9/15/2001

In a radio address to the nation on September 15, 2001, President Bush said: ” ‘We are planning a broad and sustained campaign to secure our country and eradicate the evil of terrorism.’ ”  – Jeffrey Record, Wanting War, Page 139 […]

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9/15/2001

On September 15, 2001, then-CIA Director George Tenet said, regarding a meeting with President Bush and the war cabinet: “We were going to strangle their [Al Qaida’s] safe haven in Afghanistan, seal the borders, go after the leadership, shut off their money and pursue al-Qa’ida terrorists in ninety-two countries around the world.”  – George Tenet […]

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9/15/2001

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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9/14/2001

Summing up America’s defenses following 9/11: “For the last decade, the use of American might has been shaped by several principles: emphasizing air power and long-range precision arms, avoiding ground combat whenever possible and using overwhelming ground forces when it is not. The use of American military force has also been reactive. Pre-emptive action was […]

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