On October 25, 2001, Deputy Chief in the Office of Legal Counsel “John Yoo’s specific legal analysis…argued that the President’s authority to conduct warrantless surveillance inside America was a presidential prerogative.” – Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, Page 67 […]
10/25/2001
Historian Timothy Naftali wrote: “In National Security Presidential Decision 9, which formalized American war aims in October [25] 2001, [President] Bush established a high, and some would later come to believe unrealistic, standard for victory. It was ‘the elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life.’ Al Qaeda was merely the first […]
10/25/2001
Regarding the connection between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia: ” ‘There have been and still are two pillars of the relationship: oil and security,’ said one senior American official who deals with Saudi Arabia. ‘Oil runs the world and the Saudis are the linchpin of oil production.’ ” – Elaine Sciolino and Neil MacFarquhar, “Naming […]
10/25/2001
“In late October [2001] Saddam published a rambling ‘open letter’ to the American people in which he condemned the military action the United States had taken in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban. He also claimed that U.S. foreign policy was being driven by ‘Zionism’ and hinted that the U.S. mainland could be subjected to further […]
10/25/2001
“President George W. Bush’s ambivalence about targeting Saddam in response to the September 11 attacks began to change only toward the end of October [2001] when American intelligence received warnings that Islamic militants were planning an even more spectacular attack on the United States than the September atrocities, one that, in the words of Condoleezza […]
10/25/2001
Less than two weeks after a White House message on October 10, 2001, Osama bin Laden said in an interview on Al Jazeera: ” ‘The values of this Western civilization under the leadership of America have been destroyed. Those awesome symbolic [twin] towers that spoke of liberty, human rights, and humanity have been destroyed. They […]
10/25/2001
“The pre-9/11 draft presidential directive on al Qaeda evolved into a new directive, National Security Presidential Directive 9, now titled ‘Defeating the Terrorist Threat to the United States.’ The new directive–formally signed on October 25 [2001], after the fighting in Afghanistan had already begun–included new material followed by annexes discussing each targeted terrorist group…The United […]
10/25/2001
In Afghanistan, “By late October [2001], with CIA officers providing targeting intelligence, military Special Forces troops courageously closing in on Taliban and al-Qa’ida units to provide laser target designation, and fixed-wing aircraft dropping precision weapons, the pace of the air war soon was stepped up, and made the critical difference in overwhelming the foe.” [The […]
10/24/2001
“Four payments totaling $100,000 were made to a money changer in Sharjah, one of the seven [United Arab] emirates, who passed them on to Marwan al-Shehhi, an Emirates citizen suspected of piloting United Airlines Flight 175, the bank governor said [on October 24, 2001]. The central bank governor, Sultan bin Nasser al-Suweidi, was the first […]
10/23/2001
“The fear inside the West Wing grew on October 23 [2001], when [President] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney were told that Pakistan had arrested two nuclear scientists who had been in contact with Osama bin Laden, possibly to help al-Qaeda build a bomb. …The Pakistanis had picked up the two scientists in response to […]