In a February 8, 2004, appearance on Meet the Press, President Bush said: ” ‘I expected there to be stockpiles of weapons’ and ‘We thought he [Saddam] had weapons.’ ” – Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Page 424 […]
Category: quotes
2/6/2004
Regarding intelligence failures in Iraq, on February 6, 2004, President Bush “appeared in the press briefing room to announce what was now old news. He said he would appoint a nine-member commission to look at American intelligence capabilities and the intelligence about WMD worldwide. It was to determine why some prewar intelligence about Iraq’s alleged […]
2/6/2004
On February 6, 2004, President Bush “took the podium in the White House…to announce that he was signing an executive order appointing nine people to the Silberman-Robb Commission [to investigate intelligence capabilities regarding WMD in Iraq].” – Bob Woodward, State of Denial, Page 286 […]
2/5/2004
“On February 5, 2004, [CIA Director George] Tenet gave a speech at Georgetown University on ‘something important to our nation and central to our future: how the United States intelligence community evaluated Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.’ He had two main points to make: U.S. intelligence had not gotten it all wrong and the […]
2/5/2004
In a speech at Georgetown University on February 5, 2004, CIA Director George Tenet said the CIA “had discovered that Iraq had research and development, intent and capability to produce chemical and biological weapons. Halfway through the speech he acknowledged they had not found biological or chemical weapons. The CIA…had discovered that one of their […]
2/5/2004
” ‘We did not have enough of our own human intelligence [in Iraq],’ conceded [CIA Director] George Tenet [on February 5, 2004]. ‘We did not ourselves penetrate the inner sanctum.’ It was the same story as in Afghanistan, as well as in Iran, North Korea, and most other trouble spots around the world. Instead of […]
2/5/2004
While giving a speech at Georgetown University on February 5, 2004, CIA Director George Tenet addressed issues of pre-war intelligence on Iraq’s potential possession of WMD: ” ‘Let me be clear: analysts differed on several important aspects of these [WMD development] programs and those debates were spelled out in the [National Intelligence] estimate [of October […]
2/5/2004
“The best source the CIA had [for Iraqi intelligence] was provided by the French intelligence service, which had cultivated Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister, as its agent. Sabri said that Saddam did not have an active nuclear or biological weapons program. Evidently his reporting was rejected. Sabri was the man to whom [CIA director George] […]
2/5/2004
Following Iraq Survey Group leader David Kay’s resignation and claims that there were no WMD in Iraq: “Forced by public opinion, the opposition Democrats and even Republicans, [President] Bush finally agreed in early February [2004] to an independent investigation regarding the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, but made sure any report would be published well […]
2/5/2004
According to a New York Times article from February 5, 2004: “…the Bush administration was obliged to acknowledge that its muscular post-9/11 foreign policy and military interventionism had damaged American prestige abroad so thoroughly that ‘it will take us many years of hard, focused work’ to restore America’s international standing. Particularly hurtful were disclosures in […]