THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
February 2003
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Highlights of This Page
Draft of USA Patriot Act II leaked. Colin Powell's magnificently fraudulent speech to the UN. Recall efforts begin against California governor Gray Davis. Massive peace protests. Garner's "rock drill" rehearsal foresees tremendous problems with reconstruction of postwar Iraq. Army Chief of Staff Shinseki tells Congress that several hundred thousand troops will be needed in Iraq, contradicting Rumsfeld' Shinseki is mocked and hounded out of office for his claim.
"After 9/11, no one has any rights." -- a Chicago FBI agent, February 2003
- February: Officials from a number of human rights organizations meet with the Pentagon's William Haynes to discuss allegations of torture of prisoners in Guantanamo, several weeks after the Washington Post reports on what it calls the "brass-knuckled quest for information" from detainees from Afghanistan. "Haynes came in mad -- he really looked angry," recalls Holly Burkhalter of Physicians for Human Rights. "He started the meeting by saying, 'We don't torture,' and then lectured us -- 'Those of you in the human rights community who suggest that what the United States does to detainees is torture are trivializing the meaning of torture.' His meaning was clear. [He meant that i]f what you are calling what we do in our interrogations torture -- keeping people awake and in binds -- you are doing a disservice to the victims of real torture." (Seymour Hersh)
- February: Analysts for the US Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership issue a report entitled "The Day After: The Army in a Post-Conflict Iraq." The report is ignored by the administration's war planners. The report predicts many of the problems that will later arise in postwar Iraq, and warns, "Without an overwhelming effort to prepare for occupation, the US may find itself in a radically different world over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's own making." The authors predict post-Hussein Iraq to be "very unstable," with crucial institutions such as the police and judiciary to become "dysfunctional due to the purging of the top leadership and no replacements." US military forces will be endangered by, among others, rogue elements of the Iraqi military, and Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurdish tribal leaders initiating skirmishes to expand their own power bases. "In many cases, the [US] army will be the only entity capable of providing much-needed assistance and the required security aspects of the relief efforts. ...[P]ost-conflict Iraq security tasks may include control of belligerents, territorial security, protection of the populace, protection of key individuals, infrastructure, and institutions, and reform of all indigenous security institutions [that will require] well over one hundred essential services that the army must provide or support." The stress on the Army's capacity to function will be enormous.
- A CIA study comes to many of the same conclusions, and warns that Iraqis will "probably resort to obstruction, resistance, and armed opposition if they perceived attempts to keep them dependent on the West." A US official stationed in Baghdad will later admit, "We foold ourselves into thinking we would have a liberation instead of an occupation. Why did we do that?" One answer comes from a State Department official: "The problems came about when the office of the secretary of defense [Rumsfeld] wouldn't let anybody else play -- or play only if you beat yourself into the bame. There was so much tension, so much ego involved." (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- February: At a board meeting of Trireme Partners, the Richard Perle-led venture capital company that is hunting for profits to be made in the upcoming invasion of Iraq while chairman Perle continues to advise the Bush administration to go to war, board member Gerald Hillman, who is also a member of Perle's Defense Policy Board, says flatly that the US should "kick out" the Russians and the French from Iraq and allow companies like Trireme to take over managing Iraq's oil. "We'd become the brokers," says another board member, recalling Hillman's suggestion. "Then we'd be selling futures in the Iraqi oil market. I said to myself, 'Oh, man. Don't go down that road.'" Naturally, Perle and Hillman's involvement with the Defense Policy Board as well as their positions on the Trireme board of directors is a flagrant conflict of interest. "It's enough to raise questions," says the Center for Responsive Politics's Larry Noble, "about the advice he's giving the Pentagon and why people in business are dealing with him. The question is whether he's trading off his advisory committee relationship. If it's a selling point for the firm he's involved with, that means he's a closer -- the guy you bring in who doesn't have to talk about money, but he's the reason you're doing the deal." Perle, who has a long and chequered history of blurring the lines between political and corporate involvement, has deep ties with Pentagon neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Feith received his position as a deputy secretary in the Defense Department after Perle personally intervened with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Like many other neocons, Perle has worked for former Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu; like many other neocons, Perle has advocated the overthrow of Iraq for nearly a decade. (Seymour Hersh)
- February: Defense contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is awarded a $38 million contract for creating the Iraq Media Network. SAIC's body of work in video and news production has previously been limited to creating videos for US Special Forces units. The contract, overseen by the Defense Department's psychological operations department, is "considered the most ambitious and costly foreign media program ever undertaken by the US government." Former Voice of America director Robert Reilly is hired by SAIC to run the network; Reilly has solid conservative credentials stemming from his experience during the 1980s running the White House's information operations backing the Nicaraguan contras. Reilly resigns six months later when IMN staffers walk off the job in protest over low wages and the network's irrelevance. IMN broadcasters are paid $120 a month and are only given clothing allowances "above the waist," i.e. on camera; in contrast, SAIC employees are making up to $273 an hour. (Amy and David Goodman)
- February: FCC chairman Michael Powell, bent on allowing media conglomerates to gobble up media markets and buy up lucrative bandwidth rights, conducts much of his commission's business out of the public eye; however, he is required by law to hold public hearings about his commission's doings, so he does so -- one single hearing, conducted during a snowstorm in Richmond, Virginia, that is attended almost completely by industry representatives. Outside of public scrutiny, the FCC has held at least 71 private meetings with corporate media interest lobbyists; FCC officials have taken over 2,500 trips worth a total of $2.8 million between 1995 and 2003, all paid for by companies and trade groups from the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. (Amy Goodman and David Goodman
- February: The Bush administration unveils a Medicaid restructuring plan that shrinks coverage for millions. Instead of helping financially strapped states fund their own Medicaid programs, the new plan allows states to gut benefits for what are termed "optional beneficiaries" -- basically anyone not on welfare or not poor children. This one-third of coverees make for about two-thirds of Medicaid costs; such cutbacks would leave many millions of elderly and disabled patients without any health care coverage, or with drastically reduced coverage that would be far more costly for the patient. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- Early February: Retired general Jay Garner, head of the Iraqi postwar reconstruction effort, and his chief of staff, retired general Jared Bates, fly to Doha, Qatar to meet with General Tommy Franks, the chief military war planner, and his deputy, General John Abizaid. Franks, the head of US CENTCOM, is in Qatar to supervise the preparations for the invasion. The profane Franks is perpetually livid about Douglas Feith, the civilian undersecretary of defense for policy who was appointed by Donald Rumsfeld to coordinate the postwar situation in Iraq. Franks calls Feith the "dumbest b*stard, the dumbest motherf*cker on the face of the earth," and says he is glad that Garner and Bates are in charge on the ground. Garner emphasizes, as he has before, that Franks has to keep Washington off his back. "We understand trucks and ROWPUs [water purification units]," he says.
- Abizaid, like Garner and Bates, has been thinking heavily about postwar Iraq, and has discussed the situation with Garner. Abizaid says that a government will need to be put in place as soon as possible. "We've got to get an Iraqi face on it. It's got to be a multiethnic face." A new government must include and involve all the ethnicities -- Shi'ite, Kurd, and Sunni, but the other, smaller ethnic factions as well, and the various tribes and factions. But Abizaid worries about the simplistic, tough-guy thinking emanating from the civilians in Washington, most of whom have never worn a uniform. In particular, he worries about the idea of just ousting every member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party from government. Almost everyone in Iraq's government, from top to bottom, is Ba'athist, and the US is going to need their expertise and involvement to make the new government work. Not much later, Abizaid, who grows ever more disgusted with Washington, tells Bates, "You know, those b*stards in Washington have got no idea what they're doing, and I think I'm going to retire. I don't want any more part of this." (Bob Woodward)
- February 1: A 25-page draft of Colin Powell's upcoming speech to the United Nations, where he will build the case for attacking Iraq, is completed. The draft is a compilation of information from the October 2002 NIE, as well as material from the offices of Dick Cheney and Douglas Feith. Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, whose own draft had been scrapped due to it being rife with unsourced and unfounded allegations, many of which had long been disproven. Cheney wants some of that scrapped material reinserted, particularly material "proving" connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. After Powell reads Cheney's proposed insertion, he snaps to his chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, "I'm not reading this. This is crazy." The document is, as Wilkerson later recalls, a "genealogy" that strings together connections and associations that are virtually meaningless and incomprehensible. "It was like the Bible," Wilkerson recalls. "It was like the Old Testament. It was 'Joe met Bob met Frank met Bill met Ted met Jane in Khartoum and therefore we assume that Bob knew Ralph.' It was incredible." Most of Cheney's insertion is junked, leaving only the few assertions that the CIA, however unwillingly, will support, particularly the claim that Jordanian al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is being harbored in Iraq. (As discussed in the February 5 item below, al-Zarqawi is indeed being harbored in Iraq -- by Kurdish resistance fighters in the northern area of Iraq where Hussein has no control. The other claims are equally specious.)
- Cheney and Libby want Powell to use the long-disproven claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in the months before the attacks; NSC deputy Stephen Hadley also wants Powell to use the claim. Powell had removed it because CIA director George Tenet told him the claim could not be proven. But Hadley keeps trying to reinsert it, until Powell finally calls Hadley down and flatly refuses to include it.
- A day later, a dispirited Powell calls his deputy, Richard Armitage, into his office to complain about the speech. "This is bullsh*t," he groans, throwing the papers down on the table. Both Armitage and Powell are particularly disturbed by the lack of support they receive from NSC director Condoleezza Rice. Powell had been a mentor to Rice, and thought Rice might show him some respect. But Rice gives him none. "I was taken aback by the way Dr. Rice talked to him," Wilkerson later recalls. "She would just say, 'Oh come on, you know that ought to be in there.'" (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- February 1: David Phillips, in his April 2005 book Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco, writes of a telling encounter between Bush and a prominent Iraqi exile. Phillips, a former member of the State Department's "Future of Iraq" project that attempted to predict and give strategies for handling Iraq in the aftermath of the March 2003 invasion, writes that the most prominent Iraqi exile in the Future group, Brandeis professor Kanan Makiya, one of Ahmad Chalabi's chief deputies (who is best known for telling Bush that Americans would be greeted in Iraq with sweets and flowers), meets with Bush just eight weeks before the invasion, and attempts to explain to Bush the differences between Iraq's three ethnic groups, the Shi'a, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. Bush seems more interested in watching the Super Bowl than listening to Makiya. Makiya later tells Phillips that Bush seems unaware that there are any differences of note between the three. "This is pretty basic," Phillips says in a later interview. "You're going to go to war in a country, you should know who lives there." (Makiya denies the incident.) (David Phillips/Al Franken)
Draft of USA Patriot Act II leaked
- February 2: A draft text of the USA Patriot Act II, otherwise known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, is leaked to the Center for Public Integrity by a Department of Justice employee and posted on its Web site. Patriot II, as it is called, contains the following breathtaking removals of fundamental civil liberties and abridgements of the Bill of Rights:
- the ability of the US government to strip Americans of their citizenship if they participate in lawful activities in conjunction with any group the Attorney General deems as "terrorist"
- the ability of the Justice Department to detain anyone, including an American citizen, for any length of time for suspicion of terrorist activities or involvement without notifying family or lawyers, until criminal charges are filed, with no limits on how long such a detention can last; in essence, "disappearing" that citizen
- repeal limits on law enforcement spying on religious and political groups
- allow the government to obtain library records and credit reports without a warrant
- permit wiretaps without a court order for up to 15 days after a terrorist attack
- restrict release of health and safety hazards posed by chemical and other plants
- expand the reach of the definition of "terrorist" organizations to include just about any group in opposition to the government
- permit the extradition, search, and internment of American citizens at the request of a foreign nation regardless of treaty restrictions
- strip lawful immigrants of their right to deportation hearings, and bar federal courts from reviewing immigration rulings
- authorize a DNA database of "suspected terrorists," a group so broadly defined that it could include virtually anyone
- designate any news reporting or other information presentation as espionage -- "pursuit of covert intelligence for a foreign power" -- which will, in essence, allow adminstration officials to arrest and jail any news reporter, blogger, or private citizen as a "terrorist" for publishing information not to the liking of the government
- February 3: One alarming element of Colin Powell's upcoming speech to the UN centers on the supposed mobile biological weapons laboratories in Iraq. The source, as detailed in previous entries in this site, is a single Iraqi defector currently living in Germany code-named "Curveball." Curveball, whose information is funnelled to the CIA by German intelligence, has long been regarded with suspicion and distrust by both the American and German intelligence communities. The draft of Powell's speech says that US intelligence has "first-hand" descriptions of the mobile bioweapons labs, making it appear that the US has caught Hussein red-handed. Powell will cite four sources, the main one of which is Curveball. Backing up Curveball's dubious claims is the testimony of Mohammed al-Harith, another Iraqi defector, this time produced by Ahmad Chalabi's INC, who has already been judged a fabricator by the DIA. A senior CIA official who learned of the plans to include Curveball's allegations in Powell's speech is flabbergasted, later telling Senate investigators that she "couldn't believe" the presentation would rely on Curveball's information. On January 27, the Berlin CIA station reported that it couldn't confirm any of Curveball's allegations, and warned, "The source himself is problematical...to use information from another liason service's source whose information cannot be verified on such an important, key topic should take the most serious consideration."
- The CIA's European head, Tyler Drumheller, adds his own doubts as to Curveball's reliability, but notes that German intelligence will not dispute the usage of Curveball's information as long as no mention of the Germans is made in reference to the source. But the hardliners in the CIA's WINPAC are behind the Curveball stories.
- Drumheller is asked by CIA headquarters to try to find out more about Curveball before the speech. The directive, from deputy CIA director John McLaughlin, notes that "we want to take every precaution against unwelcome surprises that might emerge comcerning the intel case: clearly, public statements by this emigre, press accounts of his reporting or credibility, or even direct press access to him would cause a number of potential concerns." McLaughlin wants to be sure that Curveball won't appear in the press after Powell's speech and discredit Powell's claims. As has become typical, McLaughlin, like other CIA officials, isn't worried so much about the truth or falsehood of the claims, but how they will play in the press and in the public consciousness. Drumheller later recalls being shocked at hearing the inclusion of the Curveball material, as does a member of the JITF. "My mouth hung open when I saw Colin Powell use information from Curveball," that member later recalls. "It was like cognitive dissonance. Maybe, I thought, my government has something more. But it scared me deeply."
- The only American intelligence official ever to meet Curveball, the Defense Department doctor known as "Les," is horrified when he learns Curveball's information will form a key portion of Powell's presentation. On February 4, he sends an e-mail to the deputy chief of the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq objecting to the inclusion of Curveball's claims and reminding the deputy chief that the main supporter of Curveball's story, al-Harith, has already been branded a fabricator. "Need I say more?" he asks. The deputy chief meets with Les and tells him that, although he and most of the CIA's senior leadership agrees with Les, nothing will be done in view of the administration's insistence on war.
- Drumheller, too, tries to alert the CIA leadership, in the person of CIA director George Tenet. But, as Drumheller later recalls, Tenet seems too tired and distracted to bother to listen to Drumheller's objections. (Tenet later says he has no recollection of speaking with Drumheller about the inclusion of the Curveball material, and never heard any complaints from anyone about Curveball until after the start of the war. If Tenet is telling the truth, then he is perhaps the most disconnected DCI the CIA has ever had.) At 2:30 AM on February 5, the day of the speech, Tenet gets a phone call from Phil Mudd, the CIA's top expert on terrorism. Mudd is passing along concerns from the White House about the draft of the speech. There are too many deletions in the material on Iraq's connection to Islamist terrorists. Lewis Libby had agitated Powell's staff earlier that evening and demanded that much of the deleted material be restored. Tenet tries to call Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, but gets no answer. As late as the morning of the speech -- Powell is slated to begin speaking at 10:30 AM -- Libby tries again to get the information, particularly the Mohammed Atta-in-Prague reference, reinstated. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- February 4: A much-denied meeting between Colin Powell and British Foreign Minister Jack Straw takes place in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. According to transcripts of the meeting, both men express strong doubts about the reliability of intelligence on Iraq's supposed weapons programs. The "Waldorf transcripts," as the transcripts of the meeting are being called, have made the rounds of NATO countries and are causing some of those countries, particularly France and Germany, to further intensify their opposition to the US's intentions of invading Iraq. Note that Powell will make a landmark speech to the UN less than 24 hours later which relies heavily on the intelligence that he and Straw believe to be unreliable. (Guardian)
- February 4: Members of the US Mission in Vienna brief the IAEA's Jacques Baute on the now-infamous documents "proving" Iraq's 1999 attempt to buy uranium from Niger, supposedly for nuclear weapons; the mission delegates refuse to allow Baute to examine the documents themselves. (The IAEA has been asking for the evidence of Iraq's supposed African uranium buy since September 2002, when the allegation surfaced in Britain's publicly released dossier on Iraqi WMDs. The IAEA had no knowledge of the documents alleging the attempt to buy uranium from Niger until days after Bush's January State of the Union address. After Niger was mentioned in a State Department fact sheet of December 19, 2002, Baute became more insistent, but with no luck. "I started to harass the United States," Baute recalls, and IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky adds, "We were asking for actionable evidence, and Jacques was getting almost nothing.") Baute is given the documents upon his arrival in New York, and quickly concludes that the documents are most likely fraudulent; within hours, his staff confirms that the documents are fake. Baute and his IAEA colleagues are astounded at Colin Powell's fraudulent speech to the UN the next day. (Seymour Hersh)
- February 4: The only member of US intelligence to ever personally meet with the Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball" reads over the portion of Colin Powell's upcoming speech to vet the section regarding mobile biological laboratories, largely based on Curveball's unreliable testimony. (The defector, an alcoholic and convicted sex offender, has recently suffered a mental breakdown while in American custody.) The analyst sends a memo to his superior calling into question everything Curveball has asserted, including his identity, and warning that it would be reckless for Powell to use Curveball's allegations as the backbone of his own assertions. The superior responds, "[L]et's keep in mind the fact that this war is going to happen regardless of what Curveball did or didn't say, and that the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about." CIA station chief Tyler Drumheller, the chief of the CIA's European Division, makes an impassioned plea with CIA director George Tenet for Powell to remove anything sourced from Curveball from his speech; those who worked with Powell in preparing the speech later say that Powell was never told of Drumheller's phone call, and that even after speaking with Drumheller, Tenet personally assured Powell that the intelligence was "solid." Powell later says, "What really made me not pleased was they had put out a burn notice on this guy [a warning that his information is not to be trusted], and people who were even present at my briefings knew it." Later, the WMD commission reports that the reliance on Curveball is an example of "poor asset validation by our human collection agencies; of a tendency of analysts to believe that which fits their theories of inadequate communication between the intelligence community and the policy makers it serves; and ultimately, of poor leadership and management."
- Drumheller finds himself in a battle between himself and his bosses, Tenet and John McLaughlin. Drumheller and other CIA analysts are shocked at the credibility being given to Curveball by senior CIA officials, when the German intelligence service refuses to give the CIA access to Curveball. The Germans don't even provide the raw interview information from Curveball, but merely their own reports of Curveball's statements. Worse, the CIA isn't even getting the reports directly from the Germans, but from a US military intelligence unit, the Defense HUMINT [Human Intelligence] Service, which circulated the reports throughout the US intelligence community. Defense HUMINT, an ideologically biased creation of Donald Rumsfeld, circulates the reports without vetting them. The CIA decides it is okay to place serious trust in these thirdhand reports, going so far as to use Curveball's assertions as the single basis for its claim in the October 2002 NIE that Iraq has "transportable facilties for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents." But Drumheller is beginning to hear warnings from the Germans themselves about Curveball. In the fall of 2002, Drumheller had asked the chief of German intelligence if the US could interview Curveball for itself, only to be told that such an interview would be a waste of time -- Curveball is crazy. He had suffered a nervous breakdown, and between that and the long-extant questions about his mental stability, the message is clear: the US shouldn't place any trust in anything Curveball says. Drumheller passed along the information to his CIA supervisors: "I said it is going to make us look stupid if we don't validate this," he recalls saying.
- But Drumheller was again shocked to learn, in January 2003, that Powell would use Curveball's information as the linchpin for some of the elements of his UN speech. Drumheller saw a draft of Powell's speech the week before it was due to be given, and, though Curveball is not directly referenced, much of the information he has provided, about mobile bioweapons laboratories in particular, is in the speech. Drumheller knew the intelligence surrounding Curveball was "shoddy," and it was up to Drumheller to pass along a warning to remove that material.
- But Drumheller was roadblocked from the outset, in a meeting with McLaughlin, who told him shortly that Curveball's information "is the heart of the case" for an Iraqi biological weapons program. It was at this moment that Drumheller realized the CIA has nothing else on the bioweapons program except the unreliable information from Curveball. Nevertheless, Drumheller left the meeting confident that his warnings about Curveball's unreliability had had the desired effect. "I told the Germans they were going to drop it," Drumheller later recalls, and sent a copy of Powell's speech back to CIA headquarters with the Curveball-based material scratched out. Drumheller got one final chance, the night before the speech, to talk with Tenet for a few moments, and warned Tenet about the material. "He said, 'Yeah, yeah, I know all that,'" Drumheller later recalls. "But I don't think he was really paying attention, they had been up all weekend."
- The next day Drumheller's wife calls to tell him to turn on his television, which is broadcasting the speech. Powell is making an impassioned case for Iraq's bioweapons program -- using Curveball's material. Drumheller asks an aide if they had sent the corrected version of the speech back to the CIA? Yes, they had. Shortly after, a confused German intelligence official calls and says that he thought Drumheller had convinced them to take out the Curveball material.
- McLaughlin later lies under oath to the independent WMD commission, telling the commissioners that he doesn't recall ever speaking to Drumheller about Curveball the week before the speech. Tenet lies as well, saying that he doesn't remember any warnings from Drumheller about the intelligence from Curveball. Their lies anger Drumheller, who later says, "I think Tenet believed that they would find WMD when they got to Iraq and that nobody would remember these questions. ...Why didn't anybody say anything before the war [about how weak the intelligence was]? I did. And I can tell you it was hard, because nobody wanted to hear it, and they made it very clear that they didn't want to hear it." Drumheller will later resign from the CIA and write a book about his experiences with the runup to war, titled On the Brink. (Newsweek/Mother Jones, James Risen)
- February 4: The Australian Senate passes a motion of "no confidence" over Prime Minister John Howard's handling of the situation in Iraq. The no confidence motion was passed 34 to 31 after the main opposition Labor party was joined by Greens, Democrats and independent senators to defeat the government. The vote, which also censured the government for sending troops to the Middle East without backing from the United Nations, will have little effect on Howard. John Warhurst, a political professor at the Australian National University, says that the implications of the vote were not very serious for the government: "The Australian system of government relies on the confidence of the lower house, so in formal terms this vote will have no direct impact." Howard's Conservative party has control of the House of Representatives. (CNN)
- February 4: Australian Prime Minister John Howard informs Parliament that until General Hussein Kamal, chief of Iraq's WMD programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, UN inspectors did not even know that Iraq had developed biological weapons. While Howard's statement is true, Howard fails to mention that Kamal also told weapons inspectors that Iraq had abandoned its nuclear program and destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons four years earlier. According to Kamal, who is also Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, WMD production had never resumed. (The Age)
- February 4: Bill O'Reilly, host of Fox's No Spin Zone, has Jermey Glick as one of his guests. Glick is the son of a Port Authority worker who died in the 9/11 attacks. Glick, a softspoken and polite young man, is an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq, and O'Reilly proceeds to grill him. In the middle of Glick's explanation of his stand, O'Reilly shouts him down, yelling "I don't care what you think!" and ordering his engineer to "Cut his mike." To Glick: "I'm not going to dress you down any more out of respect to your father." Once the cameras and microphones are off, O'Reilly hounds him out of the studio with the words, "Get out of my studio before I tear you to f*cking pieces!" (Al Franken)
Colin Powell's magnificently fraudulent speech to the UN
- February 5: Colin Powell makes a critical speech to the United Nations' Security Council on the subject of Iraq's weapons programs. Powell, privately very uneasy with the material he is about to present, insists that the CIA's George Tenet sit right behind him as proof that the CIA is behind Powell's claims and assertions. He opens, "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. ...We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. ...Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction."
- Powell then proceeds to make a speech riddled with lies, misstatesments, and misrepresentations. In private, Powell has refused to use much of the Pentagon intelligence analyses, angrily characterizing them as "bullsh*t." (Later it will be revealed that Powell's speech was originally prepared by the CIA; it was "massively changed" in Vice President Cheney's office. The draft from Cheney's staff contained 45 pages on weapons of mass destruction and 38 pages on alleged links to terrorism. But when Powell and the CIA asked for evidence supporting each assertion, according to an unnamed source, the Cheney team's draft "fell apart like a toothpick house." See earlier items for more information.) Much of what he does use is just as fraudulent; large portions of the new material in Powell's speech is raw data from the CIA that had not yet undergone serious analysis. It is later discovered that Powell based his assessments largely on the testimony of Iraqi defector Hussein Kamel; he does not mention that Kamel testified that the weapons systems he detailed had already been destroyed. What follows is a breakdown of his more serious claims.
- The satellite photos that Powell presents are of sites that have been inspected more than 500 times in the past months. Powell's characterizations of the photos as showing Iraqis hiding missiles armed with chemical and biological weapons, and showing trucks being used as "decontamination vehicles," were specious. UN inspectors as well as independent journalists who visited the sites hours after Powell's speech found nothing to support Powell's interpretations. The "decontamination vehicles," were found to be simple fire or water trucks. On June 24, Blix will say of the entire Powell photo presentation, "We were not impressed with that particular evidence." UN inspector Steve Allinson later says, "We were told we were going to the site to look for refrigerated trucks specifically linked to biological agents. We found 7 or 8 of them I think in total. And they had cobwebs in them. Some samples were taken and nothing was found." The head of the NSA, Michael Hayden, later admits that the intercepts and photos are open to interpretation.
- Powell's presentation includes audiotapes of men speaking in Arabic about "modified vehicles," "forbidden ammo," and "nerve agents." Powell states that the men are Iraqi army officers discussing concealment. In reality, two of the tapes are so cryptic, disjointed, and poorly authenticated that no one can be sure what is being discussed or whose voices have been recorded. The third tape is of Iraqi officers ordering an inspection of scrap areas for "forbidden ammo" in cooperation with orders from UN inspectors. The search turned up four empty chemical warheads left over from Desert Storm; they were turned over to the UN inspectors. Powell deliberately mistranslates an officer's statement; according to Powell, the officer orders the area "cleared out," which implies some sort of cover-up; the official government translation has the officer ordering the area "inspected."
- Powell says "classified" documents found at a nuclear scientist's Baghdad home are "dramatic confirmation" of intelligence saying prohibited items were concealed. In the estimation of UN inspectors, the documents are "old [and] irrelevant," many dating from a failed uranium-enrichment program from the 1980s and the others unremarkable administrative documents.
- Powell claims that sources have told the US of Iraqis dispersing rocket launchers and warheads holding biological weapons in the western desert, hiding them in palm groves and moving them periodically. The sources, which Powell did not identify, have so far been proven wrong after months of intensive searching by US and Australian troops. A senior Iraqi science advisor later suggests that the story of palm groves and weekly-to-monthly movement was lifted whole from an Iraqi general's written account of hiding missiles in the 1991 war.
- Powell claims Iraq is violating UN resolutions by rejecting U-2 reconnaissance flights and prohibiting private interviews with Iraqi scientists. He suggests that only fear of reprisals keeps Iraqi scientists from exposing secret weapons programs. Powell does not mention that U-2 flights are slated to begin February 17, which they did without incident. By early March, the US has interviewed a dozen scientists. Numerous interviews with Iraqi scientists after Hussein's deposing have not resulted in a single confirmed fact about existing or future weapons programs.
- Powell claims that Iraq has boasted of producing 8,500 liters of the biological agent anthrax before 1991, but UN inspectors estimated it could have made up to 25,000 liters. None has been "verifiably accounted for," he says, implying that it could still be available. As of this writing, no anthrax has been found. A confidential DIA report from September 2002 states that Iraq may indeed have biological weapons, but it did not know their nature, amounts, or condition. In late February, UN inspectors obtain soil sample evidence that Iraq destroyed its 1991 stocks of anthrax at a known site. Iraq offered a list of witnesses to verify the amounts to the inspectors, but before interviews could begin, the inspectors were ordered to leave the country.
- Powell claims that defectors have revealed mobile "biological weapons factories" on trucks and in train cars, and shows artists' conceptions of such vehicles. After the invasion, US authorities will claim to have found two such truck trailers in Iraq, and the CIA will quickly conclude they were part of a bioweapons production line. But no trace of biological agents can be found on them, Iraqi witnesses say the equipment made hydrogen for weather balloons, and State Department intelligence refuses to accept the CIA's conclusion. The British defense minister, Geoffrey Hoon, will later dismiss the vehicles as insignificant. The trailers have yet to be submitted to UN inspection for verification. No "bioweapons railcars" have been reported found. Defector Hussein Kamel, the source for much of the US intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs, stated conclusively that the entire stockpile of anthrax toxin was destroyed in the summer of 1991. Kamel has been proven time and again to be one of the single most reliable sources on Iraq's weapons programs that US intelligence has ever had. Powell's source is CIA information acquired from the Iraqi defector "Curveball," who is already proven completely unreliable, even to the CIA being able to confirm his identity. One German intelligence officer who originally debriefed Curveball later says he and his colleagues were stunned when he saw Powell reiterating Curveball's assertions in the speech. "We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven."
- Powell shows his audience a videotape of an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet spraying what he calls "simulated anthrax." He claims four such spray tanks are unaccounted for, and that Iraq is building small unmanned aircraft designed to dispense chemical and biological weapons. UN inspectors who later watch the video recognize it as footage shot before the 1991 Gulf War. The Mirage was destroyed by coalition forces, and three of the four spray tanks were destroyed in the 1990s. No small drones or other planes with chemical-biological capability have been reported found in Iraq since the invasion. Iraq also will give inspectors details on its drone program, but the U.S. bombing intervenes before U.N. teams could follow up.
- Powell claims that Iraq has produced four tons of VX nerve toxin. "A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons," he said dramatically. Powell knows, but does not reveal, that almost all of the four tons of VX were destroyed in the 1990s under UN supervision. The Iraqis went to great lengths to prove that they had destroyed the little remaining toxin, providing ground analyses of the areas where inspectors were able to confirm that VX had been dumped. Experts on biological weapons have confirmed that any pre-1991 VX would have long since degraded into worthlessness even if Iraq had hidden stores of it away. No VX has been located since the invasion.
- Powell claims knowledge that Iraq has "embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. No "chemical weapons infrastructure" has yet been found. The DIA report of last September said there was "no reliable information" on "where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent-production facilities." The DIA report states that UN inspections have been able to keep Iraq's chemical industry from producing chemical weapons, and that it should continue to be able to do so.
- Powell states, "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." His assertion has no basis. No such agents have been found. An unclassified CIA report last October made a similar assertion without citing concrete evidence, saying only that Iraq "probably" concealed precursor chemicals to make such weapons. The DIA reported last September there is no evidence of Iraq producing and stockpiling chemical weapons. Any weapons that Iraq may have possessed would have been leftovers from the 1991 Gulf War, and would have long since deteriorated into uselessness.
- Powell says that a dozen 122-mm chemical warheads found by UN inspectors in January could be the "tip of an iceberg." He fails to note that the warheads were empty and never uncrated. On June 16, Hans Blix will state that the warheads were "debris from the past," the 1980s. No others have been reported found since the invasion.
- Powell states, "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. ...And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them." No such weapons will be used, and none have ever been found after the U.S. and allied military units overran Iraqi field commands and ammunition dumps. Even before Powell's presentation, UN inspectors had found no such weapons at Iraqi military bases.
- "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program," Powell tells the Security Council. Chief UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei will tell the Council two weeks before the U.S. invasion that "[w]e have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq." On July 24, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio of Spain, a US ally on Iraq, said there were "no evidences, no proof" of a nuclear bomb program before the war. No such evidence has been reported found since the invasion.
- Powell claims that "most United States experts" believe aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for use as centrifuge cylinders for enriching uranium for nuclear bombs. Energy Department experts and Powell's own State Department intelligence bureau have already dissented from this CIA view, and on March 7 the UN nuclear agency's ElBaradei will state that his experts found convincing documentation -- and no contrary evidence -- that Iraq was using the tubes to make artillery rockets. Powell's scenario was "highly unlikely," he said. No centrifuge program has been reported found. Senior CIA analyst Greg Thielmann later says, "This is one of the most disturbing parts of Secretary Powell's speech for us. ...The aluminum was exactly, I think, what the Iraqis wanted for artillery." Thielmann says his section advised the State Department of their conclusions months before the speech. Oak Ridge consultant Henry Wood later says, "I thought when I read that there must be some other tubes that people were talking about. I just was flabbergasted that people were still pushing that those might be centrifuges. It didn't make any sense to me."
- Powell says that "intelligence from multiple sources" have reported that Iraq tried to buy magnets and a production line for magnets of "the same weight" as those used in uranium centrifuges. The UN nuclear agency traced a dozen types of imported magnets to their Iraqi end users, and none was usable for centrifuges, according to ElBaradei on March 7. "Weight is not enough; you don't have a centrifuge magnet because it's 20 grams," ElBaradei deputy Jacques Baute will tell the Associated Press on July 11. No centrifuge program has been found.
- Powell says "intelligence sources" indicate Iraq had a secret force of up to several dozen prohibited Scud-type missiles. He claims that Iraq also has a program to build newer, 600-mile-range missiles, and had put a roof over a test facility to block the view of spy satellites. No Scud-type missiles have been reported found. Thielmann later says, "I wondered what he was talking about. We did not have evidence that the Iraqis had those missiles, pure and simple." In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors had reported accounting for all but two of these missiles. No program for long-range missiles has been uncovered. Powell fails to note that UN teams were repeatedly inspecting missile facilities, including looking under that particular roof, and reporting no Iraqi violations of UN resolutions.
- Powell describes a "potentially...sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder." His evidence consists of tenuous ties between Baghdad and supposed al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had received medical treatment in Baghdad and who, according to Powell, operated a training camp in Iraq specializing in poisons. Since the camp was located in northern Iraq, an area controlled by the Kurds rather than Hussein and policed by US and British warplanes, it makes no sense to connect it with the Hussein regime. (Al-Zarqawi, who was involved with the October 2002 assassination of US ambassador to Jordan Laurence Foley, was indeed given medical treatment in Iraq by terrorists not under the control of the Hussein regime. In contrast, dozens and perhaps hundreds of al-Qaeda members have received treatment in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and Qatar, the last two of which are supposedly American allies. In addition, evidence that al-Zarqawi is an actual member of al-Qaeda is lacking, though his own group, Ansar-al-Islam, has connections to bin Laden's group.) One Hill staffer familiar with the classified documents on al-Qaeda remarks, "so why would that be proof of some Iraqi government connection to al-Qaeda? [It] might as well be in Iran." Worse, the transcripts from an audio tape Powell presents as direct evidence of a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda proves to be badly flawed. The tape actually shows an Iraqi officer ordering that a scrap depot be prepared for inspectors. According to one expert, "The material [provided by the State Department] simply confirmed that Powell had misrepresented the intercept." And senior US officials confirm that "although the Iraqi government is aware of the group's activity, it does not operate, control, or sponsor it."
- CIA director George Tenet told Dick Cheney before Powell's speech that the CIA had no proof whatsoever of a Saddam-Zarqawi link, though Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, is insisting that he himself has found the proof. Libby's "proof" is the discredited story of 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta meeting with an Iraqi intelligence official in Czechoslovakia. Powell refuses to include the Atta reference in the speech, but agrees to put the insinuation of Iraq's links to al-Qaeda in, though he does not trust the "evidence" submitted by Lewis and Cheney.
- In this section, Powell tells the story of al-Qaeda commander Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who had been tortured by Egyptian police and intelligence agents. (See earlier items for more information about al-Libi.) Although Powell does not name al-Libi, he claims to be relating al-Libi's story as al-Libi himself related it to CIA interrogators. Powell does not note that the CIA agents most familiar with al-Libi's story believe that al-Libi changed his tale to suit his interrogators after he was tortured, and al-Libi's claims of having participated in the training of al-Qaeda terrorists by Iraqi officials is false, given in order to make the torture -- beatings, waterboardings, and even being buried alive -- stop. In fact, days before Powell's speech, the CIA had completely discounted al-Libi's information, though Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, says that he and Powell didn't learn of that event until after the UN speech.
- Powell claims that Iraq has the wherewithal to manufacture and distribute smallpox. Like the VX nerve toxin claims, this one has no backing whatsoever, and is proven false in March by UN inspectors.
- Powell shows a picture of what he terms a "terrorist poison and explosives factory;" the so-called "factory" is actually a small, deserted cinderblock building containing a few brown granules and an ammonia-like scent. Tests prove that the substances in the building are most likely rat poison.
- A number of Powell's supporting claims for the above -- that Saddam Hussein's son Qusay has ordered WMDs removed from palace complexes, that key WMD files are being driven around Iraq by intelligence agents to keep them out of the hands of the UN inspectors, that the Iraqi military have bioweapons warheads, that a water truck at an Iraqi military installation is used for decontamination of chemical weapons, that Iraq has unmanned aerial drones to be used for bioweapons attacks, and that Hussein is imprisoning Iraqi WMD experts in various guest houses, have all been flagged by a congressional oversight committee who pored through the information as "weak" and unsubstantiated.
- Powell concludes by giving chapter and verse recitations of Hussein's all-too-well-proven human rights violations. He notes that Iraq is in material breach of a number of UN resolutions, and says, "We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us." Reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn note, "It was almost as if he were trying to convince himself."
- Interestingly, Wilkerson spends much of the speech observing the Iraqi delegation as Powell makes his presentation. Far from being rattled, they appear unfazed, rolling their eyes and smiling, as if asking, is this all you have? Wilkerson is worried that Powell has failed to make much of an impact, not just with the Iraqis, but with the entire assemblage. "I thought I had failed," he later recalls. But the US media piles on with praise for Powell and harsh, vitriolic attacks on Iraq based on Powell's claim. That, as much as anything else, cements the impact of Powell's presentation, at least in the minds of the American electorate, and gives Bush a measure of credibility with his push for war against Iraq. (The New Republic, State Department, Washington Post, AP/Tampa Bay Tribune, Truthout, Independent, Shepherd-Express, AlterNet, Strategic News Service/Smalla, CBS News, Scripps Howard/Naples Daily News, Mother Jones, Amy Goodman and David Goodman, David Corn, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Bob Woodward, Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Frank Rich pp.67-8)
- Interestingly, according to interviews published in the August 2006 book Hubris by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, after the speech, when Powell realizes that so much of the content of his speech is wrong, he is so angered that he refuses to have any more contact with CIA director George Tenet. "What I said was what they gave me to say," Powell recalls. "Im not an intelligence officer, I was secretaru of state. Whatever was in that speech was what they [the CIA] told me. I kept asking them, 'Are you sure of this? Are you confident of that?'" He says he pressed hard on the Curveball information: "They said it was multi-sourced. I had no way of knowing it all went back to one guy." He continues, "It's annoying to me. Everybody focuses on my presentation.... Well the same g*ddamn case was presented to the US Senate and the Congress and they voted for [Bush's Iraq] resolution.... Why aren't they outraged? They're the ones who are supposed to do oversight. The same case was presented to the President. Why isn't the President outraged? It's always, 'Gee, Powell, you made this speech to the UN.'" Wilkerson later characterizes the speech as "the lowest point in my professional life" and "a hoax." But when Powell returns to Washington after the speech, he gives award plaques to everyone involved in the presentation. Wilkerson refuses his.
- Another telling incident takes place in the days before the speech, when Democratic senator Joseph Biden speaks privately over the phone with Powell. Biden says he finds it encouraging that Bush is sending Powell, and not one of his neocon ideologues, to the UN to make the case against Iraq. Perhaps there is still a chance to avoid a war, Biden muses. Biden then advises Powell about his UN presentation, "Don't speak to anything you don't know about" -- in other words, don't overstate the evidence. There is silence for a time, then Powell replies, "Someday when we're both out of office, we'll have a cup of coffee and I'll tell you why." Powell does not explain his remark, but Biden takes it to mean that Powell is going to present material about which he has strong doubts. (Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Booman Tribune)
- Dick Cheney is so distressed by Powell's refusal to mention his supposed connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda (see the above item) that he says he is going to give his own speech making the assertion. CIA director Tenet is disturbed by Cheney's speech idea, so much so that he wonders aloud to his associate John Brenner if he should resign. But Tenet doesn't want to come across as a disloyal intelligence director who abandons ship on the eve of war. Instead, Tenet goes to Bush, and says that the CIA's intelligence does not support Cheney's claims. If Cheney gives the speech, Tenet says, the CIA will not stand behind it. Bush tells Cheney not to give the speech. (Bob Woodward)
- February 5: The BBC publishes a British Intelligence memo leaked to it, that states British intelligence officials know there are no connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda -- the two had long ago abandoned any hopes of collaboration after determining that they are in insoluable "ideological conflict." The memo makes huge headlines around the globe, in Great Britain, Scotland, India, China, Australia, and elsewhere, and is roundly ignored in America. The Washington Post mentions it once, in the bottom paragraphs of a Page 15 article buried in its Saturday edition. Salt Lake City's Deseret News reports on the memo, as does the Village Voice and the Los Angeles Weekly. A few newspapers such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer cite it in op-ed articles. On CNN, Colin Powell calls the memo "not credible;" on CNN's Crossfire, co-host Tucker Carlson refuses to allow representative Barney Sanders to discuss it. Today reports that the British "just aren't convinced" of the memo's credibility. The rest of the American media ignores it entirely.
- A Weekly Standard article entitled "Case Closed," hawking the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship as absolute fact, is definitively debunked by, among other sources, the final 9/11 commission report, which says, "The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some commen themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al-Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States." When this conclusion was made public in June 2004, the administration backpedals by denying that it had ever claimed any connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda (as when Dick Cheney flatly denies on CNBC that he had ever made such a claim -- "No, I never said that. ...Absolutely not." -- though he had indeed made numerous such claims, including on several editions of Meet the Press.) As Al Franken says, "Donald Rumsfeld had more meetings with Saddam Hussein than Osama bin Laden did." (BBC/Al Franken)
- February 5: Alan Foley, the director of the CIA's Weapons Intelligence Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC), tells a colleague that the CIA does not have the intelligence to back up Powell's assertions to the UN. "I talked to Foley on the day of Powell's UN speech, and he said, we just don't have it. It's not very good," the colleague later recalls. Foley is the analyst in charge of all of the CIA's information on weapons of mass destruction; reporter James Risen calls Foley's admission "shocking." (James Risen)
- February 5: A North Korean foreign ministry official tells the UK's Guardian that North Korea reserves the right to launch a pre-emptive strike against the US if it feels the situation warrants such a move. "The United States says that after Iraq, we are next, but we have our own countermeasures," he says. "Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US." (Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose)
Recall efforts begin against California governor Gray Davis
- February 5: Anti-tax crusader Ted Costa announces his plan to begin a recall petition to force a special election designed to oust unpopular California governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, from office. Davis is accused, with some justification, for overspending and failing to handle the state's energy crisis, though the recall petitioners fail to acknowledge that the energy crisis was largely created by "gaming" of California's energy industry by Enron and other corporations, and that Davis's repeated efforts to secure federal assistance had all been flatly denied. A fund-raising scandal that resulted in the resignation of several top Davis aides, and the relentlessly negative 2002 campaign between Davis and Bill Simon, also played a part in voter disaffection. (Wikipedia)
- February 6: During a speech entitled "The World Can Rise to This Moment," a follow-up to Powell's UN speech, Bush makes the following statement: "The Iraqi regime has actively and secretly attempted to obtain equipment needed to produce chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. First-hand witnesses have informed us that Iraq has at least seven mobile factories for the production of biological agents, equipment mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery. Using these factories, Iraq has produced within just months hundreds of pounds of biological poisons." Bush then asserts, "Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al-Qaeda terrorist planner." Like the almost identical statements Bush makes two days hence, these statements are filled with lies and misstatements, all of which have been disproven or at least seriously questioned by US intelligence and policy analysts.
- As one instance that Bush cites as proof of his claims, he says, "All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicals with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland." The entire UAV controversy is completely specious, with Iraq's UAVs having an extremely short range if they were flight-capable at all. The Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center has already stated, "[The] US Air Force does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological (CBW) agents." Bush is indulging in naked fearmongering. In addition, Bush once again conflates Iraq with 9/11, though indirectly: "And the United States, along with a growing coalition of nations, is resolved to take whatever action is necessary to defend ourselves and disarm the Iraqi regime. September the 11th, 2001, the American people saw what terrorists could do by turning four airplanes into weapons. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons." The inferences that can, and are, drawn from this carefully worded statement are powerful, wideranging, and false. (Bush on Iraq, Frank Rich [PDF file])
- February 6: Right-wing radio host Michael Savage (nee Weiner) says, "We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy." (Guardian)
- February 6: Right-wing talk show host Bill O'Reilly refers to Mexican immigrants to the US as "wetbacks" while denouncing their presence in the country. (Fox News)
- February 7: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tells US troops in Italy that the war in Iraq "could last six days, six weeks, I doubt six months." On June 26, 2005, he revises his estimate slightly, saying that the insurgency could last "five, six, eight, ten, twelve years." (Al Franken)
- February 7: Three administration officials, Attorney General Ashcroft, Homeland Security director Ridge, and FBI director Mueller, agree to raise the threat level to "orange," or high, because of what they claim is credible evidence of imminent al-Qaeda attacks against "apartment buildings, hotels, and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States." The claims seem to be sourced from information provided months ago by low-level al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, who made similar claims after weeks of intensive interrogation and torture in Pakistan. None of Zubaydah's claims have ever been substantiated. (Mother Jones)
- February 7: Powell's presentation to the UN was in large part based on a dossier provided by British intelligence entitled "Iraq - Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation." This dossier plagarized large sections of material from a September, 2002 essay written by a California graduate student named Ibrahim al-Marashi. Al-Marashi was writing largely about Iraq in the days and weeks after 1991's Desert Storm; his words were rewritten to sound more sinister and ominous (i.e. Iraq's "aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes" is changed to "supporting terrorist organizations in hostile regimes"); his work was rewritten to sound more applicable to the current situation than it was; and he was not consulted before his work was "borrowed" by the British. Additionally, much of Powell's "human sources" are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, and therefore not very reliable (only weeks later, one of the prisoners would spark a US terror alert based on the Godzilla movie he had watched the night before). Says one writer, "it seems all too clear that Powell's entire presentation was based upon information that is questionable to say the least." (Truthout)
- February 7: Using Powell's speech to the UN as his basis, Bush asserts that Iraq is "harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior al-Qaeda terrorist planner." Such an assertion goes even farther than Powell's own much-debunked presentation. Notwithstanding, Bush orders the deployment of the Army's 101st Airborne Division to the Middle East, and orders an additional aircraft carrier group to the Persial Gulf. In mid-February, after the release of an audio tape purporting to be from Osama bin Laden and featuring the terror leader exhorting Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere to resist the Americans, Bush seizes on the statement as "proof" that bin Laden is "in partnership with Iraq." Bush ignores the statements on the same tape featuring bin Laden blasting the Hussein regime as "hypocrites," "apostates," and socialist "infidels." According to bin Laden, Muslims should fight the American "crusaders" for the "cause of Allah," not for Hussein's sake. Even conservative columnist Thomas Friedman will write, "I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that, and every time I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie. Tell people the truth. Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice -- but a legitimate choice." Yet in a February 26 speech, Bush will aver, "The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat [from Iraq]." While he gives a nod to the ideas that toppling the Hussein regime will benefit the Iraqi people and contribute to stability in the Middle East, he is crystal-clear that his primary goal for war is to protect the United States. (David Corn)
- February 7: Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity reveals the leaked text of a new anti-terrorism bill (a Justice Department employee leaked a copy to the Center for Public Integrity, amd it wound up on the PBS website). Called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, it becomes popularly known as the Patriot Act II. (See above for previous item.) The text of the bill is dated January 9, 2003. Before it was leaked, the bill was being prepared in complete secrecy from the public and Congress. Only House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Vice President Cheney were sent copies on January 10. A week earlier, Attorney General Ashcroft said the Justice Department was not working on any bill of this type, and when the text was released, they said it was just a rough draft. But the text "has all the appearance of a document that has been worked over and over." Some, including a number of congresspeople, speculate that the government is waiting until a new terrorist act or war fever before formally introducing this bill. Here are some of its provisions:
- The attorney general is given the power to deport any foreign national, even people who are legal permanent residents. No crime need be asserted, no proof offered, and the deportation can occur in complete secrecy.
- It would authorize secret arrests in terrorism investigations, which would overturn a court order requiring the release of names of their detainees. Not even an attorney or family need be informed until the person is formally charged, if that ever happens.
- The citizenship of any US citizen can be revoked, if they are members of or have supported any group the attorney general designates as terrorist. A person who gives money to a charity that only later turns out to have some terrorist connection could then lose his or her citizenship.
- "Whole sections...are devoted to removing judicial oversight." Federal agents investigating terrorism could have access to credit reports, without judicial permission.
- Federal investigators can conduct wiretaps without a court order for 15 days whenever Congress authorizes force or in response to an attack on the United States.
- It creates a DNA database of anyone the Justice Department determines to be a "suspect," without court order.
- It would be a crime for someone subpoenaed in connection with an investigation being carried out under the Patriot Act to alert Congress to any possible abuses committed by federal agents.
- Businesses and their personnel who provide information to anti-terrorism investigators are granted immunity even if the information is fraudulent.
- The government would be allowed to carry out electronic searches of virtually all information available about an individual without having to show probable cause and without informing the individual that the investigation was being carried out. Critics say this provision "would fundamentally change American society" because everyone would be under suspicion at all times."
- Federal agents would be immune from prosecution when they engage in illegal surveillance acts.
- Restrictions are eased on the use of secret evidence in the prosecution of terror cases.
- Existing judicial consent decrees preventing local police departments from spying on civil rights groups and other organizations are canceled.
- February 7: Three State Department bureau chiefs prepare a secret memo for their superiors that cites "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance" in Iraq. The memo warns that "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally." The memo is ignored by Pentagon war planners, as is almost every piece of information and analysis from their rivals at State. (Mother Jones)
- February 7: Democratic senator Kent Conrad says of Bush's spending plans for Social Security and Medicare: "It's nuts, stone-cold nuts. And they're not nuts and they're not stupid. They're smart people and they know what we know, that the deficit will explode when federal expenditures peak. And that's when I had this revelation: the only rationale for what they're doing is that they plan to fundamentally gut Social Security and Medicare. To sustain benefits and keep the social contract as is would require an unprecedented tax increase of 30% of GDP [from 20%]. Or we'll have to eliminate the rest of government as we know it. Ths is radical, radical stuff." (Newsweek/Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- February 8: Bush states in a radio address, "Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have. ...We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." His source for this information is unclear at best; to date, no chemical or biological weapons of any kind have been found in Iraq. Certainly none were used against the US and British invasion forces. He also makes yet another misleading assertion of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda: "One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraq intelligence and al-Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al-Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in aquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al-Qaeda terrorist planner." This statement is chock full of lies and misstatements, all of which have been thoroughly debunked throughout this site. (White House, Democratic Underground, Shepherd-Express, Bush on Iraq)
- February 8: An intensive search by the UN's Team Bravo inspection team of the Djerf al Nadaf work site where "Curveball," the Iraqi defector who claims to have information about Iraqi WMDs and whose information has been the backbone of assertions by Bush officials about Iraq's WMD programs, claimed to have worked, is made; the search turns up nothing. The search lasts three and a half hours, long enough, as the Los Angeles Times reports in November 2005, "to prove that Curveball had lied." (Mother Jones, Frank Rich [PDF file])
- February 8: Evangelical conservative Tom DeLay, the most powerful member of the House of Representatives, declares that the Palestinian territories should be called their Biblical names of Judea and Samaria, and says that they belong to Israel. According to an article in the Economist, DeLay has told a Texas Baptist audience that God made George Bush president "to promote a Biblical world-view." Prominent evangelical clergy are "spoiling for a clash of civilizations," according to the article. Jerry Falwell has called the Prophet Mohammed a "terrorist," though he will later apologize, but Pat Robertson, who called Mohammed a "wild-eyed fanatic," a "robber," and a "brigand," has not; in fact, Robertson has said that Muslims "want to coexist until they can control, dominate and then, if need be, destroy," a sentiment perhaps more applicable to Robertson's own fanatical faithful. Franklin Graham, the evangelist son of Billy Graham, has termed Islam an "evil and very wicked" religion. Former Southern Baptist Convention president Jerry Vines has called Mohammed a "demon-possessed pedophile." Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable dismisses Arabs as descending from Ishmael, the unfavored son of Abraham, who was never satisfied with his lands. More moderate theologians and clergymen have taken issue with these characterizations, but their influence on the Bush administration has been negligible. Though Bush himself has made some effort to remain above the fray, he has characterized the war against terror as a "crusade" a number of times, a term Muslims find offensive and threatening, and last June displayed his insensitivity to Muslim and other sensibilities by telling the World Pork Expo in Des Moines that "one of the ways to deal with oversupply is to sell our pork in foreign markets...we ought to be selling our hogs all across the world." (Kevin Phillips, Mark Crispin Miller)
- February 9: US State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher roundly insults Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for their support of a proposal to create an autonomous European military command headquarters near Brussels separate from NATO. He describes the April 2002 meeting as one between "four countries that got together and had a little bitty summit" and then refers to them collectively as "the chocolate makers." The idea of a separate European military command was spawned as part of the European opposition to the US-led war against Iraq, particularly from the four nations who proposed the idea. Presidential candidate Howard Dean lambasts the Bush administration, saying, "Rather than reaching out to our long-standing allies in NATO -- the force best situated to help us stabilize Iraq -- this administration continues to practice a foreign policy based on petulance, this time referring derisively to Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg as 'chocolate makers.'" France and Germany are key UN Security Council members. (Agence France-Press/News24, Talon News/GOP USA)
- February 10-11: The Department of Homeland Security recommends that all Americans have the following on hand in case of terrorist attack: duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal windows and doors, three days of water and food, radios and batteries, and an emergency supply kit for both home and automobile. Later, questions are raised about director Tom Ridge's ownership of large amounts of stock in Home Depot, whose shelves were stripped bare of many materials and whose profits subsequently spiked. (CNN, Mother Jones)
- February 13: In an editorial in the Washington Post, former assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975 to 1977 and Reagan-era arms control director Ken Adelman says that defeating Iraq and restructuring the country into a US-friendly democracy will be a "cakewalk:" "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk," he writes. "Measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America's war on terrorism." (Washington Post)
- February 14: The UN's chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, reports to the UN that his teams have been given unprecedented cooperation from the Iraqis; so far, no WMDs or illicit weapons of any sort have been found, and everything is as it was stated in Iraq's weapons declaration of late 2002. Blix singles out Colin Powell's claims to the UN about mobile biological weapons labs, saying that the claims cannot be substantiated. (Mother Jones)
- Mid-February: Retired general Jay Garner, in charge of the postwar reconstruction efforts for Iraq, meets with General George Casey, the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to request 94 people for his postwar operations. Casey would become, in 2004-05, the commander of US forces in Iraq. Casey demurs. "That's a lot of people," he says. "Let me look at it." Garner and his chief of staff, retired general Jared Bates, are adamant. Their task encompasses the entire reconstruction of the Iraqi society, from electricity to fresh water to handling the dismantled Iraqi army, and they've been given little time and fewer resources to accomplish anything. "Look, George," Bates says, "time's running out on us. We have to have these people. Have you requisitioned them?" Casey says he has not, and he is not convinced this will be what he calls a "24/7 operation." Garner knows better. Eventually, Garner goes through Donald Rumsfeld to get his staff assigned. As reporter Bob Woodward later writes, "Garner, with responsibility for all of postwar Iraq, the most important matter being undertaken by the US government, was essentially being forced to assemble a pickup team of several hundred and go beg, cajole, and threaten to get his players." In 2006, Woodward asks Rumsfeld about Garner's "pickup team;" Rumsfeld denies any knowledge of any difficulties experienced by Garner. (Bob Woodward)
Massive peace protests
- February 15 - 16: Huge peace protests take place around the world, numbering over 15 million in total and making these the largest single peace protests in history. Over a million march in London, 2 million in Spain, a million in Rome, half a million in Germany, and 300,000 in France; other protests take place in Athens, Istanbul, and other cities. Large US protests occur in New York (half a million), Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities and towns across the country.(CNN, Trueopolis)
- February 16: Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley echoes the January State of the Union address claim that Iraq has attempted to purchase weapons-grade uranium from Niger: "With its trained nuclear scientists and a weapons design, all Saddam Hussein lacks is the necessary plutonium or enriched uranium. Iraq has an active procurement program. According to British intelligence, the regime has tried to acquire natural uranium from abroad." In late July, after the claim is proven false, Hadley attempts to excuse the inclusion of the claim in Bush's State of the Union address by saying that it "slipped from his attention." (Buzzflash, US Consulate)
- February 16: A group of 32 editors, representing the world's leading scientific journals, say they will censor details from studies they publish if they might help terrorists build biological weapons. The editors admit that their censorship of scientific data might hinder breakthroughs in basic science and engineering. The journals include Science, Nature, the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. (Michael Scheuer)
- February 18: Bush tells a reporter that "war is my last choice, but the risk of doing nothing is even a worst (sic) option, as far as I'm concerned. I owe it to the American people to secure this country, and I will." Of the "evidence" justifying the invasion, and the outrage among the citizens of America and the world protesting the imminent action, he says, "I don't spend a lot of time taking polls around the world to tell me what I think is the right way to act. I just got to know how I feel." Reading between the lines, Bush is saying that he has no responsibility to act on anything else except his own feelings and desires, and world opinion is of no consequence whatsoever. (Mark Crispin Miller)
- February 19: British and American intelligence warns that three Iraqi cargo ships at sea may be carrying biological or chemical weapons, with the intent to use them. US and British military forces are leery of boarding them for fear that the crews will scuttle them and cause an environmental catastrophe. Later, the claims that the ships were carrying WMDs was proven to be false. (Evening Standard)
- February 19: After OSP member Michael Maloof meets in January with his Lebanese-American friend Imad al-Hage, recuited by Maloof to assist in the war on terrorism, and discusses Hage's meeting with a Syrian intelligence official who complains of the difficulties Syria faces in communicating with the US government, Maloof arranges a meeting between Hage and Richard Perle. Hage then visits Baghdad and, on February 19, faxes a report to Maloof indicating that the Iraqi government has pledged to cooperate with the US in fighting terrorism, will give "full support to the US" in an Arab-Israeli peace plan, and give first dibs to US companies on Iraqi mining and oil rights. The Iraqis also pledge to cooperate with US strategic interests in the region and even to allow US troops on the ground to assist in disarming the Iraqi military. In early March, Perle tells Hage that Bush officials are uninterested in pursuing any peace agreements with Iraq. As the month goes by, Hage continues to pass on urgent messages from Iraq to Maloof and others. Perle and others have knowledge of the peace overtures, but no action is taken. (Veterans for Peace/Daily Kos)
- February 20: George W. Bush tells listeners in Kennesaw, Georgia, "...[A]s we insist that Congress be wise with your money, we're going to make sure we spend enough to win this war. And by spending enough to win a war, we may not have a war at all." (The Dubya Report)
- February 20: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld appears on PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer, where he tells the reporter in answer to a question about the welcome American troops would receive in Iraq after coming to overthrow Hussein, "There is no question but that [the troops] would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things the Taliban and the al-Qaeda would not allow them to do." Rumsfeld may be referring to the orchestrated "celebrations" that took place in Kabul after Taliban forces abdicated official power. In September 2003, Rumsfeld will deny ever making any such claim to Lehrer or anyone else: "Never said that. Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. I may look like somebody else." (Mother Jones)
- February 21: Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visit the Natanz nuclear energy facility in Iran, which is scheduled to go online within months. The inspectors are "shocked" to observe that the reactor is of Pakistani design. "The question is, where is the factory that supplied the Iranian facility at Natanz?" asks one IAEA senior official. "Is it in Pakistan, or is it in North Korea?" The inspectors find no conclusive proof that Natanz is a facility for the production of nuclear weapons, but they find no proof to the contrary, either. Natanz will continue to be a source of escalating tension for Middle East relations, particularly due to US and Israeli worries about Iranian nuclear arms. (Global Security)
Garner's "rock drill" rehearsal foresees tremendous problems with reconstruction of postwar Iraq
- February 22: Jay Garner, head of the postwar Iraq reconstruction effort, gathers his team together for a massive rehearsal and planning conference at Fort McNair in southwest Washington, DC. The team is working hard, but is chaotic and unfocused, with few knowing what others are doing. Garner calls the conference a "rock drill," an old Army field commander's term for programming a military plan on the ground using rocks to represent the various units. The drill uncovers the potential for tremendous problems in Iraq. A 20-page analysis of the conference finds numerous problems, summarized below almost verbatim from the report:
- Current force packages are inadequate for the first step of securing all the major urban areas, let alone for providing interim police.... We risk letting much of the country descend into civil unrest [and] chaos whose magnitude may defeat our national strategy of a stable new Iraq, and more immediately, we place our own troops, fully engaged in the forward fight, in greater jeopardy.
- It seems likely that we will begin military action before we know whether sufficient Phase IV [reconstruction] funds will be available. If fewer funds are available than required, we risk leaving behind a great unstable mess with potential to become a haven for terrorists.
- In field after field, the ideas, as briefed, suggest a heavy-handed imperial takeover. Danger, danger!
- The conference did not take up the most basic issue: What sort of future government of Iraq do we have in mind, and how do we plan to get there?
- With no sufficient plan for police from US troops or a civilian government of Iraq, "What happens to law and order in the meantime?"
- After the "rock drill," Garner notices that one man, State Department civil servant Tom Warrick, is particularly outspoken about the problems he is noticing. Garner asks Warrick bluntly, "How do you know so damn much?" and Warrick replies that he has been studying the problem for the last 18 months as part of the State Department's "Future of Iraq" project. Garner had heard vaguely about the study, but is unfamiliar with it. Garner hires Warrick on the spot to work with his team. He likes Warrick's challenging style, recalling, "He runs around and sandpapers everyone." He also likes Warrick's "Future of Iraq" study, and thinks it will be useful.
- But days later, Garner, in an informal meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, is asked if he has two members on his staff named Warrick and O'Sullivan. Meghah O'Sullivan is another State Department member of Garner's team and an expert on Iraq and on rogue states. Rumsfeld says both of them have got to be fired immediately. Garner is aghast. "Look, Jay," Rumsfeld tells him, "I've gotten this request from such a high level that I can't turn it down. So I've got to ask you to remove them from your team." Garner realizes that "such a high level" means only one of two people -- Bush or Cheney. Garner fights for both of them to remain on his team. He asks an office staffer, Colonel Tom Baltazar, to find out where the order to fire Warrick and O'Sullivan comes from and why. Baltazar finds out from a friend on the staff of Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, that both Warrick and O'Sullivan, particularly Warrick, are disliked by Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, the elegantly corrupt darling of the Cheney neoconservatives and the man they plan to insert into Iraq as the country's new leader. Warrick is opposed by what Libby staffer Colonel P.J. Dermer calls a "cabal" of five or so members of Cheney's office staff. Baltazar tells Garner the next morning, "It was the vice president. The vice president can't stand either one of them." Both have come out in previous reports as being mistrustful of putting too much faith in Chalabi's group of exiles. And both have suspect ties to the previous Clinton administration. Given that, and the bitter infighting between State and Defense, and it is easily understood why Warrick and O'Sullivan were tarred as politically incorrect and unreliable. Colin Powell later demands of Rumsfeld, "What the hell is going on?" with the two, and Rumsfeld tells him they need people who are truly committed and haven't written or said anything that isn't completely supportive. The infighting between Powell's State and Rumsfeld's Defense escalates, with Powell snarling, "I can take prisoners too."
- Shortly before the invasion, Powell tells Garner, "You know, it really pissed me off when Don had you get rid of Warrick and O'Sullivan." Garner says he believes the order came from above Rumsfeld. Powell says, "I picked up the phone and said, 'Hey, look, I can take prisoners too.' I started to pull everybody in the State Department off your team, but after taking a brief moment thinking about that, I thought, well, that won't do anybody any good. That just damages what you're doing. It'll ruin what you're doing. It'll ruin what the nation's trying to do. Somebody has to be the big guy about this, and I've tried to be it." Before Garner leaves the meeting, he is interrupted by Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage. "Let me tell you one thing," Armitage says. "You've got a bunch of g*ddamned spies on that team of yours. They're talking about you. They're reporting on you, so you'd better watch your back." Garner replies, "You've got some spies over here too." Armitage says wryly, "We know who they are. We call them bats...[b]ecause those sons of b*tches hang upside down all day long with their wings covering up their eyes. But as soon as we close the door in the evening they part their wings and they look around and they flap around all g*ddamn night long, calling everybody." Garner and his deputy, Jared Bates, begin calling the spies -- who apparently report to Rumsfeld's deputy, Douglas Feith -- the term once they get into Kuwait. Their favorite moment is when one of Feith's "bats," deep in conversation on his cell phone, accidentally walks into a swimming pool. "It was the highlight of the day," Bates recalls.
- Garner eventually gets Rumsfeld to let him have O'Sullivan back -- "Look, bring the woman back," he tells Garner. "Nobody will know that." Powell asks himself if the situation could get any weirder. Over the objections of Rumsfeld's undersecretary Douglas Feith, who detests everyone at State, Powell manages to get five more State officials assigned to Garner's team, but Warrick is out.
- An Army colonel on Garner's staff, Paul Hughes, realizes, along with his partner Colonel Thomas Gross, that there is no one, single plan for reconstructing Iraq after Hussein is toppled. Hughes and Gross are collectively known as "The Law Firm," and have wide latitude to operate. Hughes continues to push for a single plan, but is stymied by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Hughes realizes that any such plan would by necessity involve other agencies, particularly State and the CIA. And Rumsfeld, having secured the secret executive order NSPD-24 (see January item), is determined to keep the entire issue in the hands of his department, with no outside interference.
- Rumsfeld invites an outside group of experts to meet with him to discuss postwar Iraq. Included in the group is James Dobbins, a premier expert on managing modern post-conflict situations, with management experience in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia. Dobbins now works at the RAND Corporation as its head of international and security policy. Dobbins had been chosen by Powell in 2001 to head the negotiations with the opposition groups in Afghanistan to find a leader after the fall of the Taliban. Dobbins, with much diplomatic finagling, convinced everyone, even the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Iranians, to back Hamid Karzai as the new Afghan president. Dobbins is briefed by one of Feith's deputies on a postwar plan that seems to envision a full-scale occupation of Iraq. Dobbins believes it similar to the situation in Japan after World War II, when General Douglas MacArthur was, in essence, the American viceroy to that defeated nation. An American would run the country in the interim period between the fall of Hussein and the setup of a new, Iraqi-led government. Rumsfeld tells Dobbins that they need to find the Iraqi equivalent of Karzai and avoid the "Plan A" "MacArthur" scenario. The problem is, Dobbins realizes, that there is no real plan for either scenario, no consensus within the administration, and no evidence that the administration understands the massive undertaking before them -- not only the security, governing, and economic issues but the task of trying to heal some of the old wounds from the Hussein regime, and the hatred between the Sunnis and the Shi'a. While Bush had specifically said the US had no business engaging in nation-building during the 2000 campaign, the US was now engaged in just such a task. (Bob Woodward)
- February 23: Paul Wolfowitz tells a group of Iraqi-Americans, "First -- and this is really the overarching principle -- the United States seeks to liberate Iraq, not occupy Iraq. ...If the President should decide to use force, let me assure you again that the United States would be committed to liberating the people of Iraq, not becoming an occupation force." (Wikipedia)
- February 23: Veteran US diplomat John Brady Kiesling resigns from his embassy post in Athens, Greece. Kiesling's letter of resignation, sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is later published in the New York Times; it harshly criticizes the Bush administration's policies in Iraq. Kiesling writes, in part: "...[U]ntil this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.
- "...[W]e have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?
- "...We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead. We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has 'oderint dum metuant' really become our motto?" ['Oderint dum metuant' roughly translates as "Let them hate as long as they fear," a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Caligula.] "I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?
- "...We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its interests. I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."
- On April 25, he will give a speech at Princeton University, where he will state that the September 11 attacks gave a tremendous opportunity to anyone "savvy and unscrupulous enough to manipulate public fears," and the advocates of "hard-nosed neoconservatism" promptly seized it. They adopted "the power politics of the schoolyard as their model of human interaction" and reduced the complexities of global foreign policy to a permanent contest between "the forces of light and the forces of darkness." They used "lies and half-truths" to build a case for invading Iraq as "a step toward a more complete power grab." As the neoconservatives began to drive American policy, old-school internationalists tried to come to terms with them, hoping to retain influence. But accommodation has proved no easy task. "This is an administration at war, and you are with them or you are against them." (New York Times/CommonDreams, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune/CommonDreams)
- February 23: Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, in a short article for the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, writes that the "terrified and brutalized people of Iraq will rejoice at the downfall of Saddam Hussein." Of the UN weapons inspection teams, he adds contemptuously, "UN weapons inspectors are being seriously deceived. It reminds me of the way the Nazis hoodwinked Red Cross officials." (Mother Jones)
- February 24: The US, Britain, and Spain submit a resolution to the UN Security Council that states, "Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it in Resolution 1441," and that it is now time to authorize use of military force against the country. The proposal meets with heavy resistance from several countries; France, Germany, and Russia submit an informal counter-resolution to the UN Security Council that states that inspections should be intensified and extended to ensure that there is "a real chance to the peaceful settlement of this crisis," and that "the military option should only be a last resort." The US flatly opposes the counter-resolution. Paul Freundlich, president of the Fair Trade Foundation, later observes, "All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We're going to wage war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then, by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?" (FactMonster, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose)
- February 24 - March 14: The US and Britain conduct an intense lobbying effort among the 15 Security Council members in an attempt to pass its proposed resolution granting UN approval for military intervention of Iraq. The efforts, which some member nations characterize as "bullying," yield only four supporters (in addition to the US and Britain, Spain and Bulgaria). Nine votes, with no vetoes from the five permanent members, out of fifteen are required for the resolution's passage. The US decides not to call for a vote on the resolution. (FactMonster)
Army Chief of Staff Shinseki tells Congress that several hundred thousand troops will be needed in Iraq, contradicting Rumsfeld' Shinseki is mocked and hounded out of office for his claim
- February 25: General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon's estimate of the US troops needed to occupy and pacify Iraq is critically low, and says that "several hundred thousand soldiers" will be needed instead of the 100,000 or so Rumsfeld had allocated. Rumsfeld and his civilian planners are furious at Shinseki's public criticism of their plans. (Rumsfeld has butted heads with Shinseki before, most memorably over Rumsfeld's earlier attempts to drastically downsize the Army, a move Shinseki successfully opposed. Rumsfeld had already announced in April 2002 that Shinseki would be replaced by General John Keane when his tenure as Chief of the Army expired in June 2003, a highly unusual annoucement and an indication of the contempt Rumsfeld holds for Shinseki. In return, Shinseki and his staff members resented Rumsfeld's practice of "wirebrushing" his military subordinates, which essentially consists of barking rapid-fire questions at subordinates, and mocking and deriding whatever answers they attempt to give without letting them complete a sentence or sometimes even a single word). Shinseki tells the senators, "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment, to ensure that people are fed, that water is distributed, all the normal responsibilities that go along with administering a situation like this."
- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz publicly contradicts Shinseki's statements two days later in front of the House Appropriations Committee, calling them "wildly off the mark.... It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army. Hard to imagine. ...We can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark." Wolfowitz also makes the now-famous assertion that the war would pay for itself in the "$15 billion to $20 billion a year in oil exports" that the US would now have access to, not to mention the $10 billion of Iraqi money in escrow to the UN, and even Hussein's personal bank accounts. "There's a lot of money there, and to assume that we're going to pay for it is just wrong." A month later, Wolfowitz tells another House committee, "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." (Visit Cost of War to find out just how much we have paid to date for the war, or see the counter on the home page of this site.) Wolfowitz also adds, "I am reasonably certain that [the Iraqi people] will greet us as liberators." Rumsfeld tells reporters the same day that Shinseki's estimate is "far from the mark." It is virtually unprecedented for civilian Pentagon officials to publicly contradict the head of the Army on such overtly military matters. Wolfowitz in particular is floating some amazingly rosy numbers and assumptions, and as with so many other assumptions provided by Bush officials, provides no sources or even rationales for his statements. Few inside the intelligence and military communities share Wolfowitz's optimism.
- When Shinseki officially retires from his post as Chief of the Army in June 2003, no senior civilians, including either Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz, attend his retirement ceremony, a public display of disrespect that is taken badly by Shinseki's colleagues. For months afterward, Rumsfeld and his aides will privately and publicly mock Shinseki, impugning his courage and even his patriotism.
- Though Bush officials don't like Shinseki's numbers, they are based on a Pentagon war game scenario with Iraq from 1999 entitled "Desert Crossing," which recommends 400,000 troops to not only invade Iraq, but to restabilize the country after the overthrow of the Hussein government. Had the successful model for peacekeeping employed in Kosovo been employed in Iraq, the number of troops needed would have been closer to 500,000. Far more troops were required to restore order in Kosovo than to conquer it. Yet the historical lessons and assessments from experienced Pentagon officials are ignored. Bush's envoy to Afghanistan, James Dobbins, believes that Iraq can be handled with less than 50,000 troops, but even he admits that number will probably result in significant American casualties. (In Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where US troop levels were high, no postwar combat deaths were suffered.) Instead, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz insist that a small American and British force can handle Iraq, because the Iraqi people "will greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep requirements down." On July 1, General Tommy Franks, the head of American forces in Iraq, acknowledges that, in retrospect, Shinseki was right, and says that the level of 147,000 troops in Iraq will remain that high indefinitely. And three months after Shinseki's testimony before Congress, former Army Secretary Thomas White will admit that Shinseki was right all along. (Mother Jones, Wikipedia, David Corn, Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Al Franken, Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- February 25: At a meeting of the National Economic Council, Bush tells his listeners in regards to Iraq, "But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risks of any action we may be forced to take." Bush ignores the fact that his own intelligence agencies have refuted any ideas of Iraq posing an "imminent threat." (Bush on Iraq)
- February 25: MSNBC cancels moderate/liberal talk show host Phil Donahue's television show. The network claims, falsely, that poor ratings are the reason for the cancellation; coincidentally, the network's pro-war show "Countdown: Iraq" is expanded to two hours to cover the hole in the schedule. Later, a leaked internal memo gives the real reason for the cancellation: network fears that Donahue's show would present "a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war. He seems to delight in presenting guests who are antiwar, anti-Bush, and skeptical of the administration's motives." The memo warns that the show, which worked to provide a balance of liberal and conservative guests, could become "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time as our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." The excuse of poor ratings is specious; although Donahue's show was trumpeted as a liberal alternative to Bill O'Reilly's competing show on Fox, and though O'Reilly's show regularly beat Donahue's in the ratings, Donahue's show was the fastest-growing show, ratings-wise, on MSNBC, and was regularly outdoing older, more established shows with more conservative hosts. Network executives placed the show under an unusual mandate of ensuring that both left- and right-wing spokesmen were invited on the show, and directed that liberal guests must always be "balanced" with conservatives. The executives admit that they feared the show might spark a "troublesome issue" as the US moved closer to a war with Iraq. Many of the show's biggest boosters felt that the guidelines hamstrung a format that was being challenged by critics from the right; they also note that there were no restrictions on having conservative guests be balanced with liberals on neither Donahue's nor anyone else's shows. Rather than "letting Phil be Phil," imposing a "quota system on guests" resulted in shows that often degenerated into shouting matches between liberal and conservatives. "sometimes the show ended up being some warped version of 'Crossfire,' which wasn't what we wanted," explained one high-placed NBC News official. "And it wasn't doing Donahue any favors, either." Even after the mandates, network officials felt that the show still leaned too far left for advertiser's comfort. One email from that period discussed the "challenges" faced by MSNBC as it attempted to promote the show. "[A]fter watching last night's show, I'm not sure what type of show we're doing....forget the constant braying back and forth between guests," one network honcho complained. "Tell me, are we reaching our core audience? Sometimes, I feel as if I'm watching MSNPR, rather than a network associated with NBC News."
- Another problem came with the targeting of a different demographic than the typical viewership for cable television talk shows, which usually consists of older, right-leaning males. Some executives wanted the show to attract a different audience, moving towards a more "centrist, women-friendly environment." They claimed that they had hoped for a show that was attractive to an "underserved demographic...women, libertarians, the Middle American Silent Majority that should be the core of our audience." Executives later admit that any political talk show targeting that audience would have a tough sell. Says a ratings analyst from another network, "You're asking younger women to watch cable news, which they traditionally don't do. You're asking them to do it in primetime, against some of their favorite programming. And you're asking them to watch a host who seems ill-suited to the task. Donahue is a genius, but this wasn't his audience or his battle. They misjudged their audience, and both sides paid the price." Some liberals have a different take. One liberal commentator says, "There is a huge liberal base out here who wanted to watch the show. But they [MSNBC] didn't embrace that audience. They were afraid of it. They didn't advertise in progressive publications, and they had this odd compulsion to program flaccid celebrity shows, which is great if you're Larry King. It's not so good if you're competing against Bill O'Reilly, who has a focused approach that is damn near zen-like."
- A secret study of Donahue's show commissioned by NBC news executives termed Donahue "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace." The study went on to claim that Donahue presented a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's motives." The report went on to outline a possible nightmare scenario where the show becomes "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Another network insider later says, "I personally like Donahue, but our numbers were telling us that viewers thought he has too combative, and often said things that some respondents considered almost unpatriotic. In retrospect, I think we may have overreacted, but I honestly thought we were doing what was best for the show." Some observers believe that NBC executives were unduly influenced by a negative letter-writing campaign against the show mounted by conservative opponents, who disliked the fact that any liberal would be given his or her own show on a national network. By the time January began, the pressure from executives at NBC and GE had reportedly become so persistent that the normally private Donahue began making veiled references to the situation during his show. "I believe that the drumbeat has been so powerful, so everywhere, that it has literally intimidated people who might want to dissent from the war," he said during a January 6th show called "Is There A Conservative Bias In The Media?"
- "They're going to be called unpatriotic. I was called unpatriotic by a person in this very NBC-MSNBC family. This is very difficult out there. At a time when we need dissent the most, everybody is sitting back and afraid." Executives admit that they wanted to take MSNBC in a more overtly, Fox News-like "patriotic" direction with the advent of the war, as well as to take advantage of the "anticipated larger audience who will tune in during a time of war," according to one internal e-mail. The message went on to note that the war coverage would give the network to opportunity to "cross-pollinate our programming" by fitting network personalities into the wall-to-wall war coverage. "It's unlikely that we can use Phil in this way, particularly given his public stance on the advisability of the war effort," the message read, and went on to explain that the network needed additional voices who were comfortable and knowledgeable in "both an environment of war and of peace" -- in other words, hosts who would be reliably pro-government and pro-war. "This is a ratings-driven business, and it's important not to lose track of that in this discussion," says one CNN executive. "But I won't lie and tell you that your public beliefs and persona don't matter to viewers.... There are a lot of people out there who believe that the press is inherently liberal. And I would be an idiot if I did anything to encourage that conversation." One journalist who works at a competing network says that in the end, the most important lesson to come out of this story is the increasing use of focus groups and polling to determine news programming. "While Donahue isn't claiming to be Edward R. Murrow -- he is a talk show host -- he's talking about the news, with newsmakers. It's a distinction that escapes most viewers anyway. And if we're moving towards a future where network wonks are testing everything before they let us report it...well, frankly, that scares the hell out of me."
- Donahue will later be replaced by a show hosted by former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, a conservative best known for the mysterious death of a female intern in his office. Though Scarborough's show never approaches the ratings level of Donahue's, his show remains on the air. Right-wing hatemongerer Michael Savage is also given his own show on MSNBC for a time, until low ratings and his wish for a gay caller to die of AIDS eventually results in his cancellation. Conservative independent Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, is also hired as a host; former Republican congressman Dick Armey is hired as a commentator. (CNN, All Your TV, All Your TV, Amy Goodman and David Goodman, Paul Waldman)
- February 26: An unusual meeting at the Pentagon, in which an array of Halliburton/KBR executives join the discussion, catches the attention of attention of Bunnatine Greenhouse, the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (PARC) for the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps has specific guidelines that prohibit a company who drafted contingency plans to bid on the contracts that ensue from those plans, because of the fact that the inside information that company has would give it an unfair advantage in bidding. But the Corps has waived those guidelines so Halliburton can bid on the contracts arising from the Pentagon's "Restore Iraq Oil" (RIO) plans as drawn up by Halliburton. Greenhouse senses that something is amiss, and is so disturbed that she discreetly asks the lieutenant general chairing the meeting to have the executives leave the meeting.
- Greenhouse accepts the "compelling emergency" logic that permits awarding the contract to Halliburton, in light of the impending Iraq invasion. But Greenhouse thinks that the details of the contract -- a five-year, sole-source contract worth an impressive $7 billion -- is excessive, unwarranted, and improper. She isn't buying a five-year emergency contract with a large, guaranteed profit margin. Greenhouse insists on Halliburton receiving only a one-year contract that would allow the government to evaluate Halliburton's performance and possibly reopen the contract at the end of the year. Greenhouse is the only dissenter in the room, and knows she can't stop the contract by herself. But she adds an addendum by her signature on the agreement, which says, "I caution that extending this sole source effort beyond a one-year period could convey an invalid perception that there is not strong intent for a limited competition.
- Greenhouse's resistance to Halliburton's government-funded gravy train will eventually cost her her position. After she signs off on the agreement, she receives the first negative personnel evaluation of her long and illustrious career. She is demoted, stripped of her oversight responsibilities, and smeared with allegations from her superiors that she isn't doing her job.
- Greenhouse, an African-American equally devout in her faith and her belief in competition and transparency, does not realize that she is going up against powerful people who, in the words of authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein, have arisen to power as a result of "the Bush-Cheney administration's inbreeding." One of those people is Michael Mobbs. Mobbs, who is pushing the Corps contract towards Halliburton, left the Reagan administration to work for Douglas Feith's law firm in the late 1980s. Mobbs, after spending time in Moscow working for several US business interests, came back to Washington in time for the preparations for war with Iraq, and landed a position as special assistant to Feith, the undersecretary of defense. Unlike many of the administration's ideological hires, Mobbs is well qualified for his job -- an accomplished international trade lawyer and contract negotiator. In contrast, Greenhouse worked her way up from the cotton fields of Louisiana and, after joining the Corps as a lowly G-5, worked her way up to the senior manager in charge of procurement. "Mobbs is part of the permanent government," Dubose and Bernstein write, "men who move effortlessly from the public to the private sector and are always at ease with their authority." Mobbs also has the personal contacts that Greenhouse lacks. It is a one-sided conflict.
- Greenhouse had no idea that the Halliburton contract was already a done deal when she walks into the February 26 meeting. An e-mail sent by a Corps official proves that the deal was completed by February 5, in collusion with Feith and members of Dick Cheney's staff. Mobbs rolled the contract into the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), based on the system set up by Halliburton during Cheney's term as George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. The program, in essence, makes Halliburton/KBR the government's military quartermaster. The program had gone for a second time to Halliburton/KBR in the 2001 rebidding charade, over the objections of the Army Materiel Command and the deputy counsel to the Army. But the Defense Department's general counsel, who answered to Feith, overrode the objections and plumped the contract for LOGCAP right back in Halliburton's lap. Feith orchestrated the entire deal.
- Mobbs will testify to Congress on June 18, 2004 (see related entries) that in October 2002, Mobbs told Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, that Halliburton was getting the sole source contract for RIO. Mobbs had determined on his own that while three companies -- Halliburton, Bechtel, and Fluor -- were all capable of executing the contract, Halliburton was best prepared to handle the job. And, of course, awarding the contract to Halliburton would make Cheney very happy. Greenhouse did not know that today's meeting is nothing but a sham to conclude a deal made four months before, with the assent of Cheney's chief of staff and presumably of Cheney, the former Halliburton CEO, himself.
- Feith's superior at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, will further grease the wheels for Halliburton, when in December 2003 he issues an order eliminating competitive bidding for $18 billion in Iraq reconstruction projects, locking in Halliburton and locking out the foreign competition. Dubose and Bernstein write, "With Libby, Wolfowitz, and Feith's former law partner Michael Mobbs connected to the Halliburton deal, contract talks might as well have been done at a neocon poker night."
- The Corps will later pretend to open the process up to competitive bidding. After prodding by the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Henry Waxman, after Greenhouse has been demoted and rendered helpless to exert any oversight or insistence on transparency, the Corps will reopen bidding for $2 billion in contracts. 184 contractors will flock to Dallas on July 14, 2003, to jockey for the contract, but, as Bechtel's Sheryl Elam Tappan recalls in 2006, "It was a farce." Halliburton was already the winner of the "rebidding" before it ever opened. Tappan will write a book about her experiences at Bechtel battling Halliburton and the federal government, entitled Shock and Awe in Fort Worth. that will end her career. Fluor's Sandy Davis agrees with Tappan, and on the last day of the Dallas meeting, asks if, since Halliburton has already wrapped up the contracts that are supposedly being bid on, isn't the government at risk of being caught in a conflict of interest? The question is met with a barrage of lies from the Corps's lawyer. "Nobody in that room believed the process was fair," Tappan recalls. "But contractors are like a big dysfunctional family. They keep quiet and take the abuse. If they get a reputation for speaking out in public, they fear they will lose work later." Tappan says it isn't fair for the public to pin the blame solely on the contractors -- the government orchestrates the entire process and bears much of the blame.
- Ironically, the rigged contracts that Halliburton's subsidiary, KBR, won in Iraq only prove to be short-lived in their success and profit generations for the firm. By 2006, with more and more of the American and Iraqi funds originally designated for reconstruction going instead to provide security in the embattled country, KBR's 2006 prospectus predicts that the LOGCAP profits it wallowed in during earlier years will continue to dry up. It says, worryingly for KBR and Halliburton executives, that the rebidding process will result in other companies besides KBR receiving contracts, and predicts that "the loss of the United States government as a customer, or a significant reduction in our work for it, would have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations."
- The Pentagon's tardy decision to rebid the Halliburton/KBR contracts, with its recognition that the bidding process was tainted from the outset, will no doubt figure prominently in Greenhouse's whistleblower lawsuit against the Corps that she is pursuing.
- And perhaps, Dick Cheney will figure equally as prominently in Greenhouse's lawsuit. Did Cheney know that his former company was getting most of the contracts for Iraq steered towards it? "Of course he knew," says a congressional staffer who worked on Halliburton issues. "Of course the vice president knew what was going on. How does Cheney not know who is going to run all the Iraq infrastructure? Cheney had to know." And Cheney's potential legal woes may go beyond the Greenhouse lawsuit. With a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress as of January 2007, and Waxman in charge of the House Oversight Committee, people like Greenhouse, Mobbs, Libby, and any number of Halliburton executives could be compelled to testify. For Republicans like Cheney and greedy Halliburton/KBR executives, Waxman is their worst nightmare. As for Cheney, his position on the issue is clear. When Democratic senator Patrick Leahy asks Cheney, on the eve of the 2004 presidential elections, about the sole-source contracting that Greenhouse challenged, Cheney retorts, "Go f*ck yourself." (Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein)
- February 26: Conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly comes out foursquare against the First Amendment protections of freedom of speech when it comes in conflict with the impending Iraqi invasion: "Once the war against Saddam begins, we expect every American to support our military, and if they can't do that, to shut up. Americans, and indeed our allies, who actively work against our military once the war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbra Streisand, and others who see the world as you do." (FAIR
"The idea that it would take several hundred thousand US forces is far off the mark." -- Donald Rumsfeld, February 27, on the invasion of Iraq
"Some of the higher-end predictions that we have been hearing recently, such as the notion that it will take several hundred thousand US troops to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq, are wildly off the mark." -- Paul Wolfowitz, February 27, on the invasion of Iraq
- February 27: The head of the Iraq reconstruction effort, Jay Garner, is dismayed over how the funding for the effort is being handled. A budget document he prepares for today shows that he has just over $27 million for the entire effort, a miniscule amount considering the breadth of his responsibilities. He projects humanitarian assistance alone to cost over $1 billion for the remainder of the year, reconstruction at $800 million, and running the government at $10 billion. Where will the money come from? The project will cost billions of dollars, he tells Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. "Well, if you think we're spending our money on that, you're wrong," Rumsfeld thunders. "We're not doing that. They're going to spend their money rebuilding their country." (Bob Woodward)
- February 27: Wayne White, the Iraq analyst for INR, the State Department's intelligence bureau, compiles a report that addresses the question of whether a US invasion of Iraq would actually bring democracy to the region. White's report is not promising. He finds that the populaces of Iraq and its surrounding nations are far more anti-American and anti-Israel than the governments that run those countries. And the sectarian divisions in Iraq are so deeply seated that a national, democratic government will have a difficult time functioning. Even if Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations do end up with some form of democratic governments, White concludes, those governments will likely be quite anti-American and more pro-Islamist. White's findings are not revolutionary, but he realizes that the White House will take it as a slap in the face. He asks that it not be circulated outside the State Department, but his boss, Tom Fingar, has never restricted such a report before, and will not do so now. He circulates the report throughout the US intelligence community and gives a copy to the White House. Usually, White later recalls, such a report would receive a response "from the seventh floor of State" -- Colin Powell's office. But this time, White recalls, "I got nothing." (Michael Isikoff and David Corn)
- February 28: In an interview with Radio France International, Secretary of State Colin Powell states, "If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us. ...But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct." (State Department)
- February 28: Jay Garner, the head of the Iraqi reconstruction effort, meets with Bush for the first time to discuss what Garner's team has been doing. Bush and Garner are joined by Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and Tommy Franks, with Dick Cheney participating by secure video uplink. Garner could tell that Bush had no idea who he is. Rumsfeld insists on briefing Bush on who Garner is before allowing Garner to speak. Garner's 11-page presentation outlines his group's monumental tasks, and Garner, addressing his nine basic assignments, says bluntly that his group shouldn't be handling four of them because they were plainly beyond the capabilities of his small team. The four Garner wants assigned to someone else include the hunt for Iraqi WMDs, defeating terrorists, reshaping the Iraqi military, and reshaping the other internal Iraqi security institutions. These should be handled by the military, Garner recommends. Bush nods and no one else speaks, though someone should ask some of the obvious follow-up questions.
- Instead, Bush interrupts Garner's presentation on interagency cooperation with the question, "Where are you from?" Garner answers, "Florida, sir." "Why do you talk like that?" Bush asks. "Because I was born and raised on a ranch in Florida," Garner answers. "My daddy was a rancher." Bush says approvingly, "You're in." Florida is his brother Jeb's state. Garner presents his concerns about each agency's preparation and the "show stoppers" (see above item) that might stymie the US's mission. Bush listens without speaking. Finally, someone asks how many troops Garner recommends be sent to Iraq to achieve the administration's goals. "I'm going to give you a big range," he answers. "It'll be between 200,000 and 300,000." No one challenges Garner's enormous troop level recommendations; no one asks about his reasons or rationale.
- When Garner brings up the idea of internationalizing the conflict, bringing in allies to share the burdens of responsibility, he notices a distinct undercurrent of disapproval, not from Powell, but from everyone else. He realizes that this idea will not float. He continues, saying that his advance party would be sent to the region in about 10 days. No one tells him, but it's obvious the invasion will commence within a matter of weeks. (Bob Woodward)
- February 28: Glenn Hubbard, the chief of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, disparages the link between spiking federal deficits and interest rates as "Rubinomics" (a slam at Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin), and says it is "completely wrong." Hubbard is contradicting his own textbook, Money, the Financial System, and the Economy, which says in part, "By the late 1990s,an emerging federal budget surplus put downward pressure on interest rates.... It's all right to run a deficit during a recession, as long as the deficit is clearly temporary. But both the numbers and the [Bush] administration's search for excuses tell us there's nothing temporary about the red ink." (New York Times/Alterman and Cook)
- Late Febuary: Human Rights Watch warns the UN that the war in the Congo is sparking "a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions" that has so far displaced two million people from their homes and killed uncounted tens of thousands. Small forces from neighboring Rwanda and Uganda are the only sources of law and order for the beleagured country, and are overwhelmed by the extent of the rampant violence. HRW urges the UN to intervene, but with the noise created by the Bush administration's insistence on intervening in Iraq, virtually nothing is done. Weeks later, a tiny force of 700 UN peacekeepers is forced to watch helplessly as tribal militias massacre entire villages over and over again without restraint. (Peter Singer)
"I think the administration took September 11 and used it as a blank check. You try not to be cynical, but without the distraction of Iraq [people would notice] that the economy is doing poorly, and the old fashioned Republican tax cuts for the folks that are doin' well will seriously curtail services for people who are struggling out there. I don't think that's the kind of country Americans really want." -- Bruce Springsteen, February 2003, quoted in Buzzflash
"What is the motivation? Regime change? Shouldn't that be up to the people of the region and the people of Iraq? ...Surely it is more likely that an attack on Iraq would only strengthen al-Qaeda by feeding anti-American sentiment. Putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. It is certainly not to liberate the people of Iraq who suffer under Hussein's rule, unless we call killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis liberation.... Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American." -- Dave Matthews, February 2003, quoted in Buzzflash
