After the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, “Establishing a security regime in the vacuum was of paramount importance. But in March 2002, Vice President [Dick] Cheney and Defense Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld were already working on the plan to invade Iraq. Cheney publicly rejected the idea of expanding the international peacekeeping force beyond Kabul. […]
Category: quotes
3/19/2002
“Operation Anaconda [from March 1-19, 2002] marked the end of the opening phase of the battle [in Afghanistan]. Like any war, our campaign in Afghanistan had not gone perfectly. But in six months, we had removed the Taliban from power, destroyed the al Qaeda training camps, liberated more than twenty-six million people from unspeakable brutality, […]
3/19/2002
Pakistani nuclear scientist Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood was quoted in the Pakistani newspaper The News on March 19, 2002. ” ‘I met [Taliban leader] Mullah [Mohammad] Omar, members of his council of ministers as well as Osama bin Laden only to seek their cooperation in pursuing the goals of my organization,’ he said.” – Ahmed Rashid, […]
3/18/2002
In an interview on March 18, 2002, CIA Deputy Director of Operations Thomas Twetten said: “…The CIA ignored Afghanistan and its civil war. Twetten felt there was nothing the United States could do to mediate the Afghan conflict or put the country back together again. There were too many other challenges in a world so […]
3/18/2002
“On March 18, members of the UK Parliament had voted in favor of the Iraq War. But by that time, the war was already under way. Some U.S. troops had entered the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Special forces were destroying Iraqi missile launchpads. U.S. and UK aircraft were bombing key sites in Baghdad and […]
3/17/2002
“At a March 17 [2002] lunch with England’s ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz tried to convince the British that Iraq was tied to the first World Trade Center attack.” – Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris, Page 82 […]
3/17/2002
“The British ambassador to Washington, Christopher Meyer, wrote to the Prime Minister’s [Tony Blair’s] Office in London about a meeting he had had with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on March 17, 2002 [regarding an invasion of Iraq]: ‘It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe. The […]
3/15/2002
According to information in an article in Time on March 22, 2003, in March 2002: “the president [Bush] poked his head into [National Security Advisor Condoleezza] Rice’s office as she met with senators and heard them discussing the possibilities of dealing with Iraq through the United Nations or a coalition of U.S. allies in the […]
3/15/2002
“…the March [15] 2002 JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] report on Iraq warned that the intelligence on Iraq was ‘sporadic’ and ‘patchy.’ What is then omitted is what it went on to say, which was: ‘But it is clear that Iraq continues to pursue a policy of acquiring WMD and their delivery means.’ ” – Tony […]
3/15/2002
In March 2002, President Bush “stuck his head into a White House meeting on Iraq that [National Security Advisor] Condoleezza Rice was having with some senators, and blurted out: ‘Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Todd S. Purdum and The New York […]