The National Intelligence Council’s January 2003 report, titled ‘Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq,’ “predicted that ‘The building of an Iraqi democracy would be a long, difficult, and probably turbulent process. …[A] post-Saddam authority would face a deeply divided society with a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other unless […]
Category: quotes
1/15/2003
“It was in this WINPAC [Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center] office that [author James] Bamford’s informant worked at the turn of the year 2002-2003. In January [2003] the informant’s boss at WINPAC convened about fifty people in a meeting to bolster the case for WMDs, described by Bamford in A Pretext for War. […]
1/15/2003
“In an informal National Intelligence Estimate [in January 2003], intelligence agencies unanimously conclude that Saddam was unlikely to attack the United States unless attacked first.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Page 256 […]
1/15/2003
“In January 2003, Paul Pillar, the national intelligence officer in charge of the Middle East, produced a high-level report examining the challenges the Bush administration would face in a post-Saddam Iraq. The paper made the obvious point: turning Iraq into a state even resembling a liberal democracy would be difficult.” [The 15th of the month […]
1/15/2003
In January 2003, President Bush “gave the Pentagon the lead responsibility for the management of postwar Iraq. This decision, in the words of one U.S. official, ‘sent out the signal that they [the Pentagon] are really in charge and reinforced and amplified their mandate to say ‘to hell with everybody else.’ “ [The 15th of […]
1/15/2003
On January 15, 2003, President “Bush met with the war cabinet to hear the details of the planned food relief and other humanitarian efforts [for Iraq]. …’This is an opportunity to change the image of the United States,’ the president said. ‘We need to make the most of these humanitarian aid efforts in our public […]
1/15/2003
“In January 2003, the CIA produced a paper that was the Agency’s definitive take on the [Iraq/al-Qaeda] matter, concluding that there was no Iraqi ‘authority, direction and control’ over al-Qaeda. Deputy Director of the CIA John McLaughlin recalls that this did not go down well with the Bush administration: ‘It took the form of phone […]
1/15/2003
“In January 2003, the National Intelligence Council, a CIA-led panel of intelligence specialists, had cautioned that building democracy in Iraq would be difficult because of its authoritarian history and warned of the risk that the American forces would be seen as occupiers. ‘Attitudes toward a foreign military force would depend largely on the progress made […]
1/15/2003
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix wrote, in January 2003: “On a visit to a large ammunition store that had been declared by Iraq and had been inspected several times before, our inspectors found a crate of warheads designed for chemical weapons. There were no chemical agents in them, but they should have been declared. […]
1/15/2003
“The [National Intelligence Council’s] thirty-eight page report [published in January 2003], entitled ‘Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq,’ chronicled a long list of potential problems. …The key judgments of the report are the following: ‘The building of an Iraqi democracy would be a long, difficult and probably turbulent process with potential for backsliding into Iraq’s tradition […]