Citing the success of the Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft said: “Prosecutors and investigators shared information in investigating the defendants in the ‘Virginia Jihad’ case. This prosecution involved members of the Dar al-Arqam Islamic Center, who trained for jihad…in northern Virginia. Eight of these individuals traveled to terrorist training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan […]
3/15/2004
In March 2004, the Pew Global Attitudes Project “found that anger against the United States is pervasive and that Osama bin Laden is viewed favourably by 65 per cent of the people in Pakistan, 55 per cent in Jordan and 45 per cent in Morocco. Even in Turkey where bin Laden is very unpopular, as […]
3/15/2004
“As [chief UN weapons inspector] Hans Blix would later say (on the Today Show, March 15, 2004) about the Bush administration: ‘I think they had a set mind [for war in Iraq]. They wanted to come to the conclusion that there were weapons of mass destruction. …They were wrong. There wasn’t anything.’ ” – Vincent […]
3/14/2004
On March 14, 2004, “the day after winning the election, the prime minister of Spain’s newly elected government, Jose Zapatero, promised to withdraw Spain’s 1,300 troops from Iraq, saying, ‘The war [in Iraq] has been a disaster [and] the occupation continues to be a disaster. It has only generated violence.’ ” – Raymond Ibrahim, ed./trans., […]
3/13/2004
In Spain, “On 13 March [2004] a videotape was placed in a bin near a Madrid mosque containing a message claiming responsibility for the [March 11, 2004] train bombs from al Qaeda in Europe. This was the first time this ‘umbrella’ name had been used.” – Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of al Qaeda, […]
3/13/2004
“According to one former senior Pentagon official [per The Washington Post on March 13, 2004] who worked closely with [Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas] Feith’s offices [Office of Special Plans], their goal was not just ‘how to fight Saddam Hussein but also how to fight the NSC [National Security Council], the State Department, and […]
3/12/2004
Deputy Attorney General James Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller met with President Bush on March 12, 2004, regarding the Terrorist Surveillance Program that illegally authorized domestic wiretapping. According to a confidential FBI source: ” ‘Mueller and Comey were probably the first lawyers to tell the President that the program was illegal,’ the confidant said. […]
3/12/2004
On March 12, 2004, President “Bush asked [Deputy Attorney General James] Comey and [FBI Director Robert] Mueller to speak with him privately in his study, one by one. …Comey told Bush that his staff was disserving him. …Bush had changed his mind and authorized [Chief of the Office of Legal Counsel Jack] Goldsmith to try […]
3/11/2004
From the Bush-Cheney Reception in East Meadow, New York: “September the 11th, 2001 taught a lesson I will never forget: America must confront threats before they fully materialize. In Iraq, my administration looked at the intelligence, and we saw a threat. The Congress looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a threat. The United Nations […]
3/11/2004
“The brutal challenge for U.S. intelligence, [psychologist and former CIA case officer Marc] Sageman said, is that ‘you don’t know who’s going to be a terrorist’ anymore. Citing the 15 men who killed 190 passengers [in Madrid, Spain] on March 11 [2004] in synchronized bombings of the Spanish rail system, he said ‘if you had […]