“In December 1999, the UN Security Council gave Iraq permission to sell unlimited amounts of oil under the OFF [Oil For Food] programme.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 70 […]
Category: quotes
12/15/1999
“After earlier reports of sharp tension between Taliban leaders and bin Laden, U.S. intelligence discovered that the Taliban’s Council of Ministers had unanimously endorsed its alliance with al Qaeda at the end of 1999. [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar had even reportedly executed Taliban dissenters over the issue.” [The 15th of the month used for date […]
12/15/1999
“Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke strongly championed a plan to raise the reward for information leading to the arrest of bin Laden from $2.5 million to $5 million. At the time, it was the highest monetary amount allowed by federal law for a wanted man. President [Bill] Clinton agreed to Clarke’s plan. By December 1999, bin […]
12/15/1999
CIA Director George Tenet “bragged that the CIA had prevented at least five terrorist outrages between December 1999 and January 2000. But the reality is that both the FBI and the CIA had very little to do with stopping the so-called Millennium attacks. …The credit instead goes to an alert agent of the U.S. Customs […]
12/15/1999
“Iraq claimed repeatedly that it had got rid of all its WMD in 1991. The UN review that established the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in December 1999, following the withdrawal of the previous inspectors in 1998, recognised that this might be true but needed to be verified.” [The 15th of the […]
12/15/1999
“By December 1999, [Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah] Massoud’s quixotic quest to retake Afghanistan from the Taliban had become a fantasy. And far away from his archenemy bin Laden, he could also provide little useful intelligence. While one part of the CIA was bankrolling Massoud’s group, another part, the CIA’s Counter-Narcotics Center, was warning that […]
12/15/1999
In December 1999, “Operation Able Danger commences. It’s a secret data mining operation ordered by Joint Chiefs chairman Hugh Shelton and General Pete Schoomaker, the head of the army’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The Army’s Land Information Warfare Facility (LIWA) searches the Internet for open-source intelligence on al Qaeda. The liaison to the DIA is […]
12/14/1999
“…on December 14 [1999], a border guard in Port Angeles, Washington, stopped an Algerian man, Ahmed Ressam, whose obvious anxiety aroused her suspicion.” Inside Ressam’s trunk were “four timers, more than a hundred pounds of urea, and fourteen pounds of sulfate–the makings of an Oklahoma City-type bomb. Ressam bolted. …The guards gave chase and caught […]
12/14/1999
On December 14, 1999, Algerian Ahmed Ressam tried to enter the U.S. by ferry from Canada. After raising suspicions, “Inspectors examining Ressam’s rental car found the explosives concealed in the spare tire well, but at first they assumed the white powder and viscous liquid were drug-related–until an inspector pried apart and identified one of the […]
12/14/1999
“After [would-be Millennium Bomber Ahmed] Ressam’s arrest [on December 14, 1999] [President Bill] Clinton telephoned [Pakistani Chief Executive] General [Pervez] Musharraf in Pakistan. He demanded that Musharraf find a way to disrupt or arrest bin Laden, according to notes of the conversation kept by the American side. Musharraf’s coup offered a potential fresh start in […]