Is Powell aneo-con Beeyotch?

What you say could be a viable interpetation if you overlook two important elements. The first is that..and note this was said by many BEFORE the war, ie BEFORE thier positions were affirmed...that many in the intelligence and diplomatic community complained loudly and often pre-war that the administration wasn't going about accumulating intel in the usual fashion, ie letting what our eyes and ears take in be gathered and assessed as it comes to light, but was instead actively telling our eyes and ears exactly what it wanted them to see and hear. People resigned over this, pre-war, pre-scandal, pre-everything. That what they said back then has now been seen to have been true only confirms that it was happeneing when they said it. As such, to merely say " oh, well, intel's imperfect...lesson learned." is to sidestep the responsibility that those who sought selective intel to confirm their positions had in contributing to that intel's lack of accuracy, not to mention what it says about their desire to decieve/manipulate us.

The second point is this: Even if you forget about the first issue, the fact that intel is imperfect is hardly news to anyone. It was with this knowledge in place that those who opposed the war...including the majority of the globe....said to engage in a war on the basis of what we know to be imperfect was a very dangerous action, and an even worse precedent. When the world and war critics at home pointed this out pre-war, most of us scoffed at them, called them cowards, traitors, jealous, etc. Few of us listened to the content of their complaints, contenting ourselves with patting our own backs about being the only nation with the guts to make the tough call...Now that exactly what they warned us about...that intel is too sketchy a basis for launching an invasion...has come to pass, to excuse ourselves by saying " lesson learned" is, again, to avoid taking responsibility.

 

So you don't see the greater moral evil, even if you assume the moral good that you do as an end...in the means, and the threat of approving that? What is the basis of our system? What distinguishes us from something like Nazi Germany, in our eyes? The accountability of the government. If, like Hitler, we allow our leaders to decide what is best FOR us, and manipulate, lie, and distract us in order to accomplish what they see as a moral good, do you not see where that leaves us?

Not to mention the message that sends to the rest of the globe about how trustworthy we are, how safe they should feel about our power, etc.

 

A) Stradivarius!?!?

B) I think you undersetimate the main focus of the objections having to do with the issues I mentioned, but even if they weren't, what difference would that make. A wrong is a wrong is a wrong.

C) "in the case of France, Germany, et al, nothing short of an iraqi scud w/ a chemical warhead attached exploding over etoile would've convinced them. their objection was pure domestic politics, nothing more. "

How do you know this as a fact?

 

Ah...


A) Hitler was elected in a free election.

B) There were actually more parties running in the WR than currently run in the USA.

C) The genocide is the very point...it's the result. ( Besides, we have our own genocides on record).

Hitler was elected, decided what he thought was best, and then manipulated the electorate, legally limited individual liberties, and cited false intelligence to persuade the populace to follow his course, all the time believing he was doing the right thing. Sound familiar? The Holocaust is an extreme, but it is still just a result of the problem...which was a supposedly responsible government decided what was best for it's people, and manipulating them so as to accomplish it's ends. That's the danger i was talking about.

 

Come on, basso...don;t go that tired route. We've been having pretty good dialogue, let's not wreck it with reactionism.

In case it's just honest misunderstanding, I'll clarify;

The point isn't that Bush will become Hitler...the point is about the process, about excusing that process, and what that means.

If you remove the responsible aspect from responsible government...which is what Hitler did, and what, if we follow what you were saying earlier, we would be allowing Bush to do if we excuse this...we are altering our system. In doing so, we are, as the Germans did in the 30s, creating opeings for further, greater abuses of power. Hitler used the same means, fear, need to protect, to do what is the 'right thing' to pry open the cracks in the system that Bush is using. Both might very well have believed that they were working for the ultimate good, but both were effectivley circumventing the accountability to the public by manipulating that public.

Now does that mean that Bush will lead a genocide if we re-elect him? Of course not...that's not my point. But if we approve of what he did so far...if we say to our leaders that we allow you to manipulate us, feed us false information, play upon our fears, etc. as long as it is in the good cause, we have opened a door which can never really be closed again without a system overhaul. And even if you think that this particualr moral good excuses this particual moral bad , which I don;t, but anyway..the point is that ot won;t stop here. Other leaders, be they Bush or whoever follows will have been given a mandate to circumvent the electorate because they know better...and one day, be it soon or far off, there will come a time when allowing that ability to our leaders will lead to something like what Hitler did, although it will probably take an entirely different form.

People in power will always seek more. Our system was established knowing that fact. The counter we established to that quirk of human nature was a system which left the power in the hands of the populace, with the government given the mandate to respond to the will of the people. If we now choose, out of fear, arrogance or the pursuit of comfort, to allow our government to decide our will for us, and to miselad, manipulate and lie to us in order to shape us to that will, we are heading down the same path that nazi germany took.

Again, this does not mean that we will do everything that the nazis did, or even that the end result will look anything like Nazi germany...it's just that Nazi Germany is the clearest, most extreme example in recent history which demonstrates what you are allowing when you let your leaders decide what's best for you, rather than the other way around.

Responses like " to even compare us to nazi germany is disgusting' etc. not only miss the point, but effectively say that any unpleasant episodes in history can never be brought up to teach us the errors of other peoples and other times, and as the saying goes, those who don;t understand history...

 

Selected events...

2001:

February 6: Colin Powell tells the US House of Representatives that no matter what Hussein does, the administration will follow a "regime change" policy against his government.

February 8: The CIA reports that it has no evidence of any Iraqi terrorist operations against the US in at least 10 years.

March: A report produced by the British Joint Intelligence Committee concludes that Iraq poses no greater threat to the world than it did after the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The report is suppressed by the Blair administration, who instead claims that hard evidence of Iraq's production of WMDs will be given in two weeks. The evidence was never made public

April: According to initial Czech intelligence reports, a meeting takes place between 9/11 plotter Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague sometime during the month. The Bush administration seizes on the report and uses it to "prove" that the Iraqi government is connected to al-Qaeda. An investigation by Czech intelligence proves the report is completely false, and Atta was nowhere near Eastern Europe on the day in question. Months later, Czech president Vaclav Havel personally informs US officials that the report is false. An exhaustive report by the FBI also concludes that the meeting never took place. Yet Bush and administration officials continue to use the Czech report as evidence of a connection. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld goes so far as to call the evidence "bulletproof." In later months, as stories of the report's discreditation become more widespread, the administration stops citing the report, but it never withdraws its earlier statements. (Strategic News Service/Smalla)

August 6: Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board and foreign policy advisor to Bush, is asked about new challenges now that the Cold War is over. He cites three: "We're concerned about Saddam Hussein, we're concerned about the North Koreans, about some future Iranian government that may have the weapon they're now trying so hard to acquire..." Note that these three nations are the same three named in Bush's famous January 2002 "axis of evil" speech. High US officials are later talking about attacking all three, even though there are almost no connections between any of them and al-Qaeda

Encouraged by the Bush administration, Japan deals with Iraq in providing oil field studies, indicating that the Clinton administration's proscription for US allies against dealings with Iraq is no longer in force. (Bushwatch)

Shortly after 9/11, Rumsfeld forms his own intelligence analysis team, nicknamed "The Cabal," and officially part of another new intelligence agency, the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. (The OSP and CIA clashed over the necessity to invade Iraq; Bush chose to follow the recommendations of the OSP over the CIA.) The Cabal is composed of approximately a dozen members, and reports directly to Paul Wolfowitz. It is created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld believe to be true: that Hussein has close ties to al-Qaeda and an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons that threatened the region and possibly the United States. "Rumsfeld set up his own intelligence agency because he didn't like the intelligence he was getting," said Larry Korb, director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Bush prefers the Cabal's advice to the information provided by the CIA, the DIA, and the State Department. Older CIA hands characterize it as unreliable and politically motivated, and claim it has undermined decades of work by the CIA's trained spies and ignored the truth when it has contradicted its world view. "Their methods are vicious," says Vince Cannistraro, former CIA chief of counter-terrorism. "The politicization of intelligence is pandemic, and deliberate disinformation is being promoted. They choose the worst-case scenario on everything and so much of the information is fallacious." Cannistraro describes serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for proffering "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi." (Chalabi, the son of a wealthy Iraqi banker who has not lived in Iraq since 1956 and was chosen by Rumsfeld to succeed to power in Iraq as early as 1997, was convicted in 1992 of 31 counts of bank fraud and embezzlement in Jordan and sentenced to 22 years hard labor in absentia, and is widely regarded as an unreliable source of information.) A former Bush administration intelligence official quits, and later says the Cabal "were using the intelligence from the CIA and other agencies only when it fit their agenda. They didn’t like the intelligence they were getting, and so they brought in people to write the stuff. They were so crazed and so far out and so difficult to reason with to the point of being bizarre. Dogmatic, as if they were on a mission from God." An Army intelligence officer says that Rumsfeld is "deeply, almost pathologically distorting the intelligence." Former CIA analyst Patrick Lang states that intelligence on Iraq has been "exploited and abused and bypassed" by the White House. (Consortium News, Boston Herald, Iraqi News, Observer)

September 12: Following his notes from the day before suggesting that 9/11 should be blamed on Iraq and not just al-Qaeda, Rumsfeld proposes to President Bush that Iraq should be "a principal target of the first round in the war against terrorism." Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and others support the idea. Bush and all of his advisors agree that Iraq should be attacked, but they decide such an attack should wait. Secretary of State Powell says, "Public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible." (There is still no evidence suggesting Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.) Wolfowitz is given the task of finding, or creating, a justification for a war against Iraq to be given to the world during Bush's next State of the Union address. Former CIA Director James Woolsey, a member of the Defense Policy Board who backed an invasion of Iraq, theorizes that Saddam is connected to the World Trade Center attacks. Woolsey goes to London to gather evidence to back up his theory, which has the support of Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, then the Defense Policy Board chairman. Wolfowitz, Perle, and other administration officials believe that, if they could tie Saddam to Al Qaeda, they could justify the war to the American people. As a veteran aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee observes, "They knew that, if they could really show a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, then their objective, ... which was go in and get rid of Hussein, would have been a foregone conclusion." Woolsey's main piece of evidence for a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda is a meeting that was supposed to have taken place in Prague in April 2001 between lead September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence official, but none of the intelligence agencies could place Atta in Prague on that date. Atta was proven to be in the US during this time, traveling between Florida and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Eventually, Afghanistan will be chosen as an easier sell to the American people while public opinion is being manipulated to bring Iraq into focus as the next primary target. Many of these people, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Woolsey, Perle, and others, are members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which has decided as an organization to use the attacks as justification for their long-desired invasion of Iraq. Woolsey makes several TV appearances in the days after the attack pushing the theory of Iraqi involvement, as does fellow PNAC member William Kristol on NPR. And Rumsfeld instructed his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq five hours after the Pentagon was attacked. (The New Republic, Online Journal, Asia Times, Truthout)

September 13: During a meeting at Camp David with Bush, Rumsfeld, and others, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld advocate the invasion of Iraq. In a May 2003 interview, Wolfowitz said they discussed with Bush the prospects of launching an attack against Iraq, for no apparent reason other than a "gut feeling" Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks." According to Wolfowitz, the subject of debate was not "whether, but when," and if Afghanistan should be invaded before Iraq. Their justification for the decision to invade is, he said, because Hussein publicly praised the terrorist attacks on 9/11. In another interview, Rumsfeld acknowledged that US policy advocated "regime change" in Iraq since the 1990s. He said, "If you go back and look at the debate in the Congress and the debate in the United Nations, what we said was the President said that this is a dangerous regime, the policy of the United States government has been regime change since the mid to late 1990s...and that regime has now been changed. That is a very good thing." Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were two of the signers of a 1998 letter to Bill Clinton urging an invasion of Iraq, a suggestion Clinton refused to take. (CCR)

2002:
Bush administration officials lead increasingly strong verbal and diplomatic attacks on Iraq, claiming that they have evidence Iraq is intimately tied into terrorist activities, Iraq is "weeks or months" away from developing nuclear weapons that can strike the continental US, and Iraq has "large, threatening" stores of biological and chemical weapons. None of the claims can be verified; much of the evidence presented by the administration was proven to be false and/or falsified. (Example: the Bush administration alleged that Iraq was attempting to purchase material from Niger that would allow them to build a nuclear weapon. In the words of the New York Times, the documentation provided by Bush officials were "clumsy forgeries." By February, the CIA and State Department are informed by their own investigators that the documents are worthless; nevertheless, Bush officials continue to present the documentation to the world as "proof" that Iraq was building a nuclear weapon.)

February: A CIA report circulates through the administration debunking the idea of a valid Iraqi connection to terrorism: it states that the CIA can find "no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups." Richard Perle attacks the report in the press, dismissing it as not "worth the paper it's printed on." (The New Republic, Sydney Morning Herald)

May: Seymour Hersh reports in the New Yorker that Rumsfeld is so determined to find a rationale for the WTC attacks that on ten separate occasions he asks the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the attacks. The intelligence agency repeatedly comes back empty-handed. But while the CIA hasn't been helpful to Rumsfeld, one former senior official later says, "If it became known that [Rumsfeld] wanted [the Defense Intelligence Agency] to link the government of Tonga to 9/11, within a few months they would come up with sources who'd do it."

Summer: Senator Bob Graham of the Senate Intelligence Committee requests and receives an analysis of the Iraqi threat from the CIA. He is given a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies -- noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. In September, the committee also receives the DIA's classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. Later that month, committee members are concerned when they receive a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlights the administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes. One example: the document highlights "extensive Iraqi chem-bio programs and nuclear programs and links to terrorism" but then includes a footnote that reads, "This information comes from a source known to fabricate in the past." A committee staffer concludes, "they didn't do analysis. What they did was they just amassed everything they could that said anything bad about Iraq and put it into a document." Senator Richard Durbin, another member of the committee, will later say, "The most frustrating thing I find is when you have credible evidence on the intelligence committee that is directly contradictory to statements made by the administration." (The New Republic)

Early July: Richard Haas, director of policy planning at the State Department, is told by Condoleeza Rice that a war with Iraq is already in the works. "The moment was the first week of July), when I had a meeting with Condi. I raised this issue about were we really sure that we wanted to put Iraq front and center at this point, given the war on terrorism and other issues. And she said, essentially, that that decision's been made, don't waste your breath." (CBS)

Late July: Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter says to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "This is not about the security of the United States. This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation." (Capital Times)

September: Bush cites an IAEA report as providing definitive evidence that Hussein is only months away from producing nuclear weapons. The report contains no such information, and actually shows that Iraq has no nuclear potential at all. Most American media outlets never run anything else except Bush's false assertion; MSNBC posts an article on its Web site showing that Bush gave false information, but within hours the article is purged. (MSNBC/Memory Hole)

September: The Defense Intelligence Agency reports that is unable to find any reliable evidence of Iraqi WMDs: "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities." Additionally, Iraq's embryonic nuclear weapons development program is determined to be less advanced than it was in 1991 before the Persian Gulf war. This does not deter Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials from publicly claiming that Iraq was proven to be in possession of such weapons; instead, Rumsfeld tells Congress that same month that Hussein's "regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons -- including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas." (Albuquerque Tribune, Working for Change)

September: USA Today reports that "the Bush administration is expanding on and in some cases contradicting U.S. intelligence reports in making the case for an invasion of Iraq, interviews with administration and intelligence officials indicate. ...Administration officials accuse Iraq of having ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and of amassing weapons of mass destruction despite uncertain and sometimes contrary intelligence on these issues, according to officials. ...In some cases, top administration officials disagree outright with what the CIA and other intelligence agencies report. For example, they repeat accounts of al-Qaeda members seeking refuge in Iraq and of terrorist operatives meeting with Iraqi intelligence officials, even though U.S. intelligence reports raise doubts about such links. On Iraqi weapons programs, administration officials draw the most pessimistic conclusions from ambiguous evidence." Democratic Representative Rush Holt later says of his discussions with constituents, "When someone spoke of the need to invade, [they] invariably brought up the example of what would happen if one of our cities was struck. They clearly were convinced by the administration that Saddam Hussein -- either directly or through terrorist connections -- could unleash massive destruction on an American city. And I presume that most of my colleagues heard the same thing back in their districts." (The New Republic)

September: The Defense Intelligence Agency reports, "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] actions. ...There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities." (The New Republic, Working for Change)

September 7: Bush and Blair make a joint appearance at the White House. Bush cites satellite photos and a report by the UN atomic energy agency as proof that Iraq is rearming with WMDs. However, a senior administration official acknowledges that the photo has been "misinterpreted" and the UN report drew no such conclusion. Even more egregriously, Bush and British PM Tony Blair use a 1998 IAEA report to claim that Iraq is "six months away from developing nuclear weapons." "I don’t know what more evidence we need," Bush adds, and Blair chimes in, "Absolutely." The IAEA report makes no such assertion, nor gives any evidence that such an assertion is based in reality. The IAEA report does claim that Iraq was "six to 24 months" away from such a program before the Persian Gulf war, but that American military strikes destroyed Iraq's capability to produce nuclear energy of any kind. (MSNBC/Awesome Library, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

September 8: The New Your Times reports that US intelligence has found that Iraq has "embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb" by trying to purchase "specially designed aluminum tubes" that the administration believes are for centrifuges to enrich uranium. (The tubes were for construction of Italian-made Medusa 81 conventional rockets, and were proven as such by numerous organizations including the Livermore Laboratories. "Everybody in the intelligence community knew it," writes author James C. Moore, "and Rove and the White House Iraq Group sent down orders that government intelligence experts were to keep their mouths shut about dissenting information.") The story, prompted by an administration leak to Times reporters Michael Gordon and Judith Miller, refers to Bush "hardliners" who argue that action should be taken because if they waited for proof that Hussein had a nuclear weapon, "the first sign of a smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud." The same day, Condoleezza Rice appears on CNN and confirms the Times story, saying the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." She also says, "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Cheney also confirms the Times story that same day on NBC's Meet the Press, saying that intelligence has enough information "that tells us that he [Hussein] is in fact actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons." Rice and Cheney fail to mention that US intelligence has already determined that the aluminum tubes are unsuitable for use in building nuclear weapons. By September 24, British intelligence concurs that the tubes cannot be used for nuclear purposes; Bush fails to mention the discrepancies in his State of the Union address, where he tells the world that Hussein is definitely building nuclear weapons. (Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review/CommonDreams)

September 8: CNN reports that ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter doubts the Bush claims that Iraq is rebuilding any sort of WMD program. Ritter says, "What I'm very certain of is that the Bush administration has not provided any evidence to substantiate its allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime is currently pursuing weapons of mass destruction programs or is in actual possession of weapons of mass destruction. Based upon my experience as a weapons inspector from 1991 to 1998, while we had serious concerns about unaccounted aspects of Iraq's weapons program, we did ascertain a 90 [percent] to 95 percent level of disarmament that included all of the production equipment and means of production used by Iraq to produce these weapons. So if Iraq has weapons today, like President Bush says, clearly they would have had to reconstitute these capabilities since December 1998. And this is something that the Bush administration needs to make a better case for, especially before we talk about going to war. ...We have a Constitution which says we will abide by the rule of law. We are signatories of the United Nations charter. Therefore, we are to adhere ourselves to the United Nations charter. And I see my government drifting decisively away from this. So I feel I have no other choice, as an American citizen, than to stand up and speak out. It's the most patriotic thing I can do." (CNN, Buzzflash)

September 11: The Bush administration uses the anniversary of the WTC attacks to pump up public support for an invasion of Iraq. The opening salvo comes a few days before, with a leak to Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordon of the New York Times regarding the aluminum tubes. Miller and Gordon reported that, according to administration officials, Iraq had been trying to buy tubes specifically designed as "components of centrifuges to enrich uranium" for nuclear weapons. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice appear on the political talk shows to trumpet the discovery of the tubes and the Iraqi nuclear threat. Rice explains, "There will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Saddam] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Rumsfeld added, "Imagine a September eleventh with weapons of mass destruction. It's not three thousand -- it's tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children." Intelligence personnel are appalled at the statements: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie." David Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security, recalls, "I became dismayed when a knowledgeable government scientist told me that the administration could say anything it wanted about the tubes while government scientists who disagreed were expected to remain quiet." (The New Republic, Washington Post, Institute for Science and International Security, Dissident Voice)

September 12: Bush states to the UN General Assembly, "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." He exhorts the UN to take action against Iraq, and warns that if the UN doesn't do so, the US is prepared to move against Iraq itself. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan declares his opposition to a unilateral US strike. (White House, CBS News, Reuters/ABC News/Awesome Library, FactMonster, (MidEast Web)

September 12: Independent experts challenge the US assessment that a stockpile of aluminum tubes found by UN weapons inspectors is evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. The report, issued by the Institute for Science and International Security, also contends that the administration is trying to quiet dissent among its own analysts over how to interpret the evidence. Most experts, including DOE experts who are perhaps the most qualified to judge, have said that the aluminum tubes cannot be linked with nuclear research. Says David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, "For over a year and a half, an analyst at the CIA has been pushing the aluminum tube story, despite consistent disagreement by a wide range of experts in the United States and abroad. His opinion, however, obtained traction in the summer of 2002 with senior members of the Bush Administration, including the President." The most likely explanation now appears to be that the tubes were to be used in normal rocketry manufacturing. (Washington Post, Institute for Science and International Security, Dissident Voice)

September 12: CNN reports that Vice President Cheney says on Meet the Press that speculations that the drive towards a war with Iraq has anything to do with Bush's re-election campaign is "reprehensible." He says, "The suggestion that I find reprehensible is the notion that somehow, you know, we saved this and now we've sprung it on them for political reasons." Strategist Dick Morris points out that "[p]olls show that only one issue works in Bush's favor: terrorism. ...He doesn't need to wag the dog. He just needs to talk about wagging it to make the impact to keep control of Congress." In answer to the question of why the administration waited until September to make its case against Iraq, White House chief of staff Andrew Card, a former lobbyist for General Motors, said in August, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." (CNN)

September 14: Bush addresses the UN, demanding that the UN enforce its own resolutions against Iraq and promising unilateral action if need be.

September 16: Iraq agrees to allow "unfettered" access to its weapons sites by UN inspectors. A day later, the US announces that it is not satisfied with Iraq's offer. "This is not a matter of inspections. It is about disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the Iraqi regime's compliance with all other Security Council resolutions," says an administration spokesperson. (Bloomberg/Awesome Library, Fox News)

September 17: Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asks Bush to provide a National Intelligence Estimate, a report that would have showed exactly how much of a threat Iraq posed. The reply is delivered by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who says in the post 9-11 world the U.S. cannot wait for intelligence because Iraq is too much of a threat to the U.S. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," Rice said. The NIE is never delivered.

September 22: British PM Blair releases a dossier purporting to prove that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The dossier is later proven to be largely falsified and "sexed up." (MidEast Web)

September 25: Rice claims, "There clearly are contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq. ...There clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship there," though she refuses to give any hard evidence. On the same day, President Bush warns of the danger that "Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness." Bob Graham of the Senate Intelligence Committee disagrees, saying that he's seen no information linking Saddam to al-Qaeda. (The New Republic)

September 26: Donald Rumsfeld claims to have "bulletproof" evidence of Iraq's WMD program. (The New Republic, Working for Change)

October 3-11: Both French and British investigators and intelligence deny any claim of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. The British specifically deny any meeting between Atta and Iraqi agents in the Czech Republic. They state that Iraq has purposely distanced itself from al-Qaeda, not embraced it. Meanwhile, Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counterintelligence, says, "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA." A source connected to the 9/11 investigation says, "The FBI has been pounded on to make this link." The Los Angeles Times also reports an escalating "war" between the Pentagon and the CIA over tying Iraq to al-Qaeda. (CCR)

October 4: Bush states that Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, which "could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. ...We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States." US military experts confirm that Iraq has been converting eastern European trainer jets into UAV’s, but with a maximum range of a few hundred miles they were no threat to targets in the U.S. "It doesn't make any sense to me if he meant United States territory," responds Rear Admiral Stephen Baker, who assesses Iraqi military capabilities at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. (Daily Herald, Guardian)

October 4: The UN Security Council is split on whether or not to approve the US request for automatic UN approval of US military action in Iraq. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov says, "Attempts to make the U.N. Security Council subscribe to the automatic use of force against Iraq are unacceptable for us. ...What the British and Americans have presented to us only strengthens us in the correctness of our view that the inspection/monitoring regime in Iraq should be resumed and that a political solution concerning this country is needed without the automatic use of force." France and Germany also voice their opposition to the request. "We are totally opposed to any resolution that gave as of now an automatic character to military intervention," says French PM Jacque Chirac. (CNN)

October 7: The CIA releases a threat assessment of Iraq to Congress; it judges the likelihood of Iraq attacking the United States without provocation as "low" but rising dramatically if the US prepared for a preemptive strike. "In other words," writes columnist Sam Parry, "Bush’s strategy might touch off precisely the nightmare scenario that he says he is countering." (Consortium News)

October 14: Bush tells the country, "[Saddam Hussein] is a man that we know has had connections with al-Qaida. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward army." By this point, the administration is well aware that al-Qaeda has no connections whatsoever with the Hussein regime, and in fact would like nothing more than to see Hussein deposed and an Islamic theocracy take his place. Newsday)

Late November: The UN puts teams of weapons inspectors into Iraq. The teams later claim that the US "actively hindered" their efforts to locate and dismantle Iraqi WMDs. They are in place for a number of weeks, and find no WMDs.

December: Many in the Bush administration seem to prefer intelligence procured from Iraqi National Congress (INC) leader Ahmad Chalabi over that obtained by the CIA. Chalabi, who is deeply mistrusted by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies, has demonstrated a talent for telling administration officials what they want to hear. Right now his message is simple: Iraq is ready for reclamation, the populace is ready for Hussein to be overthrown, the Iraqi people are solidly behind the Americans, all it takes is an act of will to make it happen. (Chalabi once again proves to be wrong on all counts.) "Even as it prepares for war against Iraq, the Pentagon is already engaged on a second front: its war against the Central Intelligence Agency,” writes reporter Richard Dreyfuss. "The Pentagon is bringing relentless pressure to bear on the agency to produce intelligence reports more supportive of war with Iraq. ...Morale inside the U.S. national-security apparatus is said to be low, with career staffers feeling intimidated and pressured to justify the push for war." Much of the pro-war faction’s information comes from Chalabi and the INC, even though "most Iraq hands with long experience in dealing with that country’s tumultuous politics consider INC’s intelligence-gathering abilities to be nearly nil." Vincent Cannistraro, a former senior CIA official and counterterrorism expert, tells Dreyfuss, "[INC’s] intelligence isn’t reliable at all. They make no distinction between intelligence and propaganda, using alleged informants and defectors who say what Chalabi wants them to say, [creating] cooked information that goes right into presidential and vice-presidential speeches." (In These Times)

December 3: The New York Times' Judith Miller files a report that claims a Russian bioterrorism expert visited Iraq in 1990, possibly to pass along new and deadly strains of smallpox that can be used as a biological weapon. Miller's story is proven to be completely wrong -- the last time the scientist in question visited Iraq was in 1970-71 as part of a global smallpox eradication effort -- but the correction is never issued. Public reaction to Iraq's supposed smallpox weapon is strong. (Guardian)

December 6: Fleischer tells the press, "The president of the United States and the Secretary of Defense 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 for saying it." (Democratic Underground)

December 7: UN weapons inspectors begin searching for weapons in Iraq. Iraq submits a 12,000-page report to the UN that supposedly proves they have no proscribed weaponry. (FactMonster, MidEast Web)

December 9: A Washington Post story reports that the US suspects Iraq of supplying nerve gas to al-Qaeda, agitating the public and giving credence to the administration's allegations of connections between Iraq and the terrorist group. The story calls it a "credible report" in the first line, though much farther into the story the evidence is characterized as "uncorroborated" and "open to interpretation." An official says that "the message resulted only from an analyst's hypothetical concern." The suspicion is later proven to be false. (Guardian)

December 18: The US declares Iraq in "material breach" of Resolution 1441, and says that it has proof Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. The US says that omissions in Iraq's report to the UN on its weapons programs prompted the declaration. (Independent/Common Dreams)

December 20: UN inspectors demand proof of US claims that Iraq is lying about possessing WMDs. UN inspections team leader Hans Blix says, "If the UK and the US are convinced and they say they have evidence, then one would expect they would be able to tell us where is this stuff." (Independent/Common Dreams)

December 21: Bush approves the first deployment of troops to the Gulf region. (FactMonster)

December 26: UN weapons inspectors announce that they have yet to find any proscribed weapons in Iraq. (BBC)

 

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2003:

January: The weapons inspectors' preliminary reports indicate that Iraq possesses no nuclear weapons, and no evidence of biological or chemical weapons are turned up; the inspectors ask for more time to finish the job. Bush refuses. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says that his agency possesses no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. (Guardian)

January: Bush tells a reporter, "You say we're headed for war in Iraq. I don't know why you say that. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you."

January 9: Ari Fleischer says, "We know for a fact that there are weapons [WMDs] there [Iraq]." (White House, Democratic Underground)

January 14: A group of 25 Republican business leaders jointly submit a letter to the Bush administration, reprinted in the Wall Street Journal, asking that the President find another solution to dealing with Saddam Hussein than a war. The signees include a retired Vice Admiral, the former CEO of Hotjobs Inc., the co-founder of a leading chemical company and the chairman of another, the managing partner of a leading Wall Street investment firm, and others. The letter reads in part, "Let's be clear: We supported the Gulf War. We supported our intervention in Afghanistan. We accept the logic of a just war. But Mr. President, your war on Iraq does not pass the test. It is not a just war. The candidate we supported in 2000 promised a more humble nation in our dealings with the world. We gave him our votes and our campaign contributions. That candidate was you. We feel betrayed. We want our money back. We want our country back. War is the most extreme action a society can take. It can only be unleashed after exploring every other road. You have not explored all the roads. How many young American lives will be lost in this dubious war? How many more innocent Iraqis will be killed and maimed and made homeless? Haven't they suffered enough, after two decades of terrible wars and sanctions? Among the one billion Muslims in the world there is now a steady trickle of recruits going to al Qaeda. You will turn the trickle into a torrent. ...And out of war may rise an Iraqi regime every bit as brutish as the present one. What will you do then? Our jaws drop when we read that you may decide we have to occupy Iraq for years, that the next ruler of Iraq may be...an American general! Is there anyone who thinks that will work? Your odds of success are infinitesimal! The world wants Saddam Hussein disarmed. But you must find a better way to do it. Why would you lead us into a situation where we are bound to fail? You cannot keep proclaiming peace while preparing for war. You are waltzing blindfolded into what may well be a catastrophe. Pride goeth before a fall. Show the humility and compassion that led us to elect you." Like virtually all of the conservative opposition to the upcoming war, the letter is all but ignored by the American media, which seems bent on portraying all opposition as coming from the far left of the political spectrum. (Anita Roddick)


January 16: UN inspectors find 11 empty chemical casings, possibly intended for use as missile warheads.

January 20: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin attacks the US plans for an Iraqi war: "Nothing today justifies envisaging military action." This provokes a backlash among the Bush administration and the American public against all things French, which sometimes hits ludicrous extremes (i.e. renaming French fries "freedom fries"). Most of the nations that backed Resolution 1441 are warning the United States not to rush into war, and Germany, which opposes military action, will assume the chair of the Security Council in February, on the eve of the planned invasion. (The New Republic)

January 21: Bush says, "It appears to be a re-run of a bad movie. [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] is delaying. He's deceiving. He's asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain -- he's not disarming." (Democratic Underground)

January 28: In Bush's State of the Union address, he claims that intelligence reports indicate that Iraq has "the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas, and VX nerve agent," all of which could be used against targets in the United States. Despite UN inspectors or intelligence officials finding no concrete evidence of any of these materials, Bush will use these allegations to justify the US invasion of Iraq. Bush indicates that he is willing to begin an attack on Iraq with or without UN approval. He accuses Iraq of having the materials to produce "as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." He also cites a supposed discovery that Iraq has purchased nuclear material from Niger, a supposition that has long been proven false. (His exact words, which have caused so much consternation, are: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.") Retired security analyst Greg Thielmann said in June 2003, "I was very surprised to hear that he announced that to the United States and the entire world." Thielmann referred to the forged document as a "stupid piece of garbage." Another analyst, David Albright, says, "One person who heard a classified briefing on Iraq in late 2002 said that there was laughter in the room when the uranium evidence was presented." The administration will later claim that its senior officials had no idea that the uranium evidence was so weak when Bush made his speech; this claim has been countered again and again, with evidence that Vice President Cheney knew that a diplomat sent to Africa to verify the claim had proven its falsity, that CIA director Tenet warned Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley not to use the claim in an earlier Bush speech, and that days before the State of the Union address, Robert G. Joseph, the National Security Council official who reports to Rice on nuclear proliferation, was fully briefed by CIA analyst Alan Foley that the Niger connection was no stronger than it had been in October. Tony Blair will later claim that Britain has "other evidence" of the uranium deal; a diplomat says of the so-called evidence, "As far as I know, the only other evidence Britain has about the Niger connection is based on intelligence coming from other western countries which saw the same forgeries. Blair's claim that he has other evidence is nonsense. These foreign intelligence agencies are basing their claims on the same forgeries as the Brits." (The New Republic, White House, Sunday Herald, FactMonster, Dissident Voice, Working For Change)

January 28: The Bush administration goes to great lengths to insist that Bush himself, and not merely speechwriters, in large part wrote the State of the Union address himself. He edited the drafts, he wrote notes in the margins, and he gave his speech writers pointers. This is notable for the tremendous outcry over false and misleading information throughout the speech, and for Bush's attempts to distance himself from it. (Consortium News)

February 4: Australian Prime Minister John Howard informs Parliament that until General Hussein Kamal, chief of Iraq's WMD programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, UN inspectors did not even know that Iraq had developed biological weapons. While Howard's statement is true, Howard fails to mention that Kamal also told weapons inspectors that Iraq had abandoned its nuclear program and destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons four years earlier. According to Kamal, who is also Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, WMD production had never resumed. (The Age)


February 4: A much-denied meeting between Colin Powell and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw takes place in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. According to transcripts of the meeting, both men express strong doubts about the reliability of intelligence on Iraq's supposed weapons programs. The "Waldorf transcripts," as the transcripts of the meeting are being called, have made the rounds of NATO countries and are causing some of those countries, particularly France and Germany, to further intensify their opposition to the US's intentions of invading Iraq. Note that Powell will make a landmark speech to the UN less than 24 hours later which relies heavily on the intelligence that he and Straw believe to be unreliable. (Guardian)


February 5: Colin Powell makes a critical speech to the United Nations' Security Council on the subject of Iraq's weapons programs. He opens, "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. ...We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." Powell then proceeds to make a speech riddled with lies, misstatesments, and misrepresentations. In private, Powell has refused to use much of the Pentagon intelligence analyses, characterizing them as "bull****." Much of what he does use is just as fraudulent; large portions of the new material in Powell's speech is raw data from the CIA that had not yet undergone serious analysis. (It is later discovered that Powell based his assessments largely on the testimony of Iraqi defector Hussein Kamel; he does not mention that Kamel testified that the weapons systems he detailed had already been destroyed.) What follows is a breakdown of his more serious claims.
The satellite photos that Powell presents are of sites that have been inspected more than 500 times in the past months. Powell's characterizations of the photos as showing Iraqis hiding missiles armed with chemical and biological weapons, and showing trucks being used as "decontamination vehicles," were specious. UN inspectors as well as independent journalists who visited the sites hours after Powell's speech found nothing to support Powell's interpretations. The "decontamination vehicles," were found to be simple fire or water trucks. On June 24, Blix will say of the entire Powell photo presentation, "We were not impressed with that particular evidence." UN inspector Steve Allinson later says, "We were told we were going to the site to look for refrigerated trucks specifically linked to biological agents. We found 7 or 8 of them I think in total. And they had cobwebs in them. Some samples were taken and nothing was found."
Powell's presentation includes audiotapes of men speaking in Arabic about "modified vehicles," "forbidden ammo," and "nerve agents." Powell states that the men are Iraqi army officers discussing concealment. In reality, two of the tapes are so cryptic, disjointed, and poorly authenticated that no one can be sure what is being discussed or whose voices have been recorded. The third tape is of Iraqi officers ordering an inspection of scrap areas for "forbidden ammo" in cooperation with orders from UN inspectors. The search turned up four empty chemical warheads left over from Desert Storm; they were turned over to the UN inspectors. Powell deliberately mistranslates an officer's statement; according to Powell, the officer orders the area "cleared out," which implies some sort of cover-up; the official government translation has the officer ordering the area "inspected."
Powell says "classified" documents found at a nuclear scientist's Baghdad home are "dramatic confirmation" of intelligence saying prohibited items were concealed. In the estimation of UN inspectors, the documents are "old [and] irrelevant," many dating from a failed uranium-enrichment program from the 1980s and the others unremarkable administrative documents.
Powell claims that sources have told the US of Iraqis dispersing rocket launchers and warheads holding biological weapons in the western desert, hiding them in palm groves and moving them periodically. The sources, which Powell did not identify, have so far been proven wrong after months of intensive searching by US and Australian troops. A senior Iraqi science advisor later suggests that the story of palm groves and weekly-to-monthly movement was lifted whole from an Iraqi general's written account of hiding missiles in the 1991 war.
Powell claims Iraq is violating UN resolutions by rejecting U-2 reconnaissance flights and prohibiting private interviews with Iraqi scientists. He suggests that only fear of reprisals keeps Iraqi scientists from exposing secret weapons programs. Powell does not mention that U-2 flights are slated to begin February 17, which they did without incident. By early March, the US has interviewed a dozen scientists. Numerous interviews with Iraqi scientists after Hussein's deposing have not resulted in a single confirmed fact about existing or future weapons programs.
Powell claims that Iraq has boasted of producing 8,500 liters of the biological agent anthrax before 1991, but U.N. inspectors estimated it could have made up to 25,000 liters. None has been "verifiably accounted for," he says, implying that it could still be available. As of this writing, no anthrax has been found. A confidential DIA report from September 2002 states that Iraq may indeed have biological weapons, but it did not know their nature, amounts, or condition. In late February, UN inspectors obtain soil sample evidence that Iraq destroyed its 1991 stocks of anthrax at a known site. Iraq offered a list of witnesses to verify the amounts to the inspectors, but before interviews could begin, the inspectors were ordered to leave the country.
Powell claims that defectors have revealed mobile "biological weapons factories" on trucks and in train cars, and shows artists' conceptions of such vehicles. After the invasion, U.S. authorities will claim to have found two such truck trailers in Iraq, and the CIA will quickly conclude they were part of a bioweapons production line. But no trace of biological agents can be found on them, Iraqi witnesses say the equipment made hydrogen for weather balloons, and State Department intelligence refuses to accept the CIA's conclusion. The British defense minister, Geoffrey Hoon, will later dismiss the vehicles as insignificant. The trailers have yet to be submitted to U.N. inspection for verification. No "bioweapons railcars" have been reported found. Defector Hussein Kamel, the source for much of the US intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs, stated conclusively that the entire stockpile of anthrax toxin was destroyed in the summer of 1991. Kamel has been proven time and again to be one of the single most reliable sources on Iraq's weapons programs that US intelligence has ever had.
Powell shows his audience a videotape of an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet spraying what he calls "simulated anthrax." He claims four such spray tanks are unaccounted for, and that Iraq is building small unmanned aircraft designed to dispense chemical and biological weapons. UN inspectors who later watch the video recognize it as footage shot before the 1991 Gulf War. The Mirage was destroyed by coalition forces, and three of the four spray tanks were destroyed in the 1990s. No small drones or other planes with chemical-biological capability have been reported found in Iraq since the invasion. Iraq also will give inspectors details on its drone program, but the U.S. bombing intervenes before U.N. teams could follow up.
Powell claims that Iraq has produced four tons of VX nerve toxin. "A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons," he said dramatically. Powell knows, but does not reveal, that almost all of the four tons of VX were destroyed in the 1990s under UN supervision. The Iraqis went to great lengths to prove that they had destroyed the little remaining toxin, providing ground analyses of the areas where inspectors were able to confirm that VX had been dumped. Experts on biological weapons have confirmed that any pre-1991 VX would have long since degraded into worthlessness even if Iraq had hidden stores of it away. No VX has been located since the invasion.
Powell claims knowledge that Iraq has "embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. No "chemical weapons infrastructure" has yet been found. The DIA report of last September said there was "no reliable information" on "where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent-production facilities." The DIA report states that UN inspections have been able to keep Iraq's chemical industry from producing chemical weapons, and that it should continue to be able to do so.
Powell states, "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." His assertion has no basis. No such agents have been found. An unclassified CIA report last October made a similar assertion without citing concrete evidence, saying only that Iraq "probably" concealed precursor chemicals to make such weapons. The DIA reported last September there is no evidence of Iraq producing and stockpiling chemical weapons. Any weapons that Iraq may have possessed would have been leftovers from the 1991 Gulf War, and would have long since deteriorated into uselessness.
Powell says that a dozen 122-mm chemical warheads found by UN inspectors in January could be the "tip of an iceberg." He fails to note that the warheads were empty and never uncrated. On June 16, Hans Blix will state that the warheads were "debris from the past," the 1980s. No others have been reported found since the invasion.
Powell states, "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. ...And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them." No such weapons will be used, and none have ever been found after the U.S. and allied military units overran Iraqi field commands and ammunition dumps. Even before Powell's presentation, U.N. inspectors had found no such weapons at Iraqi military bases.
"We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program," Powell tells the Security Council. Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei will tell the Council two weeks before the U.S. invasion that "[w]e have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq." On July 24, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio of Spain, a U.S. ally on Iraq, said there were "no evidences, no proof" of a nuclear bomb program before the war. No such evidence has been reported found since the invasion.
Powell claims that "most United States experts" believe aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for use as centrifuge cylinders for enriching uranium for nuclear bombs. Energy Department experts and Powell's own State Department intelligence bureau have already dissented from this CIA view, and on March 7 the UN nuclear agency's ElBaradei will state that his experts found convincing documentation -- and no contrary evidence -- that Iraq was using the tubes to make artillery rockets. Powell's scenario was "highly unlikely," he said. No centrifuge program has been reported found. Senior CIA analyst Greg Thielmann later says, "This is one of the most disturbing parts of Secretary Powell's speech for us. ...The aluminum was exactly, I think, what the Iraqis wanted for artillery." Thielmann says his section advised the State Department of their conclusions months before the speech. Oak Ridge consultant Henry Wood later says, "I thought when I read that there must be some other tubes that people were talking about. I just was flabbergasted that people were still pushing that those might be centrifuges. It didn’t make any sense to me."
Powell says that "intelligence from multiple sources" have reported that Iraq tried to buy magnets and a production line for magnets of "the same weight" as those used in uranium centrifuges. The UN nuclear agency traced a dozen types of imported magnets to their Iraqi end users, and none was usable for centrifuges, according to ElBaradei on March 7. "Weight is not enough; you don't have a centrifuge magnet because it's 20 grams," ElBaradei deputy Jacques Baute will tell the Associated Press on July 11. No centrifuge program has been found.
Powell says "intelligence sources" indicate Iraq had a secret force of up to a few dozen prohibited Scud-type missiles. He claims that Iraq also has a program to build newer, 600-mile-range missiles, and had put a roof over a test facility to block the view of spy satellites. No Scud-type missiles have been reported found. Thielmann later says, "I wondered what he was talking about. We did not have evidence that the Iraqis had those missiles, pure and simple." In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors had reported accounting for all but two of these missiles. No program for long-range missiles has been uncovered. Powell fails to note that U.N. teams were repeatedly inspecting missile facilities, including looking under that roof, and reporting no Iraqi violations of U.N. resolutions.
Powell describes a "potentially...sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder." His evidence consists of tenuous ties between Baghdad and al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who had received medical treatment in Baghdad and who, according to Powell, operated a training camp in Iraq specializing in poisons. Since the camp was located in northern Iraq, an area controlled by the Kurds rather than Saddam and policed by U.S. and British warplanes, it makes no sense to connect it with the Saddam regime. (Al-Zarqawi, who was involved with the October 2002 assassination of US ambassador to Jordan Laurence Foley, was indeed given medical treatment in Iraq by terrorists not under the control of the Hussein regime. In contrast, dozens and perhaps hundreds of al-Qaeda members have received treatment in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and Qatar, the last two of which are supposedly American allies.) One Hill staffer familiar with the classified documents on Al Qaeda remarks, "So why would that be proof of some Iraqi government connection to Al Qaeda? [It] might as well be in Iran."
Powell claims that Iraq has the wherewithal to manufacture and distribute smallpox. Like the VX nerve toxin claims, this one has no backing whatsoever, and is proven false in March by UN inspectors.
Powell's speech makes a major impact on the Security Council and world opinion in general. Overnight, prowar sentiment in the US media's editorial commentary more than doubled, and his presentation is roundly applauded and cited as a masterful defense of the administration's march towards war. By this point, opposition to the skewed intelligence has all but disappeared within the halls of American government as well as within the media. Pat Roberts, a "docile" Republican, has assumed the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and George Tenet has all but abandoned his resistance. Tenet even sat directly behind Powell during his speech, lending his presence to Powell's claims. Says veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern, "[T]o see him sit behind Colin Powell at the UN, to see him give up and shade the intelligence and cave in when his analysts have been slogging through the muck for a year and a half trying to tell it like it is, that is very demoralizing, and actually very infuriating." McGovern characterizes Tenet as Bush's "lapdog." Senior CIA analyst Greg Thielmann calls Powell's speech "probably one of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation." (The New Republic, State Department, Washington Post, AP/Tampa Bay Tribune, Truthout, Independent, Shepherd-Express, AlterNet, Strategic News Service/Smalla, CBS News)

February 7: Powell's presentation to the UN was in large part based on a dossier provided by British intelligence entitled "Iraq - Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation." This dossier plagarized large sections of material from a September, 2002 essay written by a California graduate student named Ibrahim al-Marashi. al-Marashi was writing largely about Iraq in the days and weeks after 1991's Desert Storm; his words were rewritten to sound more sinister and ominous (i.e. Iraq's "aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes" is changed to "supporting terrorist organizations in hostile regimes"); his work was rewritten to sound more applicable to the current situation than it was; and he was not consulted before his work was "borrowed" by the British. Additionally, much of Powell's "human sources" are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, and therefore not very reliable (only weeks later, one of the prisoners would spark a US terror alert based on the Godzilla movie he had watched the night before). Says one writer, "it seems all too clear that Powell's entire presentation was based upon information that is questionable to say the least." (Truthout)

February 8: Bush states in a radio address, "Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have. ...We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." His source for this information is unclear at best; to date, no chemical or biological weapons of any kind have been found in Iraq. Certainly none were used against the US and British invasion forces. (White House, Democratic Underground, Shepherd-Express)

February 16: Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley echoes the January State of the Union address claim that Iraq has attempted to purchase weapons-grade uranium from Niger: "With its trained nuclear scientists and a weapons design, all Saddam Hussein lacks is the necessary plutonium or enriched uranium. Iraq has an active procurement program. According to British intelligence, the regime has tried to acquire natural uranium from abroad." In late July, after the claim is proven false, Hadley attempts to excuse the inclusion of the claim in Bush's State of the Union address by saying that it "slipped from his attention." (Buzzflash, US Consulate)

February 19: British and American intelligence warns that three Iraqi cargo ships at sea may be carrying biological or chemical weapons, with the intent to use them. US and British military forces are leery of boarding them for fear that the crews will scuttle them and cause an environmental catastrophe. Later, the claims that the ships were carrying WMDs was proven to be false. (Evening Standard)

February 23: Veteran US diplomat John Brady Kiesling resigns from his embassy post in Athens, Greece. Kiesling's letter of resignation, sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is later published in the New York Times; it harshly criticizes the Bush administration's policies in Iraq. Kiesling writes, in part: "...ntil this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. ...[W]e have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo? ...We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead. We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has 'oderint dum metuant' really become our motto? ['Oderint dum metuant' roughly translates as "Let them hate as long as they fear," a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Caligula.] I urge you to listen to America’s friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet? ...We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests. I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share." On April 25, he will give a speech at Princeton University, where he will state that the September 11 attacks gave a tremendous opportunity to anyone "savvy and unscrupulous enough to manipulate public fears," and the advocates of "hard-nosed neoconservatism" promptly seized it. They adopted "the power politics of the schoolyard as their model of human interaction" and reduced the complexities of global foreign policy to a permanent contest between "the forces of light and the forces of darkness." They used "lies and half-truths" to build a case for invading Iraq as "a step toward a more complete power grab." As the neoconservatives began to drive American policy, old-school internationalists tried to come to terms with them, hoping to retain influence. But accommodation has proved no easy task. "This is an administration at war, and you are with them or you are against them." (New York Times/CommonDreams, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune/CommonDreams)


February 24: The U.S., Britain, and Spain submit a resolution to the UN Security Council that states, "Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it in Resolution 1441," and that it is now time to authorize use of military force against the country. The proposal meets with heavy resistance from several countries; France, Germany, and Russia submit an informal counter-resolution to the UN Security Council that states that inspections should be intensified and extended to ensure that there is "a real chance to the peaceful settlement of this crisis," and that "the military option should only be a last resort." (FactMonster)


February 24 - March 14: The US and Britain conduct an intense lobbying effort among the 15 Security Council members in an attempt to pass its proposed resolution granting UN approval for military intervention of Iraq. The efforts, which some member nations characterize as "bullying," yield only four supporters (in addition to the U.S. and Britain, Spain and Bulgaria). Nine votes, with no vetoes from the five permanent members, out of fifteen are required for the resolution's passage. The U.S. decides not to call for a vote on the resolution. (FactMonster)


February 28: In an interview with Radio France International, Colin Powell states, "If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. ...But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct. (State Department)

 

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2003:

March 1: Iraq begins destroying its stockpile of al-Samoud missiles. The US characterizes this as too little, too late. (FactMonster)

March 3: Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who will later debunk the Bush administration's claims that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Niger, writes a scathing indictment of the upcoming war in The Nation. In it, he says that the administration's imminent war with Iraq is not about weapons of mass destruction, nor terrorism (as it would only result in more terrorism), nor about liberating oppressed people. Rather, he states, the true objective of the war is an effort to impose a "Pax Americana"on the region. He concludes that because we have no business building empires, we have no business going to war. Though Wilson is not a political partisan, many Bush officials and associated neoconservatives begin to view him as a political enemy, and begin to plan retaliation. (FindLaw)


March 6: Bush demands that the UN Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. "No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote," Bush asserts. "We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council." 11 days later, Bush reverses course, announcing that the US would not call for a vote and saying, "The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours." Bush makes the decision after ascertaining that council members France and Russian will not support any such resolution. (Slate)


March 6: President Bush claims that Saddam Hussein "has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations." This claim is demonstrably false. Bush makes this claim at least eight separate times during a press conference; the White House later admits that the entire press conference was scripted, with reporters pre-selected by the White House media office and given the questions they were to ask and Bush responding with rehearsed answers. No explanation is given as to why the supposedly independent American media would cooperate with such a farce. (Strategic News Service/Smalla, MetroBeat)


March 7: IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei tells the UN Security Council that there is no proof of any nuclear program in Iraq. Behind closed doors, the US concedes the validity of the IAEA's judgments, but publicly assails the organization. "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney later says on Meet the Press. "I think, if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past." Cheney goes on to say, in the face of all evidence, "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." (During the 1990s, the IAEA mounted more than 1,000 inspections in Iraq, mostly without advance warning; sealed, expropriated, or destroyed tons of nuclear material; and destroyed thousands of square feet of nuclear facilities. Its activities formed the baseline for virtually every intelligence assessment regarding Iraq's nuclear weapons program.) (The New Republic, Guardian)

March 7: Colin Powell tells the UN Security Council, "So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? ...I think our judgment has to be clearly not." He adds, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Powell does not inform the Council that the administration decided to invade in July 2002. (State Department, Democratic Underground, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

March 9: Condoleeza Rice claims that "we are still in a diplomatic phase here." Note that the decision to invade was made in July 2002. (ABC/Buzzflash)


March 10: Middle East expert Ian Lustick says of the Project for a New American Century, which has numerous members employed in the Bush administration: "Before 9/11, this group ... could not win over the president to this extravagant image of what foreign policy required. After 9/11, it was able to benefit from the gigantic eruption of political capital, combined with the supply of military preponderance in the hands of the president. And this small group, therefore, was able to gain direct contact and even control, now, of the White House. ...This group, what I call the tom-tom beaters, have set an agenda and have made the president feel that he has to live up to their definitions of manliness, their definitions of success and fear, their definitions of failure." (ABC News)

March 11: Pentagon Papers figure Daniel Ellsberg calls on government officials to leak documents to Congress and the press showing the Bush administration is lying in building its case against Saddam Hussein. "Don't wait until the bombs start falling," he says at a press conference. "If you know the public is being lied to and you have documents to prove it, go to Congress and go to the press." Ellsberg says his plea was prompted by a report that the US intends to spy on UN delegates in order to gain an advantage in the UN debate on Iraq. (UPI/Common Dreams)

March 16: Cheney appears again on Meet the Press and reiterates his views of the previous August about Hussein's nuclear program: "We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Cheney does not reveal his source for this allegation, which turns out to be flatly wrong. Cheney is also asked about the upcoming invasion of Iraq, "If...we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?" Cheney's response: "Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators." Sadly, history will prove Cheney wrong. During the interview Cheney admits indirectly that most of the information he has about Iraq comes from defectors and exiles, many of whom have not lived in the country for decades. Later Cheney is forced to admit that he "misspoke" when he accused Iraq of having nuclear weapons. (Washington Post, "Meet the Press", Progressive)


March 17: Bush tells the nation, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. ...There is no question we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical." He issues an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, demanding that he surrender or leave the country within 48 hours or face an invasion. All diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis cease. (White House, FactMonster, Democratic Underground, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)


March 18:Former Teledesic CEO Russ Daggett writes in a column opposing the upcoming war with Iraq: "The reasons given for war by the Bush administration are, I believe, flawed. The fact that the reasons given have been constantly shifting also draws into question their sincerity. And there are practical, financial and moral reasons to oppose this war. Despite President Bush's rhetoric about war being his 'last choice' and that the 'choice of going to war is Saddam's,' the fact is that the U.S. is choosing to go to war. There is no immediate provocation. It is part of this Administration's new doctrine of 'pre-emptive war' which states, essentially, that we can start a war whenever we feel threatened (it's not clear if this doctrine allows other countries, similarly, to start wars when they feel threatened). But use of the term 'preemption' is misleading in this case, as there is no indication that any kind of attack by Saddam on anyone, let alone the U.S., is imminent. Saddam's military is irrelevant and doesn't pose a threat to any other country, let alone the U.S.. If you believe Saddam constitutes a more abstract or long-term threat, you might call war in this case 'preventative.' But if there is no imminent threat to the U.S., then the U.S. bears a heavy burden of proof that war is necessary and justified. It's really not up to France or any other country (or opponents of war) to make the case that war is not necessary or justified. Has President Bush met that burden? I don't think so." (Strategic News Service/Smalla)

March 19-20: Invasion

 

While there are aspects of Powell's performance in Washington over the past 15 years that I might quibble with he's always struck me as a man of principle and unimpeachable integrity

Basso, this is a common misconception. Powell has remarkably maintained this reputation.

Powell has been a waterboy for conservative Republicans doing questionable activities since he was a young man.

1) Powell played a minor role in the coverup of the Mai Lai massacre which finally came to light.

2) Powell was in the Nixon Whitehouse with Rumsfeld.

3) Powell helped hide the illegal shipment of illegal arms to Iran , during Iran-Contra while working for his boss Capar Weinberger. Powell probably perjured himself before Congress on this.Weinberger was convicted and pardoned by Bush Sr. Powell was lucky to escape indictment.

4) Powell went to Panama with Weiberger and Ollie North to do dealings with Noriega, when Noriega was still our boy.

5) Powell double crossed Schwartkopf and helped thwart an agreement between Sadam and Russia that would have avoided a ground war in Gulf War One. (This was after the US buildup and extensive bombing.)

6) The GOP rewarded Powell by consistently pushing his career to the top.

7) Powell always plays ball with his GOP boys after doing a good cop- bad cop routine.

Behind Powell's Legend

 

rimrocker, from where'd you pull this timeline? Thanks.

 

January and February are office months... we just got the preliminary Fire Season Weather predictions yesterday and it's not looking good. We'll start to get involved in a lot of logisitical work to make sure we have the people, engines, and copters available to handle an early season. When the people get here, we put on a bunch of training, so I'm working on some of that now. We also have a bunch of meetings... I'm off to California the second week of Feb. and then over to AZ after that. Will be in Albuquerque a lot during March.

And, we've only got 12ers in NM... sad thing is, you could probably climb some today because of the pitiful amount of snowpack.