A January 1996 Council of Foreign Relations report, “Making Intelligence Smarter,” said: ” ‘The U.S. intelligence community faces major challenges, including a widespread lack of confidence in its ability to carry out its mission completely and legally. …The intelligence community has been adjusting to the changed demands of the post-Cold War world for several years…[but] additional […]
Category: quotes
1/15/1996
“As the threats from bin Laden began to grow, the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center in January 1996 established a separate unit with the sole mission of collecting intelligence on the Al Qaeda leader [Osama bin Laden] and disrupting his network. In an unprecedented action, the unit became a separate CIA ‘station’ [known as ‘Alec Station’]–the only […]
1/15/1996
“The CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) had established a special bin Laden unit in January 1996. By 1998, more than one hundred case officers and intelligence analysts were serving on the bin Laden station.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 165 […]
1/15/1996
“In January 1996, a decision was taken by senior staff of the CIA’s 200-strong Counterterrorist Center…to form a special bin Laden taskforce. Ever since, the Osama bin Laden desk, manned by elite staff of more than eleven federal agencies, has mounted the largest, most expensive and most extensive investigation ever into a single individual charged […]
1/15/1996
Regarding Osama bin Laden: “In January 1996, the CIA created a counterterrorism unit of a dozen people devoted entirely to the Saudi–the bin Laden station. There was a sense that he might start taking aim at American targets abroad.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Tim Weiner, Legacy of […]
1/9/1996
According to an interview with Dick Cheney for Frontline: The Gulf War, which first aired on January 9, 1996: ” ‘I was not an enthusiast about getting U.S. forces and going into Iraq,’ Cheney later said. ‘We were there in the southern part of Iraq to the extent we needed to be there to defeat […]
1/9/1996
“General Wafiq al Sammarai, who headed Iraqi military intelligence during the Gulf War, said in an interview [with Frontline on PBS on January 9, 1996] that some of the Iraqi’s Scud missiles had been loaded with chemical warheads, but they were not used, ‘because the warning was quite severe and quite effective. The allied troops […]
1/9/1996
“While still British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher had famously warned President George H.W. Bush not to ‘go wobbly’ after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But the formidable Thatcher had been voted out of office before the war was concluded. She seemed unhappy with the result in Iraq. ‘There is the aggressor, Saddam Hussein, still in power,’ […]
1/1/1996
Former Iraqi Army Captain Sabah Khodada worked at the Salman Pak military facility outside of Baghdad. He spoke with PBS’s Frontline and The New York Times on October 14, 2001. In describing the training at the camp, he said: ” ‘…the purpose of establishing Saddam’s fighters is to attack American targets and American interests. This […]
12/15/1995
“…in mid-December [1995], the FBI had apprehended the third missing coconspirator from [terrorist Ramzi] Yousef’s Bojinka plot. Wali Khan Amin Shah was arrested in Malaysia after reportedly leading the Bureau on a manhunt through half a dozen countries.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Peter Lance, 1000 Years For […]