9/7/2002

On September 7, 2002, British Prime Minister Tony Blair met with President Bush “for a three hour talk on Iraq and dinner…Blair and Bush took questions from reporters. They said they were committed to ending Saddam’s threat once and for all…Bush asserted unequivocally, ‘Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction.’…’I’m with you,’ the prime minister […]

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9/7/2002

Then-CIA Director George Tenet described a Camp David meeting that discussed the possibility of war in Iraq: “The meeting on Saturday morning, September 7, [2002] sparked considerable debate about the wisdom of trying to revive a UN inspection regime. …To me, the president [Bush] still appeared less inclined to go to war than many of […]

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9/7/2002

“The White House propaganda blitz was launched on September 7, 2002, at a Camp David press conference. British Prime Minister Tony Blair stood side by side with his co-conspirator, President George W. Bush. Together, they declared that evidence from a report published by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed that Iraq was ‘six […]

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9/7/2002

Former Secretary of State George Shultz published an essay in the September 7, 2002, Washington Post. “Shultz laid out the most influential arguments for war [in Iraq], which have since been proven to have the least basis in fact. According to Shultz, the most compelling argument for war was the catastrophic and immediate threat posed […]

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9/6/2002

On September 6, 2002, Central Command leader General Tommy Franks and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “Briefed the president [Bush] and the NSC [National Security Council] on the latest war planning. But General Franks had something important to add. ‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘we’ve been looking for Scud missiles and other weapons of mass destruction […]

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9/6/2002

“In a memo that [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy] Doug Feith sent to [Deputy Director of Central Intelligence] John McLaughlin on September 6, 2002, he forwarded a cable summarizing his comments at a recent conference in Berlin. The cable quotes Feith as having told the gathering that ‘war is not optional.’ ‘At stake,’ he reportedly […]

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9/6/2002

“On September 6 [2002], in an interview in his office, [Chief of Staff Andrew] Card went so far as to characterize the push to Iraq as a sales campaign that the White House had waited to launch until the summer doldrums were over. ‘From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in […]

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9/6/2002

“After briefing the President [Bush] on September 6, 2002 on how Iraqi Scud missiles might be suppressed in a war, [Central Command leader] General Tommy Franks noted that ‘we’ve been looking for Scud missiles and other weapons of mass destruction for ten years and haven’t found any yet, so I can’t tell you that I […]

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9/6/2002

During a National Security Council meeting on September 6, 2002, Central Command leader General Tommy Franks said to President Bush: ” ‘Mr. President, we’ve been looking for Scud missiles and other weapons of mass destruction for ten years and haven’t found any yet.’ “  – Julian E. Zelizer, ed., The Presidency of George W. Bush, […]

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9/6/2002

Regarding a National Security Council meeting that took place at Camp David on September 6, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney said: ” ‘In neither this meeting nor any other I attended did any of the president’s [Bush’s] advisers argue against using military force to remove Saddam from power… Nor did anyone argue that leaving Saddam […]

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