“On February 2 [2003], the State Department’s INR [Bureau of Intelligence and Research] was given another look at [Secretary of State] Colin Powell’s speech [which he was to deliver to the UN on February 5]. This time they found seven items to which they objected. Three of them were removed from the speech. But four […]
2/1/2003
“By Saturday morning, February 1 [2003], a proposed twenty-five page script on Saddam’s purported connections with terrorists had arrived–a compilation of material that had been prepared by [Undersecretary of Defense Douglas] Feith’s office… After [Secretary of State Colin] Powell reviewed the new terrorism section, he pulled [his Chief of Staff Larry] Wilkerson off to a […]
1/31/2003
“President Bush hosted [Tony] Blair at the White House again on January 31, 2003. Blair said they needed a second UN resolution- one that made it clear that an invasion of Iraq was the only answer. (Resolution 1441 had not done this.) Many British people were opposed to the war, and Blair might lose the […]
1/31/2003
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary:” “Mr Blair and President Bush meet in Washington.” – Commissioned by the Prime Minister The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry: Executive Summary,” IraqInquiry.org.uk, Jan. 31, 2003 […]
1/31/2003
From the Chilcot inquiry, the British public inquiry into their involvement in the war in Iraq: “One of [Prime Minister Tony] Blair’s notes is believed to relate to a two-hour White House meeting with [President] Bush on 31 January 2003. A memo written by Sir David Manning, Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser and stamped ‘extremely […]
1/31/2003
” ‘After September the 11th, the doctrine of containment just doesn’t hold any water, as far as I’m concerned,’ is how President Bush characterized the new stance in a [January 31, 2003] news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain a few weeks before the war [in Iraq] began.” – Todd S. Purdum […]
1/31/2003
“[T]he State Department’s INR [Bureau of Intelligence and Research] fact-checked an early draft of [Secretary of State Colin] Powell’s speech [which he was to deliver to the U.N. on February 5, 2003]. On January 31 [2003]…they sent a memo to Powell asserting that thirty-eight allegations in the speech were ‘unsubstantiated’ or ‘weak.’ As a result […]
1/31/2003
On January 31, 2003, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Washington D.C. “to tell [President] Bush that the British needed a second [UN] Security Council resolution citing the failure of Saddam to comply with demands that he disarm and explicitly authorizing military action. Bush, impatient, insisted that the first resolution, 1441, already sanctioned the use […]
1/31/2003
On January 31, 2003, while seeking help in monitoring the ‘Middle Six’ countries on the UN Security Council who were undecided in regards to invading Iraq, “Frank Koza, the [National Security Agency’s (NSA’s)] Sigint [signals intelligence] department’s deputy chief of staff for Regional Targets, sent a Top Secret/Codeword memo to the NSA’s Five Eyes partners […]
1/31/2003
The leaked memo written by U.K. Chief Foreign Policy Advisor David Manning on January 31, 2003 discussed that day’s meeting between President Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. “Without much elaboration, the memo also says the president raised three possible ways of provoking a confrontation. …’The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft […]