On February 18, 2011, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…told New York’s Asia Society that ‘we are launching a diplomatic surge to move this conflict [in Afghanistan] toward a political outcome that shatters the alliance between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, ends the insurgency and helps to produce not only a more stable Afghanistan but a […]
2/17/2011
” ‘I think we are in the position, frankly, the prospects for closing Guantanamo, the best I can tell, are very, very low given very broad opposition to doing that here in the Congress,’ [Secretary of Defense] Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee [on February 17, 2011]. Asked what the United States would […]
2/16/2011
“Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday [February 16, 2011] that U.S. intelligence officials should be questioned over their handling of ‘Curveball,’ an Iraqi defector whose now discredited claims on weapons of mass destruction helped fuel the Bush administration’s drive to war in 2003. It has become clear over the years that ‘the source […]
2/16/2011
“An Iraqi defector who convinced the West that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which was used as a basis for war, has admitted he lied. Engineer Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known by the alias Curveball, told German intelligence that the Iraqi dictator had mobile weapons laboratories as part of a secret biological programme. […]
2/15/2011
“By mid-February [2011], the officials were convinced a ‘high-value target’ was hiding in the compound [in Abbottabad, Pakistan]. President Barack Obama wanted to take action. ‘They were confident and their confidence was growing: *This is different. This intelligence case is different. What we see in this compound is different than anything we’ve ever seen before,* […]
2/15/2011
“The Senate on Tuesday [February 15, 2011] voted 86 to 12 to extend for 90 days three counterterrorism provisions, including the use of roving wiretaps, that are set to expire Feb. 28. The Senate action came a day after the House agreed to extend the three provisions, including two from the 2001 Patriot Act, until […]
2/15/2011
Iraqi defector Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, aka Curveball, admitted in interviews on February 15, 2011 that he fabricated information about Saddam’s biological weapons programs. He said: ” ‘I will be honest with you. I now have a lot of problems because the BND [Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service] have taken away my flat, taken my mobile […]
2/15/2011
Iraqi defector Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, aka Curveball, admitted in interviews on February 15, 2011, that he fabricated information about Saddam’s biological weapons programs. ” ‘I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime… I and my sons are proud of that, and we are proud that we were the reason to give […]
2/9/2011
“In February [9] 2011, I [counterterrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross] spoke with Andrew Exum, an Arabic-speaking counterinsurgency expert at the Center for a New American Security who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army Ranger officer. When I asked him why U.S. efforts in Afghanistan have been so uneven, he replied without hesitation, ‘One […]
2/9/2011
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee on February 9, 2011. ” ‘The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last ten years–and continues to evolve–so that, in some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks,’ she said… […]