On March 31, 2006, “In response to a question at one point, [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice acknowledged that the Bush administration had made ‘tactical errors, a thousand of them, I am sure’ in Iraq and perhaps elsewhere. She was speaking figuratively, her spokesman said later. Ms. Rice asserted that whatever tactical failures there may […]
3/28/2006
In the trial for alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on March 28, 2006, “testimony was read from Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the alleged Sept. 11 paymaster. He insisted that [Mohammad al-] Qahtani, warts and all, was definitely [hijacker] No. 20. Hawsawi said he purchased a one-way plane ticket for Qahtani to fly from London to Florida, all along […]
3/27/2006
9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s testimony was read in the trial for alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on March 27, 2006. “He said [potential 20th hijacker Mohammad al-] Qahtani ‘was sent alone to round out the number of hijackers for the 9/11 attacks.’ But after he was stopped at the Orlando airport, Al Qaeda leaders realized […]
3/21/2006
Regarding lapses in the FBI’s capabilities, on March 21, 2006: “The Associated Press reported that ‘budget constraints are forcing some local FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency’s top officials in New York.’ ‘As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now and the government is reluctant […]
3/20/2006
In a discussion on the war on terror on March 20, 2006, in Cleveland, Ohio, President Bush said: ” ‘I don’t think we ever said–at least I know I didn’t say–that there was a direct connection between September the 11th and Saddam Hussein. We did say he was a state sponsor of terror.’ ” – […]
3/19/2006
“When the former Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi declared [on March 19, 2006], ‘We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more–if this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is,’ both President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld vigorously denied the […]
3/19/2006
“On March 19, 2006, under a graphic display summarizing deteriorating conditions in Iraq, the New York Times carried an op-ed by Paul Eaton, a retired army two-star [general], that forthrightly declared, ‘[Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces.’ Laced with vivid phrases–‘incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically,’ ‘bullying,’ ‘intimidated,’ ‘groupthink’–Eaton’s […]
3/15/2006
As stated in “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary:” “752. By March 2006, senior members of the UK military were considering the possibility of civil war in Iraq, promoted by rising levels of sectarian violence and concerns that the Iraqi Government was ‘not… perceived as even-handed in security issues’. The risk of civil […]
3/15/2006
“Paul R. Pillar was the CIA’s national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia… According to him [in the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs], the ‘greatest discrepancy between the [Bush] administration’s public statements and the intelligence community’s judgments’ was with respect to ‘the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda. …The reason the connection […]
3/15/2006
In President Bush’s March 2006 edition of The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, “he declared in Trumanesque fashion, ‘It is the policy of the United States to seek and support democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the aim of ending tyranny in our world. In the world […]