“Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, argued that the Bush Administration should take military action against Iraq, but not in the name of preempting Iraqi threats. Rather, Biden insisted, the war should be understood as an enforcement action to protect the standing of the [UN] Security Council–specifically, […]
Category: quotes
1/28/2003
“Officially committing the nation to the longstanding tenet of neoconservative thought, [President] Bush declared [during the January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address] that ‘the United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.’ ” – Eugene Jarecki, The American Way of […]
1/27/2003
On January 27, 2003, “Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), publicly declared that the IAEA inspectors who had been on the ground in Iraq during the months before the invasion had ‘found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the […]
1/27/2003
“At a NSC [National Security Council] meeting on January 27, 2003, [CIA Director] George Tenet was given a hard-copy draft of the State of the Union address [President] Bush was to deliver the next day. That day, Tenet returned to CIA headquarters and, without even reading the speech, gave a copy to an assistant who […]
1/27/2003
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had just issued a report taking issue with [Bush] Administration claims that Iraq had an active nuclear program. ‘We have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapon program since the elimination of the program in the 1990’s,’ Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the agency, […]
1/27/2003
“Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector … told the [U.N.] Security Council [on January 27, 2003] that ‘Iraq has decided in principle’ to cooperate on process when it came to granting access to sites and providing support services for U.N. inspectors. ‘Information provided by member states tells us about the movement and concealment of missiles […]
1/27/2003
“On at least fourteen different occasions prior to the [January 28] 2003 State of the Union, analysts at the CIA, the State Department, and other government agencies who had examined the Niger documents [claiming Saddam sought to purchase yellowcake uranium from them] or reports about them raised serious doubts about their legitimacy. Yet somehow a […]
1/27/2003
Commander of Coalition Forces General Tommy Franks met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on January 27, 2003. Regarding the potential invasion of Iraq, Mubarak warned: ” ‘You must be very, very careful. We have spoken with Saddam Hussein. He is a madman. He has WMD–biologicals, actually–and he will use them on your troops.’ ” – […]
1/27/2003
Regarding Iraq’s use of chemical weapons, the Blix Report, issued on January 27, 2003, by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, read: ” ‘Iraq has declared that it only produced VX [nerve gas] on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said […]
1/27/2003
The Blix Report, issued on January 27, 2003, by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, mentioned the ‘Air Force document,’ which “was originally found by an UNSCOM [UN Special Commission on Iraq] inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of […]