MIT ALPHA PHI OMEGA delta Overseas: 9-11 Review: The Reichstag Fire

Prepare for the next designed deceptive event that pushes the ignorant into demanding an even greater stratum of tyranny. Homeland security never had it so good, when it plans the burning of the last semblance of representative constitutional government, as it substitutes an unmitigated totalitarian collectivist dictatorship over our beleaguered nation.

"Is the threat from foreign terrorists the undertaking of homeland insecurity? The preoccupation since 911 with a self-serving "War of Terror" has been masked under the appearance of national security. Tracking down targeted Jihad terrorists and waging regional search and destroy missions has become the growth industry of the new millennium. The rationale and justification for such a protracted conflict rests upon a cowardly attack on American soil. If you listen to the official version of events anyone who questions the validity of blaming Islamic Fascists must be unpatriotic."

Over the last few decades, an international mechanism has been put in place to control money laundering.

Money Laundering is an 'Official' Franchise Now

States that fail to follow rules on bank transactions, movement of cash, the endless flow of bribe money, drug money, that has bought and sold governments for centuries, have been isolated and eventually brought under control.

This left the real money laundering to intelligence agencies with their private contractors, their private air forces that move cash by the ton, the CIA and Mossad not the only ones by far, the French, the Russians, the Turks more than involved along with Pakistan’s ISI and India’s RAW.

Diplomats have laundered cash, drug money, particularly any Bush envoy and even members of congress, both House and Senate, have carried financial instruments worth hundreds of millions from nation to nation to circumvent UN conventions on money laundering.

Without such laws, there can be no free governments, no free elections.

Then the US Supreme Court did a very strange thing. It decided that corporations could send unlimited money on elections as part of their “free speech’ as “individuals.”

There is nothing in the Constitution that establishes corporations or gives them rights over normal humans. In fact, a corporation can now be the most powerful person in America if not one stockholder is American and the corporation has only one “registered agent” in the US, and even he doesn’t have to be an American citizen.

Did the Supreme Court Destroy Our Republic ?

What isn’t said is this: The Supreme Court decision fully circumvents UN conventions on money laundering. Any normal legal controls that would prevent the movement of bribe money, drug cash by the billions, is now considered, according to US law as “protected speech.”

Yes, the Supreme Court made corporations “people.” It also turned “money” into “speech.”

This is how corporations talk and any attempt to enforce international laws is now, by US law, an infringement on the “free speech” of corporations.

So if a dictator somewhere or a drug baron, cares to buy congress, and, I assure you, they already have, the FBI can do nothing.

There can be no investigations, Interpol can’t be involved, the UN can’t stop it, no international court has authority, as it does in every other nation.

American criminals are now, not only above the law, they constitute our government itself.

Was America Raped ?

The driving force behind this change was the need to provide “political expression” for the $80 billion dollars of drug money flowing out of Afghanistan.

This money would no longer be secure unless 100,000 US troops was there to provide security for the drug production, aided by 100,000 more private contractors, all paid for by the US government.

It is the same government that is now bought by that same money as carefully arranged by 5 members of the US Supreme Court carefully appointed for this purpose and others.

Those others include sitting silently by American leaders become war criminals, invasions, kidnappings, torture, constitutional rights violated, habeas corpus suspended, and not one word from the Supreme Court because Justices like Clarence Thomas, ducking impeachment for financial issues for years, are allowed to run our government, a front for the drug barons.

Massive incontrovertible evidence now indicates that the Bush Administration, at some point, recognized drug revenue as a powerful political tool to control America and much of the world. Working off the “Bush I” model, the Iran/Contra drug cartels, at some point, perhaps as early as 2002, America went “rope-a-dope” on the War on Terror and guarding our southern border with Mexico and “full speed ahead” with flooding the world with narcotics.

Whether you believe Afghanistan was involved in 9/11 or are a part of the ever increasing numbers who view 9/11 as a Bush conspiracy, one fact is inexorable.

Who Did the Supreme Court Put Under the Gun ?

America has built the largest drug empire imaginable in Afghanistan, not just “looking the other way,” but spending millions on improving opium harvests and building a heroin processing industry.

American military and intelligence resources have been used to distribute drugs worldwide and handle tens of billions of dollars in narco-profits.

The US Supreme Court went as far as to, by a 5/4 margin, as is so often the case, legalize drug profits to be flooded into the American political system.

The “corporations” given unrestricted rights to “donate” to campaigns are doing so with laundered drug money, now approaching a billion dollars an election cycle, buying, not just members of congress but governors as well, invariably Republicans for some reason.

The numbers themselves are staggering. Between 60 and 80 billion dollars in heroin is now produced in Afghanistan, distributed worldwide, trucked into Russia, flown to Europe and America.

At the same time, America’s border with Mexico sits open, for a decade now, 8 years of Bush administration partnering with the Mexican drug cartels, trucking narcotics across America with full continuity into the Obama administration through the Department of Homeland Security, CIA and Pentagon.

Another Narco Victim Down - Many More to Follow

It isn’t like anyone doubts this. We talk of 30 million illegal aliens but not of the truckloads and planeloads of drugs that enter the US every day.

Fleets of vehicles distribute narcotics across the US, to municipalities whose police, whose courts, whose local governments are increasingly being paid, not just to look the other way, but to fully participate.

Yet all we see is a half dozen photos of Marines walking through poppy fields in Afghanistan, not the dirt cheap heroin that children in Americas schools can buy on the playground.

In fact, there is no reporting of any of this at all, not even in the midst of the “Operation Fast and Furious” scandal where Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Agency were caught arming cartels with weapons used against American law enforcement personnel.

The real findings from “Fast and Furious” were more than guns, but one of the dozens of times law enforcement stumbled over the mechanism of America’s narcotics driven economy. When is the last time you heard about the “War on Drugs?”

The answer is simple. America changed sides. Talk to your children about drugs, how cheap they are, how easy to buy.

Then take a good long look at your government, your police, your courts, your judges and prosecutors and the gang in Washington. How serious is the drug problem in America? Why isn’t it being reported anymore? Who has that kind of power? Why the silence?

Not the Fields of Glory From the War Poem

Think money, enough money to buy anyone, anywhere. Where do you think the mysterious millions come from that pay for our elections.

It used to cost $10 million to run a presidential campaign. Now some members of congress in rural areas, nearly unopposed, spend that and more.

Our last congressional election cost $1.2 billion and nobody knows where that money came from and nobody can ask.

Asking is now illegal.

Tracking down money, bribes, drug money, it doesn’t matter, kickbacks from crooked banks, part of the trillions stolen by defense contractors, “following the money,” as long as some of that money is paid to politicians is now a violation of “free speech.”

In fact, with a little checking, there are very few crimes that have not been “legalized” for corporations, for members of the government. They are all above the law. They can’t be sued, only those that speak up can be arrested but are usually murdered.

Now, sometimes, out of “kindness,” the drug barons simply remove them from office using a flood of cash sent into the US with the help of the Supreme Court.

If you think any of this is made up, find a law enforcement official and send this to him.

Ask if it is possible to investigate corporate campaign donations, even if it is knowingly drug money.

After a decade of the increasingly desperate government and media 9/11 cover-ups spanning two presidential admnistrations, the 10th Anniversary DVD release shows Architect, Richard Gage’s patriotic determination to restore the rule of law and scientific credibility to a nation under treasonous attack.

The already conclusive evidence for deliberate, controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7 is re-affimed by bold commentary from 50 whistleblowing experts in the powerful new documentary:

Attack & Cover-Up

Means & Motive

contents

energetic materials

covert demolition

wtc explosives

military command

motive

manufacturing enemies

empire expansion

attack on Afghanistan

invasion of Iraq

drug trafficking

petroleum pursuit

corporate profiteering

corporate welfare

urban renewal

gold heist

precedent

20th century attacks

Reichstag Fire

Operation Himmler

Kuwaiti incubators

Operation Bojinka

The Reichstag Fire

Reichstag name for the diet of the Holy Roman Empire, for the lower chamber of the federal parliament of the North German Confederation , and for the lower chamber of the federal parliament of Germany from 1871 to 1945. Under the German Empire (1871-1918) the Reichstag, which represented the country at large, had little real power; it was mainly a deliberative body. Election was on the basis of universal manhood suffrage.
The Reichstag under the Weimar Constitution
The republican Weimar Constitution of 1919 did not alter the structure of the Reichstag, but it introduced proportional representation and extended voting rights to women. The new Reichstag, however, was not powerless; it was the supreme legislative body of the republic. The states were represented by an upper chamber, the Reichsrat. The jurisdictions of the Reichstag and Reichsrat were limited to matters affecting Germany as a whole; in other matters the member states were sovereign. The Reichsrat had only a power of suspensive veto over legislation approved by the Reichstag.
The federal cabinet, appointed by the president and headed by the chancellor, was responsible to the Reichstag and normally had to resign if it received a vote of no confidence. However, the president of the republic could, on the advice of his cabinet, dissolve the Reichstag and order new elections before the normal term (four years) had ended. After 1930, under President Paul von Hindenburg , the Reichstag was suspended several times at the instigation of successive chancellors, and rule by presidential emergency decree began to replace parliamentary rule.
Hitler and the Reichstag Fire

In Jan., 1933, when Adolf Hitler became chancellor without an absolute majority, the Reichstag was dissolved and new elections were set for Mar. 5; a violent election campaign ensued. On Feb. 27, 1933, a fire destroyed part of the Reichstag building. Hitler immediately accused the Communists of having set the fire. President von Hindenburg proclaimed a state of emergency and issued decrees suspending freedom of speech and assembly. The elections gave a bare majority of seats to Hitler's National Socialists (Nazis; see National Socialism ) and their allies, the German Nationalists. Severe measures were taken against the Communist party, and its deputies were barred from the Reichstag.
On Mar. 23 the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave the government, i.e., Hitler, dictatorial powers. Only the Social Democrats dissented. In the sensational Reichstag fire trial of 1933, a Dutchman named Marinus van der Lubbe was charged with having set the fire as part of a Communist plot. Several Communist leaders, including Georgi Dimitrov , were charged with complicity. Van der Lubbe was sentenced to death; the others were found not guilty. For many years it was assumed outside Germany that the Reichstag fire was carried out by the Nazis themselves as a propaganda maneuver to ensure the defeat of the Communists and other leftist parties in the elections. However, later evidence indicated that Van der Lubbe alone set the fire, and that Hitler merely used it as a pretext to launch a campaign against the Communists. During Hitler's rule, the Reichstag was merely summoned from time to time to approve important government measures. The Reichsrat was abolished in 1934, along with sovereignty of the German states.
The Reichstag since World War II
After World War II the new constitutions (1949) of West Germany and East Germany replaced the Reichstag and Reichsrat with other legislative bodies. The Reichstag building in Berlin was redone in the 1960s, deemphasizing most of its former grandeur. After German reunification, a restored, redesigned, and largely rebuilt glass-domed renovation of the building, designed by British architect Lord Norman Foster , was reopened in 1999 to house the German parliament.

The 1933 Reichstag Fire was a key event in Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to power. During the night of February 27th, the Reichstag Building, which housed the German Parliament, was gutted by a massive fire. Adolf Hitler, who had become President Paul von Hindenburg's chancellor less than a month earlier, pressured von Hindenburg to give him essentially dictatorial powers. Hitler used the attack to roll back the legal guarantees of personal liberty enshrined in the constitution.
Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist who had been protesting against Hitler's new government, was picked up on the night of the fire and charged, along with four other Communists, with setting the fires. Van der Lubbe was executed on January 10th, 1934, while the other defendants were acquitted.
Most historians think that Hitler had the fire set, while finding a scapegoat in the impoverished Dutchman, van der Lubbe.
e x c e r p t
title: The Rise and Fall of the Third Riech (Simon and Schuster, 1960)
authors: William Shirer
The whole truth about the Reichstag fire will probably never be known. Nearly all those who knew it are now dead, most of them slain by Hitler in the months that followed. Even at Nuremberg the mystery could not be entirely unraveled, though there is enough evidence to establish beyondi a reasonable doubt that it was the Nazis who planned the arson and carried it out for their own political ends.
From Goering’s Reighstag’s Presidents Palace an underground passage, built to carry the central heating system, ran to the Riechstag building. Through this tunnel Karl Ernst, a former bellhop who had become the Berlin S.A. leader, led a small detachment of storm troopers on the night of February 27 to the Riechstag where they scattered gasoline and self-igniting chemicals and then made their way quickly back to the palace the way they had come. At the same time, a half-witted Dutch communist with a passion for arson, Marinus van der Lubbe, had made his way into the huge, darkened and to him unfamiliar building and had set some small fires of his own. The feeble-minded pyromaniac was a godsend to the Nazis. He had been picked up by the S.A. a few days before after having been overheard in a bar boasting that he had attempted to set fire to several buildings and that he was going to try the Riechstag next. The coincidence that the Nazis had found a demented Communist arsonist who was out to do exactly what they themselves had determined to do seems incredible but is nevertheless supported by the evidence ...
...
On the day following the fire, February 28, [Hitler] prevailed on President Hindenburg to sign a decree “for the Protection of the People and the State” suspending seven sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties. Described as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state, the decree laid down that:
Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and phone communications; and warrants for house searchers, orders for confiscations, as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
In addition, the decree authorized the Reich government to take over complete power in the federal states when necessary and imposed the death sentence for a number of crimes, including “serious disturbances of the peace” by armed persons.
Thus with one stroke Hitler was able not only to legally gag his opponents and arrest them at his will but, by making the trumped-up Communist threat "official," as it were, to throw millions of the middle class and the peasantry into a frenzy of fear that unless they voted for National Socialism at the elections a week hence, the Bolsheviks might take over. Some four thousand Communist officials and a great many Social Democrat and liberal leaders were arrested, including members of the Reichstag, who, according to the law, were immune from arrest. This was the first experience Germans had had with Nazi terror backed up by the government.

THE NAZIFICATION OF GERMANY:
1933–34

THE THEORY WHICH HITLER had evolved in his vagabond days in Vienna and never forgotten—that the way to power for a revolutionary movement was to ally itself with some of the powerful institutions in the State—had now worked out in practice pretty much as he had calculated. The President, backed by the Army and the conservatives, had made him Chancellor. His political power, though great, was, however, not complete. It was shared with these three sources of authority, which had put him into office and which were outside and, to some extent, distrustful of the National Socialist movement.
    Hitler's immediate task, therefore, was to quickly eliminate them from the driver's seat, make his party the exclusive master of the State and then with the power of an authoritarian government and its police carry out the Nazi revolution. He had been in office scarcely twenty-four hours when he made his first decisive move, springing a trap on his gullible conservative "captors" and setting in motion a chain of events which he either originated or controlled and which at the end of six months would bring the complete Nazification of Germany and his own elevation to dictator of the Reich, unified and defederalized for the first time in German history.
    Five hours after being sworn in, at 5 P.M. on January 30, 1933, Hitler held his first cabinet meeting. The minutes of the session, which turned up at Nuremberg among the hundreds of tons of captured secret documents, reveal how quickly and adroitly Hitler, aided by the crafty Goering, began to take his conservative colleagues for a ride.*(1) Hindenburg had named Hitler to head not a presidential cabinet but one based on a majority in the Reichstag. However, the Nazis and the Nationalists, the only two parties represented in the government, had only 247 seats out of 583 in Parliament and thus lacked a majority. To attain it they needed the backing of the Center Party with its 70 seats. In the very first hours of the new government Hitler had dispatched Goering to talk with the Centrist leaders, and now he reported to the cabinet that the Center was demanding "certain concessions." Georing therefore proposed that the Reichstag be dissolved and new elections held, and Hitler agreed. Hugenberg, a man of wooden mind for all his success in business, objected to taking the Center into the government but on the other hand opposed new elections, well knowing that the Nazis, with the resources of the State behind them, might win an absolute majority at the polls and thus be in a position to dispense with his own services and those of his conservative friends He proposed simply suppressing the Communist Party; with its 100 seats eliminated, the Nazis and the Nationalists would have a majority. But Hitler would not go so far at the moment, and it was finally agreed that the Chancellor himself would confer with the Center Party leaders on the following morning and that if the talks were fruitless the cabinet would then ask for new elections.
    Hitler easily made them fruitless. At his request the Center leader, Monsignor Kaas, submitted as a basis for discussion a list of questions which added up to a demand that Hitler promise to govern constitutionally. But Hitler, tricking both Kaas and his cabinet members, reported to the latter that the Center had made impossible demands and that there was no chance of agreement. He therefore proposed that the President be asked to dissolve the Reichstag and call new elections. Hugenberg and Papen were trapped, but after a solemn assurance from the Nazi leader that the cabinet would remain unchanged however the elections turned out, they agreed to go along with him. New elections were set for March 5.
    For the first time—in the last relatively free election Germany was to have—the Nazi Party now could employ all the vast resources of the government to win votes. Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)
    The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.
    Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen . . . We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."
    All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)

    On January 31, 1933, the day after Hitler was named Chancellor, Goebbels wrote in his diary: "In a conference with the Fuehrer we lay down the line for the fight against the Red terror. For the moment we shall abstain from direct countermeasures. The Bolshevik attempt at revolution must first burst into flame. At the proper moment we shall strike."
    Despite increasing provocation by the Nazi authorities there was no sign of a revolution, Communist or Socialist, bursting into flames as the electoral campaign got under way. By the beginning of February the Hitler government had banned all Communist meetings and shut down the Communist press. Social Democrat rallies were either forbidden or broken up by the S.A. rowdies, and the leading Socialist newspapers were continually suspended. Even the Catholic Center Party did not escape the Nazi terror. Stegerwald, the leader of the Catholic Trade Unions, was beaten by the Brownshirts when he attempted to address a meeting, and Bruening was obliged to seek police protection at another rally after S.A. troopers had wounded a number of his followers. Altogether fifty-one anti-Nazis were listed as murdered during the electoral campaign, and the Nazis claimed that eighteen of their own number had been done to death.
    Goering's key position as Minister of the Interior of Prussia now began to be noticed. Ignoring the restraining hand of Papen, who as Premier of Prussia was supposedly above him, Goering removed hundreds of republican officials and replaced them with Nazis, mostly S.A. and S.S. officers. He ordered the police to avoid "at all costs" hostility to the S.A., the S.S. and the Stahlhelm but on the other hand to show no mercy to those who were "hostile to the State." He urged the police "to make use of firearms" and warned that those who didn't would be punished. This was an outright call for the shooting down of all who opposed Hitler by the police of a state (Prussia) which controlled two thirds of Germany. Just to make sure that the job would be ruthlessly done, Goering on February 22 established an auxiliary police force of 50,000 men, of whom 40,000 were drawn from the ranks of the S.A. and the S.S. and the rest from the Stahlhelm. Police power in Prussia was thus largely carried out by Nazi thugs. It was a rash German who appealed to such a "police" for protection against the Nazi terrorists.
    And yet despite all the terror the "Bolshevik revolution" which Goebbels, Hitler and Goering were looking for failed to "burst into flames." If it could not be provoked, might it not be invented?
    On February 24, Goering's police raided the Karl Liebknecht Haus, the Communist headquarters in Berlin. It had been abandoned some weeks before by the Communist leaders, a number of whom had already gone underground or quietly slipped off to Russia. But piles of propaganda pamphlets had been left in the cellar and these were enough to enable Goering to announce in an official communiqué that the seized "documents" proved that the Communists were about to launch the revolution. The reaction of the public and even of some of the conservatives in the government was one of skepticism. It was obvious that something more sensational must be found to stampede the public before the election took place on March 5.

*This cabinet meeting, of course, was private, and, like most of the other conferences, many of them taking place in the strictest secrecy, held by Hitler and his political and military aides during the Third Reich, its proceedings and decisions were not accessible to the public until the captured German documents were first perused during the Nuremberg trial.
A great many of these highly confidential discussions and the decisions emanating from them—all regarded as state secrets—will henceforth be chronicled in this book, which, from here to the end, largely rests on the documents which recorded them at the time. At the risk of somewhat cluttering the pages with numbers indicating notes, these sources will be indicated. No other history of a nation over a specific epoch has been so fully documented, I believe, as that of the Thrid Reich, and to have left out reference to the documents, it seemed to the author, would have greatly weakened whatever value this book may have as an authentic historical record.

THE REICHSTAG FIRE

    On the evening of February 27, four of the most powerful men in Germany were gathered at two separate dinners in Berlin. In the exclusive Herrenklub in the Vosstrasse, Vice-Chancellor von Papen was entertaining President Hindenburg. Out at Goebbels' home, Chancellor Hitler had arrived to dine en famille. According to Goebbels, they were relaxing, playing music on the gramophone and telling stories. "Suddenly," he recounted later in his diary, "a telephone call from Dr. Hanfstaengl: 'The Reichstag is on fire!' I am sure he is telling a tall tale and decline even to mention it to the Fuehrer." (4)
    But the diners at the Herrenklub were just around the corner from the Reichstag.
    Suddenly [Papen later wrote] we noticed a red glow through the windows and heard sounds of shouting in the street. One of the servants came hurrying up to me and whispered: "The Reichstag is on fire!" which I repeated to the President. He got up and from the window we could see the dome of the Reichstag looking as though it were illuminated by searchlights. Every now and again a burst of flame and a swirl of smoke blurred the outline. (5)
    The Vice-Chancellor packed the aged President home in his own car and hurried off to the burning building. In the meantime Goebbels, according to his account, had had second thoughts about Putzi Hanfstaengl's "tall tale," had made some telephone calls and learned that the Reichstag was in flames. Within a few seconds he and his Fuehrer were racing "at sixty miles an hour down the Charlottenburger Chaussee toward the scene of the crime."
    That it was a crime, a Communist crime, they proclaimed at once on arrival at the fire. Goering, sweating and puffing and quite beside himself with excitement, was already there ahead of them declaiming to heaven, as Papen later recalled, that "this is a Communist crime against the new government." To the new Gestapo chief, Rudolf Diels, Goering shouted, "This is the beginning of the Communist revolution! We must not wait a minute. We will show no mercy. Every Communist official must be shot, where he is found. Every Communist deputy must this very night be strung up."(6)
    The whole truth about the Reichstag fire will probably never be known. Nearly all those who knew it are now dead, most of them slain by Hitler in the months that followed. Even at Nuremberg the mystery could not be entirely unraveled, though there is enough evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the Nazis who planned the arson and carried it out for their own political ends.
    From Goering's Reichstag President's Palace an underground passage, built to carry the central heating system, ran to the Reichstag building. Through this tunnel Karl Ernst, a former hotel bellhop who had become the Berlin S.A. leader, led a small detachment of storm troopers on the night of February 27 to the Reichstag, where they scattered gasoline and self-igniting chemicals and then made their way quickly back to the palace the way they had come. At the same time a half-witted Dutch Communist with a passion for arson, Marinus van der Lubbe, had made his way into the huge, darkened and to him unfamiliar building and set some small fires of his own. This feeble-minded pyromaniac was a godsend to the Nazis. He had been picked up by the S.A. a few days before after having been overheard in a bar boasting that he had attempted to set fire to several public buildings and that he was going to try the Reichstag next.
    The coincidence that the Nazis had found a demented Communist arsonist who was out to do exactly what they themselves had determined to do seems incredible but is nevertheless supported by the evidence. The idea for the fire almost certainly originated with Goebbels and Goering. Hans Gisevius, an official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior at the time, testified at Nuremberg that "it was Goebbels who first thought of setting the Reichstag on fire," and Rudolf Diels, the Gestapo chief, added in an affidavit that "Goering knew exactly how the fire was to be started" and had ordered him "to prepare, prior to the fire, a list of people who were to be arrested immediately after it." General Franz Halder, Chief of the German General Staff during the early part of World War II, recalled at Nuremberg how on one occasion Goering had boasted of his deed.

At a luncheon on the birthday of the Fuehrer in 1942 the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Goering interrupted the conversation and shouted: "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand.*
*Both in his interrogations and at his trial at Nuremberg, Goering denied to the last that he had any part in setting fire to the Reichstag.
    Van der Lubbe, it seems clear, was a dupe of the Nazis. He was encouraged to try to set the Reichstag on fire. But the main job was to be done—without his knowledge, of course—by the storm troopers. Indeed, it was established at the subsequent trial at Leipzig that the Dutch half-wit did not possess the means to set so vast a building on fire so quickly. Two and a half minutes after he entered, the great central hall was fiercely burning. He had only his shirt for tinder. The main fires, according to the testimony of experts at the trial, had been set with considerable quantities of chemicals and gasoline. It was obvious that one man could not have carried them into the building, nor would it have been possible for him to start so many fires in so many scattered places in so short a time.
    Van der Lubbe was arrested on the spot and Goering, as he afterward told the court, wanted to hang him at once. The next day Ernst Torgler, parliamentary leader of the Communists, gave himself up to the police when he heard that Goering had implicated him, and a few days later Georgi Dimitroff, a Bulgarian Communist who later became Prime Minister of Bulgaria, and two other Bulgarian Communists, Popov and Tanev, were apprehended by the police. Their subsequent trial before the Supreme Court at Leipzig turned into something of a fiasco for the Nazis and especially for Goering, whom Dimitroff, acting as his own lawyer, easily provoked into making a fool of himself in a series of stinging cross-examinations. At one point, according to the court record, Goering screamed at the Bulgarian, "Out with you, you scoundrel!"

JUDGE [to the police officer]: Take him away.
    DIMITROFF [being led away by the police]: Are you afraid of my question, Herr Ministerpraesident?
    GOERING: You wait until we get you outside this court, you scoundrel!

    Torgler and the three Bulgarians were acquitted, though the German Communist leader was immediately taken into "protective custody," where he remained until his death during the second war. Van der Lubbe was found guilty and decapitated.(7)
    The trial, despite the subserviency of the court to the Nazi authorities, cast a great deal of suspicion on Goering and the Nazis, but it came too late to have any practical effect. For Hitler had lost no time in exploiting the Reichstag fire to the limit.
    On the day following the fire, February 28, he prevailed on President Hindenburg to sign a decree "for the Protection of the People and the State" suspending the seven sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties. Described as a "defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state," the decree laid down that:

Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
    In addition, the decree authorized the Reich government to take over complete power in the federal states when necessary and imposed the death sentence for a number of crimes, including "serious disturbances of the peace" by armed persons.(8)
     Thus with one stroke Hitler was able not only to legally gag his opponents and arrest them at his will but, by making the trumped-up Communist threat "official," as it were, to throw millions of the middle class and the peasantry into a frenzy of fear that unless they voted for National Socialism at the elections a week hence, the Bolsheviks might take over. Some four thousand Communist officials and a great many Social Democrat and liberal leaders were arrested, including members of the Reichstag, who, according to the law, were immune from arrest. This was the first experience Germans had had with Nazi terror backed up by the government. Truckloads of storm troopers roared through the streets all over Germany, breaking into homes, rounding up victims and carting them off to S.A. barracks, where they were tortured and beaten. The Communist press and political meetings were suppressed; the Social Democrat newspapers and many liberal journals were suspended and the meetings of the democratic parties either banned or broken up. Only the Nazis and their Nationalist allies were permitted to campaign unmolested.
    With all the resources of the national and Prussian governments at their disposal and with plenty of money from big business in their coffers, the Nazis carried on an election propaganda such as Germany had never seen before. For the first time the State-run radio carried the voices of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels to every corner of the land. The streets, bedecked with swastika flags, echoed to the tramp of the storm troopers. There were mass rallies, torchlight parades, the din of loudspeakers in the squares. The billboards were plastered with flamboyant Nazi posters and at night bonfires lit up the hills. The electorate was in turn cajoled with promises of a German paradise, intimidated by the brown terror in the streets and frightened by "revelations" about the Communist "revolution." The day after the Reichstag fire the Prussian government issued a long statement declaring that it had found Communist "documents" proving:

    Government buildings, museums, mansions and essential plants were to be burned down . . . Women and children were to be sent in front of terrorist groups . . . The burning of the Reichstag was to be the signal for a bloody insurrection and civil war . . . It has been ascertained that today was to have seen throughout Germany terrorist acts against individual persons, against private property, and against the life and limb of the peaceful population, and also the beginning of general civil war.
    Publication of the "documents proving that Communist conspiracy" was promised, but never made. The fact, however, that the Prussian government itself vouched for their authenticity impressed many Germans.
    The waverers were also impressed perhaps by Goering's threats. At Frankfurt on March 3, on the eve of the elections, he shouted:

    Fellow Germans, my measures will not be cripped by any judicial thinking . . . I don't have to worry about justice; my mission is only to destroy and exterminate, nothing more! . . . Certainly, I shall use the power of the State and the police to the utmost, my dear Communists, so don't draw any false conclusions; but the struggle to the death, in which my fist will grasp your necks, I shall lead with those down there—the Brownshirts. (9)
    Almost unheard was the voice of former Chancellor Bruening, who also spoke out that day, proclaiming that his Center Party would resist any overthrow of the constitution, demanding an investigation of the suspicious Reichstag fire and calling on President Hindenburg "to protect the oppressed against their oppressors." Vain appeal! The aged President kept his silence. It was now time for the people, in their convulsion, to speak.
    On March 5, 1933, the day of the last democratic elections they were to know during Hitler's life, they spoke with their ballots. Despite all the terror and intimidation, the majority of them rejected Hitler. The Nazis led the polling with 17,277,180 votes—an increase of some five and a half million, but it comprised only 44 per cent of the total vote. A clear majority still eluded Hitler. All the persecution and suppression of the previous weeks did not prevent the Center Party from actually increasing its vote from 4,230,600 to 4,424,900; with its ally, the Catholic Bavarian People's Party, it obtained a total of five and a half million votes. Even the Social Democrats held their position as the second largest party, polling 7,181,629 votes, a drop of only 70,000. The Communists lost a million supporters but still polled 4,848,058. The Nationalists, led by Papen and Hugenberg, were bitterly disappointed with their own showing, a vote of 3,136,760, a mere 8 per cent of the votes cast and a gain of less than 200,000.
    Still, the Nationalists' 52 seats, added to the 288 of the Nazis, gave the government a majority of 16 in the Reichstag. This was enough, perhaps, to carry on the day-to-day business of government but it was far short of the two-thirds majority which Hitler needed to carry out a new, bold plan to establish his dictatorship by consent of Parliament.

(1) NCA, III, pp. 272-75 (N.D. 351-PS).
(2) Goebbels, Kaiserhof, p. 256.
(3) See affidavit of Georg von Schnitzler, NCA, VII, p. 501 (N.D. EC-439); speeches of Goering and Hitler, NCA, VI, p. 1080 (N.D. D-203); Schacht's interrogation, NCA, VI p. 465 (N.D. 3725-PS); Funk's interrogation, NCA, V. p. 495 (N.D. 2828-PS).
(4) Goebbels, Kaiserhof, pp. 269-70.
(5) Papen, op. cit., p. 268.
(6) Rudolf Diels, Lucifer ante Portas, p. 194.
(7) For sources on the responsibility for the Reichstag fire see: Halder's affidavit, NCA, VI, p. 635 (N.D. 3740-PS); transcript of Gisevius' cross-examination on April 25, 1946, Trial of the Major War Criminals [hereafter cited as TMWC], XII, pp. 252-53; Diehl's affidavit, Goering's denial, TMWC, IX, pp. 432-36, and NCA, VI pp. 298-99 (N.D. 3593-PS); Willy Frischauer, The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering, pp. 88-95; Douglas Reed, The Burning of the Reichstag; John Gunther, Inside Europe (Gunther attended the trial at Leipzig). There are many alleged testaments and confessions by those claiming to have participated in the Nazi firing of the Reichstag or to have positive knowledge of it, but none, so far as I know, has ever been substantiated. Of these, memoranda by Ernst Oberfohren, a Nationalist deputy, and Karl Ernst, the Berlin S.A. leader, have been given some credence. Both men were slain by the Nazis within a few months of the fire.
(8) NCA, III, pp. 968-70 (N.D. 1390-PS).
(9) NCA, IV, p. 496 (N.D. 1856-PS).

from pages 247 - 256
    The radio and the motion pictures were also quickly harnessed to serve the propaganda of th Nazi State. Goebbels had always seen in radio (television had not yet come in) the chief instrument of propaganda in modern society and through the Radio Department of his ministry and the Chamber of Radio he gained complete control of broadcasting and shaped it to his own ends. His task was made easier because in Germany, as in the other countries of Europe, broadcasting was a monopoly owned and operated by the State. In 1933 the Nazi government automatically found itself in possession of the Reich Broadcasting Corporation.
    The films remained in the hands of private firms but the Propaganda Ministry and the Chamber of Films controlled every aspect of the industry, their task being—in the words of an official commentary—"to lift the film industry out of the sphere of liberal economic thoughts . . . and thus enable it to receive those tasks which it has to fulfill in the National Socialist State."
    The result in both cases was to afflict the German people with radio programs and motion pictures as inane and boring as were the contents of their daily newspapers and periodicals. Even a public which usually submitted without protest to being told what was good for it revolted. The customers stayed away in droves from the Nazi films and jammed the houses which showed the few foreign pictures (mostly B-grade Hollywood) which Goebbels permitted to be exhibited on German screens. At one period in the mid-Thirties the hissing of German films became so common that Wilhelm Frick, the Minister of the Interior, issued a stern warning against "treasonable behavior on the part of cinema audiences." Likewise the radio programs were so roundly criticized that the president of the Radio Chamber, one Horst Dressler-Andress, declared that such carping was "an insult to German culture" and would not be tolerated. In those days, in the Thirties, a German listener could still turn his dial to a score of foreign radio stations without, as happened later when the war began, risking having his head chopped off. And perhaps quite a few did, though it was this observer's impression that as the years went by, Dr. Goebbels proved himself right, in that the radio became by far the regime's most effective means of propaganda, doing more than any other single instrument of communication to shape the German people to Hitler's ends.
    I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one's inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one's mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime's calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a cafe, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were.

EDUCATION IN THE THIRD REICH
    On April 30, 1934, Bernhard Rust, an Obergruppenfuehrer in the S.A., onetime Gauleiter of Hanover, a Nazi Party member and friend of Hitler since the early Twenties, was named Reich Minister of Science, Education of Popular Culture. In the bizarre, topsy-turvy world of National Socialism, Rust was eminently fitted for his task. Since 1930 he had been an unemployed provincial schoolmaster, having been dismissed in that year by the local republican authorities at Hanover for certain manifestations of instability of mind, though his fanatical Nazism may have been partly responsible for his ouster. For Dr. Rust preached the Nazi gospel with the zeal of a Goebbels and the fuzziness of a Rosenberg. Named Prussian Minister of Science, Art and Education in February 1933, he boasted that he had succeeded overnight in "liquidating the school as an institution of intellectual acrobatics."
    To such a mindless man was now entrusted dictatorial control over German science, the public schools, the institutions of higher learning and the youth organizations. For education in the Third Reich, as Hitler envisaged it, was not to be confined to stuffy classrooms but to be furthered by a Spartan, political and martial training in the successive youth groups and to reach its climax not so much in the universities and engineering colleges, which absorbed but a small minority, but first, at the age of eighteen, in compulsory labor service and then in service, as conscripts, in the armed forces.
    Hitler's contempt for "professors" and the intellectual academic life had peppered the pages of Mein Kampf, in which he had set down some of his ideas on education. "The whole education by a national state," he had written, "must aim primarily not at the stuffing with mere knowledge but at building bodies which are physically healthy to the core." But, even more important, he had stressed in his book the importance of winning over and then training the youth in the service "of a new national state"—a subject he returned to often after he became the German dictator. "When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,'" he said in a speech on November 6, 1933, "I calmly say, 'Your child belongs to us already . . . What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.'" And on May 1, 1937, he declared, "This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing." It was not an idle boast; that was precisely what was happening.
    The German schools, from first grade through the universities, were quickly Nazified. Textbooks were hastily rewritten, curricula were changed, Mein Kampf was made—in the words of Der Deutsche Erzieher, official organ of the educators—"our infallible pedagogical guiding star" and teachers who failed to see the new light were cast out. Most instructors had been more or less Nazi in sentiment when not outright party members. To strengthen their ideology they were dispatched to special schools for intensive training in National Socialist principles, emphasis being put on Hitler's racial doctrines.
    Every person in the teaching profession, from kindergarten through the universities, was compelled to join the National Socialist Teachers' League which, by law, was held "responsible for execution of the ideological and political co-ordination of all teachers in accordance with the National Socialist doctrine." The Civil Service Act of 1937 required teachers to be "the executors of the will of the party-supported State" and to be ready "at any time to defend without reservation the National Socialist State." An earlier decree had classified them as civil servants and thus subject to the racial laws. Jews, of course, were forbidden to teach. All teachers took an oath to "be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler." Later, no man could teach who had not first served in the S.A., the Labor Service or the Hitler Youth. Candidates for instructorships in the universities had to attend for six weeks an observation camp where their views and character were studied by Nazi experts and reported to the Ministry of Education, which issued licenses to teach based on the candidates' political "reliability."
    Prior to 1933, the German public schools had been under the jurisdiction of the local authorities and the universities under that of the individual states. Now all were brought under the iron rule of the Reich Minister of Education. It was he who also appointed the rectors and the deans of the universities, who formerly had been elected by the full professors of the faculty. He also appointed the leaders of the university students' union, to which all students had to belong, and of the lecturers union, comprising all instructors. The N.S. Association of University Lecturers, under the tight leadership of old Nazi hands, was given a decisive role in selecting who was to teach and to see that what they taught was in accordance with Nazi theories.
    The result of so much Nazification was catastrophic for German education and for German learning. History was so falsified in the new textbooks and by the teachers in their lectures that it became ludicrous. The teaching of the "racial sciences," exalting the Germans as the master race and the Jews as breeders of almost all the evil there was in the world, was even more so. In the University of Berlin alone, where so many great scholars had taught in the past, the new rector, a storm trooper and by profession a veterinarian, instituted twenty-five new courses in Rassenkunde—racial science—and by the time he had really taken the university apart he had eighty-six courses connected with his own profession.
    The teaching of the natural sciences, in which Germany had been so pre-eminent for generations, deteriorated rapidly. Great teachers such as Einstein and Franck in physics, Haber, Willstaetter and Warburg in chemistry, were fired or retired. Those who remained, many of them, were bitten by the Nazi aberrations and attempted to apply them to pure science. They began to teach what they called German physics, German chemistry, German mathematics. Indeed, in 1937 there appeared a journal called Deutsche Mathematik, and its first editorial solemnly proclaimed that any idea that mathematics could be judged nonracially carried "within itself the germs of destruction of German science."
    The hallucinations of these Nazi scientists became unbelievable, even to a layman. "German Physics?" asked Professor Philipp Lenard of Heidelberg University, who was one of the more learned and internationally respected scientists of the Third Reich. "'But,' it will be replied, 'science is and remains international.' It is false. In reality, science, like every other human product, is racial and conditioned by blood." Professor Rudolphe Tomaschek, director of the Institute of Physics at Dresden, went further. "Modern Physics," he wrote, "is an instrument of [world] Jewry for the destruction of Nordic science . . . True physics is the creation of the German spirit . . . In fact, all European science is the fruit of Aryan, or, better, German thought." Professor Johannes Stark, head of the German National Institute of Physical Science, thought so too. It would be found, he said, that the "founders of research in physics, and the great discoverers from Galileo to Newton to the physical pioneers of our time, were almost exclusively Aryan, predominantly of the Nordic race."
    There was also Professor Wilhelm Mueller, of the Technical College of Aachen, who in a book entitled Jewry and Science saw a world-wide Jewish plot to pollute science and thereby destroy civilization. To him Einstein, with his theory of relativity, was the archvillian. The Einstein theory, on which so much of modern physics is based, was to this singular Nazi professor "directed from beginning to end toward the goal of transforming the living—that is, the non-Jewish—world of living essence, born from a mother earth and bound up with blood, and bewitching it into spectral abstraction in which all individual differences of peoples and nations, and all inner limits of the races, are lost in unreality, and in which only an unsubstantial diversity of geometric dimensions survives which produces all events out of the compulsion of its godless subjection to laws." The world-wide acclaim given to Einstein on the publication of his theory of relativity, Professor Mueller proclaimed, was really only a rejoicing over "the approach of Jewish world rule which was to force down German manhood irrevocably and eternally to the level of the lifeless slave."
    To Professor Ludwig Bieberback, of the University of Berlin, Einstein was "an alien mountebank." Even to Professor Lenard, "the Jew conspicuously lacks understanding for the truth . . . being in this respect in contrast to the Aryan research scientist with his careful and serious will to truth . . . Jewish physics is thus a phantom and a phenomenon of degeneration of fundamental German Physics."(7)
    And yet from 1905 to 1931 ten German Jews had been awarded Nobel Prizes for their contributions to science.

    During the Second Reich, the university professors, like the Protestant clergy, had given blind support to the conservative government and its expansionist aims, and the lecture halls had been breeding grounds of virulent nationalism and anti-Semitism. The Weimar Republic had insisted on complete academic freedom, and one result had been that the vast majority of university teachers, antiliberal, antidemocratic, antiSemetic as they were, had helped to undermine the democratic regime. Most professors were fanatical nationalists who wished the return of a conservative, monarchical Germany. And though to many of them, before 1933, the Nazis were too rowdy and violent to attract their allegiance, their preachments helped prepare the ground for the coming of Nazism. By 1932 the majority of students appeared to be enthusiastic for Hitler.
    It was surprising to some how many members of the university faculties knuckled under to the Nazification of higher learning after 1933. Though official figures put the number of professors and instructors dismissed during the first five years of the regime at 2,800—about one fourth of the total number—the proportion of those who lost their posts through defying National Socialism was, as Professor Wilhelm Roepke, himself dismissed from the University of Marburg in 1933, said, "exceedingly small." Though small, there were names famous in the German academic world: Karl Jaspers, E. J. Gumbel, Theodor Litt, Karl Barth, Julius Ebbinghaus and dozen of others. Most of them emigrated, first to Switzerland, Holland and England and eventually to America. One of them, Professor Theodor Lessing, who had fled to Czechoslovakia, was tracked down by Nazi thugs and murdered in Marienbad on August 31, 1933.
    A large majority of professors, however, remained at their posts, and as early as the autumn of 1933 some 960 of them, led by such luminaries as Professor Sauerbruch, the surgeon, Heidegger, the existentialist philosopher, and Pinder, the art historian, took a public vow to support Hitler and the National Socialist regime.
    "It was a scene of prostitution," Professor Roepke later wrote, "that has stained the honorable history of German learning."(8) And as Professor Julius Ebbinghaus, looking back over the shambles in 1945, said, "The German universities failed, while there was still time, to oppose publicly with all their power the destruction of knowledge and of the democratic state. They failed to keep the beacon of freedom and right burning during the night of tyranny."(9)
    The cost of such failure was great. After six years of Nazification the number of university students dropped by more than one half—from 127,920 to 58,325. The decline in enrollment at the institutes of technology, from which Germany got its scientists and engineers, was even greater—from 20,474 to 9,554. Academic standards fell dizzily. By 1937 there was not only a shortage of young men in the sciences and engineering but a decline in their qualifications. Long before the outbreak of the war the chemical industry, busily helping to further Nazi rearmament, was complaining through its organ, Die Chemische Industrie, that Germany was losing its leadership in chemistry. Not only the national economy but national defense itself was being jeopardized, it complained, and it blamed the shortage of young scientists and their mediocre caliber on the poor quality of the technical colleges.
    Nazi Germany's loss, as it turned out, was the free world's gain, especially in the race to be the first with the atom bomb. The story of the successful efforts of Nazi leaders, led by Himmler, to hamstring the atomic-energy program is too long and involved to be recounted here. It was one of the ironies of fate that the development of the bomb in the United States owed so much to two men who had been exiled because of race from the Nazi and Fascist dictatorships: Einstein from Germany and Fermi from Italy.

    To Adolf Hitler it was not so much the public schools, from which he himself had dropped out so early in life, but the organizations of the Hitler Youth on which he counted to educate the youth of Germany for the ends he had in mind. In the years of the Nazi Party's struggle for power the Hitler Youth movement had not amounted to much. In 1932, the last year of the Republic, its total enrollment was only 107,956, compared to some ten million youths who belonged to the various organizations united in the Reich Committee of German Youth Associations. In no country in the world had there been a youth movement of such vitality and numbers as in republican Germany. Hitler, realizing this, was determined to take over and Nazify it.
    His chief lieutenant for this task was a handsome young man of banal mind but of great driving force, Baldur von Schirach, who, falling under Hitler's spell, had joined the party in 1925 at the age of eighteen and in 1931 had been named Youth Leader of the Nazi Party. Among the scarfaced, brawling Brownshirts, he had the curious look of an American college student, fresh and immature, and this perhaps was due to his having had, as we have seen, American forebears (including two signers of the Declaration of Independence).(10)
    Schirach was named "Youth Leader of the German Reich" in June 1933. Aping the tactics of his elder party leaders, his first action was to send an armed band of fifty husky Hitler Youth men to occupy the national offices of the Reich Committee of German Youth Associations, where an old Prussian Army officer, General Vogt, head of the committee, German naval heroes, Admiral von Trotha, who had been Chief of Staff of the High Seas Fleet in the First World War and who was now president of the Youth Associations. The venerable admiral too was put to flight and his position and organization were dissolved. Millions of dollars' worth of property, chiefly in hundreds of youth hostels scattered throughout Germany, was seized.
    The concordat of July 20, 1933, had specifically provided for the unhindered continuance of the Catholic Youth Association. On December 1, 1936, Hitler decreed a law outlawing it and all other non-Nazi organizations for young people.

    . . . All of the German youth in the Reich is organized within the Hitler Youth.
The German youth, besides being reared within the family and schools, shall be educated physically, intellectually and morally in the spirit of National Socialism . . . through the Hitler Youth.(11)

    Schirach, whose office had formerly been subordinate to the Ministry of Education, was made responsible directly to Hitler.
    This half-baked young man of twenty-nine, who wrote maudlin verse in praise of Hitler ("this genius grazing the stars") and followed Rosenberg in his weird paganism and Streicher in his virulent anti-Semitism, had become the dictator of youth in the Third Reich.
    From the age of six to eighteen, when conscription for the Labor Service of the Hitler Youth. Parents found guilty of trying to keep their children from joining the organization were subject to heavy prison sentences even though, as in some cases, they merely objected to having their daughters enter some of the services were cases of pregnancy had reached scandalous proportions.
    From the age of six to ten, a boy served a sort of apprenticeship for the Hitler Youth as a Pimpf. Each youngster was given a performance book in which would be recorded his progress through the entire Nazi youth movement, including his ideological growth. At ten, after passing suitable tests in athletics, camping and Nazified history, he graduated into the Jungvolk ("Young Folk"), where he took the following oath:

    In the presence of this blood banner, which represents our Fuehrer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.
    At fourteen the boy entered the Hitler Youth proper and remained there until he was eighteen, when he passed into the Labor Service and the Army. It was a vast organization organized on paramilitary lines similar to the S.A. and in which the youngsters approaching manhood received systematic training not only in camping, sports and Nazi ideology but in soldiering. On many a weekend in the environs of Berlin this writer would be interrupted in his picnicking by Hitler Youths scrambling through the woods or over the heath, rifles at the ready and heavy army packs on their backs.
    Sometimes the young ladies would be playing at soldiering, too, for the Hitler Youth movement did not neglect the maidens. From ten to fourteen, German girls were enrolled as Jungmaedel—literally, "young maidens"—and they too had a uniform, made up of a white blouse, full blue skirt, socks and heavy—and most unfeminine—marching shoes. Their training was much like that of the boys of the same age and included long marches on weekends with heavy packs and the usual indoctrination in the Nazi philosophy. But emphasis was put on the role of women in the Third Reich—to be, above all, healthy mothers of healthy children. This was stressed even more when the girls became, at fourteen, members of the B.D.M—Bund Deutscher Maedel (League of German Maidens).
    At eighteen, several thousand of the girls in the B.D.M. (they remained in it until 21) did a year's service on the farms—their so-called Land Jahr, which was equivalent to the Labor Service of the young men. Their task was to help both in the house and in the fields. The girls lived sometimes in the farmhouses and often in small camps in rural districts from which they were taken by truck early each morning to the farms. Moral problems soon arose. The presence of a pretty young city girl sometimes disrupted a peasant's household, and angry complaints from parents about their daughters' having been made pregnant on the farms began to be heard. But that wasn't the only problem. Usually a girls' camp was located near a Labor Service camp for young men. This juxtaposition seems to have made for many pregnancies too. One couplet—a take-off on the "Strength through Joy" movement of the Labor Front, but it applied especially to the Land Jahr of the young maidens—went the rounds of Germany:

In the fields and on the heath
I lose Strength through Joy.

    Similar moral problems also arose during the Household Year for Girls, in which some half a million Hitler Youth maidens spent a year at domestic service in a city household. Actually, the more sincere Nazis did not consider them moral problems at all. On more than one occasion I listened to women leaders of the B.D.M.—they were invariably of the plainer type and usually unmarried—lecture their young charges on the moral and patriotic duty of bearing children for Hitler's Reich—within wedlock if possible, but without it if necessary.
    By the end of 1938 the Hitler Youth numbered 7,728,259. Large as this number was, obviously some four million youth had managed to stay out of the organization, and in March 1939 the government issued a law conscripting all youth into the Hitler Youth on the same basis as they were drafted into the Army. Recalcitrant parents were warned that their children would be taken away from them and put into orphanages or other homes unless they enrolled.

    The final twist to education in the Third Reich came in the establishment of three types of schools for the training of the elite: the Adolf Hitler Schools, under the direction of the Hitler Youth, the National Political Institutes of Education and the Order Castles—the last two under the aegis of the party. The Adolf Hitler Schools took the most promising youngsters from the Jungvolk at the age of twelve and gave them six years of intensive training for leadership in the party and in the public services. The pupils lived at the school under Spartan discipline and on graduation were eligible for the university. There were ten such schools founded after 1937, the principal one being the Akademie at Brunswick.
    The purpose of the Political Institutes of Education was to restore the type of education formerly given in the old Prussian military academics. This, according to one official commentary, cultivated "the soldierly spirit, with its attributes of courage, sense of duty and simplicity." To this was added special training in Nazi principles. The schools were under the supervision of the S.S., which furnished the headmasters and most of the teachers. Three such schools were established in 1933 and grew to thirty-one before the outbreak of the war, three of them for women.
    At the very top of the pyramid were the so-called Order Castles, the Ordensburgen. In these, with their atmosphere of the castles of the Order of Teutonic Knights of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were trained the elite of the Nazi elite. The knightly order had been based on the principle of absolute obedience to the Master, the Ordensmeister, and devoted to the German conquest of the Slavic lands in the East and the enslavement of the natives. The Nazi Order Castles had similar discipline and purposes. Only the most fanatical young National Socialists were chosen, usually from the top ranks of the graduates of the Adolf Hitler Schools and the Political Institutes. There were four Castles, and a student attended successively all of them. The first of six years was spent in one which specialized in the "racial sciences" and other aspects of Nazi ideology. The emphasis was on mental training and discipline, with physical training subordinated to it. This was reversed the second year at a Castle where athletics and sports, including mountain climbing and parachute jumping, came first. The third Castle, where the students spent the next year and a half, offered political and military instruction. Finally, in the fourth and last stage of his education, the student was sent for a year and a half to the Ordensburg in Marienburg in East Prussia, near the Polish frontier. There, within the walls of the very Order Castle which had been a stronghold of the Teutonic Knights five centuries before, his political and military training was concentrated on the Eastern question and Germany's need (and right!) of expanding into the Slavic lands in its eternal search for Lebensraum—an excellent preparation, as it turned out and no doubt was meant to turn out, for the events of 1939 and thereafter.

    In such a manner were the youth trained for life and work and death in the Third Reich. Though their minds were deliberately poisoned, their regular schooling interrupted, their homes largely replaced so far as their rearing went, the boys and the girls, the young men and women, seemed immensely happy, filled with a zest for the life of a Hitler Youth. And there was no doubt that the practice of bringing the children of all classes and walks of life together, where those who had come from poverty or riches, from a laborer's home or a peasant's or a businessman's, or an aristocrat's, shared common tasks, was good and healthy in itself. In most cases it did no harm to a city boy and girl to spend six months in the compulsory Labor Service, where they lived outdoors and learned the value of manual labor and of getting along with those of different backgrounds. No one who traveled up and down Germany in those days and talked with the young in their camps and watched them work and play and sing could fail to see that, however sinister the teaching, here was an incredibly dynamic youth movement.
    The young in the Third Reich were growing up to have strong and healthy bodies, faith in the future of their country and in themselves and a sense of fellowship and camaraderie that shattered all class and economic and social barriers. I thought of that later, in the May days of 1940, when along the road between Aachen and Brussels one saw the contrast between the German soldiers, bronzed and clean-cut from a youth spent in the sunshine on an adequate diet, and the first British war prisoners, with their hollow chests, round shoulders, pasty complexions and bad teeth—tragic examples of the youth that England had neglected so irresponsibly in the years between the wars.

from pages 1095 - 1096
    On New Year's Day Hitler threw eight German divisions into an attack in the Saar and followed it with a thrust from the bridgehead on the Upper Rhine by an army under the command of—to the German generals this was a bad joke—Heinrich Himmler. Neither drive got very far. Nor did an all-out assalt on Bastogne beginning on January 3 by no less than two corps of nine divisions which led to the most severe fighting of the Ardennes campaign. By January 5 the Germans abandoned hope of taking this key town. They were now faced with being cut off by a British-American counteroffensive from the north which had begun on January 3. On January 8 Model, whose armies were in danger of being entrapped at Houffalize, northeast of Bastogne, finally received permission to withdraw. By January 16, just a month after the beginning of the offensive on which Hitler had staked his last reserves in men and guns and ammunition, the German forces were back to the line from which they had set out.
    They had lost some 120,000 men, killed, wounded and missing, 600 tanks and assault guns, 1,600 planes and 6,000 vehicles. American losses were also severe—8,000 killed, 48,000 wounded, 21,000 captured or missing, and 733 tanks and tank destroyers.* But the Americans could make good their losses; the Germans could not. They had shot their last bolt. This was the last major offensive of the German Army in World War II. Its failure not only made defeat inevitable in the West, it doomed the German armies in the East, where the effect of Hitler's throwing his last reserves into the Ardennes became immediately felt.

*Among the American dead were several prisoners shot in cold blood by Colonel Jochen Peiper's combat group of the 1st S.S. Panzer Division near Malmédy on December 17. According to the evidence presented at Nuremberg 129 American prisoners were massacred; at the subsequent trial of the S.S. officers involved, the figure was reduced to 71. The trial before an American military tribunal at Dachau in the spring of 1946 had a curious denouement. Forty-three S.S. officers, including Peiper, were condemned to death, twenty-three to life imprisonment and eight to shorter sentences. Sepp Dietrich, commander of the Sixth S.S. Panzer Army, which fought in the northern side of the Bulge, received twenty-five years; Kraemer, commander of the 1st S.S. Armored Corps, ten years, and Hermann Priess, commander of the 1st S.S. Panzer Division, eighteen years.
    Then a hue and cry arose in the U.S. Senate, especially from the late Senator McCarthy, that the S.S. officers had been treated brutally in order to extort confessions. In March 1948 thirty-one of the death sentences were commuted; in April General Lucius D. Clay reduced the death sentences from twelve to six; and in January 1951, under a general amnesty, John J. McCloy, the American High Commissioner, commuted the remaining death sentences to life imprisonment. At the time of writing all have been released. Almost forgotten in the hubbub over the alleged ill-treatment of the S.S. officers was the indisputable evidence that at least seventy-one unarmed U.S. war prisoners were slain in cold blood on a snowy field near Malmédy on December 17, 1944, on the orders—or incitement—of several S.S. officers.

^

Everyone knows that “truth is the first casualty of war“. And one of the most highly decorated American soldiers of all time said that “war is a racket”.

FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”. Indeed, the former Secretary of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge – admits that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.

A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that the war on terror is “a mythical historical narrative”. In terms of a possible “why”, remember that psychologists and sociologists have demonstrated that fear of terrorism makes people stupid and easy to manipulate and control.

War is always sold to it’s people by artificially demonizing the enemy:

Countries need to lie about their enemies in order to demonize them sufficiently so that the people will support the war.
That is why intelligence “failures” – such as the following – are so common:

The U.S. Navy’s own historians now say that the sinking of the USS Maine — the justification for America’s entry into the Spanish-American War — was probably caused by an internal explosion of coal, rather than an attack by the Spanish.

It is also now well-accepted that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident which led to the Vietnam war was a fiction (confirmed here).

And two lies were used to justify the 1991 Gulf War: the statement that Iraqis murdered Kuwaiti babies and the statement that a quarter of a million Iraqi troops were massed on the border with Saudi Arabia (see also this article)(technically, the statement about Kuwaiti babies did not come from the U.S. government, but from a public relations firm hired by the government).

Indeed, in a newly-released documentary, U.S. soldiers admit that if they accidentally kill innocent Iraqis and Afghanis, they then “drop” automatic weapons near their body so they can pretend they were militants:

On Monday, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton told Jon Stewart that a Clinton cabinet member proposed letting Saddam kill an American pilot as a pretext for war in Iraq:
(And see this; and this excerpt from General Shelton’s book).
This might seem, at first glance, like just an odd, one-off suggestion.
However, as reported by the New York Times and other newspapers, George W. Bush also suggested to Tony Blair that a U.S. plane be painted in United Nations colors so that – if Saddam shot it down – it would create a casus belli. As the Times wrote in 2006:

The memo [confirmed by two senior British officials as being authentic] also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire ….

Indeed, the former director of the National Security Agency said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

(audio here).Former FBI station chief Ted Gundersen also says most terror attacks are committed by our CIA and FBI:

Specific Historical Examples

The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950′s to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister.

The former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence admit that NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and other European countries in the 1950s and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: “You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security” (and see this)(Italy and other European countries subject to the terror campaign had joined NATO before the bombings occurred).

As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960′s, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

Nine months earlier, a false flag attack was discussed in order to justify an invasion of the Dominican Republic. Specifically, according to official State Department records, Under Secretary of State Chester Bowles wrote on June 3, 1961:

The Vice President [Lyndon Johnson], [Attorney General] Bob Kennedy, Secretary [of Defense Robert] McNamara, Dick Goodwin [who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs], [head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] General Lemnitzer, Wyn Coerr, and Ted Achilles were here. Bob McNamara and Lemnitzer stated that under the terms of the contingency paper, they were required to be prepared to move into the island on short order if required to do so, and this, in their opinion, called for substantially more troops that we had in the area. After some discussion we considered two more aircraft carriers, some destroyers, and 12,000 marines should be moved into a position some one hundred miles off the Dominican Republic shore…
The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale.
His general approach, vigorously supported by Dick Goodwin, was that this was a bad government, that there was a strong chance that it might team up with Castro, and that it should be destroyed–with an excuse if possible, without one if necessary.
Rather to my surprise, Bob McNamara seemed to support this view …
The entire spirit of this meeting was profoundly distressing and worrisome, and I left at 8:00 p.m. with a feeling that this spirit which I had seen demonstrated on this occasion and others at the White House by those so close to the President constitutes a further danger of half-cocked action by people with almost no foreign policy experience, who are interested in action for action’s sake, and the devil take the highmost …
[At a subsequent meeting], Bob McNamara went along with their general view that our problem was not to prepare against an overt act by the Dominican Republic but rather to find an excuse for going into the country and upsetting it.

When Congress was originally asked to pass the Patriot Act in late 2001, the anthrax attacks which occurred only weeks earlier were falsely blamed on spooky Arabs as a way to scare Congress members into approving the bill. Specifically:

The FBI was actually told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

High-level government insiders pointed towards Iraq as the source of the anthrax, even though there was absolutely no reason to think that the anthrax had come from Iraq

Indeed, many people have questioned whether or not the anthrax was intentionally sent to scare people. For example:

The anthrax letters attempt to link 9/11 and the anthrax attack and pretend to be from radical Muslims and be anti-America and anti-Israel

Would Arab terrorists have targeted only Congress men who were likely to oppose the Patriot Act and other tyrannical measures? Would they have gotten that specific in their targeting? In order to terrorize America as a whole, wouldn’t real Arab terrorists have sent anthrax to the Congressional leaders of both parties, regardless of their political postures towards particular legislation? Shouldn’t it have been obvious to the FBI that the killer was pro-tyranny, rather than being simply Anti-American? The “war on terror” and Iraq war were largely based on the claim that Saddam and Muslim extremists were behind the anthrax attacks (and see this and this)

Senator Patrick Leahy said:

And I think there are people within our government — certainly from the source of it — who know where it came from. [Taps the table to let that settle in] And these people may not have had anything to do with it, but they certainly know where it came from.

The FBI gave its consent in October, 2001 for the remaining samples of the Ames anthrax strain to be destroyed, thereby permanently destroying crucial “genetic clues valuable to the criminal inquiry”. Why would the FBI allow the Ames samples to be destroyed, other than to prevent fingers from being pointed toward the real killer, someone who worked for the U.S. government and had access to U.S. bioweapons?

The American bioweapons expert who actually drafted the current bioweapons law (the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989), who holds a doctorate of law magna cum laude and a Ph.D. in political science, both from Harvard University, and teaches international law at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-92) and represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World Court, and who “advised the FBI in its initial investigation of the anthrax letters”, is convinced that the anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the Patriot Act and the later Military Commissions Act. He has said:

Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, come these anthrax attacks.

Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”

As Chris Floyd and many others have noted, this plan has gone live.

United Press International reported in June 2005:

U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

There is substantial additional evidence of hanky panky in Iraq.

We’re not alone. Countries around the world have played this terrible game for thousands of years.

If We Don’t Learn Our History, We’re Doomed to Repeat It

Indeed, many former high-level officials are warning that it could happen again:

A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.

A retired 27-year CIA analyst who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents stated that if there was another major attack in the U.S., it would lead to martial law. He went on to say:

“We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want.”
The former CIA analyst would not put it past the government to “play fast and loose” with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, said “if there is another terror attack, “I believe the president will get what he wants”, which will include a dictatorship…….Why we got snookered into the Vietnam war.

On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on
national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam.
But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.
Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat."
One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power."
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there."

But Johnson's deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, "went to the American people last night with the somber facts." The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities."
An exhaustive new book, The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."
Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" -- as well as "reluctance to question official pronouncements on `national security issues.'"
Daniel Hallin's classic book The `Uncensored War' observes that journalists had "a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats."
What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time."
In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam -- sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two
courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only "no" votes.) The resolution authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."
The rest is tragic history.

Scott Ritter, the former UN Weapons Inspector (an American) – who stated before the Iraq war started that there were no weapons of mass destruction – is now saying that he would not rule out staged government terror by the U.S. government

And a member of the British Parliament stated that “there is a very real danger” that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically

Postscript: Most serving in our military are good and honorable people who want to protect America and her people. It is only rogue elements within civilian and military circles who carry out false flag attacks.

It’s not that the average American isn’t aware that we still have tens of thousands or troops in Iraq, or that nearly 4,400 U.S. military personnel have died there since the war began. Scattered demonstrations were scheduled around the country to call for the troops’ swift return.
But with so much else going on — a torpid economy, a climactic debate over health care reform, a mounting conflict in Afghanistan — it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Americans are still fighting and dying in Iraq.

Thus far, the war in Iraq has cost over $740,000,000,000 -- but the cumulative cost could be between two and three trillion dollars. The war has caused the death of over 4,400 American troops, and left more than 31,000 wounded.

July 25, 1990: US Ambassador Gives Seeming ‘Green Light’ for Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait

April Glaspie and Saddam Hussein. [Source: Wilson's Almanac]The US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, goes to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to meet with Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, to deliver a statement made earlier in the week by State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler. The statement is equivocal about Iraq’s belligerent pose towards Kuwait (see July 22, 1990), noting that although the US has no mutual defense pact with Kuwait, “Iraq and others know there is no place for coercion and intimidation in the civilized world.” Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson will later describe Glaspie as having “a keen mind and a profound understanding of the issues.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 98]
One-on-One with Saddam Hussein - Shortly after her meeting with Aziz, she is summoned back to the Foreign Ministry and driven from there to a meeting with Saddam Hussein. Wilson will write: “This was unprecedented. During the two years she had been ambassador, Saddam had never held a private meeting with her, delegating all contact to Aziz or other underlings.” During the meeting, Glaspie promises Hussein that President Bush wants “better and deeper relations.” She tells Hussein that Bush is an “intelligent man,” and adds, “He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq.” [Washington Post, 12/30/2002; London Times, 12/31/2002; Wilson, 2004, pp. 98]
'No Opinion on Arab-Arab Conflicts' - Glaspie tells Hussein: “We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait.… We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship—not confrontation—regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?” Hussein answers that he intends to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Kuwait; Glaspie asks what solutions Hussein would find acceptable. Hussein wants to keep the entire Shatt al Arab [a strategically important waterway] under Iraqi control, and if given that, he is willing to make concessions to Kuwait. However, if he has to give up some control of the Shatt, he will renounce all control in favor of bringing Kuwait back under Iraqi dominion. Glaspie replies: “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.” Reportedly Hussein takes this as a green light from the US to proceed with the invasion. [New York Times, 9/23/1990; Los Angeles Times, 1/5/2003]
Glaspie Said to Be Scapegoated - Wilson will later write that the US policy failure that led to the invasion is not Glaspie’s fault and that she is merely made a scapegoat for it (see July 25, 1990 and After): “The one-on-one meeting with Saddam was fateful for Ambassador Glaspie. Out of it emerged the charge that she had not been tough enough with him and had somehow given him a green light to invade Kuwait. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Charge of US Manipulation - Author and investigative producer Barry Lando will say that the price of oil was manipulated with US connivance before the crisis in an effort to hurt Iraq (see Around July 25, 1990).

Entity Tags: Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein, April Glaspie, Joseph C. Wilson, James A. Baker, Margaret Tutwiler

Timeline Tags: US-Iraq 1980s

Category Tags: Iraq Invasion of Kuwait, US-Iraq Collaboration

July 25, 1990: Hussein Pretends to Bluff over Intent to Invade Kuwait

During a meeting with US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie (see July 25, 1990), Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein interrupts the meeting to take a phone call from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak has worked tirelessly to mediate the burgeoning dispute between Iraq and Kuwait. After the phone call, Hussein tells Glaspie that he has just told Mubarak the same thing he told her—that he will not invade Kuwait so long as there is an active negotiating process taking place. The US later learns that Hussein asked Mubarak not to share that piece of information with Kuwait in order to keep his “bluff” alive. Mubarak apparently honors the request, because Iraq’s subsequent invasion (see August 2, 1990) is a complete surprise to Kuwait. Mubarak is reportedly infuriated at Hussein’s apparent betrayal of his trust. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 98] In 2003, Glaspie’s then-deputy, Joseph Wilson, will tell an interviewer that Hussein “lied to [Glaspie]. He lied to President Mubarak that he was going to allow the negotiating process to go forward.” [PBS, 2/28/2003] In 2004, Wilson will write: “I believe that he met with Glaspie for the express purpose of deceiving us about his intentions, as he did with… Mubarak at the same time. In this way, he maintained the element of surprise. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 123]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, April Glaspie

Category Tags: Iraq Invasion of Kuwait

July 25, 1990 and After: US Ambassador Scapegoated for Giving Iraq Permission to Invade?

The deputy for US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie, Joseph Wilson, later writes of the fateful meeting between Glaspie and Saddam Hussein (see July 25, 1990). In his view, Glaspie will become a scapegoat, receiving unfair blame for giving Hussein tacit permission to invade Kuwait. Wilson later writes, “The one-on-one meeting with Saddam was fateful for Ambassador Glaspie. Out of it emerged the charge that she had not been tough enough with him and had somehow given him a green light to invade Kuwait. Nothing could be further from the truth. Glaspie has been made a convenient scapegoat for a more complicated and complex failure of foreign policy.… Her explanation of American policy towards Arab disputes did not waver from our standing instructions. The United States did not take positions on the merits of such quarrels between Arab nations, although the policy was to, in the strongest terms, urge that the parties to a dispute resolve it diplomatically or through international mediation, and not via military threats or action.” During the meeting, Hussein made clear to Ambassador Glaspie that Iraq had no intention of taking any military action against Kuwait so long as there was an ongoing negotiating process. He tells Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the same thing (see July 25, 1990). In later years, Iraqi officials such as Aziz and then-Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Nizar Hamdun will acknowledge that Glaspie did nothing more than reiterate the main points of US policy towards Iraq to Hussein. Wilson, a friend of Hamdun’s, will recall his last conversation with Hamdun before his death in July 2003, where the ailing Hamdun confirmed that, in Wilson’s words, “The Iraqi leadership had not come away thinking she had tacitly indicated that the US condoned the use of force. On the contrary, [Hussein] knew exactly what the American position was—opposition to Iraqi military action, under any and all circumstances.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 99-101]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Joseph C. Wilson, Nizar Hamdun, April Glaspie, Hosni Mubarak

Events Leading Up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Pre-9/11 Plans for War

Project: Events Leading Up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
Open-Content project managed by Derek, KJF, blackmax

add event | references

May 1991: President Bush Authorizes CIA to Create Conditions for Removal of Saddam Hussein; CIA Hires PR Firm

President George H. W. Bush signs a covert “lethal finding” authorizing the CIA to spend a hundred million dollars to “create the conditions for removal of Saddam Hussein from power.” [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] The CIA forms the Iraqi Opposition Group within its Directorate of Operations to implement this policy. [Ritter, 2005, pp. 128] Awash in cash, the agency hires the Rendon Group to influence global political opinion on matters related to Iraq. According to Francis Brooke, an employee of the company who’s paid $22,000 per month, the Rendon Group’s contract with the CIA provides it with a ten percent “management fee” on top of whatever money it spends. “We tried to burn through $40 million a year,” Brooke will tell the New Yorker. “It was a very nice job.” The work involves planting false stories in the foreign press. The company begins supplying British journalists with misinformation which then shows up in the London press. In some cases, these stories are later picked up by the American press, in violation of laws prohibiting domestic propaganda. “It was amazing how well it worked. It was like magic,” Brooke later recalls. Another one of the company’s tasks is to help the CIA create a viable and unified opposition movement against Saddam Hussein (see June 1992). This brings the Rendon Group and Francis Brooke into contact with Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi (see After May 1991). The CIA will soon help Chalabi and Rendon create the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to further the goal of toppling Hussein. [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Author and intelligence expert James Bamford will later say, “Chalabi was a creature of American propaganda to a large degree. It was an American company, the Rendon Group, that—working secretly with the CIA—basically created his organization, the Iraqi National Congress. And put Chalabi in charge basically.… From the very beginning Chalabi was paid a lot of money from the US taxpayers. The CIA paid him originally about 350,000 dollars a month, to Chalabi and his organization.” [PBS, 4/25/2007]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Rendon Group, Iraqi Opposition Group, James Bamford, George Herbert Walker Bush, Francis Brooke, Central Intelligence Agency, Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi National Congress

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Chalabi and the INC

March 8, 1992: Raw US World Dominance Plan Is Leaked to the Media

The New York Times headline on March 8, 1992. [Source: Public domain]The Defense Planning Guidance, “a blueprint for the department’s spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” is leaked to the New York Times. [New York Times, 3/8/1992; Newsday, 3/16/2003] The document causes controversy, because it hadn’t yet been “scrubbed” to replace candid language with euphemisms. [New York Times, 3/10/1992; New York Times, 3/11/1992; Observer, 4/7/2002] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role, it “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992; New York Times, 3/8/1992] As the Observer summarizes it, “America’s friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington.” [Observer, 4/7/2002] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who hold relatively low posts at the time, but become deputy defense secretary and Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, respectively, under George W. Bush. [Newsday, 3/16/2003] The authors conspicuously avoid mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992] They call for “punishing” or “threatening punishment” against regional aggressors before they act. [Harper's, 10/2002] Interests to be defended preemptively include “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism.” The section describing US interests in the Middle East states that the “overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve US and Western access to the region’s oil…, deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect US nationals and property, and safeguard… access to international air and seaways.” [New York Times, 3/8/1992] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R) later says, “It is my opinion that [George W. Bush’s] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report.” [Newsday, 3/16/2003] In response to the controversy, US releases an updated version of the document in May 1992, which stresses that the US will work with the United Nations and its allies. [Washington Post, 5/24/1992; Harper's, 10/2002]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, Lincoln Chafee, Soviet Union, United States

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Motives

June 1992: Iraqi National Congress Formed

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Masud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani, meet in Vienna along with nearly 200 delegates from dozens of Iraqi opposition groups to form an umbrella organization for Iraqi dissident groups. [Federation of American Scientists, 8/8/1998; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] The event is organized by the Rendon Group, which has been contracted by the CIA to organize the wide spectrum of Iraqi dissidents into a unified movement against Saddam Hussein. Rendon names the group the “Iraqi National Congress” (INC). The CIA pays the Rendon Group $326,000 per month for the work, funneled to the company and the INC through various front organizations. [ABC, 2/7/1998; CounterPunch, 5/20/2004; Rolling Stone, 11/17/2005 Sources: Unnamed former CIA operative] Thomas Twetten, the CIA’s deputy directorate of operations, will later recall: “The INC was clueless. They needed a lot of help and didn’t know where to start.” [New Republic, 5/20/2002; Bamford, 2004, pp. 296-297] Rendon hires freelance journalist Paul Moran and Zaab Sethna as contract employees to do public relations and “anti-Saddam propaganda” for the new organization. [SBS Dateline, 7/23/2003]

Entity Tags: Paul Moran, Zaab Sethna, Iraqi National Congress, Rendon Group, Jalal Talabani, Masud Barzani, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Kurdistan Democratic Party, Central Intelligence Agency, Thomas Twetten

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

November 1993: Iraqi Exile Plans to Overthrow Hussein, with Approval of Clinton Administration

Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi (see 1992-1996) approaches the Clinton administration with a plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Defense Intelligence Agency agent Patrick Lang will later recall that the plan, dubbed “End Game,” starts with a revolt by Iraq’s Kurdish and Shi’a insurgents that will, theoretically, trigger an insurrection by Iraqi military commanders. The military will replace Hussein with a regime friendly to both Israel and the US. Clinton officials give the plan tentative approval, though as Lang will later write: “The plan was based on a belief that Iraq was ripe for revolt and that there were no units in the armed forces that would fight to preserve Saddam’s government. Since the same units had fought to keep Saddam in power during the Kurdish and Shi’a revolts of a few years before, it is difficult to see why the sponsors of End Game would have thought that.” Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein learns of the plan and prepares his own response. When Chalabi puts the plan into action, the Iraqi military, instead of revolting against Hussein, kills over 100 INC-backed insurgents (see March 1995). After the debacle, neither the CIA nor the White House will have anything more than superficial contact with Chalabi until 2001. [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 126]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Central Intelligence Agency, Clinton administration, Patrick Lang, Ahmed Chalabi

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War

March 1995: Chalabi Military Operation against Saddam Hussein Fails

Ahmed Chalabi creates a militia army of about 1,000 fighters in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and bribes tribal leaders in the city of Mosul to support a planned rebellion against Saddam Hussein (see November 1993). He is also hosting members of Iranian intelligence who promise that when the operation is launched, Iran will simultaneously hit Iraq from the south. But the CIA learns that Baathist officials have caught wind of the plot and the CIA instructs agent Robert Baer to tell Chalabi that “any decision to proceed will be on your own.” Chalabi, who has no military experience, decides to go through with the plot anyway. But the operation quickly flounders when over 100 INC fighters are killed by Iraqi forces, many more of Chalabi’s fighters desert, the bribed Iraqi tribal leaders stay home, and the Iranians do nothing. The CIA is furious that it funded the operation, which becomes known within the agency as the “Bay of Goats.” [CounterPunch, 5/20/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 126] CENTCOM commander General Anthony Zinni has similar feelings. “It got me pretty angry,” he recalls. “They were saying if you put a thousand troops on the ground, Saddam’s regime will collapse, they won’t fight. I said, ‘I fly over them every day, and they shoot at us. We hit them, and they shoot at us again. No way a thousand forces would end it.’ The exile group was giving them inaccurate information. Their scheme was ridiculous.” Zinni had warned Congress that Chalabi’s invasion plan was “pie in the sky, a fairy tale,” but was ignored. [Unger, 2007, pp. 160-161]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Robert Baer, Iraqi National Congress, Central Intelligence Agency, Anthony Zinni, Ahmed Chalabi, Rendon Group, Francis Brooke

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Chalabi and the INC

July 8, 1996: Neoconservative Think Tank Advocates Aggressive Israeli Foreign Policy

Richard Perle. [Source: Public domain]The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” [Washington Times, 10/7/2002; Chicago Sun-Times, 3/6/2003] The paper, whose lead author is neoconservative Richard Perle, is meant to advise the new, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Other authors include:
influential neoconservative academic and former Bush adviser Richard Perle, primarily responsible for the content of the paper;
Meyrav Wurmser, the future director of the neoconservative Hudson Institute’s Center for Middle East Policy;
her husband David Wurmser, the future chief adviser for Middle East policy for future vice-president Dick Cheney;
neoconservative Douglas Feith, who will be the prime architect of the Iraq war;
and a number of lesser-known neoconservatives, including James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Jeffrey T. Bergner, Jonathan Torop, and Robert Loewenberg.
Rebuilding Zionism by Abandoning Past Policies - It advocates making a complete break with past policies by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism.…” [Guardian, 9/3/2002]
Aggressive, Militant Israeli Policy towards Arab Neighbors - Much along the lines of an earlier paper by Israeli Oded Yinon (see February 1982), the document urges the Israelis to aggressively seek the downfall of their Arab neighbors—especially Syria and Iraq—by exploiting the inherent tensions within and among the Arab States. The first step is to be the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. A war with Iraq will destabilize the entire Middle East, allowing governments in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and other countries to be replaced. “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them,” the paper says. [Perle, 7/8/1996; Guardian, 9/3/2002; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/19/2003] Iraq is first on the list of nations to be transformed. Saddam Hussein must be overthrown, the authors say. But Iraq has long served as a counterweight to the Shi’ite theocracy of Iran; with the two at loggerheads, neither could pose as serious a threat to Israel as it could if not opposed by the other. To counter this, Perle and his co-authors propose restoring the Hashemites (an ancient Arab dynasty; King Faisal I of Iraq was a Hashemite) to power. Instead of the largely Shi’ite Iraqis aligning themselves with their fellow Shi’a in Iran after Hussein’s overthrow, the Hashemite government would align itself with the pro-Western Jordan, long a Hashemite regime. Unfortunately, the authors propose no plan to actually make such an extraordinary regime succession happen, nor do they seem concerned with some Iraqi Shi’ites’ alignment with Islamist terrorists or with many Shi’ites’ close ties to Iran. [Unger, 2007, pp. 145-148]
Abandoning Oslo Accords, Militant Palestinian Policy - Other suggestions for Israel include abandoning the Oslo Accords, developing a foreign policy based on a traditional balance of power strategy, reserving its right to invade the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a strategy of “self-defense,” abandoning any notion of “land for peace,” reestablishing a policy of preemptive strikes, forging closer ties to the US while taking steps towards self-reliance, and seeking an alternative to Yasser Arafat as leader of the PLO. [Perle, 7/8/1996]
'Seeds of a New Vision' - All these questions need not be answered right away, according to co-author Meyrav Wurmser. The document is “the beginning of thought,” she says, “… the seeds of a new vision.”
Similar to American Christian Right's Vision - According to author Craig Unger, the ideology of “ACB” is, in essence, a secularized version of the theology of the American Christian Right. Christian Zionists insist that Jews were ordained by God to reclaim the Biblican land of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank; the paper asserts that claim as well. The paper echoes Christian fundamentalists by demanding “the unconditional acceptance of Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension.” Perle and his fellow neoconservatives want to push the boundaries even further: the Bible can be interpreted to countenance Jewish dominion over all or parts of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia. Thusly, the authors claim that Israel and the US, by waging war against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, would reshape the “strategic environment” in the Middle East and greatly expand Israel’s influence in the region.
Influence in Upcoming Bush Administration - Perle will later become chairman of President Bush’s influential Defense Policy Board and will be instrumental is moving Bush’s US policy toward war with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, as will Feith and the Wurmsers. [Unger, 2007, pp. 145-148]

Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Robert Loewenberg, Meyrav Wurmser, Jonathan Torop, Richard V. Allen, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Benjamin Netanyahu, David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Douglas Feith

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Motives, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

November 12, 1997: Neoconservative Advocates Backing INC in Overthrowing Hussein

David Wurmser, director of the Middle East program at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, writes an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the US government should support Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress [INC] and work to foment “an Iraqi insurgency to depose the butcher of Baghdad.” Wurmser writes: “Washington has no choice now but to abandon the coup option and resurrect the INC. An insurgency may be able to defeat Saddam’s weak and demoralized conventional army. But one thing is clear: There is no cost-free way to depose Saddam. He is more resolute, wily and brutal than we. His strength lies in his weapons of terror; that is why he is so attached to them…. Organizing an insurgency to liberate Iraq under the INC may provoke Saddam to use these weapons on the way down. Better that, though, than current policy, which will lead him to use them on his way back up.” [Wall Street Journal, 11/12/1997]

Entity Tags: David Wurmser, Saddam Hussein, Ahmed Chalabi

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Propaganda, Chalabi and the INC

January 26, 1998: Neoconservative Think Tank Urges US to Attack Iraq

PNAC logo. [Source: Project for the New American Century]The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, publishes a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a “hazard” to “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” In a foretaste of what eventually happens, the letter calls for the US to go to war alone, attacks the United Nations, and says the US should not be “crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.” The letter is signed by many who will later lead the 2003 Iraq war. 10 of the 18 signatories later join the Bush Administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and Robert Zoellick, Undersecretaries of State John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, presidential adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams, Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, and George W. Bush’s special Iraq envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Other signatories include William Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Peter Rodman, William Schneider, Vin Weber, and James Woolsey. [Project for the New American Century, 1/26/1998; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 3/16/2003; Unger, 2007, pp. 158] Clinton does heavily bomb Iraq in late 1998, but the bombing doesn’t last long and its long term effect is the break off of United Nations weapons inspections. [New York Times, 3/23/2003] The PNAC neoconservatives do not seriously expect Clinton to attack Iraq in any meaningful sense, author Craig Unger will observe in 2007. Instead, they are positioning themselves for the future. “This was a key moment,” one State Department official will recall. “The neocons were maneuvering to put this issue in play and box Clinton in. Now, they could draw a dichotomy. They could argue to their next candidate, ‘Clinton was weak. You must be strong.’” [Unger, 2007, pp. 158]

Entity Tags: Robert B. Zoellick, Vin Weber, William Kristol, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William Schneider Jr., Richard Perle, William J. Bennett, Richard Armitage, Robert Kagan, Paula J. Dobriansky, Donald Rumsfeld, Craig Unger, Peter Rodman, Elliott Abrams, John R. Bolton, James Woolsey, Francis Fukuyama, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Paul Wolfowitz

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, Motives, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

February 19, 1998: Neoconservative Group Calls on US to Help Overthrow Hussein

The Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG), a bipartisan group made up largely of foreign policy specialists, sends an “Open Letter to the President” calling for President Clinton to use the US military to help Iraqi opposition groups overthrow Saddam Hussein and replace him with a US-friendly government. US law forbids such an operation. The group is led by, among others, former Representative Stephen Solarz (D-NY) and prominent Bush adviser Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense.
Largely Neoconservative in Makeup - Many of its co-signers will become the core of the Bush administration’s neoconservative-driven national security apparatus. These co-signers include Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Stephen Bryen, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Fred Ikle, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Bernard Lewis, Peter Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, Gary Schmitt, Max Singer, Casper Weinberger, Paul Wolfowitz, David Wurmser, and Dov Zakheim. [CNN, 2/20/1998; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] The CPSG is closely affiliated with both the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC—see June 3, 1997 and January 26, 1998) and the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), both of which boast Perle as a powerful and influential member. Jim Lobe of the Project Against the Present Danger later learns that the CPSG is funded in large part by a sizable grant from the right-wing Bradley Foundation, a key funding source for both the PNAC and the AEI. According to Counterpunch’s Kurt Nimmo, the plan for overthrowing Iraq later adopted by the Bush administration, and currently advocated by the CPSG, will be echoed in the PNAC’s September 2000 document, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (see September 2000). [CounterPunch, 11/19/2002]
Advocates Supporting Iraq-Based Insurgency - The letter reads in part: “Despite his defeat in the Gulf War, continuing sanctions, and the determined effort of UN inspectors to root out and destroy his weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein has been able to develop biological and chemical munitions.… This poses a danger to our friends, our allies, and to our nation.… In view of Saddam Hussein’s refusal to grant UN inspectors the right to conduct unfettered inspections of those sites where he is suspected of storing his still significant arsenal of chemical and biological munitions and his apparent determination never to relinquish his weapons of mass destruction, we call upon President Clinton to adopt and implement a plan of action designed to finally and fully resolve this utterly unacceptable threat to our most vital national interests.” The plan is almost identical to the “End Game” scenario proposed in 1993 (see November 1993) and carried out, without success, in 1995 (see March 1995). It is also virtually identical to the “Downing Plan,” released later in 1998 (see Late 1998). In 2004, then-Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang will observe, “The letter was remarkable in that it adopted some of the very formulations that would later be used by Vice President [Dick] Cheney and other current administration officials to justify the preventive war in Iraq that commenced on March 20, 2003” (see March 19, 2003). The CPSG advocates:
US support for Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC—see 1992-1996) as the provisional government to replace Hussein’s dictatorship;
Funding the INC with seized Iraqi assets, designating areas in the north and south as INC-controlled zones, and lifting sanctions in those areas;
Providing any ground assault by INC forces (see October 31, 1998) with a “systematic air campaign” by US forces;
Prepositioning US ground force equipment “so that, as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist the anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of Iraq”;
Bringing Hussein before an international tribunal on war crimes charges.
Carrying out these actions, Solarz says, would completely eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction that he claims Iraq owns. [Abrams et al., 2/19/1998; CNN, 2/20/1998; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]

Entity Tags: Richard Burt, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Paula J. Dobriansky, Peter Rosenblatt, Project for the New American Century, Richard V. Allen, Peter Rodman, Robert A. Pastor, Saddam Hussein, Robert Kagan, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, William Kristol, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William B. Clark, Sven F. Kraemer, Stephen Solarz, Roger Robinson, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Bryen, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Ledeen, Patrick Lang, Fred C. Ikle, Dov S. Zakheim, Elliott Abrams, Frank Carlucci, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Donald Rumsfeld, Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, American Enterprise Institute, Ahmed Chalabi, Max Singer, David Wurmser, Bernard Lewis, Caspar Weinberger, Gary Schmitt, Kurt Nimmo, Leon Wienseltier, Martin Peretz, Joshua Muravchik, Frederick L. Lewis, John R. Bolton, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Jarvis Lynch, Jeffrey Gedmin, Jim Lobe, Iraqi National Congress

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Politicization of Intelligence, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

May 29, 1998: PNAC Calls on Republican Congressional Leaders to Assert US Interests in Persian Gulf

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) publishes a letter addressed to Congressman Newt Gingrich and Senator Trent Lott. The letter argues that the Clinton administration has capitulated to Saddam Hussein and calls on the two legislators to lead Congress to “establish and maintain a strong US military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect [US] vital interests in the Gulf—and, if necessary, to help removed Saddam from power.” [Century, 5/29/1998]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Newt Gingrich, US Congress, Project for the New American Century, Trent Lott, Clinton administration

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War

July 1998: Prominent Neoconservative Says INC Control of Northern Iraq Would Increase Israeli Security

David Wurmser says that having a region in northern Iraq controlled by the Iraqi National Congress would provide the missing piece to complete an anti-Syria, anti-Iran block. “If Ahmed [Chalabi] extends a no-fly, no-drive in northern Iraq, it puts scuds out of the range of Israel and provides the geographic beachhead between Turkey, Jordan and Israel,” Wurmser says. “This should anchor the Middle East pro-Western coalition.” [Forward, 7/31/2003]

Entity Tags: David Wurmser, Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Chalabi and the INC

October 31, 1998: Clinton Signs Law Making It US Policy to Remove Hussein in Iraq

President Clinton signs the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (ILA) into law. The act, which passed with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate, was written by Trent Lott (R-MS) and other Republicans with significant input from Ahmed Chalabi and his aide, Francis Brooke. [US Congress, 10/31/1998 ; Washington Post, 1/25/2002; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] (Former Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang will later write that one of the driving goals behind the ILA is to revive the failed 1995 coup plans against Saddam Hussein, called “End Game”—see November 1993.) [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] The act makes it “the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.” To that end, the act requires that the president designate one or more Iraqi opposition groups to receive up to $97 million in US military equipment and nonlethal training. The act authorizes another $43 million for humanitarian, broadcasting, and information-collection activities. To be eligible for US assistance, an organization must be “committed to democratic values, to respect for human rights, to peaceful relations with Iraq’s neighbors, to maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity, and to fostering cooperation among democratic opponents of the Saddam Hussein regime.” [US Congress, 10/31/1998 ; Washington Post, 1/25/2002; New Yorker, 6/7/2004]
Chalabi Receives Millions from State Department - Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress receives $17.3 million from the State Department to carry out what it calls the “collection and dissemination of information” about Saddam Hussein’s atrocities to the public. It will continue to receive hundreds of thousands per month from the Defense Department as well. [Mother Jones, 4/2006] However, the Clinton administration itself has little use for Chalabi. One administration official will say, “He represents four or five guys in London who wear nice suits and have a fax machine.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 160]
Zinni Warns of Legislation Presaging Military Action - While few in Washington see the ILA as presaging military action against Iraq, one who does is Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, the commander of CENTCOM. As the bill works its way through Congress, Zinni tells some of his senior staff members that the bill is far more serious than most believe. It is much more than a sop for the pro-war crowd, Zinni believes, but in reality a first step towards an invasion of Iraq. In 2004, former ambassador Joseph Wilson will write, “He was, of course, right, but few were listening.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 290]

Entity Tags: Patrick Lang, Francis Brooke, Iraqi National Congress, Clinton administration, US Department of State, Trent Lott, Ahmed Chalabi, US Department of Defense, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Chalabi and the INC

Late 1998: ’Downing Plan’ to Overthrow Hussein Government Rejected by General Zinni

A number of neoconservatives, led by retired General Wayne Downing (see 1990-1991) and retired CIA officer Duane “Dewey” Clarridge (see December 25, 1992), use the recently passed Iraqi Liberation Act (ILA—see October 31, 1998) to revive the failed “End Game” coup plans against Saddam Hussein (see November 1993 and March 1995). Both Downing and Clarridge are “military consultants” to Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, who attempted to carry out the coup in 1995 with dismal results. Downing and Clarridge produce an updated version of the INC’s “End Game” scenario, calling it “The Downing Plan.” The Downing scenario varies very little from the original plan. Their plan stipulates that a “crack force” of 5,000 INC fighters, backed up by a detachment of US Special Forces soldiers, could bring down the Iraqi Army. Clarridge later tells reporters: “The idea from the beginning was to encourage defections of Iraqi units. You need to create a nucleus, something for people to defect to. If they could take Basra, it would be all over.” Former Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang will later write, “It is difficult to understand how a retired four-star Army general [Downing] could believe this to be true.” General Anthony Zinni, commander of CENTCOM, which has operational control of US combat forces in the Middle East, is provided with a copy of Chalabi’s military plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “It got me pretty angry,” he later recalls. He warns Congress that Chalabi’s plan is a “pie in the sky, a fairy tale,” and predicts that executing such a poorly envisioned assault would result in a “Bay of Goats.” Chalabi’s INC is nothing more than “some silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London;” neither the INC nor any of the other 91 or so Iraqi opposition groups have anywhere near “the viability to overthrow Saddam.” He tells the New Yorker: “They were saying if you put a thousand troops on the ground Saddam’s regime will collapse, they won’t fight. I said, ‘I fly over them every day, and they shoot at us. We hit them, and they shoot at us again. No way a thousand forces would end it.’ The exile group was giving them inaccurate intelligence. Their scheme was ridiculous.” Zinni earns the enmity of the neoconservative developers of the plan for his stance. [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004]

Entity Tags: Wayne Downing, Patrick Lang, Saddam Hussein, Ahmed Chalabi, Anthony Zinni, US Congress, Duane Clarridge, Iraqi National Congress

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade, Chalabi and the INC

1999: George W. Bush Hints at Invading Iraq in Future Presidency

Mickey Herskowitz. [Source: Public domain]Presidential candidate George W. Bush tells prominent Texas author and Bush family friend Mickey Herskowitz, who is helping Bush write an autobiography, that as president he would invade Iraq if given the opportunity. “One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief,” Herskowitz remembers Bush saying. “My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of [Kuwait] and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.” Herskowitz later says he believes Bush’s comments were intended to distinguish himself from his father, rather than express a desire to invade Iraq. [Houston Chronicle, 10/31/2004]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Mickey Herskowitz

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade, Key Events Related to DSM

February 1999: David Wurmser Urges US to Support Insurgency in Iraq

In his book, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute urges the US to support an insurgency aimed at toppling the Bath’ist government of Saddam Hussein as part of a broader policy to defeat pan-Arabism in Iraq. In its place, the US should encourage the creation of a “loosely unified Iraqi confederal government, shaped around strong sectarian and provincial entities,” Wurmser argues. [Wurmser, 1999, pp. 136-137] What happens in Iraq is vitally important, Wurmser notes, because the country is of extreme strategic importance. “It is a key transportation route, and it is rich in both geographic endowments and human talent,” he explains. “Its location on pathways between Asia and Europe, Africa and Asia, and Europe and Africa makes it an ideal route for armies, pipelines, and trade from both the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. Iraq also has large, proven oil reserves, water, and other important resources. Its geographic centrality and abundance of natural advantages alone make the country a regionally important center.” [Wurmser, 1999, pp. 116-117]

Entity Tags: David Wurmser

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Motives

February 4, 1999: President Clinton Designates 7 Iraqi Opposition Groups as Eligible for US Funding

President Clinton signs Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 99-13 designating seven Iraqi opposition groups as being eligible to receive US federal funds under the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (see October 31, 1998). The act stated that the policy of the US should be to support regime change in Iraq. The seven groups include the Iraqi National Accord, the Iraqi National Congress, the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Movement for Constitutional Monarchy, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. [White House, 2/4/1999]

Entity Tags: Kurdistan Democratic Party, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Movement for Constitutional Monarchy, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Iraqi National Congress, Islamic Movement of Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraqi National Accord

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

April-July 1999: ’Desert Crossing’ War Game Predicts Instability, Potential Chaos if Saddam Hussein Ousted by US

Photo of the cover of the Desert Crossing after-action briefing. [Source: National Security Archives]The US Central Command, or CENTCOM (see October 1, 1986), conducts a series of war games called “Desert Crossing” centered on the scenario of Saddam Hussein being ousted as Iraq’s dictator. CENTCOM commander General Anthony Zinni will later say of the scenario, “I thought we ought to look at political reconstruction, economic reconstruction, security reconstruction, humanitarian need, services, and infrastructure development.” The game concludes that unless measures are taken, “fragmentation and chaos” will ensue after his overthrow. The after-action report finds that regime change may cause instability throughout the Middle East by giving impetus to “rival forces bidding for power” which, in turn, could cause societal “fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines” and antagonize “aggressive neighbors.” Securing borders and civil order may not be enough to restabilize Iraq, the report speculates, if the new government is perceived as either weak, subservient to outside governments, or out of touch with other Middle Eastern governments. The report finds that an exit strategy would be complicated by differing ideas for how a post-Saddam Iraq should be. Any US-supported transitional government will find it difficult to restrain various factions from pursuing their own tribal and sectarian vendettas against one another, the report finds. The game is quickly forgotten; years later, when the Bush administration will begin planning for its invasion of Iraq, the retired Zinni will recommend that his successors “dust off Desert Crossing,” and they will respond: “What’s that? Never heard of it.” [John Prados, 11/4/2006; Roberts, 2008, pp. 125, 233]

Entity Tags: Anthony Zinni, Saddam Hussein, US Central Command, Bush administration

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Planning, Predictions, The Decision to Invade

November 19, 1999: Congress Allocates $10 Million for Iraq Opposition Groups

Congress allocates $10 million “to support efforts to bring about political transition in Iraq, of which not less than $8 million shall be made available only to Iraqi opposition groups designated under the ILA [Iraq Liberation Act of 1998] for political, economic humanitarian, and other activities of such groups, and not more than $2 million may be made available for groups and activities seeking the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi Government officials for war crimes.” President Clinton signs the appropriation bill into law on November 29. [US Congress, 11/29/1999 ] This $10 million dollars is the first allocation of funds to Iraqi opposition groups out of the total $97 million that was authorized by the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (see October 31, 1998).

Entity Tags: William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Iraqi National Congress

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

2000: US Political Parties Advocate Regime Change in Iraq

During the 2000 presidential campaign, the Republican Party calls for “a comprehensive plan for the removal of Saddam Hussein.” Similarly, the Democratic Party’s platform supports using “America’s military might against Iraq when and where it is necessary.” [Republican National Committee, 2000; Democratic National Committee, 2000, pp. 46]

Entity Tags: Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

2000: Former CIA Director Woolsey Works With Chalabi’s INC

Former CIA director James Woolsey serves as a corporate officer for the Iraqi National Congress Support Foundation which manages the Iraqi National Congress’ US funding. Also during this time, Woolsey and his former law firm, Shea and Gardner, provide the INC and Iraqi exiles with pro bono work. [Knight Ridder, 7/16/2004]

Entity Tags: Shea and Gardner, Iraqi National Congress, James Woolsey

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Chalabi and the INC

Spring 2000: Future Bush Adviser: ‘Number One’ Agenda to Overthrow Hussein

Stephen Hadley, a neoconservative foreign affairs analyst who will become the future President Bush’s national security adviser (see November 2, 2004), briefs a group of prominent Republicans on the national security and foreign policy agenda of Bush. Hadley tells the assembled policymakers that Bush’s “number-one foreign policy agenda” will be removing Iraq’s Saddam Hussein from power. Hadley also says Bush will spend little or no time trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. According to Virginia Military Institute professor Clifford Kiracofe, who speaks to many of the policymakers after the meeting, many of them are shocked at the briefing. [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 175]

Entity Tags: Clifford Kiracofe, George W. Bush, Stephen J. Hadley

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade, Decision to Invade Quotes

May 17, 2000: Bush Allegedly Says He Will Take Saddam Hussein Out

Osama Siblani. [Source: Publicity photo]Presidential candidate George W. Bush allegedly tells Osama Siblani, publisher of an Arab American newspaper, that if he becomes president he will remove Saddam Hussein from power. “He told me that he was going to take him out,” Siblani says in a radio interview on Democracy Now! almost five years later. Siblani will also recall that Bush “wanted to go to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, and he considered the regime an imminent and gathering threat against the United States.” As Siblani will later note, as a presidential candidate Bush has no access to classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs. [Democracy Now!, 3/11/2005]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Osama Siblani

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

September 2000: Neoconservative Think Tank Writes ‘Blueprint’ for ‘Global Pax Americana’

People involved in the 2000 PNAC report (from top left): Vice President Cheney, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim, and author Eliot Cohen. [Source: Public domain]The neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century writes a “blueprint” for the “creation of a ‘global Pax Americana’” (see June 3, 1997). The document, titled Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the George W. Bush team even before the 2000 presidential election. It was written for future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and Bush’s brother Jeb Bush, and Cheney’s future chief of staff Lewis Libby. [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000, pp. iv and 51 ]
Plans to Overthrow Iraqi Government - The report calls itself a “blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” The plan shows that the Bush team intends to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The report calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool” (see February 7, 2003). [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000 ; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002]
Greater Need for US Role in Persian Gulf - PNAC states further: “The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.”
'US Space Forces,' Control of Internet, Subversion of Allies - PNAC calls for the control of space through a new “US Space Forces,” the political control of the Internet, and the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, and other countries.
Bioweapons Targeting Specific Genotypes 'Useful' - It also mentions that “advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”
'A New Pearl Harbor' - However, PNAC complains that thes changes are likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/2003]
Bush Will Claim a 'Humble' Foreign Policy Stance - One month later during a presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush will assert that he wants a “humble” foreign policy in the Middle East and says he is against toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq because it smacks of “nation building” (see October 11, 2000). Around the same time, Cheney will similarly defend Bush’s position of maintaining President Clinton’s policy not to attack Iraq, asserting that the US should not act as though “we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments.” [Washington Post, 1/12/2002] Author Craig Unger will later comment, “Only a few people who had read the papers put forth by the Project for a New American Century might have guessed a far more radical policy had been developed.” [Salon, 3/15/2004] A British member of Parliament will later say of the PNAC report, “This is a blueprint for US world domination—a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world.” [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] Both PNAC and its strategy plan for Bush are almost virtually ignored by the media until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).

Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, Robert Martinage, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Robert Killebrew, Peter Rodman, Project for the New American Century, Roger Barnett, Paula J. Dobriansky, Saddam Hussein, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Steve Forbes, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William J. Bennett, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Vin Weber, Stephen A. Cambone, Steve Rosen, Thomas Donnelly, Norman Podhoretz, Phil Meilinger, Midge Decter, Donald Kagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dov S. Zakheim, Devon Gaffney Cross, Aaron Friedberg, Abram Shulsky, Michael Vickers, Dan Quayle, Eliot A. Cohen, Dan Goure, Alvin Bernstein, Barry Watts, David Epstein, Elliott Abrams, Frank Gaffney, John Ellis (“Jeb”) Bush, James Lasswell, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Mark P. Lagon, Mackubin Owens, Francis Fukuyama, Henry S. Rowen, Gary Schmitt, Fred C. Ikle, Fred Kagan, David Fautua, Hasam Amin, George Weigel

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, Motives, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

October 5, 2000: Vice Presidential Candidates Advocate Tough Stance Toward Iraq; Cheney Says the Use of Force against Iraq May Be Necessary

During the vice presidential debates, both Joseph Lieberman and Dick Cheney advocate a tough stance toward Saddam Hussein. Lieberman says he and Gore would continue to support Iraqi opposition groups “until the Iraqi people rise up and do what the people of Serbia have done in the last few days: get rid of a despot.” Cheney says it might be necessary “to take military action to forcibly remove Saddam from power.” [CATO Daily Dispatch, 10/6/2000]

Entity Tags: Joseph Lieberman, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: The Decision to Invade, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

October 25, 2000: Congress Allocates $25 Million for Iraq Opposition Groups

Congress substantially increases its support for Iraqi opposition organizations, more than doubling the groups’ funding to $25 million for 2001. Of this amount, $18 million is specifically designated for the Iraqi National Congress: $12 million for “food, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance,” and $6 million for the “production and broadcasting inside Iraq of radio and satellite television programming.” In addition, $2 million is allocated for groups and activities seeking the prosecution of Saddam Hussein, while the remaining $5 million is “to support efforts to bring about political transition in Iraq.” [US Congress, 11/6/2000 ; US Congress, 11/6/2000 ]

Entity Tags: Iraqi National Congress, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton

Category Tags: Chalabi and the INC, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

November 1, 2000: David Wurmser Urges US and Israel To ‘Strike Fatally’ Against Arab Radicalism

In an op-ed piece published by the Washington Times, David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute calls on the US and Israel to “broaden” the conflict in the Middle East. The US, he says, needs “to strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region—the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza” —in order to “reestablish the recognition that fighting with either the United States or Israel is suicidal.” This is necessary, according to Wurmser, because the policies of the US and Israel during the last decade have strengthened Arab radicalism in the Middle East. Wurmser complains that the two countries have mistakenly identified the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and their own behavior as the primary causes of anti-Israeli and anti-American violence instead of focusing on what he claims are the real sources of resentment among Arab leaders—Israeli and American values. “Few anti-American outbursts or Arab-Israeli confrontations initially have much to do with Israel’s or America’s behavior; they have more to do with what these two countries are: free societies,” Wurmser writes. “These upheavals originate in the conditions of Arab politics, specifically in the requirements of tyrannies to seek external conflict to sustain internal repression.… A regime built on opposition to freedom will view free nations, such as the United States and Israel, as mortal threats.” The US and Israeli failure to grasp this reality, along with the Clinton administration’s reluctance to remove Saddam from power, according to Wurmser, has only empowered Arab radicalism. The answer, he argues, is to forcefully reassert US and Israeli power. [Washington Times, 11/1/2000]

Entity Tags: David Wurmser

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War

December 19, 2000: Clinton Tells Bush His Top Priority Should Be Bin Laden; Bush Says It’s Saddam Hussein Instead

Clinton and Bush meeting in the White House on December 19, 2000. [Source: NBC]President Clinton and President-Elect Bush meet for their "exit interview," in a two-hour meeting. [CNN, 12/19/2000] Clinton gives Bush his list of his top five priorities. At the top of the list is dealing with Osama bin Laden. Clinton also discusses the tensions between Pakistan and India, who are threatening each other with nuclear strikes; the crisis in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine; he discusses North Korea; and he discusses Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Bush shakes Clinton’s hand after Clinton wraps up his presentation, and says, "Thanks for your advice, Mr. President, but I think you’ve got your priorities wrong. I’m putting Saddam at the top of the list." [Moore, 3/15/2004, pp. 16-17] Just one day before, CIA Director George Tenet had warned Clinton that al-Qaeda could attack US interests in the next several weeks (see December 18, 2000). In 2003, Clinton will speak about the interview, saying that he recognized Bush felt the biggest security issues facing the US was Iraq and a national missile defense: "I told him that in my opinion, the biggest security problem was Osama bin Laden." [Reuters, 10/16/2003]

Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

Before January 20, 2001: Pre-Inaugural Discussions about Removing Saddam Hussein

There are discussions among future members of the Bush administration, including Bush himself, about making the removal of Saddam Hussein a top priority once they are in office. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will say that the Bush team had been planning regime change in Iraq since before coming to office, with newly named Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see December 28, 2000) and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz (see January 11, 2001) taking the lead. “Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq,” he will write in his book Against All Enemies. “My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometime in 2002.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 7-9; Unger, 2007, pp. 192] During an appearance on Good Morning America on March 22, 2004, he will say, “[T]hey had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came into office.” [Good Morning America, 3/22/2004] Evidence of pre-inaugural discussions on regime change in Iraq comes from other sources as well. Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, who heads the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, will tell the New York Times in early 2004 that he spoke with Bush about removing Saddam Hussein six or seven times, both before and after the 2000 elections. [New York Times, 1/12/2004] In 2007, author Craig Unger will write: “In certain respects, their actions were a replay of the 1976 Team B experiment (see Early 1976 and November 1976), with one very important difference. This time it wasn’t just a bunch of feverish ideologues presenting a theoretical challenge to the CIA. This time Team B controlled the entire executive branch of the United States.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 192]

Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, Craig Unger, Saddam Hussein, ’Team B’, George W. Bush, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

After January 20, 2001: Cheney to Push for Invasion of Iraq for Political Reasons, Personal Vendettas

Vice President Cheney takes office with every intention to push President Bush into invading Iraq. According to an unnamed former subordinate of Cheney’s while Cheney was secretary of defense (see March 20, 1989 and After), Cheney wants to “do Iraq” because he thinks it can be done quickly and easily, and because “the US could do it essentially alone… and that an uncomplicated, total victory would set the stage for a landslide re-election in 2004 and decades of Republican Party domination.” Cheney believes that overthrowing Saddam Hussein “would ‘finish’ the undone work of the first Gulf War and settle scores once and for all with a cast of characters deeply resented by the vice president: George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, and Jim Baker.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 182]

Entity Tags: George Herbert Walker Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Colin Powell, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, James Baker, Saddam Hussein

Category Tags: Motives, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

Shortly after January 20, 2001: Pentagon Analysts Replaced With Neoconservative Ideologues

Shortly after George W. Bush is inaugurated, “[k]ey personnel, long-time civilian professionals” at the Pentagon’s Near East South Asia (NESA) desk are moved or replaced with people from neoconservative think tanks. [American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] Joe McMillan, the Office Director, is moved to a new location outside of the Pentagon, which according to Karen Kwiatkowski, who works at the NESA desk, is odd because “the whole reason for the Office Director being a permanent civilian (occasionally military) professional is to help bring the new appointee up to speed, ensure office continuity, and act as a resource relating to regional histories and policies.” [American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Salon, 3/10/2004] Larry Hanauer, who has long been at the Israel-Syria-Lebanon desk and who is known to be “even-handed with Israel,” is replaced by David Schenker of the Washington Institute. [American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] Other veteran NESA employees who are banished include James Russell, who has served as the country director for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and Marybeth McDevitt, the country director for Egypt. [Mother Jones, 1/2004]

Entity Tags: Marybeth McDevitt, David Schenker, Larry Hanauer, James Russell, Karen Kwiatkowski, Joe McMillan

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Office of Special Plans

January 22, 2001 and After: Neoconservatives Begin Push for Invasion of Iraq

An orchestrated push in the media begins to make the case for the need to invade Iraq. The San Diego Union-Tribune reprints a Weekly Standard article by William Kristol and Robert Kagan that tells readers (after comparing President Bush favorably to Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Harry Truman, and lauding Bush’s “steely determination”) that US military action “could well be necessary to bring Saddam down.” They write: “At some point, Bush could well find himself confronted by an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction. During these past few years, it was relatively easy for congressional Republicans to call for arming and funding the Iraqi opposition. That remains a good idea. But the more sober of Bush’s advisers, like Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and February 27, 2001), have recognized that this alone will not do the trick. Some use of American military force, both from the air and on the ground, could well be necessary to bring Saddam down, no matter how wonderfully the Iraqi opposition performs. Whether he chooses it or not, Bush may quickly be faced with the same decision his father had to make in 1990. He has in his cabinet at least one person who counseled inaction the last time [referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell]. If the crisis comes, Bush, like his father, will not be able to rely only on the judgment of the men and women around him: He will have to act from his own instincts and his own courage.” [Weekly Standard, 1/22/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 206] In the coming weeks, an onslaught of print and television op-eds and commentaries, some from Bush administration officials, will advocate the overthrow of Hussein (see February 27, 2001, February 16, 2001, April 9, 2001, and July 30, 2001).

Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, William Kristol

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Media Coverage, Motives, Politicization of Intelligence, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Public Opinion on Iraqi Threat

January 29, 2001: Bush Tells Muslim Leader Hussein Must Go

Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, who heads the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, one of the nation’s largest mosques, meets with President Bush in the White House about the administration’s policy towards Iraq. The president says he supports a policy aimed at removing Saddam Hussein from power, though he does not discuss by what means. “No method was discussed at all,” al-Qazwini will tell the New York Times two years later. “It was a general desire for regime change.” He will also tell the newspaper that he had spoken with Bush about removing Saddam Hussein a total of six or seven times, both before and after the 2000 elections. [New York Times, 1/12/2004]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

January 30, 2001: First National Security Council Meeting Focuses on Iraq and Israel, Not Terrorism

The Bush White House holds its first National Security Council meeting. The focus is on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 261] This meeting sets the tone for how President Bush intends to handle foreign affairs. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke wants to focus on the threat from al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism, especially in light of the recent attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). But Bush isn’t interested in terrorism. [Unger, 2007, pp. 201]
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to be 'Tilted Back Towards Israel' - Instead, Bush channels his neoconservative advisers, particularly incoming Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and April-May 1999), in taking a new approach to Middle East affairs, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Referring to President Clinton’s efforts to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Bush declares: “Clinton overreached, and it all fell apart. That’s why we’re in trouble. If the two sides don’t want peace, there’s no way we can force them. I don’t see much we can do over there at this point. I think it’s time to pull out of the situation.… We’re going to correct the imbalance of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We’re going to tilt it back towards Israel.” His view is that the Israeli government, currently headed by Ariel Sharon, should be left alone to deal as it sees fit with the Palestinians. “I’m not going to go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon. I’m going to take him at face value. We’ll work on a relationship based on how things go.” Justifying his position, he recalls a recent trip he took to Israel with the Republican Jewish Coalition. “We flew over the Palestinian camps. Looked real bad down there.… I don’t see much we can do over there at this point.” Secretary of State Colin Powell, surprised by Bush’s intended policy towards the 50-year old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, objects. According to Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil, Powell “stresse[s] that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army.” When Powell warns the president that the “consequences of that [policy] could be dire, especially for the Palestinians,” Bush shrugs. “Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things,” he suggests. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 265-266; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] In this and subsequent meetings, Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, “parrot[s]… the neocon line,” in author Craig Unger’s words, by discussing Iraq. “Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region,” she says, clearly alluding to regime change and overthrow in that nation (see March 8, 1992, Autumn 1992, July 8, 1996, Late Summer 1996, Late Summer 1996, 1997-1998, January 26, 1998, February 19, 1998, September 2000, Late December 2000 and Early January 2001, and Shortly after January 20, 2001). [Unger, 2007, pp. 201]
Possible WMD Sites in Iraq Spark Bush to Order Plans for Ground Assaults - The meeting then moves on to the subject of Iraq. Rice begins noting “that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region.” She turns the meeting over to CIA Director George Tenet who summarizes current intelligence on Iraq. He mentions a factory that “might” be producing “either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture.” The evidence he provides is a picture of the factory with some truck activity, a water tower, and railroad tracks going into a building. He admits that there is “no confirming intelligence” on just what is going on at these sites. Bush orders Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Hugh Shelton to begin preparing options for the use of US ground forces in Iraq’s northern and southern no-fly zones in support of a native-based insurgency against the Hussein regime. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 267; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] Author Ron Suskind later sums up the discussion: “Meeting adjourned. Ten days in, and it was about Iraq. Rumsfeld had said little, Cheney nothing at all, though both men clearly had long entertained the idea of overthrowing Saddam.” Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang later writes: “If this was a decision meeting, it was strange. It ended in a presidential order to prepare contingency plans for war in Iraq.” [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Regime Change Intended from the Outset - US Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, later recalls: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.… From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” O’Neill will say officials never questioned the logic behind this policy. No one ever asked, “Why Saddam?” and “Why now?” Instead, the issue that needed to be resolved was how this could be accomplished. “It was all about finding a way to do it,” O’Neill will explain. “That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this.’” [CBS News, 1/10/2004; New York Times, 1/12/2004; Guardian, 1/12/2004; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 234] Another official who attends the meeting will later say that the tone of the meeting implied a policy much more aggressive than that of the previous administration. “The president told his Pentagon officials to explore the military options, including use of ground forces,” the official will tell ABC News. “That went beyond the Clinton administration’s halfhearted attempts to overthrow Hussein without force.” [ABC News, 1/13/2004] Unger later writes, “These were the policies that even the Israeli right had not dared to implement.” One senior administration official says after the meeting, “The Likudniks are really in charge now.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 201]
Funding the Iraqi National Congress - The council does more than just discuss Iraq. It makes a decision to allow the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi opposition group, to use $4 million to fund efforts inside Iraq to compile information relating to Baghdad’s war crimes, military operations, and other internal developments. The money had been authorized by Congress in late 2004. The US has not directly funded Iraqi opposition activities inside Iraq itself since 1996. [Guardian, 2/3/2005]
White House Downplays Significance - After Paul O’Neill first provides his account of this meeting in 2004, the White House will attempt to downplay its significance. “The stated policy of my administration toward Saddam Hussein was very clear,” Bush will tell reporters during a visit to Mexico In January 2004. “Like the previous administration, we were for regime change.… And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with desert badger or fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks, and so we were fashioning policy along those lines.” [New York Times, 1/12/2004]

Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Hugh Shelton, Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Craig Unger, Iraqi National Congress

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Key Events Related to DSM, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

February 2001: Bush: If US Determines that Iraq Is Developing WMD, ‘We Will Take the Appropriate Action’

President Bush hosts British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David. Iraq is on the agenda. Bush and Blair tell reporters that they want to restructure the sanctions on Iraq through the United Nations, using what the White House calls “smart sanctions”—sanctions that are designed to constrain the Iraqi government without harming the Iraqi citizenry. The new sanctions are primarily aimed at tightening controls on “dual-use” goods, items that can be used for both civilian and military purposes, and to keep the regime from getting illicit funds from oil smuggling. Bush says: “A change in sanctions should not in any way, shape, or form, embolden Saddam Hussein. He has got to understand that we are going to watch him carefully and, if we catch him developing weapons of mass destruction, we’ll take the appropriate action. And if we catch him threatening his neighbors we will take the appropriate action.” In 2008, former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan will write: “Saddam was viewed more as a ‘problem’ to deal with than a ‘grave and gathering danger’ in the early days. Talk centered on if he was developing WMD, not that he was developing them.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 93-94]

Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Scott McClellan, United Nations, Tony Blair

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Pre-9/11 Plans for War

February 2001 and After: Bush Administration Begins Planning for Regime Change in Iraq

“Within weeks” of taking office, the Bush administration begins planning for a post-Saddam Iraqi government. The State Department convenes a series of secret discussions attended by prominent Iraqi expatriates, many with ties to US industries, to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq. The meetings are held in the home of Falah Aljibury, an adviser to OPEC, Goldman Sachs, and Amerada Hess’s oil trading arm. He also served as Ronald Reagan’s backchannel to Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. According to Aljibury, the discussion group, led by Pamela Quanrud, an NSC economics expert, quickly evolves into an “oil group.” The plan they develop is said to represent the views of the oil industry and the State Department. According to the plan, Saddam Hussein would be replaced by some former Baathist general, while the rest of the government would continue to function as before. One of the candidates that is considered to head post-Saddam Iraq is Gen. Nizar Khazrahi (see Between February 2001 and February 2003), who is under house arrest in Denmark awaiting trial for war crimes. “The petroleum industry, the chemical industry, the banking industry—they’d hoped that Iraq would go for a revolution like in the past and government was shut down for two or three days,” Aljibury will later tell reporter Greg Palast. “You have martial law… and say Iraq is being liberated and everybody stay where they are… Everything as is.” [BBC Newsnight, 3/17/2005; Democracy Now!, 3/21/2005; Harper's, 4/2005, pp. 74-76]

Entity Tags: Falah Aljibury, Pamela Quanrud, Bush administration, Nizar Khazrahi

Category Tags: Motives, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Planning

February 1, 2001: Rumsfeld Wants to Get Rid of Hussein in Iraq; Envisions Iraq After Hussein Is Gone

The Bush White House holds its second National Security Council meeting. Like the first meeting (see January 30, 2001), the issue of regime change in Iraq is a central topic. [CBS News, 1/10/2004; New York Times, 1/12/2004] Officials discuss a memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,” which talks about troop requirements, establishing war crimes tribunals, and divvying up Iraq’s oil wealth. [ [Sources: Paul O’Neill] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld interrupts Colin Powell’s discussion of UN-based sanctions against Iraq, saying, “Sanctions are fine. But what we really want to discuss is going after Saddam.” He continues, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond it. It would demonstrate what US policy is all about.” [Suskind, 2004, pp. 85-86 Sources: Paul O’Neill] According to Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Rumsfeld talks at the meeting “in general terms about post-Saddam Iraq, dealing with the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, the reconstruction of the country’s economy, and the ‘freeing of the Iraqi people.’” [New York Times, 1/12/2004 Sources: Paul O’Neill] Other people, in addition to O’Neill, Bush, and Rumsfeld, who are likely in attendance include Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers. [US President, 2/13/2001]

Entity Tags: Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush, George J. Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard B. Myers

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Planning, The Decision to Invade, Key Events Related to DSM

February 21, 2001: US and British Forces Bomb Iraqi Military Facilities, Leading to Conflict within US Military Leadership

A joint US-British air force strike team bombs 20 radar and command centers inside Iraq, enforcing the UN no-fly zones in the largest air strikes within Iraq in two years. While the White House is informed of the strikes by a general from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is livid because he feels he hasn’t been given enough information about the strikes quickly enough. Rumsfeld’s information comes to him, by established law and protocol, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry Shelton; thus it could be hours before Rumsfeld learns of such events. Saying, “I’m the secretary of defense. I’m in the chain of command,” Rumsfeld decides to upend the entire system and ensure that he, not Shelton, will be informed first about any such operations. Rumsfeld presses Shelton for information about the reporting of the air strikes: who had selected those targets and why, who had briefed, who had been briefed, and most importantly, why wasn’t Rumsfeld consulted? CNN had reported air strikes in Baghdad, though the actual bases struck were not in the city itself; it looked for a moment if the US had just declared unilateral war on Iraq. Rumsfeld feels misled and ignored. He is the one in the chain of command, he insists, he is the one reporting to the president, so he should be informed first. Shelton replies that he has to know what’s going on, to know what details to press for and what questions to ask, in order to properly inform the Secretary of Defense, who can then properly inform the president. Rumsfeld insists on being informed before Shelton, and demands a top-to-bottom review of the procedures involving the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and detailed timelines of each incident where Shelton was informed before Rumsfeld. [Woodward, 2006, pp. 22-25]

Entity Tags: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Hugh Shelton, US Department of Defense, National Military Command Center

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Attacks against Iraq

Spring 2001: White House Pressures CIA to Drop Objection to Chalabi

During a White House meeting, Bush administration officials discuss new proposals on how to undermine Saddam Hussein. At one point during the meeting, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley tells Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin that the CIA needs to stop bad-mouthing Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi so the Bush administration can work with Chalabi to overthrow the Iraqi government. McLaughlin reportedly makes it clear to Hadley that the agency will not undermine White House efforts to work with Chalabi. Hadley’s pressure on the CIA produces the intended results. Though the CIA will never work directly with Chalabi, the CIA will nonetheless allow the Pentagon to disseminate intelligence reports to other US intelligence agencies based on information from Iraqi defectors supplied by Chalabi’s organization, the Iraqi National Congress. One CIA official later tells author James Risen that the White House message to drop its objections to Chalabi was sent to the CIA “a thousand times, in a thousand different ways.” [Risen, 2006, pp. 183-184]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, John E. McLaughlin, Ahmed Chalabi, Stephen J. Hadley

Category Tags: Politicization of Intelligence, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

Between March 2001 and May 2001: Richard Clarke: Bush Officials Discuss Creating Casus Belli for War with Iraq

Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke later says that sometime between March and May, Bush administration officials discussed creating a casus belli for war with Iraq. In a 2007 interview with radio show host Jon Elliot, Clarke says: “Prior to 9/11 a number of people in the White House were saying to me you know this—this administration, particularly Cheney, but also Bush [and] people like Wolfowitz in the Pentagon, are really intent on going to war with Iraq. And this was the whispered conversations in the National Security Council staff.… Early, early on in the administration people I knew and trusted in the administration were saying to me, ‘You know. They’re really going to do it. They are going to go to war with Iraq.’ And I was flabbergasted. Why would you want to do that of all the things in the world that one could choose to do?… And how are we going to do it? How are we going to cause that provocation? And there was some discussion of ‘Well maybe [we’ll] keep flying aircraft over Iraq and maybe one day one of them will be shot down.’… And some of the talk I was hearing—in the March, April, May timeframe—‘Maybe we’ll do something that is so provocative and do it in such a way that our aircraft will be shot down.’ And then we’ll have an excuse to go to war with Iraq.” [Jon Elliot Show, 1/11/2007 Sources: Richard A. Clarke]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, Richard A. Clarke

Timeline Tags: Alleged Use of False Flag Attacks, Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

March 2001: US Begins Giving Weapons Training to Members of INC

Retired US soldiers give weapons training to members of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. The five-day training session takes place in College Station, Texas, and is said to only be the first round of training. The INC has a contract with the Guidry Group, a consulting firm comprised of ex-secret service agents, to learn diplomatic security. Previously, the US backed training for the INC, but limited it only to “non-lethal” activities such as public relations, emergency medical care, and war crimes investigations. But with the Bush administration newly in power, approval has been given to let the INC learn how to use 12-gauge shotguns, pistols, Kalishnikov rifles, and other fire-arms. Retired Gen. Wayne Downing says, “This is significant because this is the first lethal training. It is designed to protect, so the significance is that this is the first time they are being trained to do anything on this level.” Downing, who has been advising the INC for three years, calls the training “a drop in the bucket.” He adds, “This is not the training they will need to put together a liberation army. There you would need individual training, basic training, weapons training, involving anti tank weapons, machine guns, rockets and that sort of thing.” The Washington Post will later call Downing the INC’s “mentor and biggest cheerleader.” [United Press International, 2/12/2001; Washington Post, 11/20/2001]

Entity Tags: Ahmed Chalabi, Wayne Downing, Guidry Group, Iraqi National Congress

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

March 2001: Cheney’s Energy Task Force Eyes Iraq’s Oil Reserves

Cheney’s Energy Task Force authors a variety of documents relating to the oil industries of Iraq, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. [Judicial Watch, 7/17/2003; CBS News, 1/10/2004; New York Times, 1/12/2004]
Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts - This document, dated March 5, 2001, includes a table listing 30 countries which have interests in Iraq’s oil industry. The document also includes the names of companies that have interests, the oil fields with which those interests are associated, as well as the statuses of those interests. [Vice President, 2001 ; Vice President, 2001]
Map of Iraq's oil fields - The map includes markings for “supergiant” oil fields of 5 billion barrels or more, other oilfields, fields “earmarked for production sharing,” oil pipelines, operational refineries, and tanker terminals. [Vice President, 2001 ]
Other documents - Other documents include oil field maps and project tables for both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates [Vice President, 2001; Vice President, 2001; Vice President, 2001; Vice President, 2001]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: The Decision to Invade, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Motives

March, 2001: Perle Says Hussein Has Weapons of Mass Destruction

Defense Policy Board chairman and prominent neoconservative Richard Perle tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Does Saddam [Hussein] now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons.…How far he’s gone on the nuclear-weapons side I don’t think we really know. My guess is it’s further than we think. It’s always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we’re able to prove and demonstrate…. And, unless you believe that we’ve uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we’re able to report.” Perle fails to offer any evidence of his claims to the senators, and fails to provide evidence from UN inspectors that shows virtually all of Iraq’s WMD stockpiles and programs have long since been destroyed. [Hersh, 2004, pp. 209-210]

Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Saddam Hussein

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Attacks against Iraq

April 12, 2001: Report on Energy Security Argues US Needs to Review Policy on Iraq

A report commissioned by former US Secretary of State James Baker and the Council on Foreign Relations, titled “Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century,” is completed and submitted to Vice President Dick Cheney. The report was drafted by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Edward L. Morse, an energy industry analyst, chaired the project, and Amy Myers Jaffe was the project’s director. The paper urges the US to formulate a comprehensive, integrated strategic energy policy to address the current energy crisis, which it attributes to infrastructural restraints, rapid global economic expansion, and the presence of obstacles to foreign investment in the oil-rich Middle East. The report says the world’s supply of oil is not a factor in the crisis. “The reasons for the energy challenge have nothing to do with the global hydrocarbon resource base…. The world will not run short of hydrocarbons in the foreseeable future,” the paper says. One of the report’s recommendations is to “[r]eview policies toward Iraq” with the ultimate goal of stemming the tide of anti-Americanism in the Middle-East and “eas[ing] Iraqi oil-field investment restrictions.” Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, remains a “destabilizing influence… to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East.” It also notes, “Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets.” Therefore, the report says, the “United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic, and political/diplomatic assessments” and work with key allies to develop a new integrated strategy toward Iraq. Key elements of the new policy should include narrowing the focus of sanctions and using diplomatic means to enforce existing UN resolutions. [University, 4/2/2001 ; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 10/5/2002; Sydney Morning Herald, 12/26/2002]

Entity Tags: Council on Foreign Relations, James A. Baker, Edward L. Morse, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Amy Myers Jaffe, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy of Rice University

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Motives, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade, Key Events Related to DSM

(Show related quotes)

Excerpts

“[T]he United States remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma, suffering on a recurring basis from the negative consequences of sporadic energy shortages. These consequences can include recession, social dislocation of the poorest Americans, and at the extremes, a need for military intervention.” — April 2001 [University, 4/2/2001, pp. 34 ; University, 4/2/2001, pp. 34 ]
“Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to… the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East. Saddam Hussein has also demonstrated a willingness to threaten to use the oil weapon and to use his own export program to manipulate oil markets. This would display his personal power, enhance his image as a pan-Arab leader and pressure others for a lifting of economic sanctions against his regime. The United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq including military, energy, economic and political/diplomatic assessments. The United States should then develop an integrated strategy with key allies in Europe and Asia, and with key countries in the Middle East, to restate goals with respect to Iraqi policy and to restore a cohesive coalition of key allies…” — April 2001 [University, 4/2/2001, pp. 42 ; University, 4/2/2001, pp. 42 ]
“Iraqi [oil] reserves represent a major asset that can quickly add capacity to world oil markets and inject a more competitive tenor to oil trade.” — April 2001 [University, 4/2/2001, pp. 43 ; University, 4/2/2001, pp. 43 ]

May 2001: Feith, Perle, and Wolfowitz Discuss Iraq Invasion; Scowcroft Initially Favorable

According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, “Four months before 9/11”, FBI monitoring overhears Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz “discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the US would invade Iraq and divide the country.… They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil.” National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, later a critic of the Iraq War, is initially in favor of the plan, but will later drop his support when it becomes clear Turkish demands for control of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq will not be granted. [The American Conservative, 11/1/2009]

Entity Tags: Sibel Edmonds, Brent Scowcroft, Douglas Feith, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Paul Wolfowitz

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War

Late July or Early August 2001: US Authorities Look into Theory that Iraq Had Role in 1993 WTC Bombing

Laurie Mylroie. [Source: Publicity photo]US authorities re-open the files on Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the WTC bombing in 1993, and begin looking into the theory that Yousef may have actually been an Iraqi agent. Presumably this is in response to requests by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz the month before to look into the matter (see June 2001). Yousef was convicted in 1996 (see September 5, 1996) and has been in custody since 1995 (see February 7, 1995). According to the official version of events, Yousef’s real name is Abdul Basit, a 27-year-old Pakistani who until 1989 was a computer student studying in South Wales. In late 2000, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America arguing in support of the theory that Yousef was actually an Iraqi agent (see October 2000). The book, written by AEI scholar Laurie Mylroie, says that Basit was living with his parents in Kuwait in 1990 when Iraq invaded the country (see November 8, 1990). During the occupation, Iraqis presumably murdered him and his family and then altered police files so Iraqi intelligence could use his identity. [New Republic, 9/13/2001; London Times, 9/22/2001] In February 2001, former CIA Director James Woolsey traveled to Britain in an attempt to find evidence to support this theory (see February 2001). But Mylroie’s theory is debunked by authorities who match the fingerprints of Yousef to those of Basit. [Washington Monthly, 12/2003; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 81]

Entity Tags: Ramzi Yousef, American Enterprise Institute, Abdul Basit, Laurie Mylroie, Paul Wolfowitz

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War

Summer 2001: IAEA Scientist: US ‘Wants to Attack’ Iraq

After CIA analyst Joe Turner’s presentation to UN atomic energy scientists (see Late July 2001), one of the scientists calls David Albright, a nuclear physicist who runs the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, and warns him that the “people across the river [i.e., the CIA] are trying to start a war. They are really beating the drum. They want to attack.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 37]

Entity Tags: David Albright, Institute for Science and International Security, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade, Aluminum Tubes Allegation

August 6, 2001: Perle’s Concern About Iraq, North Korea, and Iran Before 9/11 Becomes Axis of Evil Afterward

Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board and foreign policy adviser 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…” [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/6/2001] Note that these three nations are the same three named in Bush’s famous January 2002 “axis of evil” speech (see January 29, 2002). [US President, 2/4/2002]

Entity Tags: Richard Perle, North Korea, Iran, Saddam Hussein

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War

September 2, 2001: Bush Administration Enthusiastic to ‘Take Down Saddam Once and For All’

Time magazine reports, “Enthusiasm is building inside the Administration to take down Saddam once and for all. Powell too would love to see Saddam [Hussein] unhorsed, says an official at State. ‘But you need a serious plan that’s doable. The question is how many lives and resources you have to risk.’” Powell is said to have doubts about how to remove Hussein, and calls such an idea still “hypothetical.” But Time notes that “plenty of others on the Bush team are gung-ho.” [Time, 9/2/2001]

Entity Tags: Colin Powell, Saddam Hussein, Bush administration

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade

Mid-September, 2001: Cheney and Rumsfeld Create ‘Cabal’ to Influence Foreign Policy

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz create a secretive, ad hoc intelligence bureau within the Pentagon that they mockingly dub “The Cabal.” This small but influential group of neoconservatives is tasked with driving US foreign policy and intelligence reporting towards the goal of promoting the invasion of Iraq. To this end, the group—which later is folded into the slightly more official Office of Special Plans (OSP) (see 2002-2003)—gathers and interprets raw intelligence data for itself, refusing the participation of the experts in the CIA and DIA, and reporting, massaging, manipulating, and sometimes falsifying that information to suit their ends. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003] In October 2005, Larry Wilkerson, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, will say of the Cabal and the OSP (see October 2005), “What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made. Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.” [Financial Times, 10/20/2005]

Entity Tags: Thomas Franks, Paul Wolfowitz, Office of Special Plans, “The Cabal”, Central Intelligence Agency, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Colin Powell, Douglas Feith, Lawrence Wilkerson, Defense Intelligence Agency, Donald Rumsfeld

Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, Domestic Propaganda

Category Tags: Alleged WMDs, Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Media Coverage, Politicization of Intelligence, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Planning, Propaganda, The Decision to Invade, Aluminum Tubes Allegation, Poisons and Gases, Office of Special Plans, Alleged WMDs, Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties, Media Coverage, Politicization of Intelligence, Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Pre-war Planning, Propaganda, The Decision to Invade, Aluminum Tubes Allegation, Poisons and Gases, Office of Special Plans

September 17, 2001: Republican Senator: US Needs to Foment Regime Change in Middle Eastern Countries

Senator George Allen (R-VA) says on CNN that the US needs to consider fomenting regime change in Iraq, Iran, and Syria. [Unger, 2007, pp. 217]

Entity Tags: George F. Allen

Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, The Decision to Invade, Democracy Rhetoric

Autumn 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill Helps Train US Special Forces while FBI Investigates Him

In autumn 2002, US Delta Force units train on a mobile biological weapons factory to prepare them for dealing with mobile biological weapons factories in Iraq. The factory is just like the factories the US accuses the Iraqi government of having but which it does not have. The chief designer of the factory is Steven Hatfill, who is also the FBI’s main suspect at the time for the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Hatfill began designing the factory while working for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a contractor for the US military and the CIA. He begins gathering parts to build it in 2000, and construction began in September 2001, at a metalworking plant near Fort Detrick, Maryland. SAIC fired him in March 2002, after he failed to get a high-level security clearance and he came under suspicion for the October 2001 anthrax attacks. But Hatfill continues to work on the half-built factory on his own, for no pay, until it is finished later that year. Once it is done, Hatfill continues to advise the US military about it, and sometimes supervises Delta Force training exercises on it at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. However, at the same time, the Justice Department and the FBI is heavily investigating Hatfill for the anthrax attacks, and there is a conflict between agencies over Hatfill’s continued role with the factory. The FBI wants to confiscate the factory, but the military will not give it up. Its equipment includes a fermenter, a centrifuge, and “a mill for grinding clumps of anthrax into the best size for penetrating human lungs,” according to experts familiar with it. However, its components are not connected and it is never used to make lethal germs. The FBI examines the unit but finds no anthrax spores or any other evidence linking it to the anthrax attacks. [New York Times, 7/2/2003] Hatfill will be cleared of any connection to the anthrax attacks in 2008 (see June 27, 2008).

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Steven Hatfill, Delta Force

Timeline Tags: 2001 Anthrax Attacks

Category Tags: Pre-9/11 Plans for War, Alleged WMDs, 2001 Anthrax Attacks

September 2002: ’Office of Special Plans’ Created; ‘Stovepipes’ Questionable Intelligence Reports to Office of Vice President

William Luti. [Source: Helene C. Stikkel / Defense Department]Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, both staunch neoconservatives, rename the Northern Gulf Affairs Office on the Pentagon’s fourth floor (in the seventh corridor of D Ring) the “Office of Special Plans” (OSP) and increase its four-person staff to sixteen. [Knight Ridder, 8/16/2002; Los Angeles Times, 11/24/2002; New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Tom Paine (.com), 8/27/2003; American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] William Luti, a former navy officer and ex-aide to Vice President Cheney, is put in charge of the day-to-day operations [Guardian, 7/17/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] , apparently at the behest of Cheney. Luti was, according to former Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang, a member of Cheney’s “shadow National Security Council.” [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Transforming NESA - Luti worked for the Near East and South Asian Affairs desk (NESA) at the Pentagon since mid-2001. Lang later describes NESA as having been “a Pentagon backwater, responsible primarily for arranging bilateral meetings with military counterparts” from various nations. Before the Afghanistan war, NESA worked closely with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Near East, South Asia, and Counterterrorism. During Luti’s first months at NESA, the DIO was Bruce Hardcastle. The Pentagon dismantled the entire DIO system, partly because of friction between Luti and Hardcastle (see Early 2002). Lang will write, “The roots of the friction between Hardcastle and Luti were straightforward: Hardcastle brought with him the combined wisdom of the professional military intelligence community. The community had serious doubts about the lethality of the threat from Saddam Hussein, the terrorism links and the status of the Iraqi WMD programs. Luti could not accept this. He knew what he wanted: to bring down Saddam Hussein. Hardcastle could not accept the very idea of allowing a desired outcome to shape the results of analysis.” Luti transforms NESA into what Lang will call “a ‘de facto’ arm of the vice president’s office,” and in the process shuts Hardcastle out of NESA (and later OSP) intelligence briefings. Luti does not report to either Feith or Donald Rumsfeld, as his chain of command delineates, but to Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. OSP staffer Karen Kwiatkowski later recalls being “shocked” to learn that Luti reports to Libby and not to his putative Pentagon superiors. She will say, “In one of the first staff meetings that I attended there, Bill Luti said, ‘Well, did you get that thing over to Scooter? Scooter wants this, and somebody’s got to get it over to him, and get that up to him right away.’ After the meeting, I asked one of my co-workers, who’d been there longer, ‘Who is this Scooter?’ I was told, ‘That’s Scooter Libby over at the OVP (Office of the Vice President). He’s the Vice President’s chief of staff.’ Later I came to understand that Cheney had put Luti there.” Under Luti, NESA becomes a virtual adjunct to the OSP. [Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Strong Neoconservative Influence - The Office of Special Plans is staffed with a tight group of like-minded neoconservative ideologues, who are known advocates of regime change in Iraq. Notably, the staffers have little background in intelligence or Iraqi history and culture. [Salon, 7/16/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] Some of the people associated with this office were earlier involved with the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, also known as the “Wurmser-Maloof” project (see Shortly After September 11, 2001). They hire “scores of temporary ‘consultants‘… including like-minded lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous right-wing think-tanks in the US capital.” Neoconservative ideologues, like Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Newt Gingrich, are afforded direct input into the Office of Special Plans. [Guardian, 7/17/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150] Kwiatkowski later says she saw Ledeen going “in and out of there (OSP) all the time.” [Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150]
Planning for Post-Saddam Iraq - The official business of Special Plans is to help plan for post-Saddam Iraq. The office’s staff members presumably “develop defense policies aimed at building an international coalition, prepare the secretary of defense and his top deputies for interagency meetings, coordinate troop-deployment orders, craft policies for dealing with prisoners of war and illegal combatants, postwar assistance and reconstruction policy planning, postwar governance, Iraqi oil infrastructure policy, postwar Iraqi property disputes, war crimes and atrocities, war-plan review and, in their spare time, prepare congressional testimony for their principals.” [Insight, 12/2/2003]
Covert Source of 'Alternative' Intelligence - But according to numerous well-placed sources, the office becomes a source for many of the administration’s prewar allegations against Iraq. It is accused of exaggerating, politicizing, and misrepresenting intelligence, which is “stovepiped” to top administration officials who use the intelligence in their policy decisions on Iraq. [Knight Ridder, 8/16/2002; Los Angeles Times, 11/24/2002; New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Tom Paine (.com), 8/27/2003; American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Daily Telegraph, 7/11/2004; CNN, 7/11/2004]
'Top Secret' - There are very few news reports in the American mainstream media that report on the office. In fact, the office is reportedly Top Secret. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 308] “We were instructed at a staff meeting that this office was not to be discussed or explained,” Kwiatkowski will later say, “and if people in the Joint Staff, among others, asked, we were to offer no comment.” [American Conservative, 12/1/2003]
Part of a 'Separate Government,' Powell Feels - Colin Powell is said to have felt that Cheney and the neoconservatives in this “Gestapo” office had established what was essentially a separate government. [Washington Post, 4/17/2004] Powell’s former chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, is even more blunt. “When I say ‘secret cabal,’ I mean ‘secret cabal,’ he says of the White House officials behind the OSP. He compares Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neoconservatives to the Jacobins, the radical zealots who plunged 18th-century France into the Reign of Terror. “I see them as messianic advocates of American power from one end of the globe, much as the Jacobins in France were messianic advocates of the French Revolution. I don’t care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. You’re never going to bring utopia, and you’re going to hurt a lot of people in the process.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 299-300] Among the claims critics find most troubling about the office are:
Heavy Reliance on Intelligence from Exiles and Defectors - The office relies heavily on accounts from Iraqi exiles and defectors associated with Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC), long considered suspect by other US intelligence agencies. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Independent, 9/30/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] One defector in particular, code-named “Curveball,” provides as much as 98 percent of the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged arsenal of biological weapons. [CNN, 7/11/2004] Much of the information provided by the INC’s sources consists of “misleading and often faked intelligence reports,” which often flow to Special Plans and NESA directly, “sometimes through Defense Intelligence Agency debriefings of Iraqi defectors via the Defense Human Intelligence Service and sometimes through the INC’s own US-funded Intelligence Collection Program, which was overseen by the Pentagon.” [Mother Jones, 1/2004] According to Kwiatkowski, the movement of intelligence from the INC to the Office of Special Plans is facilitated by a Colonel Bruner, a former military aide to Gingrich. [Newsweek, 12/15/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Salon, 3/10/2004] Bruner “was Chalabi’s handler,” Kwiatkowski will tell Mother Jones. “He would arrange meetings with Chalabi and Chalabi’s folks.” [Mother Jones, 1/2004] Kwiatkowski also finds that OSP personnel, along with DIA and CIA officials, are taking part in the debriefing of INC informants. She will recall confronting one DIA officer, John Trigilio, about the practice: “I argued with [Tregilio] after the president’s Cincinnati speech (see October 5, 2002 and October 6, 2002). I told him that the president had made a number of statements that were just not supported by the intelligence. He said that the president’s statements are supported by intelligence, and he would finally say, ‘We have sources that you don’t have.’ I took it to mean the sources that Chalabi was bringing in for debriefing… Trigilio told me he participated in a number of debriefs, conducted in hotels downtown, or wherever, of people that Chalabi brought in. These debriefs had Trigilio from OSP, but also CIA and DIA participated… If [the information] sounded good, it would go straight to the OVP or elsewhere. I don’t put it out of possibility that the information would go straight to the media because of the (media’s) close relationship with some of the neoconservatives. So this information would make it straight out into the knowledge base without waiting for intelligence [analysts] to come by with their qualifications and reservations.” [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Cherry-Picked Intelligence - The Office of Special Plans purposefully ignores intelligence that undermines the case for war while exaggerating any leads that support it. “It wasn’t intelligence—it was propaganda,” Kwiatkowski will later explain. “They’d take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don’t belong together.” [New York Times, 10/24/2002; New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Independent, 9/30/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] “At the OSP, what they were doing was looking at all the intelligence they could find on WMD. That was the focal point, picking bits and pieces that were the most inflammatory, removing any context that might have been provided in the original intelligence report, that would have caused you to have some pause in believing it or reflected doubts that the intelligence community had, so if the intelligence community had doubts, those would be left out… They would take items that had occurred many years ago, and put them in the present tense, make it seem like they occurred not many years ago… But they would not talk about the dates; they would say things like, ‘He has continued since that time’ and ‘He could do it tomorrow,’ which of course, wasn’t true… The other thing they would do would be to take unrelated events that were reported in totally unrelated ways and make connections that the intelligence community had not made. This was primarily in discussing Iraq’s activities and how they might be related to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups that might be against us, or against Israel… These kinds of links would be made. They would be made casually, and they would be made in a calculated way to form an image that is definitely not the image that anyone reading the original reports would have. The summaries that we would see from Intelligence did not match the kinds of things that OSP was putting out. So that is what I call propaganda development. It goes beyond the manipulation of intelligence to propaganda development.” [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
No Intelligence Oversight - The OSP bypasses established oversight procedures by sending its intelligence assessments directly to the White House and National Security Council without having them first vetted by a review process involving other US intelligence agencies. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] The people at Special Plans are so successful at bypassing conventional procedures, in part, because their neoconservative colleagues hold key positions in several other agencies and offices. Their contacts in other agencies include: John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security; Bolton’s adviser, David Wurmser, a former research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute, who was just recently working in a secret Pentagon planning unit at Douglas Feith’s office (see Shortly After September 11, 2001); Elizabeth Cheney, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs; Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser; Elliott Abrams, the National Security Council’s top Middle East aide; and Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Policy Board. The office provides very little information about its work to other US intelligence offices. [Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003]
'Stealth Organization' - Greg Thielmann, the former director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the State Department’s Intelligence Bureau, later says of the OSP: “It was a stealth organization. They didn’t play in the intelligence community proceedings that our office participated in. When the intelligence community met as a community, there was no OSP represented in these sessions. Because, if they had done that, they would have had to subject their views to peer review. Why do that when you can send stuff right in to the vice president?” [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 299] Lang will say in January 2004 that what happened was fundamentally different from anything that had happened under previous presidents. Cheney’s staff and allies “behaved as though they had seized control of the government in a ‘silent coup,’” The result, according to Lang, is “a highly corrupted system of intelligence and policymaking, one twisted to serve specific group goals, ends, and beliefs held to the point of religious faith.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 301]
Pressuring Intelligence Analysts - Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Dale Davis, who headed the International Programs Department at the Virginia Military Institute until March 2004, and an expert on Middle East affairs, later says he believes intelligence analysts at the CIA and other agencies were pressured indirectly. Davis will say, “By creating the OSP [Office of Special Plans], Cheney was able to say, ‘Hey, look at what we’re getting out of OSP. How come you guys aren’t doing as well? What is your response to what this alternative analysis that we’re receiving from the Pentagon says?’ That’s how you do it. You pressure people indirectly.” Vincent Cannistraro, a former senior counterterrorism official with the CIA, will agree: “Over a long period of time, there was a subtle process of pressure and intimidation until people started giving them what was wanted… When the Senate Intelligence Committee interviewed, under oath, over 100 analysts, not one of them said, ‘I changed my assessment because of pressure.‘… The environment was conditioned in such a way that the analyst subtly leaned toward the conceits of the policymakers… The intelligence community was vulnerable to the aggressiveness of neoconservative policymakers, particularly at the Pentagon and at the VP’s office. As one analyst said to me, ‘You can’t fight something with nothing, and those people had something. Whether it was right or wrong, fraudulent or specious, it almost didn’t make any difference, because the policymakers believed it already, and if you didn’t have hard countervailing evidence to persuade them, then you were at a loss.’” [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Strong Pro-Israel, Anti-Arab Biases - Lastly, the people involved in Special Plans openly exhibit strong pro-Israel and anti-Arab bias. The problem, note critics, is that the analysis of intelligence is supposed to be apolitical and untainted by ideological viewpoints. [American Conservative, 12/1/2003] According to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, Special Plans is the group responsible for the claim Bush will make in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from an African country (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). [Nation, 6/19/2003; Information Clearing House, 7/16/2003]
Personal Grudges against Intelligence Community - The OSP reflects the personal grudges and ill will of many in the Office of the Vice President against the intelligence community, in part because of the CIA’s refusal to give much weight to the claims of Chalabi and the INC. “This had been a fight for such a long period of time, where people were so dug in,” a friend of one of Vice President Cheney’s senior staffers will later reflect. A colleague of the senior staff later says, “They so believed that the CIA were wrong, they were like, ‘We want to show these f_ckers that they are wrong.’” [New Republic, 11/20/2003]
Propaganda - Kwiatkowski will later recall that the OSP generated a large amount of what she terms propaganda, in the form of “talking points” used in briefings and in press conferences. “With the talking points, many of the propagandistic bullets that were given to use in papers for our superiors to inform them—internal propaganda—many of those same phrases and assumptions and tones, I saw in Vice President Cheney’s speeches and the president’s speeches,” she will say. “So I got the impression that those talking points were not just for us, but were the core of an overall agenda for a disciplined product, beyond the Pentagon. Over at the vice president’s office and the [neoconservative news magazine] Weekly Standard, the media, and the neoconservative talking heads and that kind of thing, all on the same sheet of music.” Kwiatkowski identifies Abram Shulsky, a neoconservative academic and recent Pentagon hire, as the source of many of these talking points. [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Denials, Counter-Accusations after Public Learns of OSP - After the existence of the Office of Special Plans is revealed to the public, the Pentagon will deny that it served as a direct conduit to the White House for misleading intelligence, instead claiming that its activities had been limited to postwar plans for Iraq. [New York

Wikeleaks Exposed Bush 1 approved Saddam ‘s invasion of Iraq, then turned tables and made Saddam a neo Hitler. Ron Paul addressed congress about this crime and the start of the 20 years war.

More than one million Iraqi deaths since US invasion

As part of its campaign to justify a long-term US occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration has increasingly resorted to warning of chaos and even genocide in the wake of a withdrawal of American troops. But a new report suggests that something akin to genocide is already taking place, under American auspices.

The British polling agency ORB reported Thursday that the death tool in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion has passed the one million mark.
According to ORB, US-occupied Iraq, with an estimated 1.2 million violent deaths, has “a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered),” with another one million wounded and millions more driven from their homes into internal or external exile.

Showing 1-20 of 100 recently added events: next 20

Thursday, January 18, 2007

The war in Iraq is the war of President Bush

1999: George W. Bush Hints at Invading Iraq in Future Presidency
The war in Iraq is the war of President Bush and every cowardly member of Congress who voted to give him war-waging powers out of fear of being viewed as "unpatriotic" in the wake of 9/11. Bush's definition of victory is an Iraq where everyone gets along and it is a peaceful, democratic society. Good luck with that.

Hot Zone Documentary

Bush calls for permanent US military occupation of Iraq in nationally televised address
How cruel it is to keep sending American soldiers into this meat grinder in pursuit of this impossible dream! We need to pull out, let the Iraqis hash it out, and offer closely-audited economic aid to help the winners rebuild their country as reparations for the damage that we have allowed this president to do in our name.
Personally, I have more respect for someone like Clinton, who was up front about his objections to the Vietnam War and did what he could to avoid serving in it, than for George W. Bush, who avoided combat in the Air National Guard (courtesy of family influence), so that he could claim to have "served his country". That is the very definition of a hypocritical chicken hawk.

If I Die Before You Wake

Dedicated To The American Soldier, the men and women in uniform in the service of our country overseas.
It was reasonably certain that Saddam was not hiding any new WMD because once we had surrounded Iraq with our military, he didn't restrict access to any site. Bush still chose to invade for the petty reason of establishing his legacy as a "wartime president". George Tenet, no matter who appointed him, was the same type of weak-willed, eager-to-please, do-anything-to-keep-the-job person as Condoleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzales and sad to say, Colin Powell turned out to be.
Read it and weep.

"US and the Triumph of Unilateralism,"Asia Times, Sept. 10, 2002

"George Bush and the World,"New York Review of Books, Sept. 26, 2002 issue

"The Next World Order,"The New Yorker, March 25, 2002

"Saddam in the Crosshairs,"Village Voice, Nov. 21-27, 2001

"Rebuilding America's Defenses,"Project for a New Century, September 2000

"Statement of Principles,"Project for a New American Century, June 3, 1997

"Fortunes of war await Bush's circle after attacks on Iraq,"The Independent (UK), Sept. 15, 2002

"Don't Mention the O-Word,"The Economist, Sept. 12, 2002

"Backing on Iraq? Let's Make a Deal,"Los Angeles Times, Sept. 13, 2002

"In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil is a Key Issue,"Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2002

"Cronies in Arms,"New York Times, Sept. 17, 2002

"Questions That Won't Be Asked About Iraq,"U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Republican, Texas, Sept. 10, 2002

"Bombs Will Deepen Iraq's Nightmare: An Iraqi Dissident Speaks,"The Guardian, Sept. 17, 2002

"Looking War in the Face,"Boston Globe, Sept. 10, 2002

"Iraqgate,"Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 1993

1988: Bin Ladens Bail Out George W. Bush?
The WMD that were found were so old that they were no longer of any use, made from components supplied by us during the Iran-Iraq war. The slaughter of the Kurds using these weapons occurred in 1987 and 1988, while the darling of Conservatives, Ronald Reagan, stood by. I have nothing but respect for the military men and women who do what they are asked, but nothing but contempt for the cowards who sit comfortably in the White House sending them off to die for a legacy, not our protection.

June 4, 1992: FBI Investigates Ties Between George W. Bush and Saudi Money
sEL('1626004942-10001','10001')

Arbusto, HARKEN, Spectrum-7, Aloha -- Every company Bush W ever touched, he's run into the ground. Yet Poppy's family and friends, including James R Bath, the bin Mahfouz and bin Ladens, always help him out. No wonder he went off thinking of ENRON, Kenny Boy and all the possibilities.

James Bath. [Source: Time Life Images]The FBI investigates connections between James Bath and George W. Bush, according to published reports. Bath is Salem bin Laden’s official representative in the US. Bath’s business partner contends that, “Documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath and their huge financial resources to influence US policy,” since George W. Bush’s father is president. George W. Bush denies any connections to Saudi money. What becomes of this investigation is unclear, but no charges are ever filed. [Houston Chronicle, 6/4/1992] July 2000: Bush Meets with Suspected Terrorism Supporters

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Events Recently Added to the Inquiry into the decision to invade Iraq timeline

5/11 - Cheney Gives Speech at Institute of Petroleum, Autumn 1999, posted by Derek
4/19 - ConocoPhillips CEO ‘Covet[s] the Opportunity to Get’ Iraq Oil, February 2003, posted by Derek
4/19 - Former Iraqi Oil Minister Believes Iraq Could One Day Rival Saudi Arabia in Oil Production, February 2003, posted by Derek
4/19 - Shell Oil Looking for PR Officer with ‘Strong Family Connections’ to Work for Shell Iraq, August 2004, posted by Derek
4/18 - US-Educated Iraqi Oil Minister Announces that Plan for Privatization of Iraq’s Oil Industry is in the Works, September 4, 2003, posted by Derek

I am only showing all the sides of the spectrum. To be silent, in view of what is happening to our country is a crime. I have to speak up, not only because it is my right, but I do not want to be an enabler to the waste being done to my fellow citizen and to the world. The WTC event was capitalized by the Bush Administration's false justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neoconservatives to dramatically increase military spending in the wake of the Cold War, and to expand American power globally by means of military force. The plans for the attack on Iraq, was made 2 years in advance and decisions were already made by Bush and company to invade before 2003, the only problem was the selling of the war to the American people. Thereafter, the congress, the people got duped into believing Iraq was a threat and a terrorist base.

Again, Mr. Bush is doing the same kind of propaganda to convince the American public in the expansion of troop strength in Iraq. This may touch a wider war that will include Iran and Syria. Meanwhile, preparations are underway towards that objective. There are now two carrier battle groups in that area, instead of just one in the initial invasion previously. A navy admiral commands all the troops in that area, instead of the two battle tested field army or marine generals. Who needs a navy admiral in a land war, except for a wider war. Something big is in the works and being cooked as we speak. Those carrier battle groups represent a projection of power in a wider theater of war, there is a sinister plan in effect and could be the possible invasion of Iran and Syria. We do not need another war.

If Mr. Bush is using those carrier battle groups as a tool for gunboat diplomacy, we are being seen again by the people of the world as a bully. Congress, the people, should be aware of all these motives of our fearless leader, sacrificing our youth and duping us to another war. We do not need this war. The legislative branch of our government should check and balance the moves of this runaway administration.

The attack on Iraq caused the lives of over 1,200,000 civilians. The destruction of a sovereign country, that was not a threat to us. The total anarchy in Iraq that lead to a civil war, the blood and lives of our troops, the debasing of our economy only for what, the naivete of this president of the difference between Sunnis and Shiites (that Saddam was the stabilizing factor that prevented both sects from killing each other) or there is his axe to grind against Saddam, or is it the oil.........................ASC
Bush before the midterm election was trying to pass thru congress a provision to make him and his cronies safe from War Crimes Prosecution."Here's the deal: Under the War Crimes Act, violations of the Geneva Conventions are felonies, in some cases ... all punishable by death. When the Supreme Court ruled that the Geneva Convention applied to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees, President Bush and his boys were suddenly in big trouble. They've been working these prisoners over pretty good. In an effort to avoid possible prosecution they're trying to cram this bill through Congress before the end of the week before Congress adjourns. The reason there's such a rush to do this? If the Democrats get control of the House in November this kind of legislation probably wouldn't pass. "You wanna know the real disgrace about what these people are about to do or are in the process of doing? Senator Bill Frist and Congressman Dennis Hastert and their Republican stooges apparently don't see anything wrong with this. I really do wonder sometimes what we're becoming in this country."

If you're interested in knowing this other truth, horrible as it is, then I suggest you watch this and other videos. These atrocities, will continue until the American people wake up and put a stop to this evil. The first step is to understand and have an open mind that this could really be happening.

1999: George W. Bush Hints at Invading Iraq in Future Presidency

Mickey Herskowitz. [Source: Public domain]Presidential candidate George W. Bush tells prominent Texas author and Bush family friend Mickey Herskowitz, who is helping Bush write an autobiography, that as president he would invade Iraq if given the opportunity. “One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief,” Herskowitz remembers Bush saying. “My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of [Kuwait] and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.” Herskowitz later says he believes Bush’s comments were intended to distinguish himself from his father, rather than express a desire to invade Iraq.

Context of 'October 14, 2003: Libby Interviewed by FBI concerning Plame Wilson Leak'

This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event October 14, 2003: Libby Interviewed by FBI concerning Plame Wilson Leak. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.y Outs CIA Official to New York Times Reporter

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, “outs” a covert CIA agent to a reporter. Libby tells New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has been a reliable outlet for administration leaks and disinformation (see December 20, 2001, August 2002, and May 1, 2003), that Valerie Plame Wilson is a CIA official. Plame Wilson is a covert CIA officer currently working at CIA headquarters on WMD issues in the Middle East. More importantly for Libby, she is the husband of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went to Niger to verify the administration’s claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and who has become an outspoken critic of the administration’s war policies both on television and in print (see July 6, 2003).
Libby Blames CIA for 'Slanted Intell' - Miller meets Libby at the Old Executive Building. Her focus is, as she has written in her notebook, “Was the intell slanted?” meaning the intelligence used to propel the US into war with Iraq. Libby is “displeased,” she notes, by what he calls the “selective leaking” of information to the press by the CIA. He calls it a “hedging strategy,” and Miller quotes him in her notes: “If we find it, fine, if not, we hedged.” Miller feels that Libby is trying to use the interview to set up a conflict between the White House and the CIA. He says that reports suggesting senior administration officials may have selectively used some intelligence reports to bolster their claims about Iraq while ignoring others are “highly distorted.” The thrust of his conversation, Miller will later testify (see September 30, 2005), is to try to blame the CIA for the intelligence failures leading up to the Iraq invasion. The CIA is now trying to “hedge” its earlier assessments, Libby says. He accuses it of waging what he calls a “perverted war” against the White House over the issue, and is clearly angry that it failed to, in his view, share its “doubts about Iraq intelligence.” He tells Miller, “No briefer came in [after the State of the Union address] and said, ‘You got it wrong, Mr. President.’”
Joseph Wilson and 'Valerie Flame' - Libby refers to “a clandestine guy,” meaning Wilson, and tells Miller that Cheney “didn’t know” about him, attempting to disassociate Cheney from any responsibility for Wilson’s trip. In her notes, Miller writes, “wife works in bureau?” and she will later testify that she is sure Libby is referring to the CIA. In her notes, she also writes the words “Valerie Flame,” a misspelled reference to Wilson’s wife. [New York Times, 10/16/2005; Vanity Fair, 4/2006; Unger, 2007, pp. 310; MSNBC, 2/21/2007]
No Story from Interview - Miller does not write a story based on the conversation with Libby. [New York Times, 10/16/2005; New York Times, 10/16/2005]
Libby a 'Good-Faith Source' - Miller will later recall Libby as being “a good-faith source who was usually straight with me.” [New York Times, 10/16/2005] She will note that she was not accustomed to interviewing high-level White House officials such as him. For Miller, Libby was “a major figure” and “one of the most senior people I interviewed,” she will say. “I never interviewed the vice president, never met the president, and have met Karl Rove only once. I operated at the wonk level. That is why all of this stuff that came later about my White House spin is such bullsh_t. I did not talk to these people.… Libby was not a social friend, like Richard Perle.” [Vanity Fair, 4/2006]
Initial Incorrect Dating by Times - In October, the New York Times will initially, and incorrectly, identify the date of this conversation as June 25. [New York Times, 10/8/2005]

Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003: Libby Again Tells New York Times Reporter that Plame Wilson Is CIA Officer

The Library Lounge of the St. Regis Hotel, where Libby and Miller discussed the Wilsons. [Source: Starwood Hotels]Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, meets with New York Times reporter Judith Miller for breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. Libby has already learned that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is an undercover CIA agent (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and (June 12, 2003)).
Again Reveals Plame Wilson's CIA Identity - During their two-hour meeting, Libby again tells Miller, who will testify to this conversation over two years hence (see September 30, 2005), that Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent (see June 23, 2003), and this time tells Miller that she works with WINPAC, the CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control bureau that deals with foreign countries’ WMD programs.
Claims that Iraq Tried to Obtain African Uranium - Libby calls Wilson’s Times op-ed (see July 14, 2003) inaccurate, and spends a considerable amount of time and energy both blasting Wilson and insisting that credible evidence of an Iraq-Niger uranium connection indeed exists. He also says that few in the CIA were ever aware of Wilson’s 2002 trip to Niger to verify the uranium claims (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Miller will write: “Although I was interested primarily in my area of expertise—chemical and biological weapons—my notes show that Mr. Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration’s nuclear claims. His main theme echoed that of other senior officials: that contrary to Mr. Wilson’s criticism, the administration had had ample reason to be concerned about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities based on the regime’s history of weapons development, its use of unconventional weapons, and fresh intelligence reports.” Libby gives Miller selected information from the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (NIE—see October 1, 2002) that he says backs up the administration’s claims about Iraqi WMD and the Iraq-Niger uranium claim. That information will later be proven to be false: Cheney has instructed Libby to tell Miller that the uranium claim was part of the NIE’s “key judgments,” indicating that there was consensus on the claim’s validity. That is untrue. The claim is not part of the NIE’s key judgments, but is contained deeper in the document, surrounded by caveats such as the claims “cannot [be] confirm[ed]” and the evidence supporting the claim is “inconclusive.” Libby does not inform Miller about these caveats. [New York Times, 10/16/2005; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 216-217; Rich, 2006, pp. 183-184; Washington Post, 4/9/2006] In subsequent grand jury testimony (see March 24, 2004), Libby will admit to giving Miller a bulleted copy of the talking points from the NIE he wanted her to emphasize. He will tell prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he had it typed by his assistant Jenny Mayfield. “It was less than what I had been authorized to share with her,” he will say, and describes it as about a third of a page in length. This document will either not be submitted into evidence in Libby’s trial (see January 16-23, 2007) or not be made publicly available. [Marcy Wheeler, 2/22/2007]
Libby Identified as 'Former Hill Staffer' and Not White House Official - Miller agrees to refer to Libby as a “former Hill staffer” instead of a “senior administration official” in any story she will write from this interview. Though technically accurate, that characterization, if it had been used, would misdirect people into believing the information came from someone with current or former connections to Congress, and not from the White House. Miller will not write a story from this interview. In later testimony before a grand jury, Libby will falsely claim that he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity “from reporters.” The reverse is actually true. [New York Times, 10/16/2005; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 216-217; Rich, 2006, pp. 183-184] Libby is also apparently aware of Wilson’s 1999 trip to Niger to find out whether Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan had tried to procure Nigerien uranium (see Late February 1999), as Libby’s notes include the notation “Khan + Wilson?” Cheney’s chief lawyer, David Addington, has also asked Libby about Wilson’s 1999 trip. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 361-362] Libby has authorization from Cheney to leak classified information to Miller, and understands that the authorization comes directly from President Bush (see 7:35 a.m. July 8, 2003). It is unclear whether Libby has authorization from Cheney or Bush to divulge Plame Wilson’s CIA identity.
Miller Learned Plame Wilson Identity from Libby - Miller will later testify that she did not learn Plame Wilson’s identity specifically from Libby, but that testimony will be undermined by the words “Valerie Flame” (an apparent misspelling) written in her notes of this meeting. She will also testify that she pushed, without success, for her editors to approve an article about Plame Wilson’s identity. [New York Times, 10/16/2005]

Entity Tags: Jennifer Mayfield, Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control, Judith Miller, Central Intelligence Agency, Abdul Qadeer Khan, Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick Fitzgerald, Joseph C. Wilson, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, David S. Addington

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

July 10 or 11, 2003: Libby, Russert Speak; Libby Will Claim Russert Informed Him of Plame Wilson’s CIA Status

Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and NBC News reporter and anchor Tim Russert speak on the telephone. Libby wants to complain to Russert about an MSNBC talk show host, Chris Matthews, and Matthews’s coverage of the Iraq-Niger controversy (see July 10, 2003). Libby will later claim that, during the conversation, Russert informs him that Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of war critic Joseph Wilson, is a CIA officer. “All the reporters know” that Plame Wilson is a CIA officer, Libby will testify that Russert says. Russert will testify that he and Libby never discuss Plame Wilson (see November 24, 2003 and February 7-8, 2007), and at the time he has no knowledge of her CIA status. [US Department of Justice, 3/5/2004 ; Washington Post, 1/10/2006; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] It is unclear whether Libby speaks to Russert before or after his conversation with White House political strategist Karl Rove, who tells him that he has “outed” Plame Wilson to columnist Robert Novak (see July 10 or 11, 2003).

Entity Tags: Robert Novak, Chris Matthews, Karl Rove, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tim Russert

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003: Libby Confirms Plame Wilson’s CIA Status to Time Reporter

Lewis Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, confirms to Time reporter Matthew Cooper that Valerie Plame Wilson is a CIA officer. Libby has been in regular communication with senior White House officials, including political strategist Karl Rove, to discuss how to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, war critic Joseph Wilson. On July 11, the two spoke privately after a staff meeting. According to later testimony from both Rove and Libby, Rove told Libby that he had spoken to columnist Robert Novak on July 9 (see July 8 or 9, 2003), and that Novak would soon write a column about Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003). Today, Libby joins Cheney and others flying to and from Norfolk, Virginia, aboard Air Force Two; on the return trip, Libby discusses with the others what he should say in response to media inquiries about Wilson’s recent column (see July 6, 2003 and July 12, 2003). After returning to Washington, Libby calls Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, who has already learned from Rove that Plame Wilson is a CIA officer (see July 8, 2003 and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). According to Libby’s 2005 indictment (see October 28, 2005), “Libby confirmed to Cooper, without elaboration or qualification, that he had heard this information, too,” that Plame Wilson was CIA. [National Journal, 3/30/2006] Libby speaks “on the record” to deny that Cheney had anything to do with the CIA’s decision to send Joseph Wilson to Niger (see July 6, 2003, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, and July 8, 2003). On background, Cooper asks Libby if he knows anything about Wilson’s wife being responsible for sending him to Niger. Libby replies, “Yeah, I’ve heard that too.” [Cooper, 7/12/2003 ; Cooper, 7/12/2003 ; United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 12/8/2004 ; Time, 7/17/2005; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/28/2005 ] Cheney’s communications director Cathie Martin and Libby’s aide Jenny Mayfield are present for Libby’s call to Cooper. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/30/2006 ] Later this afternoon, Libby phones New York Times reporter Judith Miller and discusses Plame Wilson’s CIA status (see Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003).

Entity Tags: Matthew Cooper, Jennifer Mayfield, Joseph C. Wilson, Cathie Martin, Bush administration, Karl Rove, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003: New York Times Reporter Told of Plame Wilson’s Identity for Third Time

New York Times reporter Judith Miller again speaks to Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, in regards to the Iraqi WMD controversy and the recent op-ed by former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see July 6, 2003). In Miller’s notes, she writes the words “Victoria Wilson.” Libby has twice informed Miller that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is a CIA agent (see June 23, 2003 and 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003).
Miller Unsure of Details of Disclosure - In testimony about the interview two years later (see September 30, 2005), Miller will say that “before this [telephone] call, I might have called others about Mr. Wilson’s wife. In my notebook I had written the words ‘Victoria Wilson’ with a box around it, another apparent reference to Ms. Plame, who is also known as Valerie Wilson. I [testified] that I was not sure whether Mr. Libby had used this name or whether I just made a mistake in writing it on my own. Another possibility, I said, is that I gave Mr. Libby the wrong name on purpose to see whether he would correct me and confirm her identity.” In her testimony, Miller will say that at the time, she believed she had heard Wilson’s wife only referred to by her maiden name of Plame. When asked whether Libby gave her the name of Wilson, Miller will decline to speculate.
Criticizing Plame Wilson's Husband - During their conversation, Libby quickly turns the subject to criticism of Wilson, saying he is not sure if Wilson actually spoke to anyone who had knowledge of Iraq’s attempts to negotiate trade agreements with Niger. After Miller agrees to attribute the conversation to “an administration official,” and not Libby himself, Libby explains that the reference to the Iraqi attempt to buy uranium from Niger in President Bush’s State of the Union address—the so-called “sixteen words” (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003)—was the product of what Miller will call “a simple miscommunication between the White House and the CIA.”
'Newsworthy' Disclosure - Miller will later testify that at the time, she felt it “newsworthy” that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent, and recommended to her editors that the Times pursue the angle. She will write: “I felt that since the Times had run Mr. Wilson’s original essay, it had an obligation to explore any allegation that undercut his credibility. At the same time, I added, I also believed that the newspaper needed to pursue the possibility that the White House was unfairly attacking a critic of the administration.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 8/27/2004 ; New York Sun, 10/4/2005; New York Times, 10/16/2005; New York Times, 10/16/2005; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/28/2005 ]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Judith Miller, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

Late September or Early October, 2003: Libby Tells Cheney that He Learned Identity of Plame Wilson from Him

In the days after the Justice Department begins probing the Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 26, 2003 and September 29, 2003), Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, finds a reference in his notes that indicates he learned from Cheney that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent. According to his later testimony, Libby immediately goes to Cheney with the notes, in defiance of instructions from the FBI and the White House counsel’s office not to discuss the matter with colleagues (see September 29-30, 2003). “It turns out that I have a note that I had heard about” Plame Wilson’s CIA identity “from you,” Libby tells Cheney. Libby will later testify that Cheney “didn’t say much” in response. “You know, he said something about, ‘From me?’ something like that, and tilted his head, something he does commonly, and that was that.” [National Journal, 2/19/2007; Associated Press, 11/2/2009] Libby tells Cheney that his public story is that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from NBC bureau chief Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003). Cheney knows that the Russert story is untrue, but does nothing to discourage Libby from telling that story to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Cheney also encourages White House press secretary Scott McClellan to publicly exonerate and defend Libby (see October 1, 2003, October 4, 2003, October 4, 2003, and October 5, 2003), who complains that the White House is not doing enough to protect him. In 2007, law professor and former federal prosecutor Dan Richman will say that any criminal interpretation of Cheney’s reaction to Libby’s story depends on the exact words the two men exchanged, and exactly what Cheney knew at the time. “Only Cheney and Libby know the import of their conversation, and as is often the case, each could have even come away with a different impression of what was meant” by what the other said, Richman will observe. “If Cheney was merely showing surprise and interest at what Libby [was] indicating to him he was going to tell investigators, then the vice president is innocent in the exchange. But if he had reason to believe, or personal knowledge, that what Libby was planning to say was untrue then there is good reason to view Cheney’s conduct in an entirely different light—an obstruction interpretation.” Libby knew that Plame Wilson was a CIA official a month before his discussion with Russert (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003), and Cheney confirmed Plame Wilson’s CIA status to Libby around the same time (see (June 12, 2003)). [National Journal, 2/19/2007]

Entity Tags: Bush administration, Dan Richman, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Valerie Plame Wilson, Scott McClellan, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Tim Russert

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

October 14, 2003: Libby Interviewed by FBI concerning Plame Wilson Leak

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, is interviewed by the FBI concerning the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). [Office of the Vice President, 10/14/2003 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/28/2005 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/30/2006 ; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] Libby tells investigators that in his conversations with reporters Judith Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) and Matthew Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003) he was careful to tell them that the information about Plame Wilson was merely “unsubtianted gossip” and not necessarily reliable. He also claims that, before he spoke to either Miller or Cooper, he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from another journalist, NBC’s Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003). Libby is lying in both instances (see August 7, 2004). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/28/2005 ; National Journal, 6/8/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 10/30/2006 ]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Judith Miller, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Matthew Cooper, Tim Russert

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

November 26, 2003: Libby Interviewed a Second Time by FBI Concerning Plame Wilson Leak

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, is interviewed for a second time (see October 14, 2003) by the FBI concerning the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). [MSNBC, 2/21/2007] During one or both interviews, Libby insists that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from journalists (see July 10 or 11, 2003), a lie that will play a large part in his upcoming indictment (see October 28, 2005). Investigators are compiling evidence that he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from Cheney and other senior government officials (see (June 12, 2003)). Some investigators will come to believe that Libby is lying, and continues to lie, to protect Cheney’s involvement in attempting to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, war critic Joseph Wilson (see October 1, 2003). [National Journal, 2/2/2006]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

August 7, 2004: NBC Reporter Testifies He Did Not Provide Plame Wilson’s Name to Libby

NBC reporter Tim Russert, host of its flagship Sunday morning political talk show Meet the Press, testifies to FBI investigators probing the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see December 30, 2003). He is deposed under oath and is audiotaped, but is not compelled to testify directly to the grand jury investigating the leak. According to an NBC statement, Russert is interviewed under oath, and testifies that he was the recipient of a leak; NBC will later claim that the interview was allowed as part of an agreement to avoid a protracted court fight. Russert is not asked to disclose a confidential source. “The questioning focused on what Russert said when Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, phoned him last summer” (see July 10 or 11, 2003), the statement reads. “Russert told the special prosecutor that at the time of the conversation he didn’t know Plame’s name or that she was a CIA operative and did not provide that information to Libby.” [Office of Special Counsel, 7/27/2004 ; New York Times, 8/10/2004; Associated Press, 8/11/2004] Neither did Libby disclose Plame Wilson’s identity to him, Russert testifies. Russert and NBC News initially resisted the subpoena on First Amendment grounds, but relented after prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald agreed not to compel Russert to appear before the grand jury, or to disclose confidential sources or information. [Washington Post, 8/10/2004] Russert has already talked informally with John Eckenrode, the FBI investigator overseeing the day-to-day investigation duties (see November 24, 2003). He told Eckenrode that Libby’s claim of learning Plame Wilson’s identity from him was false, and that he and Libby never discussed Plame Wilson at all. [National Journal, 2/15/2007] Libby’s claim that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from Russert will lead to perjury charges (see October 28, 2005).

Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, NBC News, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, John Eckenrode, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, Tim Russert

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

July 22, 2005: Press Learns that Libby, Rove Claim to Have Learned Plame Wilson’s CIA Identity from Reporters

Bloomberg News reports that Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, testified that he first learned of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity from NBC bureau chief Tim Russert. Libby will make this claim a staple of his defense in his upcoming perjury trial (see January 16-23, 2007). He is referring to a conversation he had with Russert in July 2003 (see July 10 or 11, 2003). He testified to the claim when he was interviewed by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald as part of the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003). Russert has told FBI investigators that he did not tell Libby of Plame Wilson’s identity (see November 24, 2003 and August 7, 2004). Similarly, White House political strategist Karl Rove has testified that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from columnist Robert Novak (see September 29, 2003, October 8, 2003, and October 15, 2004). Novak has told investigators that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from Rove, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see October 7, 2003, February 5, 2004, and September 14, 2004). Fitzgerald has determined that both Libby and Rove may have deliberately lied to the FBI and to his investigations in making their claims (see October and November 2003). According to Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin, Rove told Fitzgerald’s grand jury that “he had not heard her name before he heard it from Bob Novak.” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) says that the White House should suspend Libby and Rove’s security clearances (see July 13, 2005), and that President Bush should fire anyone involved in the leak, presumably meaning Libby and Rove. [Bloomberg, 7/22/2005; Washington Post, 7/23/2005]

Entity Tags: Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, Charles Schumer, Bill Harlow, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Robert Luskin, Robert Novak, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tim Russert, Patrick Fitzgerald

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

October 29, 2005: Wall Street Journal: Fitzgerald Is ‘Criminalizing Politics’

In an op-ed, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial staff accuses special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald of “criminalizing politics” in his investigation of the Plame Wilson leak. Fitzgerald’s investigation, the editorial reads, has taken two years, cost millions of dollars, jailed a reporter (see July 6, 2005), “and preoccupied some of the White House’s senior officials.” The investigation has culminated in the indictment of former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), not for leaking Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to the press, but for what the Journal calls “contradictions between his testimony and the testimony of two or three reporters about what he told them, when he told them, and what words he used.” The Journal writes that there is no evidence, at least to the public’s knowledge, that Libby lied to anyone, be it the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003), the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), or anyone else. Nowhere has anyone alleged a motive for Libby’s alleged perjury, the Journal states (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, April 5, 2006, and April 9, 2006). And, the Journal notes, Libby was not a source for the column that actually outed Plame Wilson as a CIA official. The Journal questions the existence of any White House “conspiracy to silence administration critics,” and if there was, it writes, “it was more daft than deft.” Instead, the Journal writes, the Libby indictment “amounts to an allegation that one official lied about what he knew about an underlying ‘crime’ that wasn’t committed.” Fitzgerald is merely involving himself in what the Journal calls “a policy dispute between an elected administration and critics of the president’s approach to the war on terror, who included parts of the permanent bureaucracy of the State Department and CIA.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/29/2005]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick Fitzgerald, Wall Street Journal

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

October 31, 2005: Former Solicitor General Says Libby Did Not Lie, Did Not Out Plame Wilson

The Wall Street Journal prints an editorial by former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson lambasting the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation and the indictment of former White House aide Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), and criticizing the use of the Independent Counsel Law to investigate the Plame Wilson identity leak. The Journal does not inform its readers of Olson’s participation in using the Independent Counsel Law to bring articles of impeachment against former President Clinton. Olson calls the investigation a “spectacle,” questions special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s impartiality, and says the entire Plame Wilson-Libby investigation is another example of “special prosecutor syndrome,” a politically motivated investigation run amok. Olson writes that he does not believe Libby is guilty of perjury because “I know him to be an honest, conscientious man who has given a large part of his life to public service.” Any misstatements Libby may have made to investigators (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004) must have been inadvertent failures of memory and not deliberate lies. Moreover, Olson asserts, Libby had nothing to do with exposing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA official (see (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). [Wall Street Journal, 10/31/2005]

Entity Tags: Wall Street Journal, Bush administration, Independent Counsel Law, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Theodore (“Ted”) Olson, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

November 7, 2005: Libby Defense Strategy: Attack the Reporters

Defense lawyers for Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) indicate that they will shift their defense strategy. Not only will they claim that their client did not intentionally lie to either the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) or the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson CIA identity leak (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), they will attempt to impugn the credibility and the accuracy of the journalists who are expected to testify that they learned of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity from Libby, instead of the other way around, as Libby will likely claim. Three reporters—Judith Miller of the New York Times, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and Tim Russert of NBC News—are expected to be the prime focus of the defense’s efforts. It is unclear whether any of the reporters will testify voluntarily, or will resist efforts to have them testify before the jury. [Wall Street Journal, 11/7/2005]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Judith Miller, Tim Russert, Matthew Cooper, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

November 10, 2005: Former Cheney Aide Praises Libby, Accuses Wilson of Falsifying Information

The National Review publishes an editorial by Cesar Conda, an assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney from January 2001 to September 2003. Conda writes a glowing defense of indicted perjurer Lewis Libby, whom he worked with in Cheney’s office. Conda notes that he was not “personally close” to Libby, and says he has not spoken to him since December 2004. Conda claims no access to the Libby defense team, nor any knowledge of the Libby defense strategy. However, he writes, “I have my own observations of the man, and some commonsense arguments that should to be considered as they relate to the indictment.” Conda calls the portrayal of Libby in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s indictment of him (see October 28, 2005) a “caricature” that “is utterly at odds with his professional and personal history.” Libby, Conda writes, “is honorable, discreet, selfless—a man of unquestionable integrity. Most of his professional career has been spent in public service, as a behind-the-scenes, yet invaluable staffer at the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the Congress.” Libby served in Cheney’s office “at great personal sacrifice,” according to Conda, choosing to leave “a lucrative private law practice” and “compromis[ing] family time with his two grade-school children—to focus his energies on his all consuming job in the White House.” Conda goes into detail about Libby’s overwhelming workload, a key element of the Libby defense team’s “memory defense” (see January 31, 2006). According to Conda, Libby should be expected to misremember some “fleeting” conversations he may have had with reporters about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and Wilson’s wife, CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, July 10 or 11, 2003, October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). Conda claims that Wilson is at the heart of the Libby indictment, and accuses him of falsifying his report about the Iraq-Niger uranium hoax (see March 4-5, 2002 and July 6, 2003). Conda concludes by praising Libby as a man whose “noble” goal was “to protect the American people from terrorism.” [National Review, 11/10/2005]

Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Bush administration, Cesar Conda, Joseph C. Wilson, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, National Review

Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

November 17, 2005: Columnist Demands End to Fitzgerald Prosecution of Libby, Says No Damage Done to National Security by Exposure of Plame Wilson

Conservative columnist Tucker Carlson, writing for MSNBC, claims that the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity did not harm US national security, and offers $100 “to the first person who can prove otherwise” (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). Carlson goes on to note that former White House official Lewis Libby was not the first person to leak Plame Wilson’s identity to the press, as recent revelations from the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward show that Woodward knew of Plame Wilson’s CIA status well before Libby leaked it to New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see November 14, 2005). Carlson says in light of these two facts that Libby never should have been charged with anything (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004), and special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should apologize to Libby. Moreover, Carlson writes, Fitzgerald is “the enemy” of journalists and the public’s right to know; because of Fitzgerald’s subpoenas to reporters, both reporters and government sources are “spooked.… Thanks to Fitzgerald, there will be fewer leaks from the executive branch in years to come. Fewer leaks mean less information, and therefore a less informed public. We all lose.” [MSNBC, 11/17/2005] Carlson does not inform his readers of his family’s close ties to the Libby defense fund (see February 28, 2006).

Entity Tags: MSNBC, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tucker Carlson, Patrick Fitzgerald

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

November 18, 2005: Neoconservative Demands Dismissal of Charges against Libby

Neoconservative John Podhoretz adds his voice to the recent demands from conservatives for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to drop his prosecution of former White House official Lewis Libby (see November 10, 2005, November 17, 2005, November 17, 2005, and November 17, 2005). Podhoretz calls Fitzgerald’s investigation an “inquisition,” and, like many of his fellow commentators, points to the recent revelation that reporter Bob Woodward received leaked information about Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status before Libby leaked it to a different reporter (see November 14, 2005). In his indictment of Libby (see October 28, 2005), Fitzgerald said that Libby was “the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter” when he told former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald did not know then that another, as-yet-unnamed government official (later revealed to be former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage—see June 13, 2003) had “outed” Plame Wilson before Libby. Therefore, Podhoretz concludes, there is no evidence that Libby knowingly lied to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) in denying his leaks of Plame Wilson’s identity. “How can it be fair to convict Libby when even the prosecutor himself can’t get the story straight?” Podhoretz asks. [New York Post, 11/18/2005]

Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Bob Woodward, John Podhoretz, Judith Miller, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Richard Armitage, Patrick Fitzgerald

Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence, Domestic Propaganda, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

January 31, 2006: Libby’s Lawyers Intend to Claim Faulty Memory, National Security as Libby’s Defense Strategy

Lewis Libby’s lawyers reveal a detailed outline of their planned defense strategy to combat government charges that their client committed perjury and obstructed justice (see October 28, 2005). Libby’s lawyers intend to offer what some call a “memory defense,” a claim that Libby did not deliberately lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) or to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), but instead was a victim of his own confusion and faulty memory, a condition brought on by his preoccupation with national security matters. Libby’s lawyers have asked for a huge number of highly classified documents (see January 23, 2006 and January 31, 2006) to support his claim of being overworked due to his involvement in the administration’s battle against terrorism and other threats against the nation. The documents, the lawyers claim in a court filing, “are material to establishing that any misstatements he may have made were the result of confusion, mistake, and faulty memory resulting from his immersion in other, more significant matters, rather than deliberate lies.” Libby’s conversations with reporters during the summer of 2003 about CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 10 or 11, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) “occurred in the midst of an unending torrent of meetings, briefings, and discussions of far more urgent and sensitive issues, including for example, the detection and prevention of terrorist attacks against the United States,” bringing stability to Iraq, and the spread of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran. Libby was “inundated from early in the morning until late at night with the most sensitive national security issues this country faces,” his lawyers say, and his faulty memory about what he did and did not tell reporters about Plame Wilson is insignificant compared to the other matters that were on his mind. [New York Times, 2/1/2006]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick Fitzgerald

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

February 27, 2006: Judge May Allow Some, Not All, Classified Materials into Libby Trial

Judge Reggie Walton issues an order significantly curtailing the Lewis Libby defense team’s requests for highly classified White House materials (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, (February 16, 2006), and February 21, 2006). Walton’s orders indicate that he may accept the defense team’s requests for some, but not all, of the highly classified Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), requests that have become a source of conflict between the defense and the prosecution. “Upon closer reflection, it is becoming apparent to this court that what is possibly material to the defendant’s ability to develop his defense” is not every detail from the briefings that Libby received as Cheney’s national security adviser, Walton says. The defense says it needs the PDBs to establish how busy Libby was with national security matters and therefore bolster their expected defense of Libby’s failure to remember his conversations about outed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson when he allegedly lied to the FBI and to the grand jury (Libby’s so-called “memory defense”—see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, March 24, 2004, and January 31, 2006). General descriptions of the briefings from specific time periods might be sufficient, Walton continues. Walton also asks the CIA to tell him what, if any, documents the Libby team has requested from it might be available. Washington attorney Lawrence Barcella says Walton’s efforts would hamper Libby’s defense strategy. “What makes the defense so viable is for him to show the enormity of what he dealt with on a daily basis,” Barcella says. “If you sanitize it just so you can get past the classified information issue, you significantly lessen the potential impact of it.” [Associated Press, 2/27/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/27/2006 ] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, states: “I think Libby has boxed himself in on his memory defense. He now has a huge burden to show that he was so preoccupied with other matters on six or seven different occasions that he couldn’t accurately remember what he told or was told by [reporters Judith] Miller, [Matthew] Cooper, and [Tim] Russert. It’s almost like using the space cadet defense many drug defendants offer, rarely sucessfully.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 2/27/2006]

Entity Tags: Reggie B. Walton, Bush administration, Jeralyn Merritt, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lawrence Barcella

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

March 14, 2006: Libby Team Subpoenas Reporters, News Organizations

Several news organizations are subpoenaed by the Lewis Libby defense team (see February 27, 2006). The New York Times, NBC News, and Time magazine all say they have been subpoenaed for documents and records pertaining to Libby’s involvement in the Plame Wilson CIA identity leak. The Washington Post says it expects a subpoena as well. Libby’s lawyers want to use reporters to prove that Libby did not intentionally lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about disclosing Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to the press. Instead, they intend to argue that Libby failed to remember important details about his conversations with reporters regarding Plame Wilson’s identity. The New York Times acknowledges that it has been asked to provide notes, e-mail messages, draft news articles, and all other documents that refer to Plame Wilson before July 14, 2003, when her identity was made public (see July 14, 2003), and information regarding its columnist Nicholas Kristof, who wrote an article featuring Plame Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson (see May 6, 2003). Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis says the newspaper has not yet decided whether to comply with the subpoena. She says former Times reporter Judith Miller has received a separate subpoena (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). NBC’s Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003) and Time’s Matt Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003) have also been subpoenaed. The Post anticipates receiving a subpoena for its managing editor Bob Woodward (see November 14, 2005 and November 16-17, 2005). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/14/2006 pdf file ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/14/2006 ; Reuters, 3/16/2006; New York Times, 3/16/2006] Robert Bennett, a lawyer for Miller, says she will most likely fight the subpoena. “It’s entirely too broad,” he says. “It’s highly likely we’ll be filing something with the court.” [New York Times, 3/16/2006]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Judith Miller, Catherine Mathis, Bob Woodward, Washington Post, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tim Russert, Joseph C. Wilson, New York Times, NBC News, Matthew Cooper, Nicholas Kristof, Robert T. Bennett, Time magazine

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

March 17, 2006: Libby’s Lawyers Claim Client Did Not Intentionally Deceive FBI, Grand Jury in Plame Wilson Statements, Blame CIA/White House ‘Infighting’

Defense lawyers for former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) file papers asserting that Libby had not intentionally deceived FBI agents (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) because Plame Wilson’s role was was only “peripheral” to potentially more serious questions regarding the Bush administration’s use of intelligence in the prewar debate. The papers reiterate earlier defense requests for classified CIA and White House documents for Libby’s defense. Referring to Plame Wilson’s husband Joseph Wilson’s criticism of the White House’s manipulation of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion and the White House’s strategy to counter such criticism (see June 2003 and October 1, 2003), the attorneys tell the court, “The media conflagration ignited by the failure to find [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq and in part by Mr. Wilson’s criticism of the administration, led officials within the White House, the State Department, and the CIA to blame each other, publicly and in private, for faulty prewar intelligence about Iraq’s WMD capabilities.” Plame Wilson’s identity was disclosed during “a period of increasing bureaucratic infighting, when certain officials at the CIA, the White House, and the State Department each sought to avoid or assign blame for intelligence failures relating to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability,” the attorneys write. “The White House and the CIA were widely regarded to be at war.” The defense lawyers also assert that Libby “believed his actions were authorized” and that he had “testified before the grand jury that this disclosure was authorized,” a reference to the classified intelligence he leaked to New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see February 2, 2006). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/17/2006 pdf file ; National Journal, 3/30/2006] According to criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, Libby is asking for the documents to bolster his “memory defense” strategy (see January 31, 2006). She writes: “Shorter Libby: My memory is bad because I was so embroiled in internal fighting and finger pointing at the White House about why we didn’t find any WMD’s that the Plame/Wilson matter was a trifling detail in comparison.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 3/18/2006]

Entity Tags: US Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration, Jeralyn Merritt, Joseph C. Wilson, Judith Miller, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

May 19, 2006: Libby Continues to Argue for Provision of Classified Documents, Contends that Op-Ed Should Not Be Presented

The Libby defense team files a brief with the court arguing that the special counsel’s recent filing about presentation of news articles into evidence is unsatisfactory (see May 12, 2006), and says that the prosecution must not be allowed to present a copy of former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s New York Times op-ed (see July 6, 2003), annotated with notes written by Vice President Dick Cheney (see May 14, 2006), into evidence. The defense says that Lewis Libby had never seen the op-ed before the FBI showed it to him in November 2003 (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003). “These arguments are tantamount to an acknowledgment that the state of mind of witnesses other than Mr. Libby will be important at trial,” Libby’s lawyers write. The defense also reiterates arguments that the government must provide classified documents for Libby to mount an adequate defense (see May 12, 2006), and reassures Judge Reggie Walton that they do not intend “to use this case to reargue the reasons why the United States invaded Iraq.” They acknowledge that given the fact that a jury will made up of Washington, DC, residents, “such an approach would be a foolish and self-destructive trial strategy.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/19/2006 pdf file ; NBC News, 5/20/2006; Washington Post, 5/20/2006]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, Reggie B. Walton, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

May 24, 2006: Fitzgerald May Call Cheney to Testify

Vice President Dick Cheney may be called to testify for the prosecution in the Lewis Libby perjury and obstruction trial, says special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in a brief filed with the court. Libby once served as Cheney’s chief of staff and Cheney could authenticate handwritten notes he wrote on a copy of an op-ed written by war critic Joseph Wilson (see May 14, 2006). Furthermore, Fitzgerald says, Cheney’s “state of mind” is directly relevant to the question of Libby’s alleged lying to FBI agents (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about leaking the identity of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson. Libby “shared the interests of his superior and was subject to his direction,” Fitzgerald writes in court documents. “Therefore, the state of mind of the vice president as communicated to [the] defendant is directly relevant to the issue of whether [the] defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and the grand jury regarding when and how he learned about [Plame Wilson’s] employment and what he said to reporters regarding this issue.” Libby’s lawyers have asserted that Fitzgerald would not subpoena Cheney’s testimony, an assertion that Fitzgerald says is premature. “To the best of government’s counsel’s recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/24/2006 pdf file ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/24/2006 ; Associated Press, 5/25/2006] Criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, covering the Libby prosecution at the progressive blog TalkLeft, explains that Fitzgerald is more concerned with authenticating the handwritten notes Cheney made on Wilson’s op-ed than he is in putting Cheney on the stand. Merritt writes, “Fitz believes this blows a big hole in Libby’s testimony that he learned of Wilson’s wife working for the CIA from Tim Russert on July 10 or 11th” (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003, (June 12, 2003), and July 10 or 11, 2003). [Jeralyn Merritt, 5/24/2006] Salon reporter Tim Grieve believes that Fitzgerald may well be planning on having Cheney take the stand. In his column, Grieve writes that according to his interpretation of Fitzgerald’s brief, “Fitzgerald makes it clear—without saying so explicitly—that he’d like to put Cheney on the stand [t]o question him about the conversations he had with Libby about Wilson’s column, and in the process to undercut Libby’s claim that those conversations didn’t involve the identity of Wilson’s wife.” [Salon, 5/24/2006]

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Tim Grieve, Jeralyn Merritt, Valerie Plame Wilson, Patrick Fitzgerald, Tim Russert

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

July 31, 2006: Libby Legal Team Will Call UCLA Memory Expert to Testify

Lewis Libby’s legal team announces that it intends to call a psychology professor to testify that Libby did not deliberately lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), but merely made misstatements due to memory failure. In a court filing, the lawyers write, “Mr. Libby will show that the snippets of conversation at issue in this case took place amid a rush of pressing national security matters that commanded his attention throughout his long and stressful work day” (see January 31, 2006). The witness is Robert Bjork, a memory expert from UCLA. The lawyers say Bjork will explain that, contrary to what jurors may think, “memory does not function like a tape recorder, with memories recorded, stored, and played back verbatim.” Cornell University professor Ulric Neisser says the so-called “memory defense” that Libby’s team intends to mount may be effective. Referring to Libby’s claim that he learned of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson from a reporter (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003, (June 12, 2003), and July 10 or 11, 2003), Neisser says, “If everything hinges on who he learned it from first, people do forget that stuff all the time.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 7/31/2006 pdf file ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 7/31/2006 ; Associated Press, 8/1/2006; New York Sun, 8/1/2006] Criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, following the trial at the progressive blog TalkLeft, calls the use of a memory expert entirely appropriate, but notes: “The expert only should be allowed to explain the principles of memory and memory failure to the jury. He should not be allowed to render an opinion as to whether Libby’s memory failed since that’s the ultimate question for the jury to decide.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 8/1/2006]

Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Jeralyn Merritt, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Robert Bjork, Ulric Neisser

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

August 11, 2006: CIA Provides Summaries of Cheney Briefings to Libby Defense Team

The CIA provides short summaries of Vice President Dick Cheney’s daily security briefings to defense attorneys for Cheney’s indicted former chief of staff, Lewis Libby. The documents are provided as per a March court order (see March 10, 2006). They have been turned over in batches since May 2006; the final documents have just been turned over. The briefing summaries cover the period in the summer of 2003 when Libby was allegedly discussing Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity with journalists. They also cover several weeks in the fall of 2003 when Libby was questioned by the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003), and March 2004 when Libby testified before a federal grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). [Associated Press, 8/11/2006]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

September 7, 2006: Fitzgerald Opposes Testimony of ‘Memory Expert’

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald files a motion opposing the Libby defense team’s intention to call a “memory expert” to testify on Libby’s behalf (see July 31, 2006). Libby’s lawyers intend to argue that their client, indicted felon and former White House aide Lewis Libby, has a faulty memory (see January 31, 2006), and it was a series of memory lapses that caused him to make false statements to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about his outing of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald opposes the testimony of UCLA professor Robert Bjork, not because of problems with Bjork’s expertise in the field of human memory, but because “the defendant cannot meet his burden as the proponent of the evidence of establishing that the testimony will assist the jury in understanding or determining any of the facts at issue in this case.… To the contrary, there are strong reasons to believe that the proffered testimony may confuse, mislead, and unduly influence the jury.” Juries are often asked to evaluate a defendant’s memory in the course of a criminal trial, and it is “unusual” to present such testimony in the furtherance of a criminal defense, Fitzgerald asserts. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 9/7/2006 pdf file ] In November, the judge will disallow Bjork’s testimony (see November 2, 2006).

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Robert Bjork

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

September 15, 2006: Libby Defense Argues for Admission of Memory Expert Testimony

Lewis Libby’s defense team files a brief contesting the prosecution’s attempt to bar proposed testimony by memory expert Dr. Robert Bjork (see July 31, 2006 and September 7, 2006). The defense lawyers accuse the prosecution of “trivializing” Bjork’s expertise in memory issues, and assert that the jury will need testimony from Bjork to adequately understand how Libby could have forgotten the information that led to his “inadvertent” lying to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the Fitzgerald grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Bjork’s testimony is envisioned as an integral part of the Libby “memory defense” (see January 31, 2006). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 9/15/2006] In November, the judge will disallow Bjork’s testimony (see November 2, 2006).

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Robert Bjork

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

September 27, 2006: Libby Trial Judge Holds Hearing on ‘Graymail’ Issue

Judge Reggie Walton holds a hearing with prosecutors for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and representatives from Lewis Libby’s defense team on the issue of “graymail,” which Fitzgerald has alleged is a tactic being employed by Libby’s team (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, and (February 16, 2006)). “Graymail” is the attempt by one side in a court proceeding to derail the proceeding by insisting on the use of classified materials as evidence, and demanding mistrials or dropped charges if and when those classified materials are disallowed. Libby’s lawyers have privately and publicly implied that they will reveal national security secrets if the case actually goes to trial. The hearing, which is delayed because of a bomb threat, is the first of several hearings to be held on the subject. Fitzgerald wants to curtail the introduction of classified documents during the trial, while Libby’s lawyers want to introduce reams of classified documents into evidence (see May 10, 2006). Fitzgerald has argued repeatedly that many of the classified documents requested by Libby are irrelevant to the case at hand. Libby wants to introduce a number of highly classified presidential briefings to show his heavy and varied workload, as support for his defense that he was too overworked to testify accurately before the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Walton has already reminded Fitzgerald that he can dismiss the charges against Libby if he feels the upcoming trial will expose national security secrets. [MSNBC, 9/26/2006; Christy Hardin Smith, 9/27/2006]

Entity Tags: Patrick Fitzgerald, Reggie B. Walton, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

November 14, 2006: Libby Lawyers: No White House Plot to Expose Plame Wilson

The Lewis Libby defense team argues in a court filing that there was no such thing as an orchestrated plot to expose Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA official, and writes that Libby, a former White House official who told at least two reporters that Plame Wilson was a CIA official (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), had no reason to lie during the investigation of the leak (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). Libby’s lawyers want to present a wide-ranging defense concerning Libby’s duties and actions at the White House, while special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, the US Attorney prosecuting the case, wants to stay narrowly focused on evidence that Libby lied under oath to the FBI and to a grand jury. “It is doubtful that anyone committed an ‘underlying crime’ here,” Libby’s lawyers write. “The government’s investigation began as an effort to discover which government officials had ‘leaked’ Ms. Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA to Mr. Novak” (see July 14, 2003). The Libby lawyers base their argument on the fact that former State Department official Richard Armitage leaked Plame Wilson’s identity to a reporter before Libby did (see June 13, 2003). “Members of the jury will have heard for years that Mr. Libby leaked classified information about Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA, due to inaccurate reports in the press,” the defense attorneys write. “Indeed, the government has contributed to the likely misimpressions that potential jurors will have about this case.” In previous filings, Fitzgerald has argued that the upcoming trial should not be a forum to debate the leak itself or question why Libby was charged and others were not. [Associated Press, 11/14/2006]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Bush administration, Patrick Fitzgerald, Richard Armitage, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

December 11, 2006: Judge Limits Libby’s Introduction of Classified Material into Evidence

Judge Reggie Walton rules that former White House aide Lewis Libby’s lawyers will be restricted in how they present classified information during Libby’s perjury and obstruction trial. Prosecutors, led by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, have complained that Libby’s lawyers have made unreasonable demands for huge amounts of classified White House and other government documents, many of which are irrelevant, and have attempted to “graymail” the prosecution into dropping the charges against Libby for fear that the trial will reveal national security secrets (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, (February 16, 2006), and September 27, 2006). Libby says that his work with security issues such as terrorist threats and foreign nuclear programs caused him to inadvertently lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), and he wants to present classified information during his trial to prove the extent of his workload. Walton rules that the substitutions and summaries Fitzgerald has provided to the Libby lawyers will allow Libby “substantially the same ability to make his defense as would disclosure of the specific classified information.” NBC News producer Joel Seidman, writing for MSNBC, reports that Walton’s ruling may spell the end of Libby’s attempts to derail the trial by the use of “graymail” (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, (February 16, 2006), and September 27, 2006). [Associated Press, 12/11/2006; MSNBC, 12/11/2006]

Entity Tags: Patrick Fitzgerald, Joel Seidman, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Reggie B. Walton

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

December 19, 2006: Libby Defense Team Informs Court that Cheney Will Testify

Lewis Libby’s defense lawyers inform the court that they intend to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in Libby’s trial. “We’re calling the vice president,” says lead defense lawyer Theodore Wells. For his part, Cheney says he is willing to testify on behalf of his former chief of staff. “We don’t expect him to resist,” says another of Libby’s lawyers, William Jeffress. Apparently, the defense intends to have Cheney establish its contention that Libby was overworked and under strain dealing with critical national security issues, a condition it says led to Libby’s “inadvertent” lies and misstatements to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Law professor Peter Shane says Cheney’s willingness to testify is unuusal because of his aggressive efforts to keep the executive branch from being forced to disclose information about its workings. Cheney’s spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride says that “historians are entitled to their opinions, but the vice president has said from the very beginning that we’re cooperating in this matter and we will continue to do so.” [Associated Press, 12/19/2006; New York Times, 12/19/2006; Washington Post, 12/20/2006] Cheney told reporters in June that he “may be called as a witness” in Libby’s trial (see June 22, 2006). However, he will not testify in the trial.

Entity Tags: Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lea Anne McBride, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Peter Shane, Theodore Wells, William Jeffress, Patrick Fitzgerald

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

January 2, 2007: Up to 10 Journalists to Testify in Libby Trial

As many as 10 journalists are expected to testify during the Lewis Libby perjury and obstruction trial. Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, calls the prospect “unprecedented and, as far as I’m concerned, horrifying.” Libby’s lawyers may subpoena as many as seven journalists, whom they have not yet identified, to testify, in order to bolster their contention that Libby’s poor memory caused him to inadvertently lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about his involvement in exposing the CIA identity of Valerie Plame Wilson (see January 31, 2006). Roy Peter Clark, a scholar at the Poynter Institute, says he worries about the fallout from the trial, particularly in the future ability of journalists to protect their sources. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty recently told Congress that the Justice Department routinely observes restraint in issuing subpoenas to reporters, and has only issued 13 media subpoenas involving confidential sources in the last 15 years. “This record reflects restraint,” McNulty told Congress. “We have recognized the media’s right and obligation to report broadly on issues of public controversy and, absent extraordinary circumstances, have committed to shielding the media from all forms of compulsory process.” [Associated Press, 1/2/2007]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Paul McNulty, Roy Peter Clark, Lucy Dalglish

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

January 23, 2007: Libby’s Lawyer Makes Opening Statement to Jury: Libby Being Sacrificed to Protect Rove

Theodore Wells, the lead lawyer for the Lewis Libby defense team, makes his opening statement to the jury in the Libby perjury and obstruction trial (see January 16-23, 2007), and proclaims Libby’s innocence of all charges. While Libby may have misspoken to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the Plame Wilson grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about his involvement in leaking Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status to reporters, he never lied to either one, Wells says, because there was never any intent to lie. He was not trying to cover anything up, Wells asserts, because he did nothing illegal or questionable. “This is a case about memory, about recollection, and about words,” Wells says. Wells surprises observers by claiming Libby was made a scapegoat by the White House in order to protect President Bush’s chief political strategist Karl Rove. Rove has admitted to being a source of the original leak (see October 15, 2004, February 2004, and October 14, 2005). Wells tells the jury that Libby believes his former colleagues in the Bush administration tried to “set him up” to “take a fall” in the investigation of the Plame Wilson identity leak. According to Wells, Libby said to his then-boss, Vice President Dick Cheney: “They’re trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb.” Libby, according to Wells, believed he was being sacrificed to protect Rove. Wells says that Libby told Cheney, “I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.” Wells tells the jury: “Mr. Libby was not concerned about losing his job in the Bush administration. He was concerned about being set up, he was concerned about being made the scapegoat.… People in the White House are trying to protect Karl Rove.” Libby was considered “just a staffer,” while Rove “was viewed as a political genius… the lifeblood of the Republican Party.” [Pensito Review, 1/23/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 1/23/2007; CBS News, 1/25/2007; MSNBC, 2/21/2007; BBC, 7/3/2007] Plame Wilson will observe, “The tactic went against the conventional wisdom that Libby would play the good soldier, say nothing of value, and receive a presidential pardon if convicted.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 282-284] In a PowerPoint presentation, Wells presents the jury with the following bullet points about Libby:
He gave his best good faith recollection;
Any misstatements by him were innocent mistakes;
He had no knowledge that Plame Wilson’s job status was classified;
He did not push reporters to write about Plame Wilson;
He did not leak to Robert Novak: Richard Armitage did;
He is innocent and had no motive to lie.
Wells then engages the jury in a long explanation of Libby’s responsibilities, emphasizing his role in the administration’s efforts in the war on terror. [Marcy Wheeler, 1/23/2007] After a break for lunch, Wells resumes going through his version of events. He introduces a key element of the “memory defense” (see January 31, 2006), that Libby knew of Plame Wilson’s CIA status in July 2003 when he leaked her identity to reporters, but forgot that he knew it in October, when he denied knowing of her classified or covert status to the FBI and the grand jury. Wells equates Libby’s alleged memory difficulties with “similar” memory difficulties by the reporters involved in the leak to be examined during the trial. [Marcy Wheeler, 1/23/2007]

Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Theodore Wells, Karl Rove, Bush administration

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

January 25, 2007: Prosecution: Libby Lied for Fear of Losing Job

Patrick Fitzgerald, prosecuting Lewis Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice, files a motion with the court alleging a new motive for Libby to have lied to investigators (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Fitzgerald argues that since Libby signed non-disclosure agreements in connection with his White House employment, by testifying truthfully about his leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status to reporters, he risked losing his job. “The government intends to prove that, at the time he made the charged false statements, defendant was aware that, if Ms. Wilson’s employment status was in fact classified, or that Ms. Wilson was in fact a covert CIA officer, in addition to potential criminal prosecution under a number of statutes, defendant faced the possible loss of his security clearances, removal from office, and termination from employment as a result of his disclosures to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper” (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald intends to introduce into evidence five non-disclosure agreements signed by Libby. According to lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, Fitzgerald’s motion is designed to counter defense arguments that Libby had no motive to lie under oath. Merritt is not convinced of Fitzgerald’s argument, writing: “I’m not sold on this motion. There’s no linkage to Libby’s focus on the agreements at the time he was interviewed by the FBI or testified to the grand jury. I could see it if Fitz had evidence of a conversation Libby had with someone about his fear that his comments to reporters violated the non-disclosure agreements. But, those agreements are standard for people in sensitive government positions. Had he re-read them or been reminded of them before his interviews with FBI agents or grand jury testimony? Without evidence that Libby was concerned about the non-disclosure agreements at the time of his statements, I don’t think the mere existence of them establishes motive.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 1/26/2007]

Entity Tags: Patrick Fitzgerald, Jeralyn Merritt, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Judith Miller, Valerie Plame Wilson, Matthew Cooper

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

February 1-5, 2007: FBI Agent Testifies that Libby Said He and Cheney May Have Discussed Outing Plame Wilson to Press

FBI agent Deborah Bond testifies for the prosecution in the trial of former White House official Lewis “Scooter” Libby (see January 16-23, 2007). Bond took over the Libby investigation when the previous head, John Eckenrode (see November 24, 2003), retired. She discusses two interviews she held with Libby, in October and November 2003 respectively (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003). She says that in one interview Libby acknowledged that his former boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, “may have talked” on July 12, 2003, about telling the press that former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, worked at the CIA, though Libby told her that he was “not sure” the conversation actually took place. According to Bond, Libby acknowledged that he and Cheney “may have” discussed the Plame Wilson matter the same day, while the two flew back to Washington from Norfolk aboard Air Force Two (see July 12, 2003); Libby said that Cheney might have learned about Plame Wilson’s CIA status from CIA Director George Tenet or another CIA official, though he was not sure. Cheney was wondering how to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, war critic Joseph Wilson. Days before, Cheney had written in the margin of an op-ed by Wilson a question about the possibility of Plame Wilson sending her husband on a fact-finding “junket” to Niger (see July 7, 2003 or Shortly After). Libby told the FBI during a November 2003 interview that, in the agent’s words, “there was a discussion whether to report to the press that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA” during that July 12 flight. “Mr. Libby told us he believed they may have talked about it but he wasn’t sure.” In the hours after the discussion, Libby called reporter Judith Miller; in their conversation, he outed Plame Wilson as a CIA official and accused her of sending her husband to Niger (see Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), though Bond testifies that Libby denied ever mentioning Plame Wilson to Miller. Libby also called Time reporter Matthew Cooper and confirmed that Plame Wilson was a CIA officer, and had been involved in her husband’s trip (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003). Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff says of Bond’s testimony, “This is significant, because it bring [sic] Cheney himself far more directly into the case, and for the first time suggests that it was the vice president who wanted the news about Wilson’s wife to be circulated to the news media.” Bond’s testimony also establishes the first time Libby claimed he “forgot” about learning Plame Wilson’s CIA status until “remembering” in October 2003. [Marcy Wheeler, 2/1/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/1/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/1/2007; Washington Post, 2/2/2007; Associated Press, 2/2/2007; National Journal, 2/15/2007; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] The defense presses Bond to acknowledge that Libby told her he was unsure of his memory and needed to consult his notes to be sure of his facts. Defense lawyer Theodore Wells also notes that Bond’s notes from the Libby interview are incomplete, and fail to mention Libby’s denials of disclosing Plame Wilson’s identity to Miller. Bond says that while she is sure Libby denied discussing Plame Wilson’s CIA identity with then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (see January 29, 2007), FBI notes of Libby’s testimony contain no record of such a denial. The notes say that he may have discussed it, but he couldn’t recall. “Adamantly might not be the perfect word,” Bond testifies. [Marcy Wheeler, 2/1/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/1/2007; Associated Press, 2/5/2007; FireDogLake, 2/5/2007; FireDogLake, 2/5/2007; BBC, 7/3/2007]

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Deborah Bond, George J. Tenet, Judith Miller, John Eckenrode, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Ari Fleischer, Michael Isikoff, Joseph C. Wilson, Matthew Cooper, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Valerie Plame Wilson, Theodore Wells

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

February 5, 2007: Lawyers Say Evidence of Libby’s State of Mind Should Be Admissible Even if Libby Does Not Testify

Lewis Libby’s defense lawyers file a brief with the court arguing that they should be able to present evidence as to Libby’s state of mind during his tenure at the White House even if Libby does not testify on his own behalf. The legal team wants to use what some call a “memory defense”—an assertion that Libby’s workload at the White House was so stressful that he did not deliberately lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), but merely “misremembered” pertinent facts regarding his involvement in the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert CIA official (see January 31, 2006). The lawyers argue that to exclude such evidence, regardless of Libby’s choice to testify or not, would violate his constitutional rights to a fair trial. The brief notes that no decision as to Libby’s testimony has yet been made. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/5/2007 pdf file ] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, notes that according to the defense argument, testifying would force Libby to choose between his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The brief also states, in a footnote, that while the lawyers had indicated it was “very likely” Libby would testify, no promises were made (see September 22, 2006). And the lawyers say they want to present three separate categories of classified, security-related evidence to prove Libby’s mental confusion: a government statement admitting relevant facts, testimony by members of Vice President Dic Cheney’s staff and perhaps Cheney himself, and some of Libby’s morning briefings. Merritt agrees with Libby’s lawyers in saying that Libby should be able to present some sort of memory defense without having to testify. “The prosecution has admitted a lot of evidence as to his state of mind,” she writes. “He should have the right to present circumstantial evidence refuting it.” She also believes the Libby lawyers are hesitant to put their client on the stand, and that they may be setting up an argument for an appeal if Libby is convicted. Former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, observes that Libby’s strongest argument may be his contention that by testifying, he would void his Fifth Amendment rights. She disagrees with Libby’s intention “to introduce reams and reams of national security materials in an attempt to confuse the jury or to overwhelm them,” or to distract the jury from the fact that he and Cheney were determined to discredit administration critic Joseph Wilson. Merritt contends that Judge Reggie Walton should approve of the motion, while Smith argues for its dismissal. Both agree that it is highly risky for the Libby team not to have their client speak before the jury. [Jeralyn Merritt, 2/6/2007; Christy Hardin Smith, 2/6/2007]

Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Bush administration, Jeralyn Merritt, Valerie Plame Wilson, Christy Hardin Smith, Reggie B. Walton

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

February 16, 2007: Neoconservative Blasts NBC Reporter for Cooperating with FBI, Says Contradictions in Testimony Should Free Libby

Neoconservative John Podhoretz, writing for the New York Post’s editorial page, provides much of the information the defense had attempted unsuccessfully to raise during the Libby perjury trial about NBC reporter Tim Russert (see February 14, 2007). Podhoretz is referring to a stipulation the jury heard in final testimony, written by former FBI agent John Eckenrode, who interviewed Russert about his knowledge and potential involvement in the press exposure of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see November 24, 2003). In the interview, Russert said he did not speak to then-White House official Lewis Libby about Plame Wilson, and did not inform him of Plame Wilson’s CIA status, though he could not rule it out completely. Libby has told both the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) that he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity from Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003). Russert gave a deposition for that same grand jury (see August 7, 2004) and testified in Libby’s trial (see February 7-8, 2007) that he was sure he never spoke to Libby about Plame Wilson. Podhoretz writes: “The question is: How could Russert’s memory of his July 2003 conversation with Libby improve over time? If he wasn’t sure about the details in November 2003, how could he be so certain about them when testifying before a grand jury in 2005? And be even more certain testifying in court in 2007? Should the jury believe Russert’s words now—or take more account of his words in November 2003?” (Podhoretz errs in stating Russert gave the deposition in 2005; he gave that deposition in August 2004.) Podhoretz then advises the Libby defense lawyers to use the apparent contradiction in their closing arguments, which are coming up in a matter of days: “The stipulation will allow the defense to make a strong case in closing arguments next week that Russert’s initial description of the phone call needs to be taken very seriously. The prosecution must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The stipulation casts doubt on Russert’s firm testimony.” Podhoretz believes that the issue can likely lead the jury to find that it cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Libby perjured himself. Podhoretz concludes by misrepresenting Russert’s statement to Eckenrode: according to Podhoretz, all it took was a single phone call from the FBI for Russert to breach his professional ethics by revealing information about sources to Eckenrode, when in reality Russert told Eckenrode he did not learn of Plame Wilson’s identity from Libby, and battled the subpoena that compelled his testimony for the grand jury (see May 13-20, 2004, May 21, 2004, May 21, 2004, June 2004, June 2, 2004, and June 4, 2004). Podhoretz concludes, “[M]aybe, just maybe, Russert’s original words from November 2003—words he should never have spoken in the first place—will help get my friend Scooter out of his disgraceful mess.” [New York Post, 2/16/2007]

Entity Tags: John Podhoretz, John Eckenrode, Tim Russert, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

9:00 a.m. February 20, 2007: Prosecution Closes; Says Case Proved Libby Lied to Grand Jury, FBI

Peter Zeidenberg (left) and Patrick Fitzgerald outside the courthouse during the Libby trial. [Source: Reuters / Jonathan Ernst]After some final sparring between opposing counsel, the prosecution makes its closing argument in the Lewis Libby perjury and obstruction trial. Assistant prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg opens with a lengthy presentation summing up the prosecution’s case against Libby. [Marcy Wheeler, 2/20/2007; MSNBC, 2/21/2007]
Evidence Proves Libby Lied to FBI, Grand Jury - According to Zeidenberg, the evidence as presented shows that Libby lied to both the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury empaneled to investigate the Plame Wilson identity leak (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). He lied about how he learned about Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity, who he spoke to about it, and what he said when he talked to others about Plame Wilson. A number of witnesses, including NBC reporter Tim Russert (see February 7-8, 2007), testified about Libby’s discussions to them about Plame Wilson’s identity. Libby forgot nine separate conversations over a four-week period, Zeidenberg says, and invented two conversations that never happened, one with Russert and one with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper. “That’s not a matter of forgetting or misremembering,” he says, “it’s lying.”
No Evidence of White House 'Scapegoating' - The defense argued in its opening statement that Libby was being “scapegoated” by the White House to protect the president’s deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove (see January 23, 2007). No witness, either for the prosecution or the defense, referenced any such effort to scapegoat Libby. The defense may have promised evidence showing such a conspiracy to frame Libby, but, Zeidenberg says, “unfulfilled promises from counsel do not constitute evidence.”
Libby Learned of Plame Wilson's Identity from Five Administration Officials in Three Days - Zeidenberg then walks the jury through the testimony as given by prosecution witnesses. Both former State Department official Marc Grossman (see January 23-24, 2007) and former CIA official Robert Grenier testified (see January 24, 2007) that Libby had badgered Grossman for information about former ambassador and administration critic Joseph Wilson (see May 29, 2003), and Grossman not only told Libby about Wilson and his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, but that Wilson’s wife was a CIA official (see June 10, 2003 and 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003). Zeidenberg notes: “When Grossman told this to Libby, it was the fourth time, in two days, that Libby had been told about Wilson’s wife.” Libby had learned from Vice President Cheney that Wilson’s wife was a CIA official (see (June 12, 2003)). Two hours after Libby’s meeting with Grossman, Grenier told the jury that Libby had pulled him out of a meeting to discuss Wilson (see 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003). During that impromptu discussion, Grenier told Libby that Wilson’s wife was a CIA official. Libby then learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from Cathie Martin, Cheney’s communications aide (see 5:25 p.m. June 10, 2003 and 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003). Martin, who testified for the prosecution (see January 25-29, 2007), learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from CIA press official Bill Harlow. Zeidenberg ticks off the officials who informed Libby of Plame Wilson’s CIA status: Cheney, Grenier, Martin, and Grossman. (Zeidenberg is as yet unaware that Libby had also heard from another State Department official, Frederick Fleitz, of Plame Wilson’s CIA status—see (June 11, 2003)). On June 14, Libby heard about Plame Wilson from another CIA official, briefer Craig Schmall (see 7:00 a.m. June 14, 2003), who has also testified for the prosecution (see January 24-25, 2007). Schmall’s testimony corroborates the testimony from Martin, Grossman, and Grenier, Zeidenberg asserts.
Leaking Information to Judith Miller - On June 23, just over a week after learning Plame Wilson was a CIA official, Libby informed then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller of Plame Wilson’s CIA status (see June 23, 2003). Why? Zeidenberg asks. Because Libby wanted to discredit the CIA over what Libby saw as the agency’s failure to back the administration’s claims about Iraqi WMDs. Miller is the sixth person, Zeidenberg says, that Libby talked to about Plame Wilson. Miller also testified for the prosecution (see January 30-31, 2007).
Told Press Secretary - On July 7, Libby told White House press secretary Ari Fleischer about Plame Wilson (see 12:00 p.m. July 7, 2003). Fleischer, under a grant of immunity from the prosecution, also testified (see January 29, 2007). By that point, Wilson has published his op-ed in the New York Times (see July 6, 2003), a column the administration considers to be highly damaging towards its credibility. Libby told Fleischer that the information about Plame Wilson was to be kept “hush hush.” However, Zeidenberg says, it is likely that Libby intended Fleischer to spread the information about Plame Wilson to other reporters, which in fact he did (see 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Fleischer is the seventh person that evidence shows Libby spoke to concerning Plame Wilson.
Conferring with Cheney's Chief Counsel - The eighth person in this list is David Addington. At the time, Addington was Cheney’s chief counsel; after Libby stepped down over being indicted for perjury and obstruction (see October 28, 2005), Addington replaced him as Cheney’s chief of staff. Addington also testified for the prosecution (see January 30, 2007). Libby asked Addington if the president could legally declassify information at will, referring to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (NIE—see October 1, 2002). Libby planned on leaking NIE material to Miller on July 8 (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003).
Leaking Classified Material to Miller - As stated, Libby indeed leaked classified material to Miller, during their meeting at the St. Regis Hotel. The “declassification” was highly unusual; only Cheney, Libby, and President Bush knew of the declassification. Libby again told Miller of Plame Wilson’s CIA status, and this time told her, incorrectly, that Plame Wilson worked in the WINPAC (Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control) section of the agency. Cheney and Libby chose Miller, of all the reporters in the field, to leak the information to, Zeidenberg says; in her turn, Miller went to jail for almost three months rather than testify against Libby (see October 7, 2004). That fact damages her credibility as a prosecution witness.
The Russert Claim - Zeidenberg then turns to NBC’s Russert, who also testified for the prosecution (see February 7-8, 2007). Zeidenberg notes that after lead defense attorney Theodore Wells initially asserted that neither Russert nor any other reporter testifying for the prosecution was lying under oath, Wells and other defense attorneys cross-examined Russert for over five hours trying to prove that he indeed did lie. Libby claimed repeatedly to the grand jury that Russert told him of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity (see July 10 or 11, 2003), an assertion Russert has repeatedly denied. Zeidenberg plays an audiotape of Libby’s grand jury testimony featuring Libby’s assertion. Libby, Zeidenberg states, lied to the grand jury. Russert never made any such statement to Libby. [Marcy Wheeler, 2/20/2007] The defense tried to assert that Russert lied about his conversation with Libby because of some “bad blood” between the two. However, “evidence of [such a] feud is completely absent from the trial.” And if such a feud existed, why would Libby have chosen Russert to lie about before the jury? Such an assertion is merely a desperate attempt to discredit Russert, Zeidenberg says.
Matthew Cooper - Zeidenberg then turns to former Time reporter Matthew Cooper, another recipient of a Libby leak about Plame Wilson (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003). Cooper also testified for the prosecution (see January 31, 2007). When Libby told the grand jury that Cooper asked him about Plame Wilson being a CIA official, and Libby said he responded, “I don’t know if it’s true,” Libby lied to the jury. Zeidenberg plays the audiotape of Libby making the Cooper claim. Had Libby made such a statement, Cooper could not have used it as confirmation of his own reporting. Cooper did indeed use Libby as a source for a Time article (see July 17, 2003). Cooper’s testimony is corroborated by Martin’s recollection of the Libby-Cooper conversation. Zeidenberg says: “Martin was present. She never heard any of what you heard Libby just hear it. She never heard, ‘I don’t know if it’s true.’ If she had heard it, she would have said something, because she knew it was true.”
FBI Agent Bond's Testimony - Zeidenberg briefly references testimony from FBI agent Deborah Bond (see February 1-5, 2007), who told the court that Libby may have discussed leaking Plame Wilson’s identity to the press. Bond’s testimony corroborates the prosecution’s assertion that Libby attempted to obscure where he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity.
Grounds for Conviction - Zeidenberg reminds the jury of the three separate instances the prosecution says are Libby lies, then tells them if they find any one of the three statements to be actual lies, they can convict Libby of perjury. “You don’t have to find that all three were false beyond reasonable doubt,” he says. “You have to unanimously agree on any one.” Of the two false statements Libby is charged with making to investigators, the jury need only find one of them is truly false.
Defense Assertions - Zeidenberg turns to Libby’s main defense, that he was so overwhelmed with important work as Cheney’s chief of staff that it is unreasonable to expect him to remember the details that he is accused of lying about (see January 31, 2006). Zeidenberg says the trial has elicited numerous instances of conversations Libby had, for example his conversation with Rove about Robert Novak (see July 8 or 9, 2003), that he remembered perfectly well. Zeidenberg then plays the relevant audiotape from the grand jury proceedings. Why is it, he asks, that Libby can remember that conversation so well, but consistently misremembered nine separate conversations he had about Plame Wilson? “When you consider Libby’s testimony, there’s a pattern of always forgetting about Wilson’s wife,” Zeidenberg says. Libby remembered details about Fleischer being a Miami Dolphins fan, but didn’t remember talking about Plame Wilson. He remembered talking about the NIE with Miller, but not Plame Wilson. He remembered talking about declassification with Addington, but not Wilson’s wife. Zeidenberg calls it a “convenient pattern,” augmented by Libby’s specific recollections about not discussing other issues, such as Cheney’s handwritten notes about Wilson’s op-ed (see July 7, 2003 or Shortly After). The defense also claims that Libby confused Russert with Novak; Zeidenberg puts up pictures of Russert and Novak side by side, and asks if it is credible to think that Libby made such a mistake. The entire “memory defense,” Zeidenberg says, is “not credible to believe. It’s ludicrous.” Libby was far too involved in the administration’s efforts to discredit Wilson (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, April 5, 2006, and April 9, 2006). [Associated Press, 2/20/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/20/2007]
Motive to Lie - Zeidenberg addresses the idea of motive: why would Libby lie to the FBI and the grand jury, and why nine government witnesses would lie to the Libby jury. “Is it conceivable that all nine witnesses would make the same mistake in their memory?” he asks. Not likely. It is far more likely that Libby was motivated to lie because when he testified to FBI investigators, he knew there was an ongoing investigation into the Plame Wilson leak. He knew he had talked to Miller, Cooper, and Fleischer. He knew the FBI was looking for him. He knew from newspaper articles entered into evidence that the leak could have severely damaged Plame Wilson’s informant network and the Brewster Jennings front company (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). Even Addington’s testimony, about Libby asking him about the legality of leaking classified information, is evidence of Libby’s anxiety over having disclosed such information. And Libby knew that such disclosure is a breach of his security clearance, not only risking his job, but prosecution as well. So when he is questioned by the FBI, he had a choice: tell the truth and take his chances with firing and prosecution for disclosing the identity of a covert agent, or lie about it. “And, ladies and gentlemen,” Zeidenberg says, “he took the second choice. He made up a story that he thought would cover it.” And when caught out, he claimed to have forgotten that he originally knew about Plame Wilson’s identity. Libby, Zeidenberg says, “made a gamble. He lied. Don’t you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?” [Marcy Wheeler, 2/20/2007; Murray Waas, 12/23/2008]
No Conspiracy, Just a Lie - Zeidenberg concludes by telling the jury that there was no grand White House conspiracy to scapegoat Libby, nor was there an NBC conspiracy to smear him. The case is just about Libby lying to federal authorities. “When you consider all the evidence, the government has established that the defendant lied to the FBI, lied to the grand jury, and obstructed justice.” [Marcy Wheeler, 2/20/2007]

Entity Tags: Matthew Cooper, Peter Zeidenberg, Theodore Wells, Robert Novak, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tim Russert, Marc Grossman, Robert Grenier, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Frederick Fleitz, Judith Miller, Bush administration, Bill Harlow, Ari Fleischer, Cathie Martin, Craig Schmall, David S. Addington, Joseph C. Wilson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Deborah Bond, Karl Rove, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

February 21, 2007: Jurors Begin Deliberations in Libby Trial

Jurors begin deliberating in the trial of Lewis “Scooter” Libby (see January 16-23, 2007). In an hour of jury instructions, Judge Reggie Walton tells the jury to focus on the specific charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, and “not to let the nature of the case” affect its deliberations. The jury will deliberate every weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with an hour for lunch, until it has reached a verdict. [MSNBC, 2/21/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/21/2007; BBC, 7/3/2007] The proceedings begin with a query about a juror’s impartiality towards a lawyer from the firm of Baker Botts, who appeared yesterday with the defense team for closing arguments. Walton determines that no issue exists and turns to jury instructions. [Marcy Wheeler, 2/21/2007] Warning the jury to “follow the law” and not “question the law,” Walton explains that Libby is presumed innocent unless the jury finds him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, “then you must find guilty.” He walks the jury through each of the charges, and explains how the jury can find verdicts:
On the single obstruction count, the jury can find Libby guilty if it unanimously decides that any one, or more, of three Libby statements are lies: that NBC reporter Tim Russert asked Libby if Valerie Plame Wilson worked at the CIA and said all the reporters knew it (see July 10 or 11, 2003), that Libby was surprised to learn the Plame Wilson information from Russert, and that Libby told reporter Matthew Cooper he’d heard it from reporters but didn’t know it was true.
On one count of lying to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003), the jury can find Libby guilty if it finds either or both of his statements about the Russert conversation were lies.
On the other count of lying to the FBI, the jury can find Libby guilty if it decides that Libby lied about the content of his conversation with reporter Matt Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003).
On two counts of perjury, the jury will have to weigh a number of statements Libby made to the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about how he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA employment and whom he told, including four separate statements in one count. [Associated Press, 2/21/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/21/2007]
Because of the lengthy instructions from Walton, the jury deliberates less than five hours today. [CBS News, 1/25/2007] The Associated Press reports the jury makeup as “a former Washington Post reporter, an MIT-trained economist, a retired math teacher, a former museum curator (see February 14, 2007), a law firm accountant, a Web architect, and several retired or current federal workers. There are 10 whites and two blacks—unexpected in a city where blacks outnumber whites more than 2-to-1.” [Associated Press, 2/21/2007]

Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Matthew Cooper, Baker Botts, Tim Russert, Reggie B. Walton, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

February 27-28, 2007: Jury Requests Clarification during Libby Trial Deliberations

The jury in the Lewis Libby perjury trial submits a request for clarification to Judge Reggie Walton. The jury wishes more information pertaining to Charge 3 of the indictment (see October 28, 2005), a perjury charge regarding Libby’s alleged lies about his conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003). The jurors are not sure whether Libby’s claim of learning about Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity from reporters was made in the context of the conversation. Walton is unclear what the jury is asking, and requests more information about its question. The note reads, “Page 74 of the jury instructions, ‘Count 3 of the indictment alleges that Mr. Libby falsely told the FBI on October 14 or November 26, 2003 (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003), that during a conversation with M. Cooper of Time magazine on July 12, 2003 (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003), Mr. Libby told Mr. Cooper that reporters were telling the administration that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA but that Mr. Libby did not know if this was true.” Apparently the jury is confused over whether Libby is charged with lying to Cooper, the FBI, or both. Walton sends the note back with a comment: “I am not exactly certain what you are asking me. Can you please clarify your question?” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/27/2007 pdf file ; Marcy Wheeler, 2/28/2007; National Review, 3/5/2007] The next day, the jurors informs Walton that they have figured out the answer to their question on their own. [Jury Notes, 2/28/2007 ; Marcy Wheeler, 2/28/2007; Marcy Wheeler, 2/28/2007]

Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Matthew Cooper, Reggie B. Walton, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

March 6, 2007: Former Justice Department Official Lays Out Legal Arguments for Appeal of Libby Verdicts

Within hours of the four guilty verdicts against Lewis Libby being handed down (see March 6, 2007), former Justice Department official Victoria Toensing publishes a brief article on the Web site of the National Review, a conservative news and opinion publication, delineating the arguments behind a possible appeal of the verdicts. Toensing was a signatory of a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of Libby (see March 23, 2005), and has written numerous articles attacking the prosecution and disparaging the trial (see November 2-9, 2005, November 3, 2005, November 7, 2005, September 15, 2006, and February 18, 2007). She writes that the trial verdicts “make… no logical sense, but that won’t bother the legal notions of an appellate court.” Toensing represents the verdicts as the jury finding that Libby lied to a grand jury about his conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), but did not lie about the same conversation to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003). Toensing opines that “[t]he court punished Libby for not taking the stand,” which she says made Judge Reggie Walton “furious” and led him to limit Libby’s use of his “memory defense” (see February 12, 2007). She also objects to Walton’s refusal to allow the defense to attack NBC reporter Tim Russert for apparent contradictions in his testimony (see February 14, 2007). And she falsely states that Walton repeatedly allowed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to characterize CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson as “classified” or “covert” during the trial, saying such characterizations were “highly prejudicial”; in reality, Walton prohibited the jury from hearing testimony that would confirm or deny Plame Wilson’s classified status, and supported a defense objection to Fitzgerald’s implication to such a status during his closing argument (see 9:00 a.m. February 20, 2007). Toensing notes that Fitzgerald did call Plame Wilson “classified” in a press conference held after Libby’s conviction was declared in the court, and reiterates her argument that exposing Plame Wilson’s CIA status does not constitute a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. [National Review, 3/6/2007] Ten days after Toensing’s article, Plame Wilson will confirm to Congress that she was a covert CIA official (see Fall 1992 - 1996, Late 1990s-2001 and Possibly After, April 22, 1999, (July 11, 2003), Before July 14, 2003, July 22, 2003, July 30, 2003, September 30, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, January 9, 2006, February 13, 2006, and September 6, 2006) up to the moment she was exposed by columnist Robert Novak (see March 16, 2007).

Entity Tags: Reggie B. Walton, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Patrick Fitzgerald, Valerie Plame Wilson, Tim Russert, Victoria Toensing

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

March 7, 2007: New York Post: ‘Free Scooter Libby’

The New York Post joins the National Review (see March 6, 2007 and March 6, 2007) in demanding an immediate presidential pardon for convicted felon Lewis Libby (see March 6, 2007). The Post accuses “Democrats and Bush-bashers in the media” of “chortling with glee” over the guilty verdicts, and says special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald now “has a high-level scalp on his belt,” Libby’s. The Post joins many other conservative media pundits and publications in asking why Libby was prosecuted for leaking Valerie Plame Wilson’s name to the press (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) when the first admitted leaker was another government official, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see June 13, 2003). (The Post fails to note that Armitage admitted to his leak—see October 2, 2003—while Libby committed perjury and obstruction of justice in his untruthful denials of leaking Plame Wilson’s identity—see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004.) Instead, the Post writes, the entire investigation and trial was about “[s]coring points against [President] Bush. That much is obvious, given prosecutor Fitzgerald’s conduct during Libby’s trial.” The Post charges Fitzgerald with being “blatantly political” in charging Vice President Dick Cheney with orchestrating the leak and violating the court’s orders not to discuss Plame Wilson’s covert status (see 9:00 a.m. February 20, 2007). It paints the jury as “wholly confused,” and writes that perhaps the jury was less interested in issuing a fair verdict for Libby and more interested “in just going home.” The Post exhorts President Bush to pardon Libby, and writes: “Sure, he’d take a lot of political heat for it. But Libby was in the dock because of politics—and turnabout is fair play. Free Scooter Libby.” [New York Post, 3/7/2007]

Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, George W. Bush, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, New York Post, Patrick Fitzgerald, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Richard Armitage

Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

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Army Sgt. Nick Wysong keeps watch as the Army's 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, stops for fuel south of Baghdad, Iraq, on August 17, 2010. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

At sunrise, members of the Army's 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, crossed the Iraq desert a few miles from the Kuwait border in a tactical road march on August 17, 2010. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Young Iraqi shepherds wave to members of the Army?s 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Lt. Col. Richard D. Heyward, left, and Sgt. Nick Wysong, right, keep watch as the Army's 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, crosses the southern desert lands of Iraq on August 17, 2010. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

After two twelve-hour troop movements, Army Specialist John Ray rests inside a Stryker vehicle as the Army's 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, make their way towards the Kuwait border. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Army Specialist Tyson Kuwaye lifts Specialist Matt Cullum after they completed a two-day road march with their division, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, to the Iraq-Kuwait border on August 18, 2010. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

In this Aug. 16, 2010 photo, U.S. Army soldiers from 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment pose with an American flag for a photograph after crossing the border from Iraq into Kuwait. The soldiers from 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, are the last combat brigade to leave Iraq as part of the drawdown of U.S. forces. (AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo)

At Taji Base outside of Baghdad, Iraq, members of the Army?s 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, prepares to leave on August 17, 2010, for the Kuwait border. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Osama bin Laden's "Mountain Fortress", shown to the US public by the corporate media, and like Saddam's nuclear weapons, never actually existed. Below a song to the veterans and love ones an old melody but still current to the times.

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A soldier with the Army's 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, the last formal U.S. military combat detachment to leave Iraq, puts down his weapon at Camp Taji, Iraq, on August 15, 2010. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

A U.S. Army soldier from 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division waves from his Stryker armored vehicle after crossing the border from Iraq into Kuwait Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010. The soldiers are part of the last combat brigade to leave Iraq as part of the drawdown of U.S. forces. (AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo)

Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller, 20, of Kentucky, a member of Charlie Company of the U.S. Marines First Division, Eighth regiment, smokes a cigarette. Miller came to be known as the "Marlboro Man" for this iconic photograph from the Iraq War. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

Tens of thousands of antiwar protesters gather on the National Mall in Washington to protest the war on Iraq Saturday, Jan. 18, 2003. (AP {Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Haylee Schimmelpfenneg embraces her father, Sergeant First Class Robert Schimmelpfenneg, after a deployment ceremony for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team in Fort Carson. The soldier deployment from Fort Carson for impending war in Iraq is the greatest since the Vietnam War. (Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post)

Soldiers salute during the National Anthem at the beginning of a deployment ceremony for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team in Fort Carson. The soldier deployment from Fort Carson for impending war in Iraq is the greatest since the Vietnam War. (Glenn Asakawa/The Denver Post)

Smoke covers the presidential palace compound in Baghdad 21 March 2003 during a massive US-led air raid on the Iraqi capital. Smoke billowed from a number of targeted sites, including one of President Saddam Hussein's palaces, an AFP correspondent said. AFP PHOTO/Ramzi HAIDAR

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