President Bush receives a highly classified “President’s Summary” from the intelligence community’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002), focusing on whether or not Saddam Hussein would launch an unprovoked attack on the US, either directly or in conjunction with terrorist groups. The consensus of all 16 intelligence agencies is that such an attack would be highly unlikely unless “ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime,” or if Hussein intends to “extract revenge” for such an assault. The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) goes even farther, stating that Hussein is “unlikely to conduct clandestine attacks against the US homeland even if [his] regime’s demise is imminent” as the result of a US invasion. The same conclusion is circulated in Senior Executive Intelligence Briefs for senior White House officials, their senior staff members, and Congress’s intelligence oversight committees. Bush and his senior officials, specifically including Vice President Dick Cheney, have received at least four other reports since the spring of 2002 drawing the same conclusion, that Saddam Hussein is not a likely threat to the US.
‘Imminent Threat’ – However, Bush, Cheney, and other government officials have continued, and will continue, to assert that Hussein was ready and willing to use chemical or biological weapons against the US, either on his own or through a terrorist group such as al-Qaeda, unless stopped by force. The argument that Hussein is an “imminent threat” is a major rationale in the administration’s case for war.
Refusal to Release – The Bush administration will refuse to release the Presidential Summary to Congressional investigators who wish to know the basis for the Bush administration’s assertions about the alleged threat from Iraq. Bush and other senior officials will insist for months that they were never told of the intelligence community’s judgment that Hussein had no intention of launching an unprovoked attack on the US. By refusing to release the summary memo, the White House may be withholding the proof that Bush and his officials deliberately misled the public on the issue. [National Journal, 3/2/2006]
January-July 2003: Bush Administration Delays Release of 9/11 Congressional Inquiry Report until after Start of Iraq War
The 9/11 Congressional Inquiry is originally expected to release its complete and final report in January 2003, but the panel spends seven months negotiating with the Bush administration about what material can be made public, and the final report is not released until July 2003. In late March 2003, the US launches an attack on Iraq, beginning a long war. [Washington Post, 7/27/2003] The administration originally wanted two thirds of the report to remain classified. [Associated Press, 5/31/2003] The inquiry concluded in July 2002 that Mohamed Atta never met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, as some have claimed, but it is unable to make that conclusion public until now (see Late July 2002). Former Senator Max Cleland (D-GA), a member of the 9/11 Commission, will later claim: “The administration sold the connection [between Iraq and al-Qaeda] to scare the pants off the American people and justify the war. There’s no connection, and that’s been confirmed by some of bin Laden’s terrorist followers.… What you’ve seen here is the manipulation of intelligence for political ends. The reason this report was delayed for so long—deliberately opposed at first, then slow-walked after it was created—is that the administration wanted to get the war in Iraq in and over… before [it] came out. Had this report come out in January [2003] like it should have done, we would have known these things before the war in Iraq, which would not have suited the administration.” [United Press International, 7/25/2003] Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), one of the inquiry’s chairmen, also suspects that the administration deliberately does not hurry the declassification process along. However, he thinks this is because there is a “direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia.” According to author Philip Shenon, Graham thinks the administration wants to keep this material from the public because of its “determination to keep Saudi oil flowing to the United States.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 50-51]
Early January 2003: CIA Report Casts Further Doubt on Allegation that Iraq Trained Al-Qaeda Operatives in ‘Poisons and Gases’
The CIA issues an updated version of its September 2002 classified internal report (see September 2002) which stated that according to “sources of varying reliability,” Iraq had provided “training in poisons and gases” to al-Qaeda operatives. The allegation in that report was based on information provided by a captured Libyan national by the name of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. In this new updated version of the report, the CIA adds that “the detainee [al-Libi] was not in a position to know if any training had taken place.” It is not known whether this report is seen by White House officials. [Newsweek, 11/10/2005] Intelligence provided by al-Libi about Iraq will also be included in Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the UN one month later (see February 5, 2003).
January 3, 2003-January 6, 2003: Poll Shows Widespread Misperceptions About Iraq, 9/11 Among US Citizens
A poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates among 1,204 adults indicates widespread misperception regarding Iraq. The poll finds that almost 25 percent believe the Bush administration has “publicly released evidence tying Iraq to the planning and funding of the September 11 attacks, and more than 1 in 3 respondents didn’t know or refused to answer.” [Knight Ridder, 1/12/2003] 44 percent of those polled believe that “most” or “some” of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens and only 17 percent know that none of the hijackers were Iraqis. [Editor & Publisher, 3/26/2003] The margin of error is estimated to be 3 percent. [Knight Ridder, 1/12/2003]
January 10, 2003: CIA Resists Pressure to Make Unsubstantiated Link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq
Jami Miscik, head of the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, storms into CIA Director George Tenet’s office, complaining about having to attend more meetings with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to rebut the Iraq-al-Qaeda connection yet again. She tells Tenet, “I’m not going back there again, George. If I have to go back to hear their crap and rewrite this g_ddamn report… I’m resigning, right now.” Tenet calls Hadley and shouts into the phone, “She is not coming over. We are not rewriting this f_cking report one more time. It’s f_cking over. Do you hear me! And don’t you ever f_cking treat my people this way again. Ever!” This is according to Ron Suskind in his book, The One Percent Doctrine. Suskind will conclude, “And that’s why, three weeks later, in making the case for war in his State of the Union address, George W. Bush was not able to say what he’d long hoped to say at such a moment: that there was a pre-9/11 connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam.” [Suskind, 2006, pp. 190-191]
January 10, 2003: Vice President Cheney Says Winning Iraq War Is ‘Absolutely Crucial to Winning the War on Terror’
Vice President Cheney says: “[C]onfronting the threat posed by Iraq is not a distraction from the war on terror; it is absolutely crucial to winning the war on terror. As the president has said, Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or individual terrorist, which is why the war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction.” [American Forces Press Service, 1/10/2003]
Mid-January 2003: British Intelligence: Iraq-Al-Qaeda Attempts to Collaborate ‘Foundered’ on Ideological Differences
The British Defense Intelligence Staff Agency (DIS) completes a classified study which concludes that Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden’s earlier attempts to collaborate had “foundered” due to ideological differences. The report says: “While there have been contacts between al-Qaeda and the regime in the past, it is assessed that any fledgling relationship foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideology.” Osama bin Laden’s objectives, notes the report, are “in ideological conflict with present day Iraq.” The top secret report is sent to Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior members of his government. [United Kingdom, n.d.; BBC, 2/5/2003; Independent, 2/6/2003]
January 22, 2003: No Evidence of Iraq-Al-Qaeda Collaboration, Says UN Panel
The United Nations panel in charge of monitoring sanctions against the al-Qaeda network says it has found no evidence of collaboration between al-Qaeda and Iraq. The panel’s chairman, Michael Chandler, tells the Agence France Presse (AFP) in an interview, “We don’t have anything yet, and no one has been able to produce anything.” [Agence France-Presse, 1/22/2003] Six months later, Chandler will reaffirm this, telling the Associated Press, “Nothing has come to our notice that would indicate links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” Abaza Hassan, a committee investigator who will also be interviewed by the news agency, will say, “It had never come to our knowledge before Powell’s speech and we never received any information from the United States for us to even follow up on.” [Associated Press, 6/27/2003]
January 25, 2003: Libby Presents Early Draft of Powell UN Speech to Several Top Officials
Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, presents the latest draft of a paper that is meant to serve as a rebuttal to Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see February 5, 2003) to Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, Michael Gerson, and Karen Hughes. The paper, written with the help of John Hannah, is supposed to serve as the basis for the speech Secretary of State Colin Powell will deliver to the UN Security Council on February 5 (see February 5, 2003). In his presentation, Libby says that intercepts and human intelligence reports indicate that Saddam Hussein has been attempting to conceal items. He doesn’t know what items are being hidden by the Iraqis, but he says it must be weapons of mass destruction. He also claims that Iraq has extensive ties to al-Qaeda, and cites the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi Intelligence agent (see April 8, 2001) as one example. While Armitage is disappointed with Libby’s presentation, Wolfowitz and Rove seem impressed. Karen Hughes warns Libby not to stretch the facts. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 368; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 175]
January 26, 2003: False Report of Al-Zarqawi Losing Leg Strengthens Support for War on Iraq
On January 26, 2003, Newsweek reports that in 2002, Islamist militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “supposedly went to Baghdad, where doctors amputated his leg (injured in Afghan fighting) and replaced it with a prosthesis.” Newsweek also claims that al-Zarqawi “is supposed to be one of al-Qaeda’s top experts on chemical and biological weapons” and that he also met with “Hezbollah militants” and “Iranian secret agents.” This new account builds on previous reports claiming that al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad for some unspecified medical treatment (see October 2, 2002). The article does note, “Not surprisingly, reports putting al-Zarqawi in Iraq piqued the interest of Pentagon hard-liners eager to find evidence to support their suspicion that Saddam [Hussein] and bin Laden are allied and may have plotted 9/11 together. But neither the CIA nor Britain’s legendary MI6 put much stock in al-Zarqawi’s alleged Iraqi visits, stressing such reports are ‘unconfirmed.’” [Newsweek, 1/26/2003] Despite these caveats, it soon will be widely reported that al-Zarqawi had a leg amputated in Baghdad, with at least the tacit knowledge of the Iraqi government. For instance, several days later, USA Today reports, “To those who operate with and against the shadowy al-Zarqawi, including the Kurds of northern Iraq, he is called ‘the man with the limp.’ That is a reference to a poorly fitting artificial limb that replaced a leg amputated in Baghdad last August.” [USA Today, 2/5/2003] And Secretary of State Colin Powell will claim in his February 5, 2003 presentation to the United Nations that al-Zarqawi went to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment and stayed two months (see February 5, 2003). But in October 2004, Knight Ridder will report, based on a new CIA report (see October 4, 2004), “Al-Zarqawi originally was reported to have had a leg amputated, a claim that officials now acknowledge was incorrect.” [Knight Ridder, 10/4/2004] In early 2006, al-Zarqawi will be seen walking in a videotape, clearly in possession of both his legs. And when he is killed later that year, x-rays of his dead body will show a fracture of his right lower leg, but apparently that was caused by the blast that killed him. [Atlantic Monthly, 6/8/2006; Associated Press, 6/13/2006]
