In a principals meeting on September 12, 2001, Secretary of State Colin “Powell countered [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld’s argument that now was the time to ‘get Iraq,’ but Rumsfeld responded that the targets in Afghanistan were not significant enough to bomb and that therefore targets in Iraq should be considered.” – Ian S. Lustick, […]
Category: quotes
9/12/2001
On September 12, 2001, after an FBI briefing, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said: ” ‘We happened to know just today that we have information that indicates representatives that are affiliated with Osama bin Laden were actually saying over the airwaves, private airwaves that they had hit two targets.’ ” – James Risen and David Johnston, […]
9/12/2001
On September 12, 2001, “the UN Security Council issued a resolution [1368] recognizing the United States’ right of ‘self-defense,’ and found international terrorism to be a threat to ‘international peace and security’–code words in international law justifying the use of military force.” – John Yoo, War By Other Means, Page 14 […]
9/12/2001
Counterterrorism czar “Richard Clarke attended meetings on Iraq on September 12 [2001]. He later wrote, ‘At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld and [Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul] Wolfowitz were going […]
9/12/2001
On September 12, 2001, “Senator Richard C. Shelby, an Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee…said the failure to penetrate the [9/11] plot in advance constitutes ‘an intelligence failure.’ ” – James Risen and David Johnston, “Officials Say They Saw No Signs of Increased Terrorist Activity,” The New York Times, Sep. […]
9/12/2001
In a meeting in the Situation Room on the evening of September 12, 2001, “Even though [counterterrorism czar Richard] Clarke declared that ‘we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq,’ [President] Bush insisted that Clarke look again. ‘See if Saddam did this. See if […]
9/12/2001
On “September 12, 2001, James Woolsey, who had been [former President Bill] Clinton’s first CIA director, told me [journalist James Fallows] that no matter who proved to be responsible for this attack, the solution had to include removing Saddam Hussein, because he was so likely to be involved next time.” – James Fallows, “Blind into […]
9/12/2001
Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke attended a series of meetings at the White House on September 12, 2001, where he expected to deal with the al Qaeda threat. ” ‘Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then […]
9/12/2001
Following 9/11, “Mainstream media and governments all over the world condemned the attacks. Middle Eastern countries, including Iran and Libya, were among them. Iraq, however, did not denounce the terrorists’ actions. In a barbed reaction [on September 12, 2001], the official newspaper, Al-Iraq, described the attacks as ‘a lesson for all tyrants, oppressors and criminals.’ […]
9/12/2001
UN Security Council Resolution 1368, adopted on September 12, 2001, “condemned the [9/11] terrorist attacks in the strongest terms and described those acts as a threat to international peace and security, recognizing an inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in accordance with the United Nations Charter.”] – Yonah Alexander, ed., Combating Terrorism, Page 185 […]