In a meeting at Camp David on the morning of September 15, 2001, “the war council participants had been given briefing materials that included a Defense Department paper specifying three priority targets for initial action in a war: Al Qaeda, the Taliban (which was the ruling regime of Afghanistan), and Iraq.” – Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza […]
Category: quotes
9/15/2001
Former CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “One of CIA’s senior Middle East experts recently told me of a meeting he had in the White House a few days after 9/11 [mid-September 2001]. A senior NSC [National Security Council] official told him that the [Bush] administration wanted to get rid of Saddam. Our analyst said, ‘If […]
9/15/2001
“At Camp David that morning [September 15, 2001], [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz seized [National Security Advisor Condoleezza] Rice’s opening about possible military campaigns beyond Afghanistan and launched into an argument for striking at Saddam Hussein. …He told the gathering at Camp David, according to one account, that there was a 10 to 50 […]
9/15/2001
While discussing a response to the 9/11 attacks at Camp David on September 15, 2001, ” ‘There was a long discussion during the day about what place if any Iraq should have in a counterterrorist strategy,’ he [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz] said later. …’the disagreement was whether it [Iraq] should be in the immediate […]
9/15/2001
In a war cabinet meeting at Camp David on September 15, 2001, “When [Secretary of State Colin] Powell remarked that the international coalition that was quickly coming together against al-Qaeda would likely fall apart if the military targets went beyond Afghanistan, the president [Bush] shrugged and said he didn’t care if they had to go […]
9/15/2001
During a meeting at Camp David on September 15, 2001, President Bush and his advisors, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz–all part of Bush Sr.’s Gulf War deliberations–discussed how to respond to the 9/11 attacks. Bush said: ” ‘one of the things I wasn’t going to […]
9/15/2001
” ‘Iraq isn’t going anywhere,’ he [Secretary of State Colin Powell] told an interviewer a week after September 11. ‘It’s in a fairly weakened state. It’s doing some things we don’t like. We’ll continue to contain it.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life […]
9/15/2001
“As reported by Jason Vest in the Village Voice (November 27, 2001): ‘According to intelligence and diplomatic sources, [Secretary of State Colin] Powell–as well as [Director of Central Intelligence] George Tenet–was infuriated by a private intelligence endeavor arranged by [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz in September [2001]. Apparently obsessed with proving a convoluted theory put […]
9/15/2001
In an interview with author Stephen Hayes on August 15, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recalled Vice President Dick Cheney's views for responding to 9/11 at the war council meeting on September 15, 2001. " 'He was very firm that we had something to get done, which was Afghanistan,' recalls Rice, 'and that any […]
9/15/2001
According to a March 21, 2004, interview on 60 Minutes, counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said: “In the days after 9/11 [2001], [President Bush] pushed him to tie Iraq to the attacks: ‘The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, *I want you to find whether […]