Speaking to the National Security Council on December 28, 2001, Central Command leader General Tommy “Franks turned to the principal reason for the meeting that day, the Iraq war planning.” He presented an elaborate plan called Top Secret/Polo Step, which aimed to influence the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam. “To be effective with […]
12/28/2001
“The morning of Friday, December 28 [2001, President Bush] rose at 5:00 am at his Crawford, Texas ranch…and then went to a special building on his ranch called SCIF–Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility…The intelligence briefing that morning included the Top Secret/codeword Threat Matrix, …Item 8 of 19 in the 14-page document described an intercepted communication from […]
12/27/2001
Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote: “When asked by journalists [on December 27, 2001] why Gitmo [Guantanamo] was chosen to house detainees, I described it as ‘the least worst place.’ …It was chosen because it was far from the ever-shifting battlefield in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops had to guard against the possibility of enemy assaults […]
12/27/2001
” ‘Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the [9/11] event,’ Osama bin Laden later bragged [on December 27, 2001], ‘while America…lost–according to the lowest estimate–$500 billion.’ He outlined what he called a ‘bleed-until-bankruptcy’ strategy and said, ‘It is very important to concentrate on hitting the U.S. economy through all possible means.’ “ – George W. Bush, […]
12/27/2001
“In December 2001, faced with the problem of where to house prisoners as the Taliban fell, the [Bush] administration alighted on the idea of holding them at Guantanamo Bay, a naval base the U.S. had leased from Cuba since 1903. As [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld put it on December 27, 2001, ‘I would characterize […]
12/27/2001
In a videotape aired by Al Jazeera on December 27, 2001, bin Laden said: ” ‘It has become clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam. Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its […]
12/26/2001
Osama bin Laden released a videotaped statement on December 26, 2001. In it, “he wants to destroy the American economy in order to make it impossible for the United States to influence the world. ‘If their economy ends, they will busy themselves away from the enslavement of oppressed people,’ he said… ‘It is important to […]
12/25/2001
“By late December 2001 [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld had briefed the president [Bush] on a war plan that involved a military operation to overthrow Saddam Hussein, effect a quick handover to an Iraqi government that succeeded Saddam, and retain a minimal American footprint once combat operations ended.” [The 25th of the month used for […]
12/25/2001
“Beginning in late December 2001, President Bush met repeatedly with Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks and his war cabinet to plan the U.S. attack on Iraq even as he and administration spokesmen insisted they were pursuing a diplomatic solution, according to a new book on the origins of the war.” [The 25th of the month […]
12/25/2001
Regarding Central Command (CENTCOM) leader, General Tommy Frank’s plan for war in Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell “continued to have concerns, especially about the part of the mission that Franks assumed would be led by the State Department: administering and rebuilding postwar Iraq. Powell had been uncomfortable with Franks’s planning ever since the late […]