According to a declassified CIA analytic report on December 6, 2002: “Al-Qa’ida uses fraudulently acquired Saudi passports to document its operatives and facilitate international travel [redacted] Some of the passports are stolen [redacted] issued to terrorists under false pretense. [Redacted] Forgers fraudulently issue or alter these passports to create false identities, impersonate other citizens, and […]
12/6/2002
“On December 6 [2002], in a dramatic shake-up of [President] Bush’s economic team, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Lawrence Lindsay, Bush’s top economic adviser, resigned under pressure, Lindsay after having said the cost of the war could be as much as $200 billion, far above the administration’s official estimate of $50 billion to $60 billion.” […]
12/5/2002
“In early December 2002, FBI officials who had participated in some interrogations at Guantanamo complained to [General Geoffrey] Miller that the methods used against prisoners at Guantanamo were unlawful. But Miller was not receptive. That led FBI officials to conclude that senior Bush administration officials and Rumsfeld were making decisions about interrogations in particular.” [The […]
12/5/2002
“…during the late November to early December [2002] time frame, two Afghan detainees were beaten to death with batons. When word reached CENTCOM [Central Command] on December 14, 2002, GEN [Tommy] Franks directed LTG [Lieutenant General] Dan McNeil, the commander on the ground in Afghanistan, to conduct a full investigation into the deaths.” [The 5th […]
12/5/2002
“White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on December 5, 2002: ‘The president of the United States [Bush] and the secretary of defense [Donald Rumsfeld] would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis […]
12/5/2002
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s consultant, Steve Herbits, told Rumsfeld on December 5, 2002, regarding Iraq: ” ‘…you are in the unique position of being the sole person who could lose the president’s [Bush’s] reelection for him if you don’t get something straightened out.’ …Herbits continued, ‘…you have got to focus on the post-Iraq planning. […]
12/3/2002
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, on December 3, 2002: ” ‘If you go back and look at the history of inspections in Iraq, the reality is that things have been found not by discovery, but through defectors.’ ” – Tony Karon, “What Next in Iraq?,” Time, Dec. 6, 2002 […]
12/2/2002
In an email dated Dec. 2, 2002, CITF [Criminal Investigation Task Force Participation] commander Col. Brittain P. Mallow wrote his policy for the subject “CITF Participation in discussions of interrogation strategies, techniques, etc” for “all others down in GTMO” that: “2) … At any point that we disagree with an approach … but that does […]
12/2/2002
President George W. Bush on the U.N.’s weapons inspection of Iraq: “As the U.N. weapons inspections process gets underway, we must remember that inspections will not — will only work — will only work if Iraq fully complies. You see, the inspectors are not in Iraq to play hide and seek with Mr. Saddam Hussein. Inspectors […]
12/2/2002
Vice President “Dick Cheney, speaking at the Air National Guard Senior Leadership Conference in December [2] 2002, described the Afghanistan War as ‘America’s most dramatic victory in the war against terrorism’ and claimed that ‘the Taliban regime and the al Qaeda terrorists have met the fate that they chose for themselves.’ ” – Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, […]