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
September 2003
Week One
"Spending $80 billion and putting half the US Army in Iraq has provided a supercharger to al-Qaeda recruiters."
-- General Wesley Clark, Sept. 11, 2003
- Fall: The CIA is grappling with a critical shortage of Arabic speakers.
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
The CIA station in Baghdad is being flooded with officers on temporary assignment, drawn from all over the world, but few have any experience with Arab culture, and even fewer speak Arabic. Many are rookie officers on their first tour of duty. By the fall, the station only has four Arabic speakers on staff, making it very difficult for the CIA to conduct clandestine operations in the country. Equally troublesome is the lack of analysts who can help the CIA grasp the nature of the insurgency. CIA analysts in Langley are having trouble grasping the rapidly changing nature of the opposition, but it takes until the end of 2003 for the CIA to send about 30 analysts to Baghdad; it is nine months after the invasion before the CIA can begin to accurately analyze the clues that begin to let them map the structure of the insurgency. - Another serious problem is the US military's inadequate interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Lacking the training and the skills to handle important detainees, the military isn't even sure how many foreign fighters it is holding among the mob of civilians and possible insurgents rounded up and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib and other prisons and detention facilities. The CIA agreed to take on the task of interrogating the most important detainees to gather intelligence about the insurgency, but Langley refuses to give the Baghdad station the resources or the legal guidelines it needs to do the job effectively and within the bounds of US law. CIA headquarters even refuses to provide the necessary training for the Baghdad officers to interrogate prisoners. The Baghdad station had asked as early as July 2003 for written guidelines on how to interrogate prisoners, guidelines that Langley refused to provide. After months of delays and refusals, the deputy station chief in Baghdad explodes during a video conference to headquarters staffers, demanding that such guidelines be provided. The Near East Division chief responds that the deputy station chief is "too strident" on the issue; the guidelines are not provided before the Abu Ghraib scandal erupts into the public eye.
- The CIA supervisors in Langley even refused to provide Baghdad with a lawyer to handle legal questions arising from the conduct of prisoner interrogations, leaving the beleagured station chief to cast about for legal advice from other CIA or military lawyers who happened to be passing through Baghdad. The CIA doesn't send a lawyer to the Baghdad station until January 2004, only after the US Army has already begun investigating reports of abuses and torture at Abu Ghraib. The CIA in Baghdad is also concerned about the Langley practice of "ghosting" detainees, ordering important captives to be secretly shipped out of Iraq to other nations for interrogation and torture, and only later ordering the captives to be returned to custody in Iraq when they realized that they were violating the Geneva Conventions. A Justice Department lawyer obligingly drafted a memo providing legal cover for the CIA to "ghost" detainees around the world, but the memo didn't abrogate Geneva. (James Risen)
- September: The latest Census Bureau data show that under George W. Bush,
Bush's economic policies
the number of Americans living in poverty saw its largest increase in more than forty years, median household income has declined, and the number of Americans living without health insurance has soared upward, along with unemployment. (Eric Alterman and Mark Green) - Six months after the invasion, the Iraqi scientists of Hussein's National Monitoring Directorate,
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
the experts who worked with the UN and the IAEA inspectors and thusly best suited to give the US information about the realities of Iraq's WMD programs, are still being held in captivity at Baghdad airport and other places, away from their families and the world's reporters. Some have managed to contact friends and relatives by phone, and, though they have committed no crimes and are, in large part, willing to help the US, their plight is desperate: "The people in intelligence and in the WMD business are in jail," says an Iraqi-American emigre who is in contact with the family of one of the scientists. "The Americans are hunting them down one by one. Nobody speaks for them, and there's no American lawyer who will take the case." Once NMD scientist, Dhia Jafar, managed to flee Iraq in April 2003, before Baghdad fell, and went to the United Arab Emirates, where he agreed to speak with US and British intelligence agents on at least twenty occasions. During the first meeting, a CIA agent asks, "Does Iraq have a nuclear device? The military really want to know. They are extremely worried." - Jafar's response is to laugh, which perplexes the interrogators. Then, according to an eyewitness's notes, "Jafar insisted that there was not only no bomb, but no WMD, period. 'The answer was none.' ...Jafar explained that the Iraqi leadership had set up a new committee after the 91 Gulf war, and after the UNSCOM inspection process was set up...and the following instructions [were sent] from the Top Man [Saddam] -- 'give them everything.'" When the agent follows up by asking, "But this doesn't mean all WMD? How can you be certain?" Jafar replies, "I know all the scientists involved, and they chat. There is no WMD." Why did Saddam give up his weapons? Jafar answers: "Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional.... But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. 'No way we could escape the United States.' Therefore, the WMD warheads did Iraq little good." As for the infamous 6000-warhead discrepancy between the number of chemical weapons known to have been manufactured by Iraq before 1991 and the number accounted for by the UN, Jafar says there's a simple explanation -- Iraq dropped thousands more bombs on the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war than they ever acknowledged. Is Jafar a credible source? "I don't believe anybody," says the IAEA's Jacques Baute, "but, by and large, what he told us after 1995 was pretty accurate." (Seymour Hersh)
- September: The commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, General Geoffrey Miller, issues a classified report after visiting the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Terrorism detainees and "enemy combatants"
Miller advocates radical changes in the way the prison is run, recommending that the prison be geared first and foremost towards interrogations and obtaining intelligence from prisoners. "Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation...to provide a safe, secure, and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence," Miller writes. The supreme commander of US forces in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, agrees, and in November Sanchez will issue orders formally turning control of Abu Ghraib over to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. In his 2004 report on abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, General Antonio Taguba will take issue with Sanchez's orders, noting that they "effectively made an MI officer, rather than an MP [military police] officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility. This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agenda assigned to each of these respective specialties." As it later emerges in Senate hearings, Miller's plan is to "Gitmoize" the prison system in Iraq, focusing it on interrogation and intelligence gathering. While in Iraq, Miller briefs senior officials in charge of Abu Ghraib and other prisons on the methods he has authorized at Guantanamo. Miller envisions turning Abu Ghraib into a center of intelligence for the Bush administration's global war on terrorism, according to the complete report. Miller writes that he and Sanchez envision a system that could "drive the rapid exploitation of internees to answer...theater and national level counter terrorism requirements" and respond to the "needs of the Global War on Terrorism." Miller apparently believes that the detainees in Abu Ghraib can provide intelligence critical to anti-terror operations around the world. Miller's report claims that if his recommendations are put into place, "a significant improvement of actionable intelligence will be realized within thirty days." On paper, it sounds appealing; in reality, as reflected by the Taguba report, Miller's recommendations bore quite different fruit. Taguba notes soundly enough that the prison population of Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons is radically different from that of Camp Delta in Guantanamo, with the Iraqi prisons primarily populated by common criminals with little or no knowledge of terrorist activities. "These are not believed to be international terrorists or members of al-Qaeda" in Abu Ghraib. Taguba notes that Miller's recommendations directly conflict with other studies and with Army regulations mandating that military police units be in control of prisons. Seymour Hersh writes, "By placing military intelligence operatives in control instead, Miller's recommendations and Sanchez's change in policy undoubtedly played a role in the abuses at Abu Ghraib." In late March 2004, Miller will be placed in charge of the Iraqi prison system; within seven months, he will be relieved of duty. (Seymour Hersh) - September - October: Over the next two months, Egypt will release 113 Islamists from prison and Yemen will release over a thousand from its prisons.
Islamist terrorism
The Yemenis are all members of al-Qaeda; the Egyptians, members of the Islamic Group. The rationale is that many of them have completed their sentences and others have repented of their connections to radical Islam. The releases mirror the way some Arab regimes would release Arab jihadists if they would go to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. Victor Hanson Davis later wrote that the regimes might now be using the same device to "export them all to Iraq." (Michael Scheuer)
- September 1: Reflections from respected journalist John Judis on the situation in Iraq proves that the prewar skeptics were almost all correct in their caveats.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
The "liberation" of Iraq is a hollow victory. Instead of the rosy picture of flower-waving Iraqis welcoming an American presence, the country has degenerated into three armed camps, each with its own agenda and none particularly welcoming of the US. "[T]he Americans' best hope in years to come may be a regime that is so crippled by factional strife that it cannot become the leader, along with Iran, of a formidable anti-American bloc." The Bush administration also predicted a "new dawn" in the Middle East, with the overthrow of the Hussein regime triggering the collapse of Arab autocracies all over the region. Instead, the reverse has happened: democratic reformers in Egypt and the Persian Gulf states have gone underground, afraid that they will be stamped as US toadies as Arab and Islamic anger towards the US occupying forces increases. The US has also become more reliant on those selfsame autocracies, particularly the regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Instead of stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Iraq invasion has fueled them. It has stiffened resistance to peace in both Israel and Palestine. Afghanistan has fallen into anarchy, with a resurgent Taliban holding control in large sectors of the country. Rather than rendering OPEC irrelevant, the consortium has grown in power. The war on terrorism has been weakened, not strengthened, by the Iraq debacle. Most observers predict that the Middle East will continue into ever-growing unrest and dissension for at least the next decade. Judis concludes, "If past practice holds, Bush's abysmal failures will lead to a new political offensive designed to gull the American people into believing that the invasion was really a smashing success." See below for the proof of Judis's predictions. (The American Prospect)
Taliban resurgent
- September 1: The Taliban is expanding its presence in southern and eastern Afghanistan, backed by new recuits from Pakistan, according to Afghan officials, Western diplomats and captured fighters.
War in Afghanistan
In recent weeks, Taliban forces have stepped up their attacks on US forces, and have expanded their attacks to include Afghan police, officials and civil workers. American military spokespersons downplay the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Afghan leaders and UN officials are warning that Taliban forces are becoming a serious threat to peace in the region. Afghan citizens complain of lawlessness and say that while they do not support the Taliban, they miss the strict law and order they enforced, which might explain why the Taliban is so effective in regaining control of areas of that country. "They have a sophisticated strategy of going after local people," a senior Western diplomat says. "The mantra they use is that the Americans and the international community will leave someday, and we will come back." (New York Times/Pipeline) - September 1: Two Saudis who claim allegiance to al-Qaeda
Islamist terrorism
have been arrested for planting the car bomb that killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and 125 others. Five Iraqis and 17 other foreigners have been arrested as part of an investigation into the bombing. (New York Post) - September 1: The wife of Dr. David Kelly testifies that he felt betrayed and belittled by his political superiors at the end of his life.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
She says that he was "broken" by his treatment by the government, who attempted to dismiss him as a junior official being publicly reprimanded by his bosses at the Ministry of Defence for leaking information to the media. "Far from the impression originally given by the MoD and Downing Street, he was an extremely senior official whose job description included briefing the press, both officially and unofficially. Initially, after he volunteered himself as the possible source, he said his MoD bosses had been 'not unsupportive.' By the end of the 'nightmare,' he was less certain of the support from his bosses. He was dismayed that, despite assurances, his name had been made public. He became withdrawn, retreated into a world of his own and, on the day he apparently committed suicide, he could not put two sentences together." (BBC) - September 1: The Boston Globe reveals deep discord between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and many senior Pentagon officials, particularly those in the US Army.
US military
Rumsfeld and the Army leadership have clashed on issues ranging from the number of troops in Iraq to the size of the overall force needed to defend America. Rumsfeld's critics say the skirmishing is taking a toll on the Army, with casualties that include the loss of a prized weapons system last year, the resignation of Army Secretary Thomas White last spring, and, in recent weeks, the retirement of four top generals, with more expected in the coming months. "You look at Rumsfeld, and beyond all the rationale, spoken and unspoken, he just dislikes the Army. It's just palpable," says former Army intelligence officer Ralph Peters. "You always have to wonder if when Rumsfeld was a Navy lieutenant junior grade whether an Army officer stole his girlfriend." (Boston Globe)
"Embedded" coverage exposed as Pentagon manipulation
- September 1: Embedded, by Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, is published.
Media manipulation and marketing by GOP
An "oral history" of the media's experiences in Iraq during the days and weeks of the initial invasion (March-April 2003), Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson interviewed well over fifty journalists, cameramen, photographers, and civilians involved in producing media coverage of the invasion, and printed excerpts from those interviews. Viewpoints from many sides of the media, from Fox News to al-Jazeera, are provided. Overall, the book is an excellent sampling of the variety of experiences and anecdotes compiled by a healthy sampling of the army of media personnel who went into Iraq either embedded with the US and British forces, or who went in independently (despite the title, many of the media personnel interviewed were not embedded with the invading forces), or, in a couple of cases, were providing coverage for Arabic media outlets -- the other side, as it were. Most of the journalists say that the US and British military was quite cooperative and professional in their dealings with the media, and have a strongly positive impression of the professionalism and dedication of the military personnel with whom they served. The material presented is rich, varied, and illuminating. - In their introduction, Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson compare the relative openness of the US military's handling of the media with the much more restrictive approach displayed in the 1983 invasion of Grenada, the 1989 invasion of Panama, and the 1991 Gulf War: "When US military forces stormed onto Grenada in 1983, navy gunboats kept the press away from the island. Six years later, the Panama invasion was hardly more accomodating to journalists, who were either left stranded on airport tarmacs in Miami and San Jose, Costa Rica, or sequestered in a Panama City warehouse throughout most of the fighting. On the eve of the first Gulf War, the media practically begged for access. ...[T]he Pentagon was determined to call the shots, maintaining tight control over the flow of information through censorship, pool reporting, and press conferences bleached of meaningful content. The arrangement led to the reporting of false or misleading information such as the highly exaggerated success rate of the Patriot missiles shooting down Scuds. At the time, then-Secretary of State Dick Cheney said, 'I do not look on the press as an asset. Frankly, I looked on it as a problem to be managed.'"
- Media coverage of the March 2003 Iraq invasion was radically different. Technological advances made it possible to broadcast real-time audio and video from the field. Fox News and MSNBC were taking viewers away from CNN, who had dominated live news since it ran away with coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, and the three major broadcast networks. And Arabic TV stations such as al-Jazeera were making their own reports, which didn't ordinarily receive much airplay in the US, but got much broader coverage in Europe and Asia. Given all of the above, and the press's determination to cover the war as closely as possible, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld decided to perform an about-face on the media and give them almost all the coverage they could want. In return, the media gave the Pentagon much of what it wanted -- enthusiastic, pro-US coverage. "Reporters love troops," said one UPI correspondent. "Put us in with those 18-year old kids and we turn to jelly." The media coverage helped bolster the support from US citizens for the invasion, an effect the Pentagon had hoped for, but couldn't be sure would happen. Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson imply, without stating it directly, that most of the sanitizing and "prettying up" of the war coverage came from the higher levels of the networks and newspapers, and not from the military or from the journalists in the field.
- Some journalists express their frustration at submitting thoughtful reports with sobering, sometimes shocking, war footage and finding their material edited into much slicker, "surface-y" presentations often larded with patriotic logos and stirring martial music. Approximately 600 journalists, photographers, and technicians from US and international media sources were embedded with the invading armies, mostly with various units in the US Army and the Marines. Approximately 2,100 more were "unilaterals," not affiliated with any particular unit, but pursuing more independent coverage. "slants" in what particular footage was chosen for audiences began almost from the first moment that the war began. Arab TV audiences were treated to hours of stark, barely watchable film of burned Iraqi corpses and screaming wounded, along with footage of dazed US POWs. By and large, US television refused to air this kind of footage, citing such reasons as families' privacy and general revulsion; yet US audiences were treated to plenty of footage of emaciated Iraqi conscripts surrendering to US troops and being led away in plastic cuffs. In general, US television refused to show virtually any "objectionable" footage, leading to charges of "sanitized" broadcasts and "rah-rah" slant; Arab television showed plenty of footage of civilian casualties, leading to charges of sensationalism and anti-American bias. (Note: Michael Moore's summer 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 showed a few moments of such footage, to the horror and shock of its American audiences.)
- The effect on America was powerfully one-sided. The authors write, "Hawks ate doves (and Dixie Chicks) for lunch." Anti-war protests, some boasting tens of thousands of participants, went all but unreported. "Just as this asymmetrical war turned into a lopsided victory, US media coverage mirrored this disparity by asymmetrically focusing on 'feel-good' American stories. There were laconic, Gary Cooper-sounding commanders, dirt-encrusted Marines from small towns, and weary supply clerks who were accountants and insurance agents back home. On the strategy and battle-assessment homefront, a revolving cast of former generals and military analysts tirelessly debated this war on all the television and radio talk shows." Complexity and in-depth analysis were down; sound bites and spectacular footage were up. "Television championed those feel-good scenes that reminded viewers of other popular wars: an American flag hoisted, happy Iraqi children waving to soldiers, an evil tyrant's statue being toppled." Television showed a parade of clips of what one New York Times correspondent called "photogenic bombs" going off, leading one news anchor to gush, "[A]n amazing sight, just like out of an action movie, but this is real." The Pentagon massaged the "rescue" of Private Jessica Lynch into a dramatic set-piece that mixed fantasy with fact to make a stunning tale for the news, at least until it was revealed as little more than a staged photo-op. "she became the real American Idol," the editors write. "Highest Q-ratings of the war." Cable news audiences tripled. Broadcast network news held its own. Internet traffic soared. Web logs proliferated. Newspapers printed special, ad-laden war supplements.
- Amidst all of this cacophony, it became increasingly difficult for the average American to sort out the real stories from the patriotic sound and fury of the TV news. Most didn't bother to try, but simply sat back and enjoyed the show. The war's dramatic conclusion came with the fall of Baghdad and the flight of uber-villain Saddam Hussein 21 days into the invasion, just long enough for the already-wandering attention spans of the average viewer and to the great relief of the Pentagon, which didn't want a long, ugly conflict to play itself out over the TV screens of America, conjuring up visions of Vietnam. On May 1, President Bush coptered onto the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to announce to the world that the war was for all intents and purposes over. Unfortunately for the Pentagon, the Bush administration, and the warhawks of the nation, the fighting didn't come to a painless and clearly marked end. Unrest and rampant looting was followed by increasingly severe and well-organized insurgent attacks, and the coverage from Iraq slowly turned from a short, feel-good defeat of the bad guys by the good guys into just the kind of ugly quagmire the Bush administration and the Pentagon desperately wanted to avoid. But by that time, media coverage had already begun to ebb; by July 4, 2003, only 23 journalists of the original 600 remained embedded with their units. (Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson)
- September 2: Bush agrees to ask the UN to play a bigger role in the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq, but insists that his civilian and military commanders remain in charge.
Iraq war and occupation
It is doubtful that France and Germany will agree to such a proposal; both countries, along with many others, insist that the UN should lead any rebuilding efforts that they take an active role in implementing. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage says the US is considering a multinational force that would be under the United Nations flag but, he adds, an "American would be the U.N. commander." This is essentially the model for American forces stationed in South Korea after the end of the Korean War, 50 years ago, and it has been repeated elsewhere in the world. A non-partisan study released today shows that it will become next to impossible for the US to maintain security and control in Iraq over the next two years without either allowing the UN to participate or turning the entire country over to the Iraqis and withdrawing. It is doubtful that the UN will accept such terms, either. A Maryland professor observes, "I suspect that the Germans and the French and Kofi Annan are now thinking about saying [to Bush], 'Are you reconsidering a strategy in which you claim the right to unilaterally decide what is in your interest, or are you just asking us to come in and help clean up your mess?'" Writer Gary Kamiya observes, "In other words, the rest of the world is to send its troops to get killed so that a U.S. president it fears and despises can take the credit for an invasion it bitterly opposed." It is later revealed that Bush and his top advisors, including Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, gave in to pressure from Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to approach the UN. (New York Times, New York Times, Salon, Washington Post) - September 2: Paul Bremer, the head of the US-led CPA in Iraq, says,
Iraq war and occupation
"The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over." At this point, documented abuses of Iraqi prisoners are already surfacing in the Pentagon. (Defense Department/Slate) - September 2: The Congressional Budget Office reports that the US military will have to cut its presence in Iraq by more than half in order to be able to respond to other threats, one of the main reasons why the Bush administration is now seeking help from other countries to help keep order in Iraq.
Iraq war and occupation
Under current policies, the CBO says that the Pentagon would be able to sustain an occupation force of 38,000 to 64,000 in Iraq long term, down from the existing 150,000 that a number of lawmakers said is not enough to confront the spiraling violence. Senator Robert Byrd, who requested the CBO study, says it showed that President Bush's policies in Iraq were "straining our forces to the breaking point. ...Every day frittered away by the administration is another day that our troops will bear the staggering burdens of the dangers of occupation alone." Byrd recommends that the Bush administration immediately begin working with the UN to share responsibility for bringing Iraq out of the current post-war chaos. (Reuters) - September 2: Investigative reporter Greg Palast tells of how the Bush administration worked diligently behind the scenes to allow Exxon to avoid paying most of the indemnities and fines it incurred in the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Oil profiteering and the "oiligarchy"
The $4 billion in "punitive" damages sounds like a lot, but not only is it a drop in the bucket of Exxon's profits, it barely equals the cost of the damages the oil spill inflicted on the Alaskan coastline, and to the residents and wildlife of that area. ExxonMobil is the single largest campaign contributor to the Bush-Cheney campaign, and as a result, the administration has worked to pressure judges to favor Exxon in ruling after ruling. Just recently a federal appeals court judge in Texas ordered yet another judicial review of the Exxon punitive damage awards. - Palast says that from the outset of the disaster, when the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef off of Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, Exxon's public-relations staff attempted, successfully, to portray the accident as the fault of a drunken ship's captain, Joseph Hazelwood. It is true that Hazelwood was intoxicated, but he was not steering the ship; he was belowdecks sleeping it off. The third mate was actually at the wheel. It is possible he never would have wrecked the vessel had he been able to take readings from the Raycas radar system, but because Raycas is an expensive system to operate and maintain, Exxon had allowed the radar system to remain broken and useless for an entire year before the accident. Other factors are involved, as documented in the item from 1989 covering the disaster in this site.
- But the coverup of the Valdez and the factors leading to its crash into the reef extend far back beyond 1989. Palast and his partner Lenora Stewart, at the behest of the Chugach natives whose land was decimated by the oil spill, have, in Palast's words, found evidence of "fraud by Exxon and the little-known Alyeska consortium. In three years' digging, we followed a twenty-year train of doctored safety records, illicit deals between oil company chiefs, and programmatic harassment of witnesses. And we documented the oil majors' brilliant success in that old American sport, cheating the natives. Our summary of evidence ran to four volumes. Virtually none of it was reported. The media had turned off its radar." Some of the things Palast and Stewart reported:
- An internal memo of a closed, top-level meeting of oil company executives in Arizona held ten months before the Valdez spill. The meeting involved the Alyeska Owners Committee, the six-company combine that owns the Alaska pipeline and most of the state's oil. According to the notes, in that meeting, Theo Polasek, the chief of the Valdez operations, warned executives that containing an oil spill "at the mid-point of Prince William Sound [was] not possible with present equipment" -- precisely where the Exxon Valdez grounded. Polasek needed millions of dollars for spillcontainment equipment. The law required it, the companies promised it to regulators, then at the meeting, the proposed spending was voted down. According to the notes from the meeting, Exxon's plan to contain a possible oil spill was to basically do nothing. An internal memo reveals that the plan was to just drop some oil dispersants and walk away. That is exactly what happened in the Valdez spill. At the owners committee meeting in Phoenix, it was decided that Alyeska would provide immediate response to oil spills in Valdez Arm and Valdez Narrows only, not Prince William Sound.
- Smaller spills before the Exxon disaster would have alerted government watchdogs that the port's oil-spil-containment system was not up to scratch. But the oil group's lab technician, Erlene Blake, told Palast and Stewart that management routinely ordered her to change test results to eliminate "oil-in-water" readings. The procedure was simple, she says. She was told to dump out oily water and refill test tubes from a bucket of cleansed sea water, which they called "the Miracle Barrel."
- A confidential letter dated April 1984, four years before the big spill, written by Captain James Woodle, then the oil group's Valdez Port commander, warns management that "Due to a reduction in manning, age of equipment, limited training and lack of personnel, serious doubt exists that [we] would be able to contain and clean up effectively a medium or large size oil spill." Woodle told us there was a spill at Valdez before the Exxon Valdez collision, though not nearly as large. When he prepared to report it to the government, his supervisor forced him to take back the notice, with the statement, "You made a mistake. This was not an oil spill." (Greg Palast)
- September 2: Columnist Harvey Wasserman accuses the Bush administration of allowing possibly millions of New York City citizens to sicken and die because of lies from the administration about the quality of city air after the 9/11 attacks.
9/11 attacks
"George W. Bush has officially told the people of New York City that as far as he's concerned, they can drop dead. And thanks to his lies, many of them will. ...Because of Bush's lies, thousands of Americans will suffer cancers, emphysema, heart attack, stroke, birth defects, stillbirths, sterility, eye/ear/nose/throat disease and much more. ...This man has horribly wronged the people of New York, whose terrible tragedies he continues to exploit. He puts us all at risk in exchange for campaign contributions. New Yorkers -- all Americans -- suffer and die as a result. It's a debt that can never be repaid." (Free Press)
- September 3: A secret report prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff shows that neither the Pentagon nor the Bush administration did enough planning for the occupation of Iraq after the initial war.
Iraq war and occupation
The report calls the war-planning process flawed and rushed. Most importantly, the plans for locating the putative weapons of mass destruction were planned so late in the game that it was impossible for US Central Command to carry out the mission. "Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission," says the report. The report is titled "Operation Iraqi Freedom Strategic Lessons Learned" and is stamped "secret." - The report also shows that President Bush approved the overall war strategy for Iraq in August last year -- eight months before the first bomb was dropped and six months before he asked the UN Security Council for a war mandate that he never received.
- Several senior US officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, have conceded in recent weeks that the Bush administration failed to predict the guerrilla war against American troops in Iraq.
- The Joint Chiefs report reveals deficiencies in the planning process. It says planners were not given enough time to put together the best blueprint for what is called Phase IV -- the ongoing reconstruction of Iraq. The report does not name any individual. Most war planning was conducted by General Tommy Franks at US Central Command; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the direction of General Richard Myers, the chairman; and the Pentagon policy-writing shop led by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. "Late formation of DoD [Phase IV] organizations limited time available for the development of detailed plans and pre-deployment coordination," the report says. "Command relationships (and communication requirements) and responsibilities were not clearly defined for DoD organizations until shortly before [Operation Iraqi Freedom] commenced." In fact, the Pentagon was forced to scrap its original plan for rebuilding as violence increased against US forces and basic services were slow to resume.
- On the weapons search -- Bush's prime reason for going to war -- the report states: "Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) elimination and exploitation planning efforts did not occur early enough in the process to allow CentCom to effectively execute the mission. The extent of the planning required was underestimated. Insufficient US government assets existed to accomplish the mission." The report said the planning was poor because "WMD elimination/exploitation on a large scale was a new mission area. Division of responsibility for planning and execution was not clear. As a result planning occurred on an ad hoc basis and late in the process. Additionally, there were insufficient assets available to accomplish the mission. Existing assets were tasked to perform multiple, competing missions." The report, labeled "final draft," suggests that combat commanders, such as Central Command, establish permanent cadres of specialists on weapons of mass destruction. It also recommends that each operational plan contain a section for dealing with such weapons. On planning for the post-Saddam period, the interagency process, such as between the Pentagon and State Department, "was not fully integrated prior to hostilities." Before the war, "Phase IV objectives were identified but the scope of the effort required to continually refine operational plans for defeat of Iraqi military limited the focus on Phase IV."
- The report also provides a classified timeline of events from September 11 leading to war. It says that on August 29, 2002, Bush "approves Iraq goals, objectives and strategy."
- Three months earlier, the Pentagon began a series of war exercises called "Prominent Hammer" to judge whether the force could win in Iraq and still maintain a deterrent in other theaters, such as South Korea. On November 24, Franks, the Central Command chief, presented Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with "six major tasks for success." Central Command held a major war game October 4 and 5 to test Franks's plan. The timeline also shows that the Bush administration stayed in close contact with Israel about its plans. In mid-February, "key Israeli leaders" received a briefing on the war plan. Shortly thereafter, CentCom began sharing information in Tel Aviv via US European Command, whose area of responsibility includes Israel. The report states that the study looks at "the big issues -- strategic perspective," as opposed to lessons-learned reports that examine many tactical issues.
- The report awards three grades. The worst was "capabilities that fell short of expectations or needs, and need to be redressed through new initiatives." Getting this low grade were the postwar planning and the search for weapons of mass destruction, as well as the mix of active and reserve forces, and the troop deployment to the region. The next grade was "capabilities that demonstrated effectiveness, but need enhancement." Public affairs, special-operations forces, finding bombing targets and tracking the whereabouts of friendly troops received the grade. The highest marks came under the category of "capabilities that reached new levels of performance and need to be sustained and improved." Joint service warfare, a key war-fighting requirement of Mr. Rumsfeld, got this high grade, as did global war-gaming. The report also gives high marks to bombing "time-sensitive" targets. In the 2001 Afghanistan war, the report says, Franks and Rumsfeld had to approve the target list. But in Iraq, the command improved guidance and procedures so that commanders could launch strikes when targets emerged. (Washington Times)
Clarke confirms Saudi terror suspects allowed to leave after 9/11
- September 3: Richard Clarke, Bush's former anti-terrorism chief, confirms that the Bush administration allowed "dozens"
9/11 attacks
of Saudis to leave the United States hours after the 9/11 bombings, even though flights in and out of American airspace were all but shut down. Clarke says he agreed to the plan because the FBI assured him that the departing Saudis were not linked to terrorism. The White House feared that the Saudis could face "retribution" for the hijackings if they remained in the United States, according to Clarke. The actual number of Saudis who left the US numbers around 140, and that number includes several members of the bin Laden family, some of whom are believed to have connections to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, including WAMY. FBI spokesperson John Iannarelli says, "There's nothing to indicate that any of these people had any information that could have assisted us, and no one was accorded any additional courtesies that wouldn't have been accorded anyone else." However, Dale Watson, the former head of counterterrorism at the FBI, responds that the departing Saudis "were not subject to serious interviews or interrogations." Senator Charles Schumer says he doubts the thoroughness of a rushed review by the bureau, and in a letter to the White House he writes that the Saudis appeared to have gotten "a free pass" despite their possible knowledge about the attacks. The Bush administration still denies that any such flights took place. (New York Times/CommonDreams, Salon) - September 3: Dick Cheney, at a luncheon for Republican congressman Jim Gerlach,
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
once again makes the long-disproven assertion of a proven connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda: "And the reason we had to do Iraq, if you hark back and think about that link between the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, Iraq was the place where we were most fearful that that was most likely to occur, because in Iraq we've had a government -- not only was it one of the worst dictatorships in modern times, but had oftentimes hosted terrorists in the past...but also an established relationship with the al Qaeda organization.... Al-Qaeda had a base of operation there up in northeastern Iraq where they ran a large poisons factory for attacks against Europeans and US forces. ...[I]f we had not paid any attention to the fact that al-Qaeda was being hosted in northeastern Iraq, part of poisons network producing ricin and cyanide that was intended to be used in attacks both in Europe, as well as in North Africa and ignored it, we would have been derelict in our duties and responsibilities." It is true that a terrorist group loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, had such a facility in northeastern Iraq, but neither the facility nor the group had any ties to the Hussein regime. During the same luncheon, Cheney says of Iraq's nuclear program, "If we had had that information and ignored it, if we'd been told, as we were, by the intelligence community that he was capable of producing a nuclear weapon within a year if he could acquire fissile material and ignored it...we would have been derelict in our duties and responsibilities," without telling his listeners that US intelligence believes Hussein was at least ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon of any kind, and considering the US and UN sanctions on the Hussein government, probably longer. (Bush on Iraq) - September 3: A week after 9/11, New Yorkers were informed by the Environmental Protection Agency that the air was safe to breathe even considering the smoke and chemicals released in the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.
9/11 attacks
According to EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley, the EPA ignored its own data in issuing that falsely reassuring claim. 25% of air samples collected by the EPA showed unsafe levels of asbestos in the air, and no test results had been collected on the possible levels of PCBs, dioxins, or particulates in the air that could cause respiratory problems. In fact, the EPA had written much more cautionary press releases, but White House officials saw to it that those releases were rewritten to "add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones," says Tinsley. The first EPA draft press release, which was never provided to the public, says that the EPA was "testing terrorized sites for environmental hazards." The White House changed that to EPA "reassures public about environmental hazards." A Sept. 16 draft release read, "Recent samples of dust ... on Water Street show higher levels of asbestos." The White House rewrote it to say, "New samples confirm ... ambient air quality meets OSHA [government] standards...[and] is not a cause for public concern." The White House left out entirely the warning "that air samples raise concerns for cleanup workers and office workers near Water St." (MSNBC) - September 3: The US military hands over control of a small section of south-central Iraq to an international force headed by Polish commanders.
Iraq-Niger scandal
Seventeen countries ranging from Latvia to Mongolia are providing troops to the international force for the south-central part of the country. Four other nations are providing logistical support. (Fox News)
- September 4: The Bush administration now claims that the invasion of Iraq was justified because the Hussein regime retained scientists capable of building nuclear weapons, according to John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
Bolton says that whether Hussein's regime actually possessed weapons of mass destruction "isn't really the issue. ...I have been confident that under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqis were determined to break the U.N. inspections and sanctions regime. And that that's why the elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime was critical, and the evidence to support that I think is there." (AP/ABC News)
Administration mounts PR campaign to "sell" the Iraqi war to the American people
- September 4: Bush tells the Republican leadership in Congress that he and his administration will "ramp up" efforts to sell the war in Iraq to the American people in preparation for his upcoming budget request (Bush will ask for $87 billion from Congress to further fund American efforts in Iraq).
Media manipulation and marketing by GOP
Republican leaders advise Bush to "be bold" in his budget request: "The president was told to ask for as much as he may need for the foreseeable future, whatever it is, ask for it now, and make sure you can justify it." Thomas Oliphant responds to the budget request: "President Bush's most egregious misstatement about the situation in Iraq is that he is asking Congress for $87 billion to stabilize it. That is baloney. He is in fact asking Congress for a second installment (the first in April was $79 billion) on a war that has no geographical, time, or force limitations beyond the capacity of the brains of the ideologues who are making up what some of them like to call World War IV as they go -- in secret, of course. There will be another installment -- probably this winter -- and almost certainly another after that. The only real question is which will come first in 2005 -- a running total in excess of $300 billion or a different president who might start by telling the truth about what he is doing. As befits a secretive and deceptive administration, the whole ($87 billion) is being emphasized at the expense of the parts and their true sum. Looking diligently at the parts would show that the whole has been misstated -- way on the low side. The 'sticker shock' from $87 billion was bad enough, but administration officials were not going to let the figure of $100 billion get into the headlines and on TV." - Oliphant uses the $15 billion request towards rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure as an example of administration lowballing: "According to administration officials, who continue to withhold critical details, this figure was chosen on the assumption that other countries would be contributing at least twice as much. As far as the eye can see, the administration officials expert on the situation inside the collapsed country estimate $50 billion to $75 billion in reconstruction costs to create a basically functional economy. I am not aware of a single congressman or think-tanker of any political persuasion who thinks that more than a tiny fraction of that is going to come from other countries. It is also hard to find anyone who believes that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund can accommodate Iraq's needs without stealing from a host of other developing societies with equally pressing requirements. If we were being told the truth, there would be another $50 billion in money the US government doesn't technically have on the table." Oliphant also points out how a relatively small $200 million request for military and intelligence operations in the Horn of Africa, an area including the still-anarchic nation of Somalia, is "the tip of a non-Iraq, non-Afghanistan iceberg -- the slow spread of big-time US involvement around the world with virtually no disclosure and debate." (CNN, Boston Globe)
- September 4: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls for Iraqis to be trained to take over security in that country as soon as possible.
Iraq war and occupation
Speaking from Baghdad, Rumsfeld praises American efforts and notes that Baghdad, for a city without electricity, glows strongly at night: "For a city that's not supposed to have power, there's lights all over the place. It's like Chicago." - Privately, Rumsfeld enrages administrator Paul Bremer by chastizing him for not better preparing for heavy US troop withdrawals. Rumsfeld wants to reduce American forces in Iraq from 130,000 to around 25,000 or 30,000. Bremer insists that the country is too chaotic and insecure for such withdrawals. "I wonder if all you working here have a sufficient sense of urgency," Rumsfeld tells Bremer and his staff. Rumsfeld also meets briefly with David Kay, the chief of the US efforts to find WMDs. Rumsfeld makes it very clear that the military isn't involved in the WMD hunt by refusing to ask Kay about the search. "I literally did not ask," he tells reporters. "I'm assuming he'll tell me if he'd gotten something we should know." (ABC News, Bob Woodward)
- September 4: Miguel Estrada withdraws his name from consideration as the Bush administration's appointee to the US Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia.
Partisan Bush appointees
Estrada, a Honduran-born conservative and former law partner of Solicitor General Theodore Olson, has fought for over two years for the seat, though he has never served as a judge in any capacity and can hardly be considered to be qualified for such a high judicial post. Estrada's nomination is passionately opposed by liberals and moderates. During his Senate hearings, Estrada refuses to discuss his feelings on such issues as abortion rights, and refuses to turn over memos from his tenure in the Solicitor General's office in the 1990s that would shed light on his views. (Estrada also refuses to turn over material showing that he screened law clerks for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, material that proved he screened applicants on ideological grounds. The Justice Department assists Estrada by refusing to turn over the requested materials, though the department had turned over similar materials during the confirmation hearings of William Rehnquist and Robert Bork.) Bush accuses Senate Democrats of "disgraceful treatment" in their opposition to Estrada, whom they rightly see as another in a long line of unqualified extremists nominated for the judiciary. Like the Clarence Thomas appointment to the Supreme Court in 1991, the Bush adminstration figured -- wrongly, in this case -- that Estrada's race would make him immune to criticism. (White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez accuses Democrats of holding Estrada "to a double standard" because of his race, apparently forgetting that Bush had recently withdrawn the nomination of a highly qualified Hispanic justice, Enrique Moreno, without allowing a hearing on his nomination. Moreno and dozens of other Hispanic nominees left over from the Clinton administration never receive Senate hearings, but simply have their nominations erased. About 7% of Clinton's court nominees were Hispanic, a far higher percentage of Hispanic nominees than any other president; Bush has only nominated two, both far-right ideologues.) - Estrada had the Senate votes to win the position, but Democrats use a filibuster to block his appointment. Democrats are using similar tactics to block other unqualified extreme right-wing nominees, particularly Priscilla Owen and Bill Pryor, to the bench. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist promises that he will ram through changes in Senate procedures to prevent future filibusters. One of the few Senate Democrats to break ranks and oppose the filibusters, Zell Miller of Georgia, says Estrada "has become the latest victim of Washington's partisan, obstructionist politics. ...All of the president's nominees to the judiciary should have an up or down vote on the Senate floor. It's that simple. Anything otherwise is un-American and un-democratic," Miller says, conveniently forgetting that Republican senators such as former Senator and current Attorney General John Ashcroft have routinely used the same tactics to block dozens of Clinton-era judicial appointments. Perhaps the best reason for the fight over Estrada's nomination comes from Republican senator George Allen, who says artlessly, "I surely think it will help us with Hispanic voters." (Congressman Ciro Rodriguez answers Allen by saying "there are other highly qualified Hispanics who are not ashamed to discuss their views. ...That is the Republican strategy when it comes to minorities. Form over substance.") (CNN, Alliance for Justice (.PDF file), Joe Conason, Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- September 4: The Nation's David Corn outlines just how badly the Bush administration has failed to shore up
Anti-terrorism and homeland security
America's homeland security after Bush's bold promise that he would do everything he can to shore up the nation's vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks:- A Council on Foreign Relations task force headed by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman issued a report in June that shows the US is still "dangerously ill-prepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil." Most fire departments still lack radios and breathing apparatuses; only 10% are able to handle a building collapse. Few police departments have the necessary gear to secure a site struck by a chemical or biological weapon. Most public health labs don't have the personnel or equipment to respond to a chemical or biological attack. The task force estimated the country will fall $98.4 billion short in funding needs for emergency responders over the next five years. The study is followed by a Rand report in August that seconds the CFR's conclusions. The Bush administration has ignored the report and its findings.
- The Century Foundation's Homeland Security project finds that "[s]tate and local governments have complained that they cannot improve their preparedness without more money. The federal government promised $3.5 billion in aid, but only $2.2 billion has been made available so far."
- The Department of Homeland Security has allocated less than a third of the funds that the Coast Guard feels necessary to improve security at the nation's seaports. The Coast Guard believes that $1 billion is necessary; the DHS has allocated about $300 million. "Any and all funding is helpful, but [the money provided] really doesn't even come close to what is needed," says a spokesperson for the American Association of Port Authorities. Retired Coast Guard commander Stephen Flynn, who is also a senior fellow at the CFR, worked on a CFR terrorism study that preceded the report on emergency responders. He complains that the government has spent only about $10 million on security for maritime containers: "We've invested so little to date."
- A review conducted by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan good-government organization, found that the government is drastically short on medical and scientific employees for its biodefense programs.
- In late July the Transportation Security Administration asked Congress for permission to reduce its air marshal program by 20%, at the same time that the administration was warning about further hijackings. The bad press forced DHS director Tom Ridge to halt the cutbacks; however, the TSA has received nearly $1 billion less than it requested, forcing it to make other major program cuts.
- Little if any action has been taken to secure the nation's chemical plants. More than 100 facilities nationwide handle chemicals that, if released, could threaten a million or so people, and there are 15,000 other chemical sites that could also pose a threat if attacked or taken over; no security standards have yet been established for these sites. Instead, the Bush administration is leaving it to the various chemical firms to conduct their own security assessments, and has blocked Democratic attempts to give DHS the authority to order specific security measures. Ridge declared a year ago that voluntary industry efforts would not be enough to protect the populace, yet that is the administration's solution. In March the General Accounting Office declared that "the federal government has not comprehensively assessed the chemical industry's vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks." Six months later, no such assessment has been made. When a top DHS aide, Al Martinez-Fonts, was asked why the government had not moved to regulate security at chemical plants, he replied that on September 11 "it was not chemical plants that were blown up."
- The administration has blocked a Democratically sponsored bill that would require screening of cargo shipped on passenger planes -- currently most of this cargo is not checked before being loaded. While the Republican-controlled House approved the bill by a strong majority, the Senate, bowing to pressure from the administration and the aviation industry, has refused to consider the bill.
- Senate Democrats were defeated in their attempt to add $1.75 billion to the DHS budget for front-line security, including about $730 million for first-responders, $602 million for port and transportation security, $100 million for examining air cargo and $80 million for handling chemical weapons attacks.
- Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution scholar, agrees, noting that a conceptual obsession hinders the Bush Administration's domestic security actions: "These guys think that if you get rid of the tyrants, you solve the problem." The administration seems to believe that the true evildoers are not merely al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, but the regimes that supposedly back them, even if no evidence of this backing exists. "We analysts and commentators have not understood the centrality of rogue states in their worldview," says Daalder. "The mindset is, We cannot defend every target, so it's better to go after those who would do us harm." That means zeroing in on Saddam Hussein and other rogue leaders. Both Flynn and Daalder point to the basic numbers to make their case. The Pentagon is receiving close to $400 billion; Homeland Security is in the mid-twenties range. "It's pretty clear," Daalder says. "One is fifteen times more important than the other." Flynn says that "[p]eople cannot believe that no one in the federal government has inspected security plans for chemical plants or that the US Coast Guard has conducted only ten port-vulnerability studies in the past year." If there is another terrorist assault on the country, he adds, "there will be an accounting, and people will be shocked by how little has been done. The American people will be enraged." Daalder disagrees: "The American people cannot fathom that Bush isn't doing everything. Another attack could either reinforce the notion that he's trying to protect the country or that he's incapable. I used to think this was a golden issue for Democrats: tax cuts for 1 percent of Americans or security for 100 percent. But the American people cannot comprehend that a US President is not doing all that is necessary and not spending all the money that needs to be spent." (The Nation)
- September 4: President Bush decides not to visit the site of the New York attacks on September 11 as part of the two-year anniversary memorial service.
9/11 attacks
Instead, Vice President Dick Cheney will attend in Bush's place. Bush will attend a memorial church service in Washington, DC instead. The night before, he will host a dinner party and the screening of "Twin Towers," a documentary about the efforts of rescue workers after the attacks. Bush aides declare that Bush felt a more "low-key" memorial was appropriate for this service, and deny that Bush's slumping approval ratings in New York City have anything to do with the decision to stay away. "Quite honestly, he probably would have gotten booed," says Bill Doyle, who lost his son Joey in the attacks. (New York Daily News)
- September 5: France and Germany resist a US draft of a UN resolution calling for the UN's member countries to shoulder more of the financial and military burden of the Iraqi occupation without giving up any authority or control over the country and its economy.
Iraq war and occupation
French Premier Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder both say that the draft fails to meet their primary concerns: that political authority in Iraq be transferred quickly to Iraqis and that the United Nations, not the United States, take over the key role in the Iraq's postwar rebuilding. Schroeder continues by saying that the American draft resolution shows "there is movement," and adds, "It is not dynamic enough. It doesn't go far enough. ...Now is the time to bring stability to the country, and that can only be achieved if the United Nations takes full charge of the political process." (Washington Post/Charlotte Observer) - September 5: Defense Department chief Donald Rumsfeld cancels a speech he had planned to give to US soldiers stationed in Tikrit, Iraq,
Iraq war and occupation
after soldiers long overdue for rotation out of Iraq had served extra duty sprucing up the camp and building a stage for Rumsfeld to speak from. One soldier observes, "I don't give a damn about Rumsfeld. All I give a damn about is going home. ...The only thing his visit meant for us was we had to clean up a lot of mess to make the place look pretty. And he didn't even look at it anyway." Rumsfeld's official reason for canceling the appearance is because of a tight schedule, but some believe it is because he didn't want to face hard questions from a weary, irate soldiery. Another soldier says, "If I got to talk to Rumsfeld I'd tell him to give us a return date. We've been here six months and the rumor is we'll be here until at least March. This is totally, totally uncalled for." Soldiers watching footage of Rumsfeld saying that fresh U.S. troops were unnecessary in Iraq were visibly angry, shouting "No way!" and other comments at the television. "I ain't happy," says a third soldier. "No way am I happy seeing that. This tour is hard, real hard. It's too much. It should be six months." Other soldiers refuse to comment except to say they didn't dare complain about their long deployment for fear of being disciplined. Earlier this year, military leaders warned their troops they should not show disrespect for Rumsfeld after a rash of criticism from soldiers in Iraq appeared in the media. (Reuters/CommonDreams)
- September 6: In a compelling and controversial article, former environmental minister Michael Meacher writes an article clearly outlining the Bush and Blair administrations' underlying motives for a war in Iraq.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq
He presents evidence (all of which is contained in this Web site) that the Iraq invasion was not motivated by terrorism, but by a desire to control the Middle East's oil supply as well as being the first step in a progression that is designed to lead to global US domination. He also accuses the Bush administration of being aware of the 9/11 attacks beforehand, and of letting them happen instead of preventing them in order to capitalize on them for their own geopolitical goals. While the article creates a storm of controversy in Europe, and is denied by a Bush spokesperson, it is virtually ignored by the American media. (Guardian, Guardian)
- September 7: Britain agrees
Iraq war and occupation
to send 1,200 more troops to Iraq to support the joint American/British force already there. (AP/ABC News)
$87 billion request for Iraq
- September 7: In a brief speech to the nation, President Bush declares that Iraq is the centerpiece of the US "war on terrorism," and declares that he will ask Congress for $87 billion to rebuild Iraq and continue military operations in Afghanistan, on top of the $79 billion already allocated.
Iraq war and occupation
He implicitly concedes that the invasion and its aftermath are going to cost substantially more than he indicated in April. He also bows to pressure from Colin Powell and the State Department and says that the UN must play a stronger role in rebuilding Iraq; typically, he demands that the UN shoulder "the responsibility" to help instead of asking for assistance after months of going it alone and raining contempt on the entire idea of international cooperation. (Washington Post, Washington Post, AP/ABC News)
Colin Powell confirms that 140 Saudis, including bin Laden family members and terror suspects, were allowed to leave the US after 9/11 without being questioned or challenged
- September 7: On Meet the Press, Secretary of State Colin Powell admits that around 140 Saudi Arabians were allowed to leave the US in the hours and days after 9/11 aboard aircraft, even when all other aircraft were prohibited from flying without special government approval.
9/11 attacks
Former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has already told Vanity Fair that the Bush administration decided to allow a group of Saudis to fly out of the US just after September 11. At least four flights with about 140 Saudis, including roughly two dozen members of the bin Laden family, flew to Saudi Arabia that week without even being interviewed or interrogated by the FBI. Powell defends the decision to let the Saudis leave by claiming that Saudi Arabia has always been a staunch and unwavering US ally against Islamic terror. (MSNBC) - September 7: A new tape of the 9/11 attacks showing both planes striking the World Trade Center is provided to federal investigators.
9/11 attacks
They hope that analysis of the tape will provide clues as to why the towers fell so quickly. The tape was shot by a Czech immigrant construction worker from a moving vehicle. (AP/ABC News) - September 7: The film "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" premieres on Showtime, to low ratings and hoots of laughter and outrage by critics and viewers.
9/11 attacks
Reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz calls it "a valentine to Bush, who's portrayed as a Gary Cooper type (solitary, decisive, tough yet sensitive) and a gift-wrapped present to the right-wing talk radio listeners who think Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11 and that the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center wouldn't have happened if Bill Clinton had been more macho. [The movie] portrays the president as sort of a flesh-and-blood superhero. This Bush is a western movie good guy, a deeply honest man who came to Washington to clean up the moral toxins dumped by the Clinton administration -- a white collar warrior who makes tough decisions fast and never wavers; a foreign policy savant who instinctively grasps the nuts and bolts of every issue, no matter how complex, by virtue of the fact that, well, he's Bush." The wife of a 9/11 victim, Kristen Breitweiser, calls it "a mind-numbingly boring, revisionist, two-hour-long wish list of how 9/11 might have gone if we had real leaders in the current administration." - The film spends only 10 minutes or so showing the events of the morning of 9/11, to which Breitweiser comments, "It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president's true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 AM., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to 'second grade story-hour' while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove's art direction and grand vision." She also notes, "It's also interesting to watch the fictional versions of Ari Fleischer and Karen Hughes 'strategizing' and 'orchestrating' to make President Bush look like a strong leader. Who knew that it was such hard work to frame the president as an empathetic, strong and competent leader in the face of the nation's worst tragedy? Forgive my naiveté, but I never knew how meticulously planned the president's every single word and movement were." The film also promotes the lie that Air Force One was a target of attack, a lie that even the administration admitted was false back in September 2001. It revises history by showing the Bush administration as deeply committed to battling terrorism from the moment it took office, when in fact it virtually ignored terrorism as a threat until after 9/11. In keeping with its apparent commitment to rewrite history, it portrays the Clinton administration and Congressional Democrats as the single biggest obstacle to fighting terrorism; instead, it "rewrites history to make Bush and company seem like wise men and women who knew America's house was on fire but could not persuade thick-headed Democrats to wake up and smell the smoke." Seitz concludes, "With its action thriller score, exposition-packed dialogue and enthusiastic airbrushing of a chief executive who's still in power, it suggests not the typical American made-for-TV docudrama, but a Soviet propaganda effort from the 1970s that was designed to be aired on May Day." (Salon, New Jersey Star-Ledger)
