“According to a [January 13] 2005 report by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank, ‘The al-Qa’ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq.’ ” – Fawaz A. Gerges, The Far […]
1/13/2005
“In January [13] 2005, the CIA’s internal think tank, the National Intelligence Council, concluded that Iraq had replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for a new generation of jihadist terrorists. The country had become ‘a magnet for international terrorist activity,’ said the council’s chairman, Robert Hutchings.” – Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco, Page 430 […]
1/12/2005
Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice wrote: “…we had acknowledged on January 12, 2005, that we had called off the search for weapons of mass destruction [in Iraq]…” – Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor, Page 297 […]
1/11/2005
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary:” “715. In January 2005, Lt Gen Fry produced a thoughtful and realistic assessment of the prospects for security in Iraq, observing that “’we are not on track to deliver the Steady State Criteria (SSC) before the UN mandate expires, or even shortly thereafter’. He […]
1/11/2005
Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was apprehended in Pakistan and tortured after accusations of being a terrorist. “On January 11 [2005], immediately after the Washington Post published a shocking front-page article on Habib’s case, the Pentagon, offering virtually no explanation, agreed to release him into the custody of the Australian government. …the CIA feared legal […]
1/4/2005
“Rebels assassinated the governor of Baghdad on January 4 [2005].” – Andrew Langley, Bush, Blair, and Iraq: Days of Decision, Page 40 […]
12/31/2004
“…by the end of 2004, the U.S. intelligence community would conclude that the invasion had turned Iraq into a new breeding ground for a fresh generation of tougher, more professional Islamic extremist terrorists.” [The 31st of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco, Pages 377-378 […]
12/30/2004
“Soon after [writing his legal opinion withdrawing former Deputy Chief in the Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo’s torture memo on December 30, 2004], [Chief of the Office of Legal Counsel Dan] Levin became one more in the procession of highly credentialed conservative lawyers cast aside by the Bush Administration after warning top officials that […]
12/30/2004
Regarding Chief of the Office of Legal Counsel Dan Levin’s December 30, 2004, memo, which reformed interrogation practices, White House Legal Counsel Alberto Gonzales “made clear to Levin that unless he included language in his new legal memo declaring that nothing the Bush Administration had done in earlier interrogations was illegal, the Justice Department would […]
12/30/2004
“[T]he revised [torture] memo [written on December 30, 2004, by Chief of the Office of Legal Counsel Dan Levin] included two oddly contradictory lines. One was yet another description of torture that seemed specifically written to legalize waterboarding so long as the severe pain it produced was not of ‘extended duration.’ The other…evidently written to […]