Former CIA Director George Tenet described the terrorism response needed in Afghanistan: ” ‘We need to go in fast, hard, and light,’ we told the president [Bush]. ‘Everyone, including al-Qa’ida and the Taliban are expecting us to invade Afghanistan the same way the Soviets did in the 1980s.’ …Ours was a strategy unlike any other […]
Category: quotes
9/13/2001
On September 13, 2001, “a cabinet meeting in Washington concluded that if Pakistan did not help the United States, ‘it would be at risk of attack.’ ” – Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos, Page 28 […]
9/13/2001
“President Saddam Hussein said the attacks on the United States were the result of America’s ‘evil policy,’ contending that the United States exports corruption and crime through its military forces and its movies. He suggested the attacks might have been carried out by Americans.” – “After The Attacks, Reaction From Around The World,” The New […]
9/13/2001
In a National Security Council meeting with President Bush on September 13, 2001: “Looking beyond bin Laden and Afghanistan, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld mentioned Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a threat to both its region and to the United States. Iraq, he observed, was a state that supported terrorism, and that might someday offer terrorists […]
9/13/2001
Recollection of the changes made to the wording of the original AUMF following 9/11. “Almost immediately some of our most seasoned members, including Senator Joe Biden of Delaware and Carl Levin of Michigan, chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee, respectively, pointed out the obvious flaws in passing a […]
9/12/2001
“We have the sworn testimony of the president’s [Bush’s] White House head of counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, that on the day after the attack, September 12 [2001], the president wanted to connect the attacks to Saddam.” – Al Gore, The Assault on Reason, Page 107 […]
9/12/2001
“In the seventy-two hours before 9/11, four more NSA [National Security Agency] intercepts suggested that a terrorist attack was imminent. But NSA did not translate or disseminate any of them until the day after 9/11 [September 12, 2001]. In one of the two most significant, one of the speakers said, ‘The big match is about […]
9/12/2001
“President Bush chaired two more meetings of the NSC [National Security Council] on September 12 [2001]. In the first meeting, he stressed that the United States was at war with a new and different kind of enemy. The President asked principals to go beyond their pre-9/11 work and develop a strategy to eliminate terrorists and […]
9/12/2001
At a CIA dinner on September 12, 2001, Deputy Chief of MI5 (U.K.’s counterintelligence and security agency) Eliza Manninghan-Buller said: ” ‘I hope we can all agree that we should concentrate on Afghanistan, and not launch any attacks against Iraq.’ …Their message…reflected deep concern that the Bush Administration might be subject to…the exploitation of the […]
9/12/2001
Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke was interviewed by Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes on March 21, 2004. “Speaking of White House meetings after the 9/11 attacks [on September 12, 2001], Clarke said that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were all but lost in the shuffle: ‘[Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld was saying that we […]