CIA Director George Tenet admitted to errors in intelligence gathering at his February 5, 2004, speech at Georgetown University: “[T]he intelligence community had been ‘generally on target’ in its warnings that Saddam was developing long-range missiles. But the CIA ‘may have overestimated the progress Saddam was making’ on nuclear weapons. As for biological weapons stockpiles […]
Category: quotes
2/5/2004
“The ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] report that was handed over to the U.S. command in Baghdad [Iraq] in early February [2004] was a horrifying litany of systematic abuse, including brutality and physical or psychological coercion during interrogation, as well as ‘excessive and disproportionate use of force…resulting in death or injury’ at Abu […]
2/4/2004
U.K. “Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday [February 4, 2004] defended his decision to go to war in Iraq, saying that he was ready to take responsibility for his actions before the country while asserting that freedom and democracy in Iraq were more important than any mistaken intelligence. Mr. Blair’s presentation in the House of […]
2/4/2004
The Hutton Inquiry, the British investigation into the death of former UN weapons inspector in Iraq David Kelly, deemed on January 28, 2004, that U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair did not intentionally deceive the public about the threat posed by Iraq. On February 4, 2004, Blair addressed the House of Commons, saying: ” ‘If any […]
2/4/2004
Regarding the head of Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan: “On February 4, 2004, he’d gone on Pakistani TV and confessed to his illegal nuclear proliferation activities [which included providing designs and technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya]. He was under house arrest [in Pakistan], and we had stopped one of the world’s worst […]
2/3/2004
In the February 3, 2004, edition of The Washington Post, Secretary of State Colin Powell “said he was not sure he would have supported the [Iraq] war if he had known there were no WMD in Iraq. ‘The absence of a stockpile [of banned weapons in Iraq] changes the political calculus,’ he told them [reporters], […]
2/2/2004
“On Monday, February 2 [2004], after a cabinet meeting, a reporter asked the president [Bush], ‘Do you think the country is owed an explanation about the Iraq intelligence failure before the election so voters have this information when they elect a new president?’ ‘First of all, I want to know all the facts,’ Bush said, […]
2/2/2004
Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) was interviewed by John Gibson on Fox News’ The Big Story on February 2, 2004. Regarding a possible al Qaeda/Iraq link, ” ‘The intel didn’t say there is a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq… That was not the intel. That’s what this [Bush] administration exaggerated to produce. And so […]
2/2/2004
In a Washington Post interview on February 2, 2004, Secretary of State Colin “Powell admitted that they had gone to war [with Iraq] on false premises. While he told the newspaper that he still thought the war ‘was the right thing to do,’ he hedged when asked whether he would have favored it if he […]
1/29/2004
Former Iraq Survey Group leader David Kay presented his findings to President Bush’s cabinet on January 29, 2004. “Discussing Kay’s findings, Bush showed no anger. ‘The president accepted it,’ Kay recalled. ‘There was no sign of disappointment from Bush. He was at peace with his decision to go to war. I don’t think he ever […]