In a press conference to announce the introduction of the ‘terror alert system’ on March 12, 2002, Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said: “the nation ‘currently stands in the yellow condition, elevated risk. Chances are we will not be able to lower the condition to green until…the terror networks of global reach have been […]
Category: quotes
3/12/2002
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary”: “469. On 12 March, Mr Blair and Mr Straw reached the view that there was no chance of securing a majority in the Security Council in support of the draft resolution of 7 March and there was a risk of one or more vetoes […]
3/11/2002
On March 11, 2002, a letter from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service stated that 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi had been approved for student visas to study flying. “There was only one problem: Six months earlier Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the two hijacked commercial airliners that hit the […]
3/11/2002
On March 11, 2002, “a private Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] contractor sent approvals to two young men granting them permission to change their immigration status from ‘visitors’ to ‘students.’ The two had enrolled at Huffman Aviation, a flight school in Venice, Florida. The two men then left the country twice after filing their applications, […]
3/11/2002
In a March 11, 2002, press conference at 10 Downing Street after meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said: ” ‘Let’s be under no doubt whatever, Saddam Hussein has acquired weapons of mass destruction over a long period of time. He’s the only leader in the world that’s actually used […]
3/11/2002
In a March 11, 2002, press conference at 10 Downing Street after meeting with U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Vice President Dick Cheney said: “in the context of what we had learned about al Qaeda’s efforts to acquire nuclear, biological, and chemical capability, we needed to be very concerned ‘about the potential marriage, if you […]
3/11/2002
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary”: “467. At the meeting on 11 March, Mr Blair stated that Lord Goldsmith’s ‘advice made it clear that a reasonable case could be made’ that resolution 1441 was ‘capable of reviving’ the authorization of resolution 678, ‘although of course a second resolution would be […]
3/10/2002
On March 10, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet said: ” ‘We are at war.’ ‘As for the CIA…There’s nothing we won’t do, nothing we won’t try, and no country we won’t deal with to achieve our goals.’ …We’re going to have to work with others in a way we haven’t before…Egypt, Syria, Russia…China, Pakistan, India, […]
3/9/2002
” ‘The agency [CIA] officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story [that Saddam Hussein was allegedly attempting to obtain yellowcake for WMD development] so they could provide a response to the Vice President’s [Dick Cheney’s] office.’ said [former Envoy to Iraq and Ambassador to Niger] Joseph Wilson. …Wilson returned […]
3/8/2002
A memo titled ‘Iraq: Options Paper‘ was written by the British government Overseas and Defence Secretariat on March 8, 2002, and leaked to the press in May 2005 as part of the Downing Street Memos. It stated: ” ‘The US administration has lost faith in containment and is now considering regime change [in Iraq]. The […]