“The economic cost of the looting [in Iraq, following the overthrow of Saddam in April 2003] was estimated at $12 billion, not including the future costs in delayed reconstruction, and the political price of having Iraqis equate freedom with disorder and violence.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Larry […]
Category: quotes
4/15/2003
“As it happened, most of what the media had reported about the museum looting [after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003]…turned out to be false. …Though press reports commonly reported 170,000 items stolen, [Marine Colonel Matthew] Bogdanos discovered that only a tiny fraction of that was actually looted. Somewhere between 3,000 and 15,000 items […]
4/15/2003
President George W. Bush during a speaking event with small business owners in the Rose Garden: “This government is acting to protect the American people from the threats of a new era. In Iraq, the regime of Saddam Hussein is no more. (Applause.) A month ago — one month ago — that country was a prison […]
4/14/2003
“In Washington that Monday [April 14, 2003]–twenty-six days after the war [in Iraq] began, the Pentagon declared that major combat operations were over. ‘The major Iraqi units on the ground cease to show coherence,’ said Major General Stanley McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ‘There will be a requirement for […]
4/13/2003
” ‘You know, it’s amazing, he [President Bush] said [on April 13, 2003], ‘the statue [of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Iraq] comes down on Wednesday [April 9, 2003] and the headlines start to read: ‘Oh, there’s disorder. Well, no kidding. It is a situation that is chaotic because Saddam Hussein created conditions for chaos.’ ” […]
4/13/2003
In April 2003, the Defense Department’s working group “issued a report approving interrogation methods for use at Guantanamo Bay. The group recommended twenty-six techniques for general use…of which twenty-two were strategies for purely verbal questioning…” On April 13, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald “Rumsfeld specifically refused to authorize these exceptional interrogation methods for Guantanamo Bay, […]
4/13/2003
During a dinner with Vice President Cheney on April 13, 2003, former Donald Rumsfeld Aide Ken Adelman said: ” ‘I was just stunned that we have not found weapons of mass destruction.’ There were several hundred thousand troops and others combing the country. ‘We’ll find them,’ [Defense Deputy Paul] Wolfowitz said. ‘It’s only been four […]
4/13/2003
“On April 13 [2003], [Vice President Dick] Cheney hosted a small dinner to celebrate the fall of Hussein. The few invited included [vice presidential Chief of Staff] Scooter Libby, [Deputy Secretary of Defense] Paul Wolfowitz, and [former Donald Rumsfeld Aide] Ken Adelman… Over dinner, the group toasted [President] Bush and victory in Iraq. Cheney was […]
4/11/2003
“The U.S. Army, ordered to stand aside, watched as the national infrastructure [in Iraq] was carried away, a turn of events shrugged off by [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld with the explanation [on April 11, 2003, that] ‘Freedom’s untidy…Stuff happens.’ While the Army was watching the looters it was not watching the vast Iraqi arms […]
4/11/2003
“At the Pentagon, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld dismissed the looting [in Baghdad] at a briefing on April 11 [2003] with his now-infamous phrase, ‘stuff happens,’ and publicly the [Bush] administration took the position that disorder was to be expected.” – Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 213 […]