“In January 2003, NSA [National Security Agency] was tasked by the White House to monitor the communications of a surprisingly large number of international organizations, all of whom were key players standing in the way of the Bush administration’s strenuous efforts to convince the world community to join the U.S. and Britain and its so-called […]
Category: quotes
1/15/2003
“By January 2003, a plan for [taking control of] Iraqi oil crafted by the State Department and oil majors emerged under the guidance of Amy Myers Jaffe of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. It recommended maintaining the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company, whose origins dated back to 1961–but […]
1/15/2003
“As of January [2003], NSA [National Security Agency] was also intercepting the communications traffic (calls, e-mails, cables, etc.) of the United Nations’ chief weapons inspector, Dr. Hans Blix, and his deputies. According to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, President Bush was convinced that the Swedish diplomat was saying one thing in public and quite […]
1/15/2003
On January 15, 2003, General Counsel of the U.S. Navy Alberto “Mora delivered an unsigned draft memo [pushing for reform at Guantanamo] to [legal counsel to Secretary of Defense Jim] Haynes and said that he planned to ‘sign it out’ that afternoon–making it an official document–unless the harsh interrogation techniques were suspended. Mora’s draft memo […]
1/15/2003
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 […]
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 […]