“…with lawmakers persuaded about what would go wrong if America did not attack Iraq, [President] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney were confronted with a roster of what could go wrong if it did. [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld had scrawled out by hand a list of all the possible setbacks… Marked ‘SECRET’ and dated […]
Category: quotes
10/15/2002
In The Iraq War Reader, Sarah Graham-Brown and Chris Toensing wrote: “By October [2002], U.S. and British planes had bombed Iraqi targets 46 times, and ‘clashes’ in the no-fly zones picked up again after the November 8 U.N. resolution.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Eds. Micah L. Sifry […]
10/15/2002
“A study conducted by the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform requested by Congressman Henry Waxman [D-CA], found that by October 2002, President Bush, Vice President [Dick] Cheney, Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, Secretary [of State Colin] Powell, and National Security Advisor [Condoleezza] Rice had made nearly a hundred misleading or inflated statements about […]
10/15/2002
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary:” “811. … -The MOD [Ministry of Defense] advised in October that the UK was at risk of being excluded from US plans unless it offered ground forces, ‘Package 3’, on the same basis as air and maritime forces. That could also significantly reduce the […]
10/15/2002
“In their effort to win over the Turks [to allow the U.S. to stage a northern front for an Iraq invasion from Turkish soil], the Bush administration had offered the Turks billions. An October [2002] meeting chaired by [National Security Advisor] Condoleezza Rice had settled on a package of $3 billion in aid, $3 billion […]
10/15/2002
“At the October 15 [2002] Principals Committee meeting, [CIA Director] George Tenet reiterated that the CIA did not have ‘a smoking gun today [in Iraq]–a site that we know will produce a smoking gun.’ Though CIA officials lacked specific data on where Saddam’s chemical or biological weapons were located, they said they were certain, from […]
10/15/2002
“Until he retired in October 2002, Gregory Thielmann was in charge of military assessments within the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He said the makeup of the intelligence unit [the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, headed by neoconservative scholar David Wurmser] was a giveaway, indicating that they had no interest in true analysis. Like […]
10/15/2002
“The Joint Staff effectively stated that view [that a prospective invasion of Iraq was no longer a matter of debate] in the form of a Strategic Guidance for Combatant Commanders. In mid-October [2002] a draft of this guidance was sent out to planning officers on the staffs of the senior U.S. military commanders around the […]
10/15/2002
“In October 2002, the Pew Research Center for People and the Press took a survey and found that 66 percent of Americans said they believed Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, despite the lack of proof. …79 percent believed that Iraq currently possessed–or was close to possessing–nuclear weapons. Three months later, a Knight-Ridder […]
10/15/2002
“In a classified three-page memo dated October 15, 2002, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld listed 29 things that could go wrong in an Iraq war. He reviewed it with the president [Bush] and the NSC [National Security Council]. …item Number 13 said, ‘U.S. could fail to find WMD on the ground.’ ” – Bob Woodward, […]