Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul “Wolfowitz would later acknowledge [in the May 2003 issue of Vanity Fair] that Iraq’s supposed supply of WMD had never been the most compelling case for war: ‘For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.’ ” […]
Category: quotes
5/15/2003
Director of the Coalition Provisional Authority L. Paul “Bremer would later write in his book My Year in Iraq that in May 2003 he sent [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld a copy of a draft report by the Rand Corporation, a military-affiliated think tank, that estimated that five hundred thousand troops were needed to stabilize […]
5/15/2003
On May 15, 2003, “the day before [Director of Reconstruction in Iraq L. Paul] Bremer signed the de-Baathification Order, [Undersecretary of Defense Douglas] Feith gave testimony in front of the House International Relations Committee on the conditions inside Iraq. He explicitly rejected the possibility of keeping senior Ba’athists in office as a price for maintaining […]
5/15/2003
“During a May 2003 custodial interview with [former Iraqi Intelligence Service Deputy Director] Faruq Hijazi, he said in a 1994 meeting with bin Laden in the Sudan, bin Laden requested that Iraq assist al Qaeda with the procurement of an unspecified number of Chinese-manufactured antiship limpet mines. Bin Laden thought that Iraq should be able […]
5/15/2003
Following the overthrow of Baghdad in April 2003, “the U.S. military did not secure the massive weapons caches that the Iraqi military had stashed around the country, estimated to amount to one million tons. …[Lieutenant General Ricardo] Sanchez recalls that by May 2003 ‘the Iraqis began holding open-air bazaars that sold everything from small handguns […]
5/15/2003
Historian Timothy Naftali wrote: “Unbeknownst to any of the principal actors in this drama, May 2003 was the height of the Bush counterterrorism offensive. Iraq was under U.S. occupation, and three-quarters of the pre-9/11 leadership of al Qaeda had been captured or killed.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – […]
5/15/2003
“Since May 2003, a new branch of al Qaeda–al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula–has been active within Saudi Arabia, seeking to undermine the regime through a concerted campaign of attacks on domestic as well as foreign targets.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History […]
5/15/2003
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary”: “817. … -Following the resignation of Ms Clare Short, the [UK] International Development Secretary, and the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1483 in May 2003, DFID assumed leadership of the UK’s reconstruction effort in Iraq. DFID would subsequently define, within the framework established […]
5/15/2003
“In May 2003, President Bush signed an executive order that provides oil industry companies–and only oil companies–unprecedented immunity against contractual disputes or lawsuits resulting from discrimination, labor law abuses, environmental disasters, and human rights violations. [As reported in the August 8, 2003, edition of The San Francisco Chronicle] ‘In terms of legal liability,’ says Tom […]
5/14/2003
In an attack in Saudi Arabia on May 14, 2003, “One of the companies that was targeted was basically a U.S. executive mercenary group called Vinnell Corporation, owned by Northrop Grumman, formerly owned by President Bush Sr.’s Carlyle Group. This is a mercenary organization that trains the Saudi Arabian National Guard that is simply there […]