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President Harry Truman’s address to Congress on March 12, 1947, (Truman, a Democrat, was inaugurated on April 12, 1945) marked the start of the Truman Doctrine, which defined the U.S.’s attempts to contain the spread of communism. In a speech pledging financial support for Turkey and Greece, he said: ” ‘I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way. I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.'”

 – President Harry Truman, “Address of the President of the United States–‘Recommendation for Assistance to Greece and Turkey,'” March 12, 1947, Avalon Project, Avalon.Yale.edu, Accessed on 1/13/2016

“The era [of postwar American foreign policy] commenced in [March 12] 1947 with a congressional address by [President] Harry Truman in which he allowed the ‘frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free people, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.’ ”

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 112

“In [July 26] 1947, during the Truman administration, Congress approved the National Security Act, which among other things created the Department of Defense (by merging the War and Navy departments), the CIA, and the National Security Council.”

 – Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 317

In an address to the nation on July 19, 1950, President Harry Truman explained “why it was necessary for the United States to resist aggression in Korea. ‘Korea is a small country, thousands of miles away, but what is happening there is important to every American. …The attack upon Korea was an outright breach of the peace and a violation of the Charter of the United Nations. …This is a direct challenge to the efforts of the free nations to build the kind of world in which men can live in freedom and peace. …This challenge has been presented squarely. We must meet it squarely.’ ”

 – Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Pages 116-117

“In a [April 11] 1951 address explaining America’s participation in the Korean War, President [Harry] Truman insisted that if the allies ‘had followed the right policies in the 1930s–if the free countries had acted together to crush the aggression of the dictators, and if they had acted at the beginning when the aggression was small–there probably would have been no World War II. If history has taught us anything, it is that aggression anywhere in the world is a threat to peace everywhere in the world.’ ”

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 115

As a majority Palestinian state, Jordan was unhappy with King Abdullah’s attempts for a peace treaty with Israel. “On July 20, 1951, while visiting the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, he [King Abdullah] was assassinated for his efforts by a Palestinian with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

 – Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda, Page 91

On October 24, 1952, “The eight-page directive that [President Harry] Truman had signed made SIGINT [signals intelligence] a national responsibility and designated the secretary of defense as the U.S. government’s executive agent for all SIGINT activities, which placed NSA [National Security Agency] within the ambit of the Defense Department and outside the jurisdiction of the CIA. Truman gave the NSA a degree of power and authority above and beyond that ever given previously or since to any American intelligence agency, placing it outside the rubric of the rest of the U.S. intelligence community. Truman also ordered that the new agency’s powers be clearly defined and strengthened through the issuance of a new directive titled National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 9 ‘Communications Intelligence.’ ”

 – Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Page 44

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-Dwight D. Eisenhower – Republican president inaugurated
-Richard M. Nixon – Vice President

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“US President Barack Obama made a major gesture of conciliation to Iran on Thursday [June 4, 2009] when he admitted US involvement in the [August 19] 1953 coup which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. ‘In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,’ Obama said in a keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. It was the first time a serving US president had publicly admitted American involvement in the coup. The US Central Intelligence Agency, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalised the oil industry, run until then by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhand methods to get rid of a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests.”

 – “Obama Admits US Involvement in 1953 Iran Coup,” Agence France-Presse, June 4, 2009

“Fifty years ago this week [on August 19, 1953], the CIA and the British SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] orchestrated a coup d’etat [in Iran] that toppled the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh. The prime minister and his nationalist supporters in parliament roused Britain’s ire when they nationalised the oil industry in 1951, which had previously been exclusively controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Mossadegh argued that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves. Britain accused him of violating the company’s legal rights and orchestrated a worldwide boycott of Iran’s oil that plunged the country into financial crisis. The British government tried to enlist the Americans in planning a coup, an idea originally rebuffed by President Truman. But when Dwight Eisenhower took over the White House, cold war ideologues–determined to prevent the possibility of a Soviet takeover–ordered the CIA to embark on its first covert operation against a foreign government. …the CIA–with British assistance–undermined Mossadegh’s government by bribing influential figures, planting false reports in newspapers and provoking street violence. Led by an agent named Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, the CIA leaned on a young, insecure Shah to issue a decree dismissing Mossadegh as prime minister. By the end of Operation Ajax, some 300 people had died in firefights in the streets of Tehran.”

 – Dan De Luce, “The Spectre of Operation Ajax,” The Guardian, Aug. 20, 2003

President Dwight Eisenhower “said he wanted to promote the idea of an Islamic jihad against godless communism. ‘We should do everything possible to stress the *holy war* aspect,’ he said at a September [7] 1957 White House meeting…”

 – Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, Page 158

“A joint United States-Canadian command, NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] was established [May 12] 1958, at the height of the Cold War. Its mission, ‘air sovereignty,’ was control of airspace above the domestic United States, as well as surveillance and control of the airspace of Canada and the United States. It was empowered to enforce ‘air sovereignty’ through the use of fighter jets kept on constant alert around the perimeter of the continent.”

 – John Farmer, The Ground Truth, Pages 27-28

On July 14, 1958, “A group of Iraqi army officers have staged a coup in Iraq and overthrown the monarchy. Baghdad Radio announced the Army has liberated the Iraqi people from domination by a corrupt group put in power by ‘imperialism.’ From now on Iraq would be a republic that would ‘maintain ties with other Arab countries.’ …While Iraqis are celebrating on the streets of Baghdad, the news is a cause for concern for western powers worried about their oil interests and instability in the region.”

 – “1958: Coup in Iran Sparks Jitters in Middle East,” BBC News – On This Day segment

” ‘If you go and live with these Arabs,’ President [Dwight] Eisenhower told [Director of Central Intelligence] Allen Dulles and the assembled members of the National Security Council [on June 18, 1959], ‘you will find that they simply cannot understand our ideas of freedom and human dignity. They have lived so long under dictatorships of one kind or another, how can we expect them to run successfully a free government?’ ”

 – Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, Page 157

“In early September 1960 the Iraqi government hosted officials from Venezuela and three Gulf countries for an obscure five-day conference in Baghdad. Wearing suits rather than robes, and sitting at a plain wooden table, they founded the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).” [The 5th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Basra and Umm Qasr, “Crude Diplomacy,” The Economist, Feb. 18, 2010

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“The first instance of American and British military intervention in Iraq, post-independence, goes back to July 1961, when British troops moved in to defend Kuwait against Iraqi troops massing on its border. Iraq claimed Kuwait based on the fact that as a part of the Ottoman Empire it had been subject to Iraqi suzerainty [a sovereign or a state exercising political control over a dependent state]. Kuwait was key to US-UK interests in the region; Gulf Oil (owned jointly by British and American interests) had been extracting oil from the Burgan oilfield there since 1946.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of Al Qaeda, Page 182

“Despite the arguments of some well-known scholars to the contrary, every state has, in the words of onetime Secretary of State Elihu Root [on August 30, 1962], ‘the right…to protect itself by preventing a condition of affairs in which it will be too late to protect itself.’ ”

 – John Yoo, War By Other Means, Page 61

“In 1963, the Baath Party successfully overthrew the government and took power which allowed Saddam to return to Iraq from exile. While home, he married his cousin, Sajida Tulfah. However, the Baath Party was overthrown after only nine months in power and Saddam was arrested in 1964 after another coup attempt. He spent 18 months in prison, where he was tortured, before he escaped in July 1966.” [Month and day used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Jennifer Rosenberg, “Saddam Hussein,” About.com, Updated Dec. 16, 2014, Accessed on 2/1/2016

In Iraq, “The Ba’ath also began to infiltrate the armed forces, and in February [8] 1963 was able to launch a successful coup that ended the regime of [Prime Minister] General [Abd al-Karim] Qassim [of Iraq].”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 29

“In November [18] 1963, the Ba’ath’s chaotic and bloody rule ended in its overthrow by Arab nationalist officers allied with the president, Abd el-Salam ‘Aref, one of the leaders of the 1958 Revolution. The party was suppressed, and, as it went underground, leadership once again switched, this time to a career officer and former prime minister, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Saddam Hussein was put in charge of organising the party’s civilian wing, and became the clandestine party’s deputy secretary general.”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 29

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Osama bin Laden’s father, Mohammad “Bin Laden became one of the most powerful men in the [Saudi] kingdom, even helping to put King Faisal on the throne in the early 1960s [November 2, 1964] and paying the wages of the entire Saudi civil service for the following four months because of a hole in the nation’s coffers. It was a stunning risk that was richly rewarded: Faisal was so grateful he decreed that all construction contracts should go to bin Laden, and even briefly made Mohammad the Minister for Public Works. Mohammad bin Laden’s company has since become a massive commercial entity, responsible for building much of Saudi Arabia, and rebuilding Kuwait and Beirut, with offices and palaces across the Middle East and an estimated turnover in the mid-1990s of $36 billion.”

 – Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Page 158

“…after his escape [from prison on July 23, 1966], [Saddam Hussein] made contact with Robert Anderson, a CIA officer who made frequent trips to Baghdad to monitor efforts by the Soviets to take control of Iraq’s oil reserves.”

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 64

“Formal diplomatic relations between the United States and Iraq were suspended after the Six Day War in [June 5-10] 1967.”

 – Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek, Page 36

“On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced ‘a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.’ The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later [February 28, 1968], the court martial of the soldier.”

 – Eric Weiner, “Waterboarding: A Tortured History,” National Public Radio, Nov. 3, 2007

“In July [16] 1968, the Ba’ath, in alliance with a few dissident army officers, launched a successful coup against the regime of [Iraqi President] Abd el-Rahman ‘Aref. Using both state and party platforms, and working under the wing of his kinsman, [coup leader] Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, now the president of Iraq, Saddam [Hussein] was able to consolidate his position in the faction-riven Ba’ath Party.”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 29

In Iraq, “Saddam [Hussein] helped lead the revolution on July 17, 1968, which eventually brought the Baath party to power under Gen. Ahmed Hassan Bakr.”

 – “Profile: Former Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein,” China Daily, June 30, 2004

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-Richard Nixon – Republican president inaugurated
-Spiro T. Agnew – Vice President

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“In November 1969, Saddam [Hussein] was appointed as the deputy head of the Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq’s supreme governing body. He gathered all the intelligence agencies, the real bulwarks of Ba’athist power, into his hands. The first to go were the non-Ba’athist officers who had executed the coup of 1968. Military and civilian Ba’ath Party rivals were quickly disposed of, through assassinations, mysterious ‘accidents,’ demotions, exile and imprisonment.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 29

“In [April 9] 1972, then-strongman but not yet leader Saddam Hussein signed a Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union to checkmate this Soviet influence in the Middle East.”

 – Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Page 69

“On June 1, 1972…the Baath [Saddam’s political party] nationalized the Iraq Petroleum Company.”

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 107

“In May 1973, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia told the American press, ‘America’s complete support for Zionism and against Arabs makes it extremely difficult for us to continue to supply the United States with oil, or even to remain friends with the United States.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Tyranny of Oil, Page 95

“The [third] Arab-Israeli war began on October 6, 1973. One week later, the Arab nations of OPEC [Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] agreed to a full oil embargo against the United States. …The embargo hurt the American and global economy, but not the oil companies. In the case of Saudi Arabia, in particular, it was the U.S. oil companies that actually implemented the embargo. When the Saudis told Aramco not to send oil to the United States, the oil companies acceded. In addition, rather than accept lower profits, the American oil companies passed along their higher costs to the American consumer by increasing prices.”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Tyranny of Oil, Page 95

“OPEC [Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] oil ministers agreed to use the ‘oil weapon’ by cutting exports and recommending an embargo against unfriendly states. [On October 15, 1973] Iraq led a successful charge for a full oil embargo against the United States by all Arab nations of OPEC.”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Pages 152-153

“The [oil] embargo ended on March 18, 1974, with the cooling of active hostilities between Arab nations and Israel.”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Page 153

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“At Saddam’s request, Izzat al-Douri, a high-ranking Baath official who served on the Revolutionary Command Council as minister of agriculture, traveled to Paris in November 1974 where he signed a contract with France’s Institut Merieux to set up Iraq’s first bacteriological laboratory.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 127

A New York Times article on December 22, 1974, titled ‘Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,’ claimed: ” ‘The Central Intelligence Agency, directly violating its charter, conducted a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation during the Nixon Administration against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States, according to well-placed government sources. An extensive investigation by the New York Times has established that intelligence files on at least 10,000 American citizens were maintained by a special unit of the CIA that was reporting directly to Richard Helms, then the Director of Central Intelligence and now Ambassador to Iran.’ ”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 82

“In [June 13] 1975, the Shah [of Iran] reached an accord with Saddam, pulled the plug on the Kurds, and stopped CIA arms shipments. …The covert operation collapsed and Saddam slaughtered many of the Kurds.”

 – Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Page 70

“On July 22, 1975, the New York Daily News charged that for at least five years the NSA [National Security Agency] routinely eavesdropped on commercial cable traffic to and from the United States. The news shocked many around the country and prompted the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights to launch an investigation.”

 – James Bamford, The Shadow Factory, Page 272

“On August 21, 1975, the Congressional Research Service presented to the Special Subcommittee on Investigations of the House Committee on International Relations a document entitled ‘Oil Fields as Military Objectives: A Feasibility Study.’ ” The document explored “the possibility of seizing Persian Gulf facilities should the [OPEC oil] embargo escalate into a strangulation of American industrial capacity. …Achieving American objectives, the Research Service summarized, would require two to four military divisions, maybe sixty thousand troops, ‘tied down for a protracted period of time.’ To keep the oil fields running, ‘drafting U.S. civilian workers to supplant foreign counterparts might be mandatory.’ Because ‘U.S. parachute assault forces are too few to cover all objectives quickly [and] amphibious forces are too slow,’ skilled localized sabotage teams could be expected to ‘wreak havoc’ before invasion forces were in place.”

 – Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil, Pages 208-209

During Saddam Hussein’s September 1975 visit to Paris to complete a purchase of French fighter planes, “The French officials…offered to sell him an Osiris [nuclear] research reactor and a scale model called Isis, both of which could breed small quantities of bomb-grade plutonium. Saddam agreed to buy them on one condition–that France agreed to deliver an extra one-year supply of reactor fuel at start-up. If the fuel was processed correctly it would produce enough material for several bombs the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 134

“Interviewed in the Lebanese weekly magazine Al Usbu al-Arabi in September 1975 shortly after the reactor deal had been concluded [in which France sold Iraq nuclear technology], Saddam proudly declared, ‘The agreement with France is the first concrete step toward production of the Arab atomic bomb.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 134

“The full text of the Franco-Iraqi Nuclear Cooperation Treaty [which was signed in Baghdad during November 1975] was not made public until eight months later. One of the conditions set out in the treaty was the stipulation that ‘all persons of Jewish race or the Mosaic religion’ be excluded from participating in the program, either in Iraq or France. The treaty also committed the French to training six hundred Iraqi nuclear technicians, more than enough for a bomb program.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 135

In The Iraq War Reader, Christopher Hitchens wrote: “… Committee on Intelligence Activities chaired by Congressman Otis Pike, completed in January 1976, partially leaked, and then censored by the White House and CIA. The committee found that in 1972 Kissinger had met with the shah of Iran, who solicited his aid in destabilizing the Baathist regime of Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr in Baghdad.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 49

“[O]n February 18, 1976, President [Gerald] Ford issued Executive Order 11905, forbidding U.S. government agencies from undertaking assassinations.”

 – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 13

President Ford issued Executive Order 11905 on February 18, 1976, which states under Section 5 part (g) Prohibition of Assassination, “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”

 – Gerald R. Ford, “President Gerald R. Ford’s Executive Order 11905: United States Foreign Intelligence Activities,” Federation of American Scientists, Accessed on 9/22/2016

President Gerald Ford “issued an executive order on February 18, 1976, that granted the National Security Council greater power over intelligence gathering, established a Committee on Foreign Intelligence and Operations Advisor Group to monitor the CIA, as well as an Intelligence Oversight Board, imposed restrictions on surveillance, and banned assassinations of foreign leaders. Ford told Congress his reforms would ‘help to restore public confidence in these agencies and encourage our citizens to appreciate the valuable contribution they make to our national security.’ “

 – Julian E. Zelizer, ed., The Presidency of George W. Bush, Page 23

“…the Church Committee’s final report [which investigated the legality of intelligence gathered by CIA and FBI] called for creating a permanent oversight committee, and in May 1976, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was formed. …But the real legacy of the Church and Pike committees [which oversees the U.S. Intelligence Community] was the empowerment of an entire new set of people within the intelligence community. This new group saw its primary function as providing a check on what it regarded as the militaristic and hard-line views within the U.S. government.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Bill Gertz, Breakdown, Page 109

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On October 31, 1977, President “Jimmy Carter’s director of Central Intelligence, Admiral Stansfield Turner…who had no experience with intelligence, decided to cut 820 positions within the CIA Operations Directorate. …For the Clandestine Service, the cuts were a blow from which it never recovered. Every director of Central Intelligence since then has tried in vain to ‘rebuild’ the operational capability of the CIA.”

 – Bill Gertz, Breakdown, Page 63

In an interview that appeared in the July 16, 1978, edition of Newsweek, “Asked why Baghdad had become a haven for both Palestinian and European terror groups, Saddam responded: ‘Regarding the Palestinians, it’s no secret: Iraq is open to them and they are free to train and plan [terrorist attacks] here.’ ”

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 143

“In October 1978, Congress…passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), requiring both the Bureau [FBI] and CIA to obtain warrants before conducting any surveillance of an American abroad, even if that person was ‘reasonably believed to be acting on behalf of a foreign power.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 221

“[T]he [October] 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act… required the President and his subordinates, on pain of jail, to get a special court’s permission to listen to each electronic communication of suspected foreign agents, including wartime enemies, in the United States.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency, Page 66

“…in January 1979 Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the shah of Iran, and the second oil crisis began. As gas lines formed that summer owing to gasoline price controls, the economy started to spiral toward another recession and inflation crossed again into the double-digit range, hitting 12 percent by fall.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence, Page 82

President “Jimmy Carter’s deputy national security adviser, David Aaron, chaired a second secret session of the Special Coordination Committee on March 30 [1979] to consider direct American covert aid to the Afghan rebellion. …The State Department’s David Newsom explained to the group that the Carter administration now sought ‘to reverse the current Soviet trend and presence in Afghanistan, to demonstrate to the Pakistanis our interest and concern about Soviet involvement, and to demonstrate to the Pakistanis, Saudis, and others our resolve to stop extension of Soviet influence in the Third World.’ ”

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Pages 44-45

In April 1979, “the Italian company Snia Techint, a subsidiary of the Fiat group, agreed to sell four nuclear laboratories to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. The Italian deal would give the Iraqis enough plutonium in a year to make one bomb, and the project would be ready to go operational by late 1981.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 137

“On July 3, 1979, [President Jimmy] Carter scrawled his name on a presidential ‘finding’ required under a recent law intended to ensure White House control over CIA operations. …Carter’s finding authorized the CIA to spend just over $500,000 on propaganda and psychological operations, as well as provide radio equipment, medical supplies, and cash to the Afghan rebels.”

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 46

National Security Advisor Zbigniew “Brzezinski and his aide Robert Gates from CIA, on July 3, 1979, persuaded [President Jimmy] Carter to send secret aid to Islamist militants in Afghanistan, six months before the Soviet invasion in December 1979. Brzezinski has since…said that he explained to Carter that in his opinion ‘this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.’ ”

 – Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11, Page 71

Former National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski said: ” ‘According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention. …We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.’ ”

 – “The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan,” Le Nouvel Observateur, Jan. 15-21, 1998

“In July [16] 1979, Saddam was elected secretary general of the regional leadership of the Baath party in Iraq, chairman of the Revolution Command Council, president of the Republic of Iraq and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.”

 – “Profile: Former Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein,” China Daily, June 30, 2004

“On 16 July, 1979, [Ahmad Hassan] al-Bakr announced his resignation as president [of Iraq] in a move widely interpreted as being instigated by Saddam, who then became president.”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 29

“Immediately after seizing the presidency [of Iraq, on July 16, 1979], he [Saddam Hussein] convened an assembly of all Baath Party leaders, read the names of sixty-eight members whom he labeled ‘disloyal,’ and had them arrested. Twenty-two were later sentenced to death.”

 – Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 37

“British, French, American, Austrian, German, Swiss, Danish, and Swedish companies all contributed expertise to the Akashat/Al Qaim project, all believing that they were helping with the construction of a fertilizer production plant [in Iraq]. But the project turned out to be a classic example of dual-use technology. American and British intelligence officials have since confirmed that Iraq’s first nerve gas plant was constructed at Akashat at an estimated cost of $40 million, and a separate facility was constructed at Al Qaim. The plant was completed at about the time Saddam became president [July 17, 1979].”

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 131

Beginning on July 22, 1979, shortly after Saddam became president of Iraq, “a plot against Saddam by senior Ba’athists in league with the Syrian faction of the Ba’ath Party was supposedly uncovered. This resulted in the execution of twenty-two senior Ba’athists, including four members of the Revolutionary Command Council. Some were close friends and associates of Saddam during his rise to power. His ruthlessness, power-drive and cunning won out. Saddam was now the undisputed master of Iraq.”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 29

On November 4, 1979, “Iranian militants took fifty-two American diplomats hostage in the U.S. embassy in Teheran.”

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 8

“In November [4] 1979, Islamic extremists led a coup in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The Iranian revolution showed to bin Laden and his generation of Islamists that their dream of a Koranic theocracy was actually possible.”

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 8

“On November 4, 1979, militant students–responding to a decision by [President Jimmy] Carter to allow the deposed Shah [of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi] to enter the United States for cancer treatment–seized sixty-six Americans, thirteen of whom were freed over time. The rest were freed 444 days later, the day [Ronald] Reagan took office.”

 – Tyler Drumheller with Elaine Monaghan, On The Brink, Page 133

“On November 4 [1979], student radicals in Iran stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Officials in the State Department at first declared that the takeover was ‘a peaceful demonstration’ and denied that the captive U.S. personnel were ‘hostages.’ Within days, though, newspapers began carrying photographs of the captive Americans, blindfolded and with their hands bound behind their backs. The radicals, followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared that they would continue to hold the diplomats until the deposed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, then in the United States to receive treatment for cancer, was returned to Iran so that he could be tried for crimes against the Iranian people. In [President Jimmy] Carter’s next address to the nation [on January 4, 1980], the perpetrators were no longer described as student activists; they were now called ‘militant terrorists’ acting with ‘the support and approval of Iranian officials.’ ”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 145

“…on November 5, 1979, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, sacked its offices, and captured hostages.”

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 26

On November 6, 1979, “in Islamabad [Pakistan]‘s serene diplomatic quarter near the university, local Iranians draped their embassy with provocative banners denouncing the United States and calling for a global Islamic revolution against the superpowers.”

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Pages 26-27

“On November 15, 1979, Iran canceled all of its contracts with U.S. oil companies, including Standard Oil of New Jersey (ExxonMobil), Standard of California (Chevron), and Gulf (BP).”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Page 155

“In 1979 Saudi Arabia experienced its first open rebellion by Wahhabis [hardline Islamists]. On 20 November [1979] several hundred zealots, headed by the radical imam Guhiman al-Utaibi, seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, accusing the Al Saud of decadence and corruption. It was eleven days before they could be dislodged. The Al Saud were obliged to ask for the assistance of French riot police, showing a dependence, which has persisted, on Western security forces to prevent domestic unrest. Subsequently, sixty-three of those who took part were publicly beheaded as an example to other would-be dissidents.”

 – Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of Al Qaeda, Page 158

“Today’s jihadist movement in the Sunni Muslim world has its roots in Afghanistan in the resistance to the massive Soviet invasion launched in December [24] 1979. Elements of the Soviet Fortieth Army marched in after the Soviet intelligence service, the KGB, had the country’s communist dictator assassinated for failing to deliver a stable Marxist government. In response, President Jimmy Carter ordered the CIA to support the mujahedin resistance, which President Ronald Reagan backed on an even vaster scale in the 1980s. At the time, few thought the mujahedin could win: the CIA station chief in Kabul predicted the Soviet forces would smash them in less than six months. Instead the resistance smashed the Fortieth Army.”

 – Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda, Page 62

"In one of the tragic ironies of history, the enemy we know today as al-Qaeda was brought together largely by the actions of the United States. In December [25] 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan, fearful that their puppet Communist government was falling, and that, should it fall, the United states would be able to step in and establish its own sphere of influence at the southern border of the Soviet Union."

 – Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum, Intelligence Matters, 27

"After Russian tanks rolled into the Afghan capital of Kabul on Christmas Day 1979, the incoming Reagan administration strategized that a surrogate battle against the Soviets might hasten an end to the Cold War. The same president who turned tail in the face of Islamic terrorists in Beirut [Lebanon], now began arming their spiritual 'brothers,' the mujahadeen rebels. The Saudis matched the U.S. contribution dollar for dollar."

 – Peter Lance, Triple Cross, 18

“…in December [25] 1979, the Soviet Union toppled its own puppet regime in Afghanistan with a massive invasion of airborne special forces, paratroopers, tanks, and self-propelled artillery.”

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 9

” ‘When the invasion of Afghanistan started [on December 25, 1979], I was enraged and went there at once,’ he [Osama bin Laden] told British journalist Robert Fisk… ‘I arrived within days, before the end of 1979.’ ”

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 9

“On December 26 [1979], the USSR invades Afghanistan. [National Security Advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski writes, ‘We now have the opportunity to give Russia its own Vietnam War.’ U.S. support for the Afghan Arabs had begun earlier that summer and would later grow to more than $700 million a year. Within days, Osama bin Laden decides to join the battle against the Soviet ‘infidels.’ ”

 – Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Pages 301-302

In his December 26, 1979, memorandum to President Jimmy Carter, titled ‘Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan,’ National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski “sketched out a new Afghan policy, much of it to be carried out in secret…to channel medical kits and other aid to the Afghan rebels. ‘It is essential that Afghanistan’s resistance continues,’ he wrote. ‘This means more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels, and some technical advice. To make the above possible we must both reassure Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels. This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy. We should encourage the Chinese to help the rebels also. We should concert with Islamic countries both in a propaganda campaign and in a covert action campaign to help the rebels.’ ”

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 51

December 26, 1979, is the beginning of the “Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Bin Laden leaves Saudi Arabia to join the Afghan resistance (mujahedeen).”

 – “Hunting Bin Laden; Who is Bin Laden & What Does He Want? A Chronology of His Political Life,” PBS Frontline, accessed on April 24, 2018

"Outraged at the invasion of an Islamic nation by the Soviet Union in December [26] 1979, more than 25,000 foreign 'jihadis' from more than 35 countries–many seeking adventure or a sense of purpose in life–flew to Pakistan and then made the long trek into Afghanistan to fight with their Muslim brothers."

 – Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, 119

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979, “As many as twenty-five thousand young jihadis like [future World Trade Center bomber Ramzi] Yousef poured in [to Afghanistan] from around the globe to fight and train in guerilla tactics. Though they were all later dubbed ‘Afghan Arabs,’ there were blue-eyed Chechens, black South Africans, and Filipinos training along with Kurds, Yemenis, Uzbekis, and Saudis. They studied bombmaking, hijacking, and other covert ops.”

 – Peter Lance, 1000 Years For Revenge, Page 25

“In [December 27] 1979, after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Saudis were part of an alliance formed by the United States to drive them out.”

 – Neela Banerjee, “The High, Hidden Cost of Saudi Arabian Oil,” The New York Times, Oct. 21, 2001

A month after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter proclaimed what would be known as the Carter Doctrine in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980: ” ‘The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance: It contains more than two-thirds of the world’s exportable oil. The Soviet effort to dominate Afghanistan has brought Soviet military forces to within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Straits of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world’s oil must flow. The Soviet Union is now attempting to consolidate a strategic position, therefore, that poses a grave threat to the free movement of Middle East oil. This situation demands careful thought, steady nerves, and resolute action, not only for this year but for many years to come. It demands collective efforts to meet this new threat to security in the Persian Gulf and in Southwest Asia. It demands the participation of all those who rely on oil from the Middle East and who are concerned with global peace and stability. And it demands consultation and close cooperation with countries in the area which might be threatened. Meeting this challenge will take national will, diplomatic and political wisdom, economic sacrifice, and, of course, military capability. We must call on the best that is in us to preserve the security of this crucial region. Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.‘ ”

 – Jimmy Carter, “Jimmy Carter State of the Union Address 1980,” Jimmy Carter Library, Jan. 23, 1980

The Soviet military invaded Afghanistan on December 25, 1979, a move which was not expected by the U.S. intelligence community. Representative Dick “Cheney [R-WY] made a mental note of the intelligence failure and backed the decision of the Carter administration to arm the rebels, whom he regarded as ‘a tough and able people who want to fight for their country.’ Arming the mujahideen, Cheney said [in an interview on April 17, 1980], is ‘the best way to make Russia pay, and it will also keep them tied down so that they cannot move into Iran.’ ”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 146

“…in November 1979…Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing control of the building and taking sixty-six Americans hostage. By the spring of 1980, with fifty-two hostages remaining in the embassy, the [Carter] administration had developed a top secret rescue plan. The mission was launched during the early evening of April 24 [1980]… By the next morning in Washington…it was clear that the operation had been an unmitigated disaster. Not only had it failed to achieve its goal; it had resulted in the deaths of eight American servicemen and the loss of seven of the eight helicopters deployed and a C-130 transport aircraft.”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 121

“Even though Washington still had Iraq on its list of countries that sponsored terrorism and had not enjoyed full diplomatic relations since the 1967 Israeli-Arab Six Day War, from mid-1980 onward there was a distinct shift in the Carter administration, which began to regard Saddam as a potential counterweight both against the ayatollahs [of Iran] and as an ally that might provide a bulwark against Soviet expansionism in the Gulf.”  [The 1st of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 192

“According to [Iranian] President [Abulhassan] Bani-Sadr and the New York Times, [President Jimmy] Carter’s desire to explore the possibility of a clandestine alliance with Saddam resulted in a top-secret meeting taking place in Amman, Jordan, during the first week of July 1980 between Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, and Saddam Hussein. According to the Times, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss ways that the United States and Iraq could coordinate their activities ‘to oppose Iran’s reckless policies.’ “ [The 5th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 192

“While the U.S. Senate continued to block any attempt to export military equipment to Baghdad [Iraq], in July [1980, President Jimmy] Carter approved the sale of five Boeing airliners for Iraq’s national airline, America’s first significant commercial contract with Iraq since the Baathists came to power.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 192

Ayman al Zawahiri said, in his autobiographical Knights under the Prophet’s Banner published in December 2001: ” ‘My connection with Afghanistan began in the summer of 1980 by a twist of fate, when I was temporarily filling in for one of my colleagues at Al Sayyidah Zaynab Clinic [in Cairo]. One night the clinic director asked me if I would like to travel to Pakistan to contribute, through my work as a surgeon, to the medical relief effort among the Afghan refugees. I immediately agreed because I saw this as an opportunity to get to know one of the arenas of jihad that might be a base for jihad in Egypt and the Arab region, the heart of the Islamic world, where the basic battle of Islam was being fought.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Page 64

“In September 1980, Saddam declared the abrogation of the Algiers Accord signed in 1975 with Iran, and soon afterward a war broke out. The eight-year war between Iraq and Iran [from September 22, 1980, to August 20, 1988] killed about 1 million people in the two countries and caused at least 900 billion US dollars in total losses.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – “Profile: Former Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein,” China Daily, June 30, 2004

“On September 22, 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, igniting an eight-year war between the two nations. Hussein invaded to gain access to the country’s primary waterway, its oil, and its regional power.”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Page 157

“Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran in September [22] 1980, in a disastrous miscalculation that the Islamist regime, which had overthrown the pro-U.S. shah of Iran, would be too weak to stand up to the Iraqi military. It turned out to be one of the longest conflicts of the twentieth century, with no victor emerging when the war ended eight years later.”

 – Deepak Tripathi, Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Page 65