U.N. inspectors. The Senate Intelligence Committee found that this statement was an assessment, not a fact. U.N. Weapons Inspectors had in fact destroyed 3 of the 4 modified drop tanks and the Mirage itself was destroyed during the Gulf War. In the NIE the intelligence community admitted that they did not have any direct intelligence on the amount of Iraq???s stockpile of WMD. In fact, they were never sure how many WMD and SCUDs Iraq had before the Gulf War, so their estimates of how many were still around after the U.N. inspectors left was pure speculation.
10/7/02 in a speech in Cincinnati Bush said that the U.N. inspectors had found 30,000-120,00 liters of anthrax and other WMD in the 1990s. In fact, the U.N. had only found 8,500 liters of anthrax, which Iraq had destroyed, and only said that Iraq had imported enough growth material to produce 30,000 liters of anthrax maximum.
The holes in U.S. intelligence about Iraq???s alleged unaccounted for WMD were exposed on 12/9/02 when CENTCOM held military exercise Internal Look, a simulated invasion of Iraq. From November to December, CENTCOM planners met with the CIA to go over all the intelligence about Iraq. The military wanted to know exactly what kind of WMD Iraq had, where it was located, etc. CENTCOM was not happy with what they found. One planner told Newsweek the information they had on Iraq???s WMD ???was crap.??? Most of the WMD locations were the same ones from the Gulf War and the 1990s, many of which the U.S. and England had bombed. ???We asked, ???Well, what agents are in these buildings? Because we need to know.??? And the answer was, ???We don???t know.??? ???
Toward the beginning of new U.N. weapons inspections, the State Department released a one page document on 12/19/02 claiming that Iraq had not accounted for a series of munitions since the last round of inspections in 1998. These charges included the claim that Iraq did not account a stockpile of WMD agents including 2,160kg of growth media, enough to produce 26,000 liters of anthrax, also 1,200 liters of bolutinum toxin and 5,500 liters of clostridium. That it had not disclosed 550 WMD artillery shells and 30,000 empty munitions that were modified to carry WMD. In 1998 Iraq had claimed that all of these agents, fuels and munitions had either been destroyed during the Gulf War or after it. The U.N. and U.S. did not fully believe these claims.
1/28/03 in Bush???s State of the Union address he said that in 1999 the U.N. had found that Iraq had enough material to produce 25,000 liters of anthrax and 38,000 of botulinum toxin. This was a reduction from his earlier claim in Cincinnati that Iraq could produce 30,000 to 120,000 liters of anthrax. In a 12/19/02 report the State Department claimed that Iraq only had enough material to produce 1,200 liters of butolinum. Bush also said that Iraq had produced 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas.
Many of the same claims were repeated in Powell???s 2/5/03 U.N. speech with all of the same problems. For example, Powell claimed that Iraq had produced 4 tons of VX agent, but didn???t mention that most of it had been destroyed by U.N. inspectors already. Powell said Iraq had up to 12 SCUD missiles that broke U.N. sanctions and was working on new long range ones. At first it was 6 SCUDs, than a few dozen, now it was only 12. Powell failed to note that U.N. inspectors had accounted for all but 2 of Iraq???s SCUD missiles. He also repeated the claim that Iraq had the capability to make 25,000 liters of anthrax but only registered 8,500 liters with inspectors. The 25,000 liters figure didn???t come from the U.N. but rather the English. He also said that Iraq never accounted for 500 WMD shells, 30,000 empty WMD shells, 6,500 WMD bombs from the Iran-Iraq War, and enough material to produce 500 tons of WMD.
The U.S. told U.N. inspectors to look for 3.9 tons of VX gas and 550 mustard gas shells, 150 sarin-gas shells, 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals. They found only a few rockets and artillery shells.
Like everything else about Iraq???s WMD, the U.S. had no specifics, just speculations and faulty equations to use against Iraq, all of which proved to be false in the end.
Major Findings:[/b]
A) Neoconservatives are not a monolithic group, and some people???s names are included with them who are not believers. For example, Rumsfeld is not a neoconservative. Cheney has become a neoconservative. Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Stephen Hadley, have all been neoconservatives since the beginning and are generally considered ideologues who believed that Iraq was unfinished business from the Gulf War, and 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. They preferred to foment a coup within Iraq and tried using the CIA, Iraqi exile groups, and manipulating the U.N. weapons inspectors.
C) From the first days of the administration the neoconservatives argued for war with Iraq. Powell and the State Department were opposed to them. After 9/11 the neoconservatives were able to win the bureaucratic debate and convince Bush of war with Iraq. Powell was able to win a delaying action by convincing Bush to go to the U.N., but the neoconservatives eventually won that debate as well by arguing that the U.N. inspectors were not working, and war was the only answer.
Early days of neoconservatives[/b]
In the1990s neoconservatives championed regime change in Iraq through military action right after first Gulf War. The American Enterprise Institute was a center of neoconservative thought such as Irving Kristol, Richard Perle, and Newt Gingrich. Dick Cheney was also involved. They argued that regime change in Iraq would end Islamist terrorism and bring democracy to the Middle East.
In March 1992 Secretary 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, the Defense Planning Guidance. A copy of the plan 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 might have to face a pre-emptive strike to defend against the threat of WMD. It 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 it. The idea of unilateralism and Iraq as a major threat would become reality under the Bush adminstration.
In the mid-1990s Wolfowitz went to work at Johns Hopkins??? School of Advanced International Studies during the Clinton years. He continued to write and talk about Iraq. For example, in 1997Wolfowitz co-authored a Weekly Standard article that stated Clinton's Iraq policy was only letting Saddam grow stronger.
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 a letter calling for U.S. support of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to start an insurgency within Iraq. The INC would become the favored Iraqi exile group when the neoconservatives gained power during the Bush administration.
On 1/26/98 Perle, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and 15 other neoconservatives of the Project For A New American Century sent a letter to Clinton urging military regime change in Iraq. The 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." It also said that the U.N. was not working. "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided instance on unanimity in the U.N. Security Council."
In 1999 the head of the 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]
Before the Bush administration took office, Cheney took a key role in shaping Bush???s and his own ideas about Iraq. For example, in the fall of 2000 Cheney, then the Republican vice presidential candidate, had to focus on foreign policy issues for the campaign. He focused on Iraq and its defiance of U.N. resolutions. Cheney told a campaign aide, "We have swept that problem under the rug for too long,??? and "We have a festering problem there." In early January 2001then Vice ???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. On 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 then.
Cheney also played a pivotal role in putting key neoconservatives throughout the Pentagon and his own office, when he was put in charge of selecting officials for the new administration. Rumsfeld became Secretary Of Defense, Cheney became Vice President, Wolfowitz became Deputy Secretary Of Defense, Douglas Feith became Undersecretary of Defense For Policy, Stephen Hadley became Deputy National Security Advisor, I. Lewis Libby became Cheney???s Chief of Staff, William Luti became Deputy Undersecretary of Defense For Near East and South Asia, and Richard Perle became Chairman of the Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board.
The neoconservatives immediately made their priorities apparent when during confirmation hearings, Wolfowitz said, "I would certainly think it was worthwhile" if there were a real possibility to overthrow Saddam.???
Immediately, 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 that could be used for Iraq???s WMD or nuclear programs.
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, an 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. Rhode told Feith???s office that the Pentagon???s new policy would be anti-Iraq and anti-Arab. Critics have claimed that Rhode got rid of officials in the Pentagon who didn???t support this new program.
On 1/30/01during the 1st National Security Council meeting, 10 days after Bush???s inauguration, the main topic was Iraq. Rice spoke about Iraq destabilizing the Middle East and how a change in Iraq could change the entire region. CIA Chief Tenet gave an intelligence briefing on Iraq???s supposed WMD factory, and links with Palestinian terrorists and the Intifadah. Discussion moved on to the need for better intelligence about Iraq, putting more pressure on Saddam, and possibly fomenting a coup by backing opposition groups. Powell said that the current U.N. sanctions 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 the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Shelton were to look into military options including using troops in northern and southern Iraq and backing op position groups. Tenet was 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. 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. Colin Powell???s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson took it a step further by saying that Cheney and Rumsfeld made the most important foreign policy decisions on Iraq without consulting with anyone else. According to Wilkerson, ???More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled??? by this group.
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. The 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. O???Neal came to believe that this was why Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iraq.
2/1/01 The 2nd National Security Council meeting of the new Bush administration was all about Iraq once more. Powell made his 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, the Defense Department and CIA focused on fomenting a coup, helping 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 against Iraq.
In February 2001the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) drew up plans for a post-war Iraq and 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 groups 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.
March 2001 Richard Perle testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee saying that Iraq had WMD, a nuclear program, and that it was trying to hide them. 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."
The neoconservatives were so caught up with Iraq that they ignored the threat of Al Qaeda. In 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 go after Al Qaeda, especially trying to kill Bin Laden. Wolfowitz argued that Iraq was the main supporter of terrorism in the world, and therefore was the real threat. Wolfowitz said, "Well, I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden." Clarke claimed 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??? referring to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which Wolfowitz believed Iraq was behind. Clarke told Wolfowitz, "I'm unaware of any Iraqi-sponsored terrorism directed against the United States, Paul, since 1993."
From May to July 2001 Deputy National Security advisor Stephen Hadley held 4 deputies meetings on Iraq. One main topic was support of the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The Pentagon thought that the INC could start an insurgency in Iraq, 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 INC because it found it unreliable. The White House seemed to be moving closer towards it however.
The INC tried to win favor by producing defectors that told the administration what it wanted. In the fall of 2001, for example, the INC 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 was later distorted by intelligence services to support the WMD labs. The DIA later came to conclude that much of the information provided by the INC 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."
Powell and the State Department were still the equals of the neoconservatives at this time and were able to stonewall their plans for Iraq. For example, on 8/1/01"A Liberation Strategy" paper was presented at a deputies meeting. It 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 the Pentagon was already revising its 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. He believed the Iraqi opposition would then lead to a revolt and the overthrow of Saddam. Powell thought the idea absurd and the meeting became deadlocked between Wolfowitz and Powell.
9/11 Attacks and Iraq[/b]
9/11 proved to be the turning point for the neoconservatives. As soon as 9/11 happened Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives saw the opportunity to actually attack Iraq by blaming it for the attacks. No evidence was ever found, but they successfully made the case that Iraq was connected somehow that led Bush, early on to say that after Afghanistan was finished, Iraq would be next.
On 9/11/01CBS News reported that within 5 hours of the attack 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 the Pentagon 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. He said that the 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.
On 9/12/01 neoconservatives 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 flown back to Washington D.C. from Europe and the Middle East. While on the plane they decided that invading Afghanistan and overthrowing the Taliban would be the first priority, b ut they also decided that the U.S. had to find out about state sponsors of terrorism such as Iraq.
Later that day at a National Security Council meeting Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq because there were no good targets in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld believed the U.S. would have to go after Iraq eventually, so 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 the 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 the meeting, Bush said it was not the time to resolve the dispute about Iraq.
The neoconservatives had planted the seed of Iraq in Bush???s mind however, because that day, 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. The report was rejected by either Rice or her deputy Stephen Hadley, and told "Wrong answer ??? Do it again."
Neoconservatives went public with their ideas when James Woolsey, former CIA director under Clinton, told a 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. Wolfowitz followed that with public statements about punishing states, not just groups for terrorism. On 9/13/01Wolfowitz conducted a 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 believed 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. He would only support an attack if they found a direct link between Iraq and 9/11.
The same day Wolfowitz, in conference calls with officials, 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 at first.
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. Wolfowitz's office replied that the DIA needed to prove the theory. Vice Adm. Wilson, head of the DIA, ordered his Middle East analysts to go back through the book, but they found nothing. Wolfowitz was undeterred.
9/15/01Bush and his advisors met at Camp David to discuss responses to 9/11. Rice was afraid that the U.S. might get bogged down in Afghanistan like the English did in the 19th Century. She 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 a 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, 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 the 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 two. Bush thought the neoconservatives might be trying to settle old scores with Iraq 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 ofSstaff Card and George Tenet agreed with Powell. The main members voted 4 to 0 with Rumsfeld abstaining against attacking Iraq. Bush said discussion over Iraq was over and the meeting needed to focus on Afghanistan.
Bush seemed to be convinced by the neoconservatives arguments when on 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, and the next day at a NSC meeting 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 the main focus was to be Afghanistan.
9/18/01Richard Perle held a 2-day meeting of the Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board. The Policy Board was given a briefing by the CIA on 9/11, then heard a 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. Lewis said the U.S. had to support democracy in the Middle East. Lewis then introduced the INC???s 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. On 9/19/01 according to Perle, Rumsfeld agreed to the idea of invading Iraq after the 2-day meeting of the Defense Policy Board.
Bush???s next major speech on 9/20/01 echoed Wolfowitz???s 9/13/01 press conference when he told 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."
Bush gained an earlier foreign supporter when he met with Tony Blair at the White House and discussed both Afghanistan and Iraq. At a dinner party Bush made it clear to Blair that he wanted to invade Iraq. British Ambassador to the U.S. Meyer s aid, "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 a NSC meeting Rumsfeld again wanted to attack Iraq. He didn't think that Afghanistan would be successful because there was not much to bomb. Bush said Iraq was out of the question at this point.
In the fall of 2001 Cheney???s opinions began to change. Cheney had been studying Islam, the Middle East, and Iraq. A 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 the biggest influences in Cheney's change of mind towards neoconservative ideas were professors Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami.
In October 2001 neoconservatives began to publicly argue that Iraq was behind 9/11 when Jim Woolsey wrote an Op. Ed. piece for the Wall Street Journal claiming that Mohamed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers, had met with Iraqi intelligence in Czech Republic in the spring of 2001.
Meanwhile, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Rumsfeld were upset with intelligence about terrorism and state sponsors. In response, 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 the American Enterprise Institute???s Middle East division, became the first head of the Policy Group. Wurmser had written a series of books and articles advocating regime change in Iraq and even wrote a policy paper to Israel???s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu advocating that Israel invade and overthrow Saddam. The other member of the group was Michael Maloof, who had worked with Richard Perle during the Reagan administration. Neither had any training in intelligence work. Professor Abram Shulsky later became director of the group in December 2001 to January 2002. Shulsky had served under Richard Perle during the Reagan administration as well. 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." The group claimed that divisions within the Muslim world were breaking down, and that various Islamic terrorist groups and states were all working together to attack the U.S. One conclusion the Group came to was that Iraq, Al Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers were all connected. The Group was also openly critical of the CIA for overlooking these connections. The Group gave a series of briefings to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, the CIA, and others beginning in July 2002. 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. Today, the Pentagon is conducting an internal investigation into whether the Group illegally dealt with intelligence.
On 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 had become 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 the Joint Chiefs of Staff send a 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. This became another obsession of the neoconservatives who continued to state it as fact after they were told again and again not meeting ever took place. At CENTCOM the initial plans for an Iraq war were first aired.
In January 2002 Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith ordered a DIA analyst to review recent CIA reports on connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The analyst gave a critical assessment of the CIA???s reporting, and her findings were passed along to Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
The same month, Wolfowitz ordered the CIA to investigate the head of U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix to try to find evidence that while Blix was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the 1990s he had been soft on Iraq. The 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 was a threat because it had WMD, which it could pass to terrorists to attack the U.S. This became the major argument for war with Iraq.
In February 2002, serious contingency planning for an invasion of Iraq began at the Pentagon. The plan was code named "1003 Victor." It had been drawn up in the early 1990s and basically followed the 1st Gulf War. The 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 the fall of 2002. There was an intense debate between Rumsfeld and the civilian leadership of the Pentagon on the one side, and generals on the other over how to fight the Iraq war. Rumsfeld argued 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.
On 2/13/02 battles within the administration continued as Powell and Rumsfeld argued about going to war during a White House meeting.
2/16/02 The National Security Council ratified a National 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 were delivered to the White House. Cheney went on a 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 again, but only gained support from England, Israel and Qatar. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and most Western European nations gave no support and warned Cheney against a war.
In April, 2002 British Prime Minister 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 the 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 the 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."
In May 2002 the Joint Chiefs of Staff carried out a series of war games about Iraq called "Prominent Hammer.??? The 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. Senior officials like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believed that postwar planning for Iraq was an impediment to war.
The same month, Bush traveled to Europe to try to gain support for an Iraq war. Germany and France were against war, while Eastern Europe was supportive.
In the spring of 2002 divisions within the administration continued. 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 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 nuclear 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 his meeting throughout the administration. The story was also leaked to the New York Times and made the front page.
In 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.
In mid-June General Franks presented a revised war plan to the White House. Later in the month, General Franks visited Jordan in preparation for Iraq war, while Wolfowitz visisted Turkey.
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 the Policy Group argued that Iraq was the natural place to attack because it was the easiest to justify.
7/23/02 The Downing Street memo, written by senior British intelligence officer Matthew Rycroft, discussed a meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top foreign policy advisors about a recent trip by the head of English intelligence Sir Richard Dearlove, and his U.S. counterpart, George Tenet. The memo revealed that the neoconservatives had won the bureaucratic debate within the administration and convinced Bush to go to war with Iraq by the summer of 2002. The memo stated, ???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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime???s record.??? The memo went on to say, ???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.??? The memo then suggested that England go to the UN and get weapons inspectors back into Iraq, not to dismantle Iraq???s WMD program, but to make demands on the regime that they would reject, thus giving a justification for war. By late July Blair and Bush agreed by phone that they would invade Iraq, even though both publicly were denying it.
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.
In the fall of 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 satisfied 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 t here 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 the 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 the entire Muslim world. Powell was able to forge an alliance with the military at the Pentagon, and the 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???s 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 that included Rice, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and George Tenet. 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 by 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 another NSC meeting, Bush was told about the plan for a U.N. speech to focus on Iraq, WMD and its ties with Al Qaeda. Bush agreed. It seemed like Powell had won.
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, DIA, and the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group met to discuss Iraq's links with Al Qaeda. The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group wanted the alleged Atta meeting with Iraq intelligence to be included in new report, but the intelligence community didn???t believe it happened and the Policy Group???s suggestion was rejected.
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 they 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 were 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'Amu ro 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 program, that there needed to be an international coalition against Iraq, and that there needed to be regime change.
Also in September, 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.
In that month, National Security Advisor Rice set up 4 interagency groups to examine various aspects of Iraq. The groups never worked because neoconservatives in the Pentagon refused to meet with State Department.
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. 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 Al Qaeda 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 in fact talking about the Fedayen irregular forces in Iraq, nevertheless, 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 a top secret briefing by Tenet on Iraq's WMD. 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 the U.N, but in the end, agreed to go. 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, but 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 that it was not Iraq's WMD alone that dserved 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 the 33-page National Security Strategy (NSS) was released outlining the Bush Doctrine. It said that the U.S. would rely on pre-emption to deal with rogue states and terrorists, and that the U.S. would never allow another country to challenge American power. This would mean that the U.S. would act unilaterally when necessary. The new NSS was very close to Wolfowitz's 1992 Defense Planning Guidance draft.
Mid-September, 2002 General 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 relationship. 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, nor the 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 the State Department that was skeptical of their reports to the Pentagon, which was pro-INC.
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 William 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, an 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 INC, 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 Senate Intelligence Committee investigated the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, although nothing came of it out of non-cooperation by the Pentagon. Rumsfeld told the press that the purpose of the Policy Counterterrorism Group was to go through intelligence on Iraq and use it to undermine the CIA???s claims because he was unhappy with their reporting.
10/30/02 Cheney met with the head of UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix. Cheney told Blix that if a new round of UN inspectors didn???t find WMD, the U.S. would discredit them and use other means to disarm Iraq.
In early January 2003 the CIA???s National Intelligence Council ran a 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 conference that had been meeting with the U.S. Agency For International Development asked for a meeting with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to discuss post-war planning. They were denied.
1/3/03 Cheney???s Chief of Staff Libby held a meeting about Iraq at the White House. A senior official who was present said the accusations against Iraq were ???unsubstantiated assumptions.???
1/20/03 Powell had lunch with France???s U.N. ambassador Villepin. He said that France would not support a war without international support. This led to neoconservatives to begin attacking France. Rumsfeld called France and Germany ???Old Europe.??? Spanish Prime Minister told Bush that he needed to use more of Powell???s diplomacy to win over France on the Security Council, rather than Rumsfeld who made most of Europe angry.
In March 2003 Bush said that the Iraq war was not just about disarming Iraq but spreading freedom throughout the Middle East, a key neoconservative idea.
On 6/4/03 Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense For Policy, and William Luti, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense For Near East and South Asia held a press conference about the Office of Special Plans. Feith claimed the Office was formed to look into terrorism and its state sponsors after 9/11. He said that it did not focus on Iraq and Al Qaeda, which was not true. He also said that the main conclusion of the Office was that different groups with different ideologies were now cooperating. He stated that in August 2002 the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group had briefed administration officials. After that the Group ended. He also claimed that the Office of Special Plans never collected intelligence from Iraqi exiles and passed it along to the White House. He said that there was no real change in intelligence about Iraq???s WMD from Clinton to Bush. That was untrue. Feith contradicted himself during questions and answers when he said the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was not created to look at intelligence in a new light, but then said that he did do that after 9/11. He also said that the Policy Group never looked at Iraq???s WMD, but then during questions said that it did.
Finally, on 7/7/04 the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. The committee claimed intelligence analysts in the CIA were not pressured to change reports due to the administration, but it did report examples of pressure from Rumsfeld's office that believed al Qaeda was supported by Iraq and that Iraq was responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 9/11. There were also several press reports that Cheney and Rumsfeld???s offices did pressure analysts.
In the end, it was this group of neoconservatives, allied with Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld that were not only able to convince President Bush to go to war with Iraq, but also for the failed post-war planning, which they had dismissed as a waste, that has led us to the current quagmire in Iraq.