“In March [2002], [CIA Director George] Tenet met secretly with two individuals who would be critical to covert action inside Iraq: Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the leaders of the two main Kurdish groups in northern Iraq. Tenet had one message for Barzani and Talabani: the United States was serious, the military and the CIA […]
Category: quotes
3/15/2002
“In March 2002, Treasury agents raided the northern Virginia headquarters of four Saudi-based charities: the SAAR Foundation, the Safa Trust, the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), and the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). Also included in the raid was the local headquarters for the Muslim World League, an umbrella group funded by the Saudi […]
3/15/2002
According to an article in the March-April 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, “The diminishing importance of the Saudi-American alliance is also underlined in two other significant developments: first, that Russia and Venezuela are competing to supplant Saudi Arabia as the leading exporter of oil to the United States, and second, that every Middle Eastern country […]
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 […]
3/15/2002
“The rationale for supporting characters like [Northern Alliance commander] Hazrat Ali to operate unmolested was their supposed value as intelligence assets in the hunt for bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda. While happy to hand over the occasional hapless victim–in exchange for cash–for interrogation or worse in one of the expanding network of […]
3/15/2002
“We now know that the chase [for al Qaeda leaders] was given up in March 2002–just three months after the fall of Kandahar [Afghanistan]–when the Arabic- and Persian-speaking U.S. SOF [Special Operations Forces] teams were moved out of Afghanistan to train for Iraq and surveillance satellites were pulled from the skies over Afghanistan and redirected […]
3/15/2002
“…in March 2002, as preparation for the Iraq War was well underway, CIA deputy director John McLaughlin told senior members of [President] Bush’s national security team that the CIA’s presence in Afghanistan would be scaled back. Thereafter, the CIA closed bases in Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, and Kandahar and delayed an $80 million plan for training […]
3/15/2002
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary”: “321. Sir David Omand, the Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator in the Cabinet Office from 2002 to 2005, told the Inquiry that, in March 2002, the Security Service judged that the ‘threat from terrorism from Saddam’s own intelligence apparatus in the event of an intervention […]