US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the US’s top envoy to Iraq, tells the Los Angeles Times that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has opened a “Pandora’s box.” Iraq is currently embroiled in violence fueled by ethnic and sectarian tensions. Khalilzad says the “potential is there” for the situation to become a full-blown civil war. [Los Angeles Times, 3/7/2006] Four years earlier, Philip Gordon of the Brooking Institution had used the same exact words in warning about the potential for civil war if the US were to invade Iraq. In March 2002, he said, “Removing Saddam will be opening a Pandora’s box, and there might not be any easy way to close it back up” (see Late March 2002).
March 29, 2006: Cheney Finally Concedes that Alleged Atta-Iraqi Agent Meeting ‘Has Been Pretty Well Knocked Down Now’
In an interview, Vice President Cheney says, “We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we’ve never made the case, or argued the case that somehow [Saddam Hussein] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there—that’s a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al-Qaeda organization.” [White House, 3/29/2006] This is a reversal for Cheney, who strongly argued that the meeting took place, even after most experts concluded that it did not (see June 17, 2004).
April 10, 2006: US Propaganda Campaign to Exaggerate Role of Al-Zarqawi to US and Iraq Audiences Is Exposed
The Washington Post reports that leaked documents show the US military is conducting a propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. According to the Post, “The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the [Iraq] war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.” According to Col. Derek Harvey, who has been a top advisor on Iraq intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, although al-Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted some deadly bombing attacks, they remain “a very small part of the actual numbers…. Our own focus on al-Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will—made him more important than he really is, in some ways.” Since at least 2004, the US military has manipulated the Iraq media’s coverage of Zarqawi in an effort to turn Iraqis against the insurgency. But leaked documents also explicitly list the “US Home Audience” as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign. Additionally, sections of leaked military briefings show that the US media was directly used to influence view of al-Zarqawi. For instance, one document notes that a “selective leak” about al-Zarqawi was made to New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, which resulted in a 2004 front page story about a letter supposedly written by al-Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq (see February 9, 2004). [Washington Post, 4/10/2006] The Daily Telegraph reported in 2004 that “senior diplomats in Baghdad claim that the letter was almost certainly a hoax.” The Telegraph also reported the US was buying extremely dubious intelligence that exaggerated al-Zarqawi’s role and was treating it as fact, even in policy decisions (see October 4, 2004). [Daily Telegraph, 10/4/2004] One US military briefing from 2004 states, “Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response” and lists three methods: “Media operations,” “Special Ops (626)” (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite US military unit) and “PSYOP,” meaning psychological operations and propaganda. One internal US military briefing concluded that the “al-Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date… primarily for the Iraqi audience but also with the international audience.” It is supposedly US military policy not to aim psychological operations at Americans, but there appears to be no punishment for the violation of this policy in the wake of this media report. [Washington Post, 4/10/2006]
May 4, 2006: Former US Intelligence Official Says Bush Administration’s Prewar Allegations Were Part of an ‘Organized Campaign of Manipulation’
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, former CIA senior analyst Paul Pillar says the Bush administration’s prewar allegations concerning Iraq were part of an “organized campaign of manipulation.” This was especially the case with the administration’s claims that Iraq was working with al-Qaeda, he says. “It was this that most strongly affected public opinion in the United States, and which would keep alive the images of September 11, 2001. The administration’s voracious appetite to obtain material about this non-existent alliance cost a great deal of time and work to senior intelligence staff and the most highly experienced analysts in the CIA.” Pillars also tells the newspaper the decision to invade Iraq was made “for other reasons and did not depend on weapons of mass destruction or the results of United Nations inspections.” [Agence France-Presse, 5/4/2006; El Pais, 5/4/2006]
September 8, 2006: Senate Investigation Finds No Evidence Iraqi Government Used Salman Pak to Train Terrorists
The Senate Intelligence Committee, reporting on the pre-invasion intelligence on Iraq, finds that the US intelligence community had no evidence whatsoever of terrorist training facilities or activities at Iraq’s Salman Pak military base. The report says, “Postwar findings support the April 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment that there was no credible reporting on al-Qaeda training at Salman Pak or anywhere else in Iraq. There have been no credible reports since the war that Iraq trained al-Qaeda operatives at Salman Pak to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations.” The report will note testimony from both CIA and DIA officials that found “no indications that training of al-Qaeda linked individuals took place there.” The DIA told the committee in June 2006 that it has “no credible reports that non-Iraqis were trained to conduct or support transnational terrorist operations at Salman Pak after 1991.” [Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ] The base was found to be just what the Iraqis said it was: a training camp for counterterrorism operations, focused on foiling terrorist hijackings of jetliners (see April 6, 2003).
September 8-10, 2006: Bipartisan Senate Report Confirms Atta Meeting in Prague Never Took Place
A bipartisan Senate report concludes that “Post-war findings… confirm that no such meeting ever occurred” between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague. It notes that “Post-war debriefings of [the alleged Iraqi agent, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani,] indicate that he had never seen or heard of Atta until after September 11, 2001, when Atta’s face appeared on the news.” [US Senate and Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ] But two days later Vice President Cheney is asked if the meeting ever took place and he still maintains that it could have (see September 10, 2006).
September 10, 2006: Cheney Still Asserts Al-Qaeda-Hussein Connection and Refuses to Deny Atta-Iraqi Agent Meeting Took Place
Vice President Cheney appears on Meet the Press two days after a bipartisan Senate report asserts that there was no link of any sort between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda before 9/11, except for one meeting held in 1995. Cheney claims he has not read the report yet, but he says, “whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet’s testimony before the Senate Intel Commission, an open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern of relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al-Qaeda.… [Militant leader Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, poisons facility, ran by Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.… [The Iraqi government] was a state sponsor of terror. [Saddam Hussein] had a relationship with terror groups. No question about it. Nobody denies that.” [Meet the Press, 9/10/2006] In fact, the Senate report determined that although al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad, the Iraqi government tried hard to find him and catch him, and that Ansar al-Islam was in a part of Iraq outside the control of the Iraq government and the government was actively opposed to them as well. The report claims there was no meeting between hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague in April 2001. [US Senate and Intelligence Committee, 9/8/2006 ] But regarding that meeting, Cheney still does not deny it took place, even though it has been widely discredited. “We don’t know. I mean, we’ve never been able to, to, to link it, and the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say, at this point, nobody has been able to confirm…” [Meet the Press, 9/10/2006] Earlier in the year, Cheney had conceded that the meeting “has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place” (see March 29, 2006).
September 14, 2006: Think Tank Scholar Still Maintains Iraqi Government Was behind 9/11 Attacks
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) holds a press briefing offering its analysis of the 9/11 attacks. Speaking at the event are former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, AEI fellow David Wurmser, AEI fellow Michael Ledeen, and one-time Harvard assistant professor Laurie Mylroie. Speaking first is Mylroie, who argues that al-Qaeda could not have pulled the attacks off without the help of Saddam Hussein. “There has been no clear demonstration that Osama bin Laden was involved in Tuesday’s assault on the United States, but there’s been a lot of speculation to that effect, and it may turn out that he is. So assume that he is because I think the key question will be, how likely is it that Osama bin Laden’s group or any other group carried out these attacks alone, unassisted by a state? I’d like to suggest that it is extremely unlikely—in fact, next to impossible.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 67]
November 6-December 18, 2006: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Resigns after Midterm Elections; Replaced by Robert Gates
Donald Rumsfeld resigns as US defense secretary. On November 6, he writes a letter telling President Bush of his resignation. Bush reads the letter the next day, which is also the date for midterm elections in the US, in which the Democratic Party wins majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives. Bush publicly announces the resignation the next day. No explanation is given for the delay in making the announcement. [Reuters, 8/15/2007]
Replaced by Gates – Rumsfeld is formally replaced by Robert Gates on December 18, 2006. According to a retired general who worked closely with the first Bush administration, the Gates nomination means that George H.W. Bush, his close political advisers—Brent Scowcroft, James Baker—and the current President Bush are saying that “winning the 2008 election is more important than any individual. The issue for them is how to preserve the Republican agenda. The Old Guard wants to isolate Cheney and give their girl, Condoleezza Rice, a chance to perform.” It takes Scowcroft, Baker, and the elder Bush working together to oppose Cheney, the general says. “One guy can’t do it.” Other sources close to the Bush family say that the choice of Gates to replace Rumsfeld is more complex than the general describes, and any “victory” by the “Old Guard” may be illusory. A former senior intelligence official asks rhetorically: “A week before the election, the Republicans were saying that a Democratic victory was the seed of American retreat, and now Bush and Cheney are going to change their national security policies? Cheney knew this was coming. Dropping Rummy after the election looked like a conciliatory move—‘You’re right, Democrats. We got a new guy and we’re looking at all the options. Nothing is ruled out.’” In reality, the former official says, Gates is being brought in to give the White House the credibility it needs in continuing its policies towards Iran and Iraq.
New Approach towards Iran? – Gates also has more credibility with Congress than Rumsfeld, a valuable asset if Gates needs to tell Congress that Iran’s nuclear program poses an imminent threat. “He’s not the guy who told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he’ll be taken seriously by Congress.” Joseph Cirincione, a national security director for the Center for American Progress, warns: “Gates will be in favor of talking to Iran and listening to the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the neoconservatives are still there [in the White House] and still believe that chaos would be a small price for getting rid of the threat. The danger is that Gates could be the new Colin Powell—the one who opposes the policy but ends up briefing the Congress and publicly supporting it.” [New Yorker, 11/27/2006]