After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Chief operations deputy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Greg Newbold “assured [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas] Feith that we were working hard on Afghanistan. Feith told me, *Why are you working on Afghanistan? You ought to be working on Iraq.* ‘ “ [The 15th of the […]
Category: quotes
9/15/2001
A September 2001 article in The Atlantic Monthly quoted a former CIA Near East Division operative, who said: ” ‘The CIA probably doesn’t have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no […]
9/15/2001
While discussing a response to the 9/11 attacks at Camp David on September 15, 2001, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Hugh Shelton mentioned military options against Afghanistan. “Before Shelton could even get to his third option, [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz interrupted. ‘But we really need to think broader than that right now,’ he said. […]
9/15/2001
“At a Camp David meeting of the Cabinet on September 15 [2001], [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz argued that there was a 10 to 50 percent chance Saddam had been part of the 9/11 plot, and he suggested [President] Bush consider attacking Iraq right away, noting a war in Iraq might be easier than […]
9/15/2001
“In the days after 9/11 [mid-September 2001], President Bush signed a covert action finding authorizing the CIA to kill or capture and detain al Qaeda operatives around the world, but the finding was silent on the interrogation tactics to be used on those in detention.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes […]
9/15/2001
“President Bush told [journalist] Bob Woodward that the decision not to invade Iraq was made at the morning session [of the war council] on September 15 [2001]. Iraq was not even on the table during the September 15 afternoon session, which dealt solely with Afghanistan.” – 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, Page 335 […]
9/15/2001
“Congress passed a resolution just days after the September 11 [2001] attacks granting the president the authority to wage a global war on terrorism, and Bush administration lawyers later decided that the war resolution provided the legal basis they needed to support the NSA [National Security Administration] operation to eavesdrop on American citizens.” [The 15th […]
9/15/2001
“…in an exhaustive debate at Camp David [on September 15, 2001], none of the president’s [Bush’s] top advisers recommended attacking Iraq as a first step in the terrorism war–not even Vice President [Dick] Cheney, who…said, ‘If we go after Saddam Hussein, we lose our rightful place as good guy.’ ” – Bob Woodward, Plan of […]
9/15/2001
“As [Secretary of State] Colin Powell told an interviewer a week after the 9/11 attacks [mid-September 2001], ‘Iraq isn’t going anywhere. It’s in a fairly weakened state. It’s doing some things we don’t like. We will continue to contain it.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Jeffrey Record, […]
9/15/2001
Shortly after 9/11, Chairman of the Defense Board Advisory Committee Richard Perle commented that Iraq bore the responsibility for the attack. Then-CIA Director George Tenet noted: “I was stunned but said nothing. On September 11 [2001], I had scanned passenger manifests from the four hijacked airplanes that showed beyond a doubt that al-Qa’ida was behind […]