Timeline
October 1942
Union Banking is seized by the federal government under the Trading With The Enemy Act. Union Banking is owned by a Dutch bank, Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaardt N.V., which is "closely affiliated" with the German conglomerate United Steel Works, according to an Oct. 5, 1942, report from the federal Office of Alien Property Custodian. One of Union Banking's seven directors is Prescott Bush, grandfather of future president George W. Bush.
December 20, 1983
Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, special envoy from President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad.
April 9, 1992
A military court in Jordan convicts Ahmed Chalabi in absentia for embezzling money from a Jordanian bank he mismanaged into collapse. He is sentenced to 22 years in prison.
August 14, 1992
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, speaking to the Discovery Institute in Seattle, says the first President Bush was right not to invade Baghdad: "The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
February 3, 1994
In a speech at a New York conference, John Bolton says of the United Nations: "The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost 10 stories today it wouldn’t make a bit of difference." Bolton will later be President Bush's choice to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
November 27, 1995
"In the annals of the House Republican revolution, a pivotal moment came last April when an unsuspecting corporate lobbyist entered the inner chamber of Majority Whip Tom DeLay, whose aggressive style has earned him the nickname 'the Hammer.' The Texas congressman was standing at his desk that afternoon, examining a document that listed the amounts and percentages of money that the 400 largest political action committees had contributed to Republicans and Democrats over the last two years. Those who gave heavily to the GOP were labeled 'Friendly,' the others 'Unfriendly.'
"'See, you're in the book,' DeLay said to his visitor, leafing through the list. At first the lobbyist was not sure where his group stood, but DeLay helped clear up his confusion. By the time the lobbyist left the congressman's office, he knew that to be a friend of the Republican leadership his group would have to give the party a lot more money."
June 3, 1997
The founding statement of Project for a New American Century, which aims "to make the case and rally support for American global leadership," is signed by Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot Cohen, Steve Forbes, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, among others.
January 26, 1998
Project for a New American Century sends a letter to President Clinton calling for "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power." It is signed by Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, William Bennett, John Bolton, Francis Fukuyama, Zalmay Khalilzad, Kristol, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.
June 23, 1998
At a "Collateral Damage Conference" hosted by the Cato Institute, Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney says, "The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is."
August 7, 1998
Al Qaeda bombs US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 220 people and injuring more than 4,000.
October 31, 1998
President Clinton signs the Iraq Liberation Act, drafted by Trent Lott and others - with an assist by Ahmed Chalabi - and passed by Congress almost unanimously. The act makes it the policy of the United States "to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." The Act also designates $97 million in military aid for Iraqi opposition groups, nearly all of which is earmarked for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.
Late 1998
General Anthony Zinni, commander of US combat forces in the Middle East, is given a copy of Chalabi's plan to topple Saddam. "It got me pretty angry," he will later tell Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. "They were saying if you put a thousand troops on the ground Saddam's regime will collapse, they won't fight. I said, 'I fly over them every day, and they shoot at us. We hit them, and they shoot at us again. No way a thousand forces would end it.' The exile group was giving them inaccurate intelligence. Their scheme was ridiculous." He warns Congress that Chalabi's plan is "pie in the sky, a fairy tale."
1999
Katherine Harris is named co-chair of the Bush presidential campaign in Florida. As Secretary of State, Harris will be responsible for certifying the results of the 2000 Presidential election in Florida.
April 1999
The U.S. government conducts secret war games concluding that an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.
November 1999
Iraqi defector "Curveball" enters Munich seeking political asylum. A convicted sex offender and low-level engineer later shown to be a fabricator, he will become one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction and the sole source for much of the Bush administration's case against Saddam. Colin Powell will cite his testimony - that Iraq had a number of mobile factories brewing biological poisons - at the UN.
November 5, 1999:
A reporter asks Bush to name the leaders of four global hot spots, Chechnya, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. Bush is only able to give a partial response to the query on the leader of Taiwan, referring to Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui simply as "Lee." He cannot name the others.
January 2000
"Curveball" is debriefed by German intelligence. His handlers will later tell the the Los Angeles Times that his information was "often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm." One senior official adds, "This was not substantial evidence.... We made clear we could not verify the things he said."
US agents in Germany never did a background check on Curveball, nor did they debrief him themselves until a year after the invasion. Nonetheless, President Bush and other senior US officials will cite his claims repeatedly in the run-up to the war.
January 26, 2000
During a presidential debate, George W. Bush opposes taking oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and says President Clinton should intead "jawbone" oil-producing nations. Crude oil prices are $28 a barrel.
October 3, 2000
In a presidential debate with Vice President Al Gore, George W. Bush says, "The Vice President believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders." He added that the US military was already "overextended in too many places," and ought to be used to "prevent war from happening in the first place." In the same campaign, VP candidate Cheney says the US stopped short of toppling Saddam Hussein, in 1991, so as to avoid being "an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments."
November 6, 2000
Congress designates $25 million for "programs benefiting the Iraqi people," mandating that at least $12 million of the funding be administered by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.
November 7, 2000
November 8, 2000
Around 2:15 a.m., the major networks call Florida and the election for Bush. Gore calls Bush to concede. Less than an hour later, Gore hears that Bush's lead in Florida has shrunk to only a few thousand votes. Gore calls Bush to retract his concession. Bush tells Gore that Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, has assured him that he has won Florida. "Your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on this," Gore replies. By 4:15 am, major networks retract the call for Bush, and the world is introduced to chads, butterfly ballots, and the Florida recount.
November 22, 2000
A riot outside the Dade County election offices, forcing the abrupt cancellation of a hand recount of Presidential election ballots, is carried out by paid Republican operatives flown in from around the country, some in Tom DeLay's private jet.
December 12, 2000
The Supreme Court decides Gore v. Bush in Bush's favor.
December 17, 2000
President Bush nominates John Ashcroft to be U.S. Attorney General. Aschroft has just managed, despite considerably outspending his opponent, to lose his U.S. Senate seat to a dead man.
January 4, 2001
Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a political crony from Texas with no disaster-management experience, as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Enron CEO Ken Lay is named to the Bush Energy Department transition team.
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff is appointed to the transition team for the Department of the Interior. Abramoff's administrative assistant, Susan Ralston, is hired as an advisor to Karl Rove.
January 20, 2001
January 25, 2001
A memo from counterrorism expert Richard Clarke to incoming National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice "urgently" requested a high-level National Security Council review on al-Qaeda and included two attachments: a declassified December 2000 "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects" and the September 1998 "Pol-Mil Plan for al-Qida," the so-called Delenda Plan, which remains classified.
January 30, 2001
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go." Saddam's removal is the first item of Bush's inaugural national security meeting. Then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill later tells journalist Ron Suskind, "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, 'Go find me a way to do this.'"
Bush also says the emphasis on Iraq will accompany a de-emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Secretary of State Colin Powell says US disengagement would give Ariel Sharon free rein and bring further suffering upon the Palestinians. According to Suskind's later book, The One Percent Doctrine, Bush replies, "Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things."
February 5, 2001
February 9, 2001
A United States submarine strikes a Japanese fishing boat off the coast of Hawaii, killing nine crewmembers, including four high-school students. Reports later show that civilians were on board the submarine, with two actually at the controls at the time of the accident. Speculation abounds that the civilians were Republican political donors affiliated with the Texas oil industry.
February 14, 2001
Exxon vice president James Rouse meets with Dick Cheney's task force on energy policy. It was the first meeting in which, according to a White House document later discovered by the Washington Post, oil executives "gave detailed energy policy recommendations" to the White House.
February 16, 2001
US and British jets bomb targets outside the Iraqi no-fly zone, near Baghdad. Bush says the strikes are intended "to send a clear signal to Saddam."
February 24, 2001
Colin Powell, on a visit to Egypt, says that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
February 26, 2001
L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer, former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism and later head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, comments presciently at a conference, "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'"
February 27, 2001
Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio turns down what he considers an illegal request from the NSA for customer call records, suggesting Bush's domestic spying plan was in place no more than seven days after he took office, not after September 11 as he will later claim.
March 5, 2001
A Pentagon document dated March 5, 2001 and titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" includes a map of areas for potential exploration. It is brought to light by Ron Suskind in his book The Price of Loyalty. "It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries," Suskind will tell CBS. "And which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."
March 11, 2001
The Palm Beach Post reports its findings of a study of votes cast in Palm Beach County, concluding that voters confused by a "butterfly ballot" (which illegal under Florida election laws) "cost Al Gore the presidency." The newspaper's review of the overvotes found 5,330 Palm Beach County residents invalidated their ballots by punching chads for Gore and Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. The hole voters punched for Buchanan was located just above Gore's on the two-page ballot. Bush won Florida by a 537-vote margin in official results, giving him a 271-267 majority in the Electoral College.
March 13, 2001
Although he made campaign promises in 2000 to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, one of George Bush's first acts as president is to pull the US out of the Kyoto accords. Bush dismisses the Kyoto Protocol as too costly, describing it as "an unrealistic and ever-tightening straitjacket." Later, the White House questions the validity of the science behind global warming, and claims that millions of jobs will be lost if the US joins in this world pact.
March 21, 2001
The Environmental Protection Agency seeks to withdraw Clinton administration-approved rules to lower the limit for arsenic in drinking water until more study is done. "While scientists agree that the previous standard of 50 parts per billion should be lowered, there is no consensus on a particular safe level," EPA Administrator Christie Whitman says.
Chairman of Conoco Archie Dunham meets with Cheney's energy task force.
March 22, 2001
Energy task force staffers meet with BP regional president Bob Malone, BP chief economist Peter Davies, and two BP employees.
April 9, 2001
The date Mohammad Atta allegedly meets with senior Iraqi intelligence officials at the Iraqi embassy in Prague. The 9/11 Report (Section 7) will later debunk this claim: "The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was in Virginia Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs, Florida, on April 11, where he leased an apartment. On April 6, 9, 10, and 11, Atta's cellular telephone was used numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites within Florida. No evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001."
Dick Cheney will nevertheless repeatedly invoke the meeting as evidence of a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam.
April 10, 2001
A report containing research provided by a CIA analyst known only as "Joe" reaches top Bush administration officials. It claims that aluminum tubes being sought by Iraq are meant for uranium centrifuges. The assessment is immediately challenged by the Energy Department, which builds centrifuges and runs the government's nuclear weapons programs. The New York Times in 2004 will report, "The next day, Energy Department officials ticked off a long list of reasons why the tubes did not appear well suited for centrifuges. Simply put, the analysis concluded that the tubes were the wrong size - too narrow, too heavy, too long - to be of much practical use in a centrifuge."
April 12, 2001
Conoco official Alan Huffman and officials from the US Oil and Gas Association meet with Cheney's energy task force. Huffman will later confirm the meeting, saying, "We met in the Executive Office Building, if I remember correctly."
April 12, 2001
Royal Dutch/Shell Group chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart and Shell Oil chairman Steven Miller meet with energy task force staffers.
April 17, 2001
James Lee, vice-president of ChoicePoint (formerly DBT), the company hired to purge felons from the Florida voter rolls before the 2000 elections, testifies that the state had given DBT the directive to add to the purge list people who matched at least 90% of a last name. DBT objected, knowing that this would produce a huge number of false positives (non-felons).
Lee goes on to say that the state then ordered DBT to shift to an even lower threshold of 80% match, allowing also names to be reversed (thus a person named Thomas Clarence could be taken to be the same as Clarence Thomas). Besides this, middle initials were skipped, Jr. and Sr. suffixes dropped, and some nicknames and aliases were added to puff up the list.
"DBT told state officials," Lee testifies, "that the rules for creating the [purge] list would mean a significant number of people who were not deceased, not registered in more than one county, or not a felon, would be included on the list. DBT made suggestions to reduce the numbers of eligible voters included on the list". According to Lee, to this suggestion the state told the company, "Forget about it".
"The people who worked on this (for DBT) are very adamant... they told them what would happen," Lee says. "The state expected the county supervisors to be the failsafe." Lee said his company will never again get involved in cleansing voting rolls. "We are not confident any of the methods used today can guarantee legal voters will not be wrongfully denied the right to vote," Lee tells a group of Atlanta-area black lawmakers in March 2001.
April 30, 2001
According to Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies, Paul Wolfowitz challenges Clarke at a meeting: "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack in New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages doesn't mean that they don't exist."
Early May, 2001
The first members of the "Lackawanna Six," young Yemeni men raised in Lackawanna, NY, leave for Afghanistan. A few weeks later, the others will follow. In an Al Qaeda training camp, they have a brief encounter with Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. One of the members, increasingly uneasy, fakes a leg injury to get out. The others soon follow.
May 9, 2001
The Energy Department proposes an alternative explanation for the aluminum tubes that CIA analyst "Joe" claims are for nuclear purposes. According to a later New York Times account, "It turned out, [the Department of Energy] reported, that Iraq had for years used high-strength aluminum tubes to make combustion chambers for slim rockets fired from launcher pods. Back in 1996, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had even examined some of those tubes, also made of 7075-T6 aluminum, at a military complex, the Nasser metal fabrication plant in Baghdad, where the Iraqis acknowledged making rockets. According to the international agency, the rocket tubes, some 66,000 of them, were 900 millimeters in length, with a diameter of 81 millimeters and walls 3.3 millimeters thick. The tubes now sought by Iraq had precisely the same dimensions - a perfect match."
May 24, 2001
Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont leaves the Republican Party, becoming an independent and throwing control of the Senate to the Democratic Party for the first time since 1994."Increasingly I find myself in disagreement with my party," he said. Sources close to the senator said he has been feeling more and more isolated by the Bush administration, especially after he was not invited to a White House event honoring a Vermont teacher as "Teacher of the Year." Republicans had been whispering about making Jeffords pay a price for disloyalty because of his previous opposition to Bush's full tax cut.
July 10, 2001
On or around this date, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is briefed by CIA director George Tenet and counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black about terror threats. Bob Woodward, in his book State of Denial, reports that Tenet and Black decided they had to request a dramatic, "out-of-cycle" meeting with Rice to convey their anxiety over the chance of an attack against American interests, possibly within the United States. It was, according to Woodward, the "starkest warning they had given the White House" on bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Rice, in Woodward's account, was "polite," but Tenet and Black "felt the brush-off."
When Woodward's book comes out in October 2006, Rice denies that the meeting--which the State Dept. confirms took place--was exceptional, and disputes Woodward's characterization. "What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States," she says. "And the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible."
July 29, 2001
Condoleezza Rice says of Saddam, "We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." However, she says, the administration will continue to apply "pressure."
August 6, 2001
Bush receives a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.". FBI information, it said, "indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."
Ron Suskind's book The One Percent Doctrine will report that a CIA officer flew to Bush's ranch to call the President's attention to the document. After the briefing, Bush says, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
August 9, 2001
Bush bans federal funding for new embryonic stem-cell research beyond any existing stem-cell lines. As part of his justification, Bush claims there are 60 existing stem-cell lines which should be sufficient for any research needs. A year later it is revealed there are actually only 22 lines, many of which have degraded to the point where they can no longer be used, but Bush will not be shaken from his position.
August 16, 2001
9/11 plotter Zacharias Moussaui is arrested on immigration charges after the instructor at the flying school he is attending in Minnesota becomes suspicious of his behaviour.
August 17, 2001
A team of scientists at the Energy Department revisits the question of the aluminum tubes after US intelligence intercepts a shipment. They raise significant doubts in a "Technical Intelligence Note." The New York Times later summarizes: "First, in size and material, the tubes were very different from those Iraq had used in its centrifuge prototypes before the first Gulf War. Those models used tubes that were nearly twice as wide and made of exotic materials that performed far better than aluminum .. Their walls were three times too thick for 'favorable use' in a centrifuge .. They were also anodized, meaning they had a special coating to protect them from weather. Anodized tubes, the team pointed out, are 'not consistent' with a uranium centrifuge because the coating can produce bad reactions with uranium gas. In other words, [if the Iraqis intended the tubes for use in building centrifuges, it meant they had] chosen to forsake years of promising centrifuge work and instead start from scratch, with inferior material built to less-than-optimal dimensions."
September 2001
Iraqi defector "Curveball," granted asylum in Germany, ceases cooperating with German intelligence officials. The CIA assures the Germans that they have other sources that corroborate Curveball's claims that Iraq has at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. The reality is that they have three, and all three will be proven to be frauds. Two have connections to Ahmed Chalabi.
September 10, 2001
Top bureau officials at FBI headquarters in Washington refused to support requests by field agents, who already have 9/11 plotter Zacharias Moussaoui in custody, for warrants to search Moussaoui's belongings and residences in Minnesota and Oklahoma.
Investigators were desperate for a break and sensed a terrorist action involving airliners might be moving forward based on Moussaoui's unusual behavior, FBI Special Agent Harry Samit later told jurors at Moussaoui's trial.
Still lacking authority for a fuller search of Moussaoui's belongings, federal authorities cut an unusual deal with French officials Sept. 10, Samit said. Under terms of that agreement, Moussaoui would be deported to his native France, and French authorities would conduct a search of his luggage and computer. Suicide hijackers launched their attacks the next day, and the transfer never occurred.
The National Security Agency intercepts a message (not translated until Sept. 12): "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is the zero hour." Three years later it will be revealed that the FBI still hasn't translated 120,000 hours of potentially valuable terrorism-related recordings.
In a lengthy speech that day to Pentagon workers, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that there is an "adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America." Rumsfeld says it is an enemy "more subtle and more implacable" than the former Soviet Union, and is "closer to home" than "the last decrepit dictators of the world." He is speaking of Pentagon bureaucracy.
September 11, 2001
Almost 3,000 people die in airplane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on an airliner that crashes in Pennsylvania. Dick Cheney issues a shoot-down order, claiming that he did so on orders from the President. The 9/11 Commission is unable to find evidence of such a call.
President Bush, after being informed that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center and that there is no doubt that the United States is under attack, responds by continuing to sit silently for seven minutes as Florida schoolchildren read to him from My Pet Goat. "He looked like he was going to cry," a student later recalls.
When the reading lesson was over, according to a the Washington Times' Bill Sammons, Bush lingered, telling the children to stay in school and pose for photos. When a reporter asked if he knew what was going on in New York, Bush simply dismissed the question: "I'll talk about it later." He spent some more time in the classroom "as if he didn't have a care in the world...in the most relaxed manner imaginable."
A note from an aide who was with the Secretary of Defense at the National Military Command Center shows that just five hours after the attacks Rumsfeld says, "Best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. at same time. Not only UBL Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
A member of the "Lackawanna Six" - a group of young Yemeni men raised in New York State who met with bin Laden at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in May 2001 - calls a local FBI agent to offer his assistance.
September 12, 2001
According to Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, Bush collars Clarke and says, "I know you have a lot to do and all, but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way." Clarke responds, "But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this." Bush tells him, "I know, I know, but -- see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred...."
September 12-16, 2001
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructs the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it is safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality is not available.
September 16, 2001
The following exchange takes place between journalist Tim Russert and Vice President Dick Cheney on Meet the Press:
TIM RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to 9/11?
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: No.
Mid-September 2001
The United States greatly expands the practice of "extraordinary rendition" whereby individuals suspected of having information are sent to countries known to torture prisoners.
September 17, 2001
At a press conference, Bush is asked: "Do you want bin Laden dead?"
Bush replies: "I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'"
Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signs a document outlining the war on terror. In a minor note, the document directs the Pentagon to begin planning military options for an invasion of Iraq. He also signs a "sweeping finding that gives the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity, including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda anywhere in the world," according to a later account in the Washington Post.
September 18, 2001
In a move a federal judge will later call "conscience-shocking," EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman announces that the thousands of pounds of hazardous materials released into the air after the World Trade Center collapse pose no health risk to residents of the area around Ground Zero. It is the third time since the attacks that the EPA has issued such a sentiment. Subsequent news reports and lawsuits will show that Whitman acted at the behest of the White House, and that relevant studies had not been completed. Tens of thousands of people suffer "debilitating health problems" related to the attacks, according to Newsweek.
Five letters containing anthrax are believed to have been sent on or around this date. All five are sent to offices of news media organizations in New York City. Over the course of the next several months, 22 people will contract anthrax.
Ahmed Chalabi is a guest speaker at a two-day meeting at the Pentagon of the Defense Policy Board, an influential body packed with high-level Defense officials and opinion makers and chaired by Richard Perle, according to an article in Vanity Fair ("The Path to War," May 2004),
September 19, 2001
President Bush tells CIA chief George Tenet, "I want to know about links between Saddam and al Qaeda. The Vice President knows some things that might be helpful."
September 20, 2001
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, on this date undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith writes to Donald Rumsfeld and "expressed disappointment at the limited options immediately available in Afghanistan and the lack of ground options. [He] suggested instead hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq."
Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet for a private White House dinner. According to the former British Ambassador to Washington, Blair tells Bush not to get distracted from the war on terror. Bush replies, "I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq."
A letter to President Bush from the neoconservative Project for the New American Century says, "Even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." New Republic editor Marty Peretz signs on.
September 21, 2001
President Bush is informed in a highly classified briefing that the US intelligence community cannot link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks and that there is little evidence pointing to collaborative ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Under a rule imposed without public announcement soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, immigration courts from coast to coast are conducting scores of hearings in secret, with court officials forbidden even to confirm that the cases exist. The rule is imposed in an internal memorandum by the country's chief immigration judge, Michael Creppy. Acting at the behest of Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, Creppy ordered that all "special interest" deportation hearings be closed to all visitors, family members and news reporters.
In a memo to the White House, John Yoo of the Justice Department writes that in the face of catastrophic attack "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties." If the president decided to deploy the military inside the country, then "the Fourth Amendment should be no more relevant than it would be in cases of invasion or insurrection."
Shortly after September 11th, Vice President Dick Cheney asks Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to look into the claim that Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence agent. Tenet puts the Directorate of Operations Jim Pavitt on the case, who reports back to Tenet. On September 21st, 2001, Tenet tells the President, "Our Prague office is skeptical about the report. It just doesn't add up." Tenet also indicates that other evidence the CIA was able to find, including credit card and telephone records indicating Atta was in Virginia during that time, make such a meeting highly unlikely.
Cheney, however, will continue to cite the alleged meeting in public appearances.
September 25, 2001
The Justice Department's John Yoo puts forward an early version of the doctrine of preemption in a memo to the White House. The president has the "constitutional power to take such military actions as he deems necessary and appropriate to respond to the terrorist attacks upon the United States." Those actions can be wide-ranging and cannot be controlled by Congress: "Military actions need not be limited to those individuals, groups, or states that participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: the Constitution vests the President with the power to strike terrorist groups or organizations that cannot be demonstrably linked to the September 11 incidents, but that, nonetheless, pose a similar threat to the security of the United States and the lives of its people, whether at home or overseas. In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make."
October 2001
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the CIA receives a report from Italian intelligence describing a public visit by an Iraqi diplomat to Niger in 1999 and suggesting that the diplomat's covert purpose was to procure yellowcake uranium. The American intelligence community dismisses the report as "amateurish and unsubstantiated" but it is nevertheless sent directly to the Vice President. It is the one of the first examples of "stovepiping," the practice whereby Bush officials, in the words of former National Security Council member Kenneth Pollack, "dismantle[d] the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership."
The NSA domestic wiretapping program goes into operation. (Official presidential authorization will come in early 2002.) The program grants NSA officers authority to select US citizens for surveillance without a warrant or court approval.
The first report on the program, by James Risen of the New York Times, in December 2005, says the program covers only calls to or from other countries. President Bush acknowledges the program and says, "One end of the communication must be outside the United States." Further disclosures in 2006 reveal that domestic calls were also covered, and that the NSA possesses the phone records of tens of millions of Americans, the vast majority of whom are not suspected of any crime. "It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," says one source.
In April 2004, before the program becomes public, President Bush says, "any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order."
October 1, 2001
On the cover of its first post-9/11 issue, the Weekly Standard runs the word WANTED under pictures of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
October 5, 2001
A 63-year-old photo editor at a Florida publication is the first of five people to die after coming in contact with anthrax. It is the first case of inhalation anthrax in the US in over two decades. A massive FBI investigation will continue for years and produce no arrests.
October 7, 2001
President Bush announces Operation Enduring Freedom, aimed at dismantling Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which is harboring al Qaeda.
Bush writes a letter to his father, telling him that he has ordered the bombing of Afghanistan. He concludes, "I feel no sense of the so-called heavy burden of the office."
October 8, 2001
The Office of Homeland Security is established, later to become the Department of Homeland Security. The move brings various security-related agencies together under one roof...yet, strangely, exempted from the reorganization are the FBI, which so notoriously mishandled the investigation of suspects prior to the 9/11 attacks, and the CIA, which, it will be later discovered, bugnled and distorted intelligence used to build support for the Iraq war.
October 9, 2001
Letters carrying anthrax are mailed to the offices of Sens. Daschle and Leahy.
October 11, 2001
The FBI, citing "certain information," warns of a terrorist attack in "the next several days."
October 12, 2001
The New York City Department of Health announces that an NBC employee has contracted anthrax. USPS says it will offer gloves and masks to all employees who handle mail.
October 15, 2001
A letter testing positive for anthrax is opened at Senator Daschle's office.
October 17, 2001
Congress is shut down after 31 Senate staffers test positive for exposure to anthrax.
October 18, 2001
A number of people, including USPS employees and a CBS employee, test positive for anthrax. Two postal facilities in Florida are closed. The next day, two postal facilities in New Jersey will be closed.
October 21, 2001
Two postal workers in the Washington DC area die after inhaling anthrax.
October 25, 2001
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT Act) is passed 98-1 in the Senate
October 29, 2001
The Weekly Standard runs an article entitled "Why Iraq?" It alleges that Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Europe and that Iraq is linked to the anthrax attacks in America (the latter because one expert thinks it is unlikely a terrorist group could develop anthrax on its own.) It hints at Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. And, for a kicker, "If all we do is contain Saddam's Iraq, it is a virtual certainty that Baghdad will soon have nuclear weapons."
November 8, 2001
The New York Times and Frontline report that an Iraqi defector, an army general, claims that the Iraqi military trained Arab fighters to hijack airplanes. Mother Jones later exposes the Iraqi general as bogus and linked to Ahmed Chalabi.
November 11, 2001
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, senior Al Qaeda official in charge of the network's training camp in Khalden, Afghanistan, is captured in Pakistan. Newsweek will call him "America's first big trophy in the war on terror."
November 21, 2001
According to Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack: "President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret."' Woodward adds that, immediately after Rumsfeld and [General Tommy] Franks work out a deal under which Franks can spend any money he needs. "And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the preparations in Kuwait, specifically to make war possible."
A 94-year-old woman becomes the fifth and final person to die after coming in contact with anthrax.
Late November, 2001
Osama bin Laden is pinned down at Tora Bora. The CIA asks the US military to supply additional troops to help capture him. The White House asks Pakistani President Musharraf to put Pakistani troops on the Afghan-Pakistan border to cut off bin Laden's escape routes. Neither request is fulfilled, and bin Laden escapes.
In a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet, Dick Cheney lays out what will come to be known as the One Percent Doctrine. "If there's a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response." The quote is from Ron Suskind's 2006 book, The One Percent Doctrine. "As to 'evidence,'" Suskind writes, "the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn't apply."
December 1, 2001
Rumsfeld orders Franks to begin work on an Iraq war plan. Bush will meet with military leaders regarding the plan on a regular basis starting late December, despite public assurances that the administration is seeking a diplomatic solution to its showdown with Saddam.
December 2, 2001
Energy-trading giant Enron declares bankruptcy.
December 3, 2001
In an interview with Newsweek, Bush declares "Saddam is evil."
December 9, 2001
Appearing on Meet the Press, Dick Cheney describes to Tim Russert as "pretty well confirmed" reports that 9/11 plotter Mohammad Atta met with Al-Qaeda operatives in the Czech Republic in April.
He will continue to say this even after the FBI, CIA, and Czech intelligence back off the claim. The 9/11 Commission will debunk it thoroughly.
December 12, 2001
Tommy Franks tells Donald Rumsfeld that he has a plan for softening up Iraq. "I'm thinking in terms of spikes, Mr. Secretary," he writes in his book American Soldier. "Spurts of activity followed by periods of inactivity. We want the Iraqis to become accustomed to military expansion, and then apparent contraction." The Downing Street memos have proof that these spikes were used. In July 2002 British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon is quoted as saying that the US "had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This seem to contradict President Bush, who said, in Oct 2002, that "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary."
December 20, 2001
New York Times reporter Judith Miller writes a front-page story for the paper titled "AN IRAQI DEFECTOR TELLS OF WORK ON AT LEAST 20 HIDDEN WEAPONS SITES." The source is a man delivered to Miller by Ahmed Chalabi. The man failed a CIA polygraph test before the article came out, and his claims were discredited by informed intelligence experts. The polygraph is not mentioned in Miller's story. "Government experts" call his information "reliable and significant."
December 28, 2001
According to Woodward's Plan of Attack, General Tommy Franks briefs Bush on the Pentagon's Iraq war planning at his Crawford ranch. Bush had directed the start of such planning five weeks earlier. Afterwards, Bush tells reporters they spoke about Afghanistan.
Early 2002
Captured terrorist Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi is transferred to CIA custody after a battle royale with the FBI and a personal plea from CIA director George Tenet to the President. The FBI, with experience in collecting evidence for trials, advocates treating the captive humanely, even bargaining with him. One high-ranking FBI officer instructs al-Libi's handlers to "handle this like it was being done right here, in my office in New York." The CIA wants information quicker. "They duct-taped his mouth, cinched him up and sent him to Cairo," an ex-FBI official will later say. "At the airport the CIA case officer goes up to him and says, 'You're going to Cairo, you know. Before you get there I'm going to find your mother and I'm going to fuck her.' So we lost that fight."
After two weeks of increasingly harsh interrogation, including waterboarding, al-Libi breaks down and starts to talk. But he provides information he is not in a position to know, telling his interrogators that al Qaeda operatives received chemical weapons training from the Iraqi government. The DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) will express concerns early on that al-Libi is telling his questioners what they want to hear. Nevertheless, al-Libi's information will be the basis for the Bush Administration's repeated claim that Iraq provided Al Qaeda with training on chemical and biological weapons. Al-Libi will later recant his testimony.
January 9, 2002
John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department prepares a memo addressed to high Pentagon officials. It declares that the laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, do not apply to Taliban or al Qaeda prisoners, nor to the military commissions set up to try such prisoners. The memo essentially argues that the president has unrestricted powers to conduct military operations.
Alberto Gonzalez seconds Yoo, saying, "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
January 10, 2002
President Bush says he has never met personally with Kenneth Lay, isn't close with him, and that Lay actually supported Ann Richards, his opponent in the race for governor of Texas, in 1994. But Texans for Public Justice says that while Enron did give $12,500 to Richards during the 1994 election cycle, it gave $146,500 to Bush, including $47,500 directly from Lay and his wife. The Center for Public Integrity says that Enron and Lay have given over $550,000 to Bush since 1993, making the corporation Bush's top career donor.
January 11, 2002
William Howard Taft IV, the State Department's Legal Director, responds to John Yoo's January 9 memo, calling Yoo's analysis "seriously flawed." Taft writes: "In preceding conflicts, the United States managed thousands of prisoners without disavowing its obligations under the [Geneva] Conventions. There is no doubt that we may do the same in the current instance." Taft ends scathingly, "Your position is, at this point, erroneous in its substance and untenable in practice. Your conclusions are as wrong as they are incomplete."
First 20 detainees arrive at Guantanamo Bay.
January 18, 2002
One week after the first detainees arrive at Guantanamo, President Bush decides that they will not receive prisoner-of-war protection under the Geneva Conventions.
January 22, 2002
After a Defense Department photo is released showing detainees in goggles and masks, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld defends the detentions of "committed terrorists," saying, "We are keeping them off the street and out of the airlines." Besides, he says, "To be in an eight-by-eight cell in beautiful, sunny Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is not a - inhumane treatment. And it has a roof."
January 25, 2002
Alberto Gonzalez renders Geneva obsolete for US purposes in a policy-setting memo. When Secretary of State Colin Powell reads it, he immediately sets up a meeting with the President, telling him the document, if followed, "will reverse over a century of US policy and practice."
January 27, 2002
Vice President Cheney says of the prisoners at Guantanamo, "[T]hey are not lawful combatants. These are the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans."
January 29, 2002
Bush calls Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the "Axis of Evil" in his State of the Union address. The man who coined the phrase, Bush speechwriter David Frum, will later write in his book that he came up with it in answer to the question, "Can you sum up in a sentence or two our best case for going after Iraq?"
February 2002
A report from the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) informs top officials that captured Al Qaeda operative al-Libi is likely a fabricator. Periodically after this point, high-level members of the Bush Administration, including the President, will cite al-Libi's information in public appearances. Colin Powell relies heavily on accounts provided by al-Libi for his speech to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003, saying that he was tracing "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in [the use of chemical] weapons to Al Qaeda."
The same DIA report states, "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements [like al Qaeda]. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."
Sen. Bob Graham later relates an exchange that occurred at this time: "I was asked by one of the senior commanders of Central Command to go into his office. We did, the door was closed, and he turned to me, and he said, 'Senator, we have stopped fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.'"
February 8, 2002
Bush, citing the highly suspect testimony of captured Al Qaeda operative al-Libi, says in a radio address, "Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."
February 11, 2002
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tells Tony Snow of Fox News: "Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time."
February 13, 2002
First press mention of the Information Awareness Office, home to Total Information Aware ness, is made in the press. It is headed by former Admiral John Poindexter, who was convicted of five felony counts for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.
February 14, 2002
President Bush unveils his alternative to the Kyoto agreement to combat global warming, offering businesses incentives to achieve an estimated 4.5 percent voluntary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. over 10 years. The president's plan is dramatically lower than the estimated 33 percent reduction sought by the Kyoto agreement for the United States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.
February 26, 2002
Former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson travels to Niger to check out claims, based on a purported memorandum of understanding, that Saddam tried to obtain yellowcake uranium there. He learns that any authentic memorandum of understanding concerning yellowcake sales would have required the signatures of Niger's Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of Mines. No one has signed such a document. He also concludes that as Niger pre-sold all its uranium to Japanese and European partners, it would have none left to sell to Iraq.
February 27, 2002
Close to two hundred detainees at the US detention center at Guantanamo go on hunger strike to protest a rule against the wearing of turbans. It is the first coordinated, widespread act of disobedience at the prison. US officials back down and allow the turbans. In the months and years to come, hunger strikes and attempted suicides will become regular occurrences.
March 2002
A CIA report describing the findings of Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger - findings discrediting the claim that Saddam attempted to obtain yellowcake uranium from that country - is circulated widely throughout the intelligence community. It is not flagged for high-level White House officials, and they do not see it.
"Chalabi's defector reports [are] now flowing from the Pentagon directly to the Vice-President's office, and then on to the President, with little prior evaluation by intelligence professionals," according to an October 2003 report by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker. The piece quotes Greg Thielmann, top intelligence official for the State Department, as saying, "There was considerable skepticism throughout the intelligence community about the reliability of Chalabi's sources, but the defector reports were coming all the time. Knock one down and another comes along. Meanwhile, the garbage was being shoved straight to the President."
Hersh reports that by this time "it was understood by many in the White House that the President had decided, in his own mind, to go to war." Hersh adds, "The undeclared decision had a devastating impact on the continuing struggle against terrorism. The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf. Linguists and special operatives were abruptly reassigned, and several ongoing anti-terrorism intelligence programs were curtailed."
The President seems to affirm this when he pokes his head into a meeting between Rice and three senators and says, "Fuck Saddam, We're taking him out."
One year later, in March 2003, President Bush will tell the public, "I've not made up our [sic] mind about military action."
March 1, 2002
The State Department's intelligence bureau, INR, publishes an assessment entitled, "Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq Is Unlikely." According to the 2004 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, the INR analyst who drafted the document said it was produced at the behest of the Vice President's office.
March 8, 2002
The Downing Street memo known as the "Iraq: Options Paper" is prepared by Tony Blair's defense aides to outline military options for regime change in Iraq.
It reads, in part: "Iraq continues to develop WMD, although our intelligence is poor. Saddam has used WMD in the past and could do so again if his regime were threatened, though there is no greater threat now than in recent years that Saddam will use WMD.
"The US has lost confidence in containment. Some in government want Saddam removed. The success of Operation Enduring Freedom, distrust of UN sanctions and inspection regimes, and unfinished business from 1991 are all factors. Washington believes the legal basis for an attack on Iraq already exists. Nor will it necessarily be governed by wider political factors. The US may be willing to work with a much smaller coalition than we think desirable.
"Regime change has no basis in international law."
March 12, 2002
Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge announces the color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System. Threat level is declared yellow, or "elevated risk," and will remain there permanently, with occasional elevations to orange, or "high risk."
March 13, 2002
President Bush, in a press conference, says of Bin Laden: "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."
March 14, 2002
The Downing Street document later known as the "David Manning memo" is written by Foreign Policy Advisor David Manning for Tony Blair after Manning's meeting with his US-counterpart Condoleezza Rice.It reads, in part: "Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed.
"Bush has yet to find the answers to the big questions:
- how to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified;
- what value to put on the exiled Iraqi opposition;
- how to coordinate a US/allied military campaign with internal opposition (assuming there is any);
- what happens on the morning after?
"I think there is a real risk that the Administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean that they will avoid it.
"Will Americans really put in enough ground troops to do the job if the Kurdish/Shi'ite stratagem fails? Even if they do, will they be willing to take the sort of casualties that the Republican Guard may inflict on them if it turns out to be an urban war, and Iraqi troops don't conveniently collapse in a heap as Richard Perle and others confidently predict?"
March 15, 2002
British intelligence reports that there is only "sporadic and patchy" evidence about Saddam's alleged WMD. "We believe Iraq retains some production equipment, and some small stocks of CW [chemical warfare] agent precursors, and may have hidden small quantities of agents and weapons... There is no intelligence on any BW [biological warfare] agent production facilities."
March 19, 2002
A US attempt to oust Jose Bustani from his position as the director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) fails. Bustani, who leads a worldwide effort to eliminate and control WMD, has had a successful five-year term; Colin Powell has praised his "very impressive" work. But after Bustani argues that getting Saddam Hussein to sign international chemical weapons treaties would provide an alternative to war, the United States accuses him of "financial mismanagement," "demoralization" of his staff, "bias," and "ill-considered initiatives." The US pushes for a no-confidence vote at the UN, which it loses on this day. The United States threatens to undercut funding for the OPCW, and by April 2002 Bustani is gone.
March 22, 2002
The Downing Street memo later known as the "Peter Ricketts Letter" is written by political director Peter Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. It weighs the political implications of joining the US drive to oust Saddam.
It reads, in part: "even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years ont he nuclear, missile or CW/BW fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know", been stepped up.
"US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing. To get public and Parliamentary support for military operations, we have to be convincing that:
- the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for;
- it is qualitatively different from the threat posed by other proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear capability (including Iran).
"But we are still left with a problem of bringing public opinion to accept the imminence of a threat from Iraq. This is something the Prime Minister and President need to have a frank discussion about. For Iraq, regime change: does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."
March 24, 2002
Appearing on CNN's Late Edition, Cheney says of Saddam, "This is a man of great evil, as the president said. And he is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time."
March 25, 2002
In advance of Blair's trip to Texas, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw addresses a memo to the prime minister. It will become the Downing Street memo known as the "Jack Straw memo."
It reads, in part: "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few. The risks are high, both for you and for the Government. I judge that there is at present no majority inside the [Parliamentary Labor Party] for any military action against Iraq, (alongside a greater readiness in the PLP to surface their concerns). Colleagues know that Saddam and the Iraqi regime are bad. Making that case is easy. But we have a long way to go to convince them as to:
(a) the scale of the threat from Iraq and why this has got worse recently:
(b) what distinguishes the Iraqi threat from that of e.g. Iran and North Korea so as to justify military action;
(c) the justification for any military action in terms of international law: and
(d) whether the consequence of military action really would be a compliant, law-abiding replacement government.
" there has been no credible evidence to link Iraq with UBL and Al Qaida. Objectively, the threat from Iraq has not worsened as a result of 11 September. What has however changed is the tolerance of the international community (especially that of the US), the world having witnessed on September 11 just what determined evil people can these days perpetrate.
"THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRAQ, IRAN AND NORTH KOREA. By linking these countries together in this 'axis of evil' speech, President Bush implied an identity between them not only in terms of their threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat, but also in terms of the action necessary to deal with the threat. A lot of work will now [be] need[ed] to delink the three, and to show why military action against Iraq is so much more justified than against Iran and North Korea.
"We have also to answer the big question - what will this action achieve? There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything. Most of the assessments from the US have assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better.
"Iraq has had NO history of democracy so no-one has this habit or experience."
March 26, 2002
A hearing is held in Detroit federal court on the first lawsuit challenging the US Justice Department’s decision to close immigrant deportation proceedings to the public and the press. Rabih Haddad was arrested at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan on December 14, allegedly for minor visa violations, and had been imprisoned ever since. The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after US Representative John Conyers and members of the Detroit media were barred from attending Rabih Haddad’s deportation hearing.
March 28, 2002
Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah is captured in Pakistan. A highly prized target whom administration officials will call a "chief operator," Zubaydah is later found to be severely mentally ill and in charge only of al Qaeda's minor logistics. He arranges travel for wives and children, for example, and has little to do with the "operational" side of the network's activities.
Zubaydah is delivered to a Thailand safehouse for interrogation. During his capture days earlier, bullet fragments pierced his abdomen and groin, and after his arrival in Thailand Zubaydah almost dies from infections to his wounds. He is fixed up, then stripped bare and put in a cell without a bunk or blankets. According to a story by the New York Times, Zubaydah is subjected to blaring music by, among others, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and is kept so cold he seems to "turn blue."
As the interrogation proceeds, FBI agents on the scene protest the tactics used, saying they are beyond acceptable boundaries. The CIA, claiming authorization from White House senior lawyers, continues.
Late March 2002
Dick Cheney tells Republican senators that the question is no longer if the US will invade Iraq, but when.
April 2002
The State Department begins work on the "Future of Iraq" project, a plan for the post-war stabilization and reconstruction. It recruits hundreds of Iraqi engineers, businessmen, lawyers, and other experts, and officials from various US government agencies, organizing them into more than 15 working groups. The plan is prescient on the topic of post-invasion looting. "The period immediately after regime change might offer these criminals the opportunity to engage in acts of killing, plunder and looting." It also recommends against disbanding the Iraqi army, out of fear that unemployed soldiers might turn against the occupying force.
Almost none of the State Department's work is used after the invasion.
The director of "Future of Iraq" project, Tom Warrick, will be slated to join Jay Garner and the reconstruction process in Iraq but his appointment will be overruled by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. The pattern of excluding State Department officials from post-war planning and reconstruction will become routine. "We almost disemboweled State," said one former Pentagon official. By spring 2003, after many avoidable mistakes have already been made, new arrivals on the CPA staff are given a CD-ROM with the State Department's work. "It's our Bible," says one official.
April 4, 2002
President Bush tells Britain's ITV: "I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go."
April 5, 2002
US officials discover that detainee Yaser Esam Hamdi, previously thought to be a Saudi, was in fact born in Louisiana, and they evacuate him from Guantanamo Bay to Norfolk, VA. Hamdi will be held in solitary confinement for more than two years without charges. His court case, challenging the United States' authority to hold enemy combatants indefinitely, will rise to the Supreme Court. The Court will rule that detainees are owed some measure of due process and must be charged.
April 9, 2002
Bush: "The other day we hauled in a guy named Abu Zubaydah. He's one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States." Members of the Administration call Zubaydah a "chief operator" and a "member of Osama bin Laden's inner circle."
When Bush is informed of Zubaydah's true stature within Al Qaeda (he is essentially a travel agent, having no role in operations, and is mentally ill to boot), Bush says to Tenet, "I said he was important. You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" Tenet's reply: "No sir, Mr. President." The CIA has top medical professionals fly to Pakistan to fix up the wounds Zubaydah sustained in his capture. "We got him in very good health, so we could start to torture him," says one CIA official.
As time passes Tenet begins pushing his staff for something he can take to the President, anything to support the President's public statements about Zubaydah. In a comment exemplifying CIA resentment, one top agency officials says, "Bush and Cheney knew what we knew about Zubaydah...why the hell did the President have to put us in a box like this?"
The CIA tortures Zubaydah until he starts talking about plots against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, and apartment buildings. Writes reporter Ron Suskind in his book The One Percent Doctrine, "the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."
April 11, 2002
Democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is removed from power in a military coup. The Bush Administration blames Chavez for his own downfall and recognizes the interim government of businessman Pedro Carmona. Officials from the Organization of American States tell the London Observer that the United States sanctioned the coup and that Carmona and his fellow plotters had been received at the White House by Bush's key Latin America policy maker. Carmona dissolves the Venezuelan congress and suspends the constitution. Governments across the Western Hemisphere condemn the coup. Chavez is reinstalled 48 hours later.
April 17, 2002
Reports emerge that American forces could have caught or killed bin Laden at Tora Bora. Reporters confront Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with the story. He says he does not "know today of any evidence" that bin Laden "was in Tora Bora at the time, or that he left Tora Bora at the time." Later reports will make clear that the military was asked by the CIA at the time to supply troops to help close off bin Laden's escape routes. The military declined.
April 22, 2002
Jose Bustani is removed from his job as the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in a special session of the UN called by the United States. The US dislikes him because he advocates solutions to the Iraq standoff short of war. After an earlier vote failed to remove Bustani, the US threatened to withhold OPCW's funding. Because the US provides over 20 percent of total funds, this act would hobble the organization. AP will later report that John Bolton, then undersecretary of state for arms control, led the charge for Bustani's removal.
A year after Bustani loses his job, a UN tribunal rules that the US charges against Bustani were "extremely vague" and that he was wrongly dismissed. He is awarded damages.
April 25, 2002
A Saudi delegation including head of state Prince Saud dines with George Bush and his advisers in Texas. The Saudis presents a list of requests, including that the United States will show greater concern for the Palestinians. President Bush agrees to nothing and makes no request for help on the war on terror, losing a key opportunity for diplomacy. The Saudis wonder if Bush read the very short preparatory document they had sent a few days in advance. Bush never got the document; it had been diverted to Vice President Cheney's office.
April 29, 2002
The Weekly Standard writes: "Saddam has been moving ahead into a new era, a new age of horrors where terrorists don't commandeer jumbo jets and fly them into our skyscrapers. They plant nuclear bombs in our cities."
May 2002
The most important corroborator of Curveball's story, a former major in the Iraqi intelligence service, is deemed a liar by the CIA and DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). A fabricator notice is posted in US intelligence databases.
May 8, 2002
Jose Padilla arrested at Chicago's O'Hare airport.
May 18, 2002
Details of the President's daily briefing of August 6, 2001, are revealed, including its title: "Bin Laden determined to strike in US." The same day, another pre-9/11 memo is discovered revealing that an FBI agent in Arizona had urged his superiors to more thoroughly investigate Middle Eastern men enrolling in flight schools in the US. Almost none of the information garnered by the FBI in monitoring flights schools was shared with the CIA before 9/11.
May 20, 2002
FBI Director Robert Mueller says there "will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop it. It's something we all live with." Asked about those attacks taking the form of suicide bombers like those in Israel, Mueller said, "I think we will see that in the future, I think it's inevitable."
May 21, 2002
The FBI warns of possible terror attacks against the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, tall apartment buildings, and subways nationwide.
Tommy Franks is asked for details on how he would invade Iraq. He responds, "That's a great question and one for which I don't have an answer because my boss has not yet asked me to put together a plan to do that." (FDCH Political Transcripts, 05/21/02.) In fact, Franks was asked to start planning in Nov. 2001.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld tells a Senate subcommittee that there are al Qaeda terrorists living in the United States. According to Ron Suskind's 2006 book, "The One Percent Doctrine," this is a reference to the "Lackawanna Six," a group of six men living near Buffalo, NY, who have made contact with al Qaeda and will be arrested by American authorities later in the year. Rumsfeld says they "are very well trained," though intelligence officials familiar with the case already recognize this is not the case.
May 21, 2002
The Senate votes to subpoena the Bush Administration for information on its contacts with the energy-trading company Enron.
May 23, 2002
President Bush goes on record as opposing the formation of the 9/11 Commission.
The FBI warns potential Memorial Day revelers that (uncorroborated and unconfirmed) information indicates a possible attack from terrorist scuba divers. Other possible targets, it warns, include the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, tall apartment buildings and subways nationwide.
June 1, 2002
Condoleezza Rice interrupts a deputy raising doubts about an Iraq war: "Save your breath. The President has already made up his mind."
Beginning of Operation Southern Focus, a bombing campaign against Iraqi defenses intended to lay the groundwork for invasion. The military admits in the summer of 2003 that it flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq between this time and the start of the war, attacking 349 targets. Bush tells the public four months later he hopes to avoid the use of force.
Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman put together a PowerPoint presentation outlining GOP strategy in the midterm elections. Nine months before the beginning of the war, it puts "Focus on war and economy" at the top of Republican priorities.
June 6, 2002
Colleen Rowley, the FBI agent who tried and failed to get her superiors to fully investigate Zacarias Moussaoui, testifies before Congress. She will be on the cover of TIME Magazine's 2002 Person of the Year issue, which is dedicated to whistleblowers.
On the same day as Rowley's explosive Hill testimony, the White House announces plans to create a Department of Homeland Security.
June 10, 2002
John Ashcroft interrupts his trip to Russia to announce that federal officials have arrested Jose Padilla, who was allegedly plotting with al Qaeda to detonate a "dirty bomb." Padilla, an American citizen, has been in custody for over a month. He will be held until November 2005 before being formally charged with a crime. He will never be charged with anything related in any way to a "dirty bomb."
June 15, 2002
The US asks the French to investigate the claim that Niger sold uranium to Iraq because French companies control mines in Niger. A French official sent a team of six to Niger to investigate. "We told the Americans, "'Bullshit. It doesn't make any sense,'" said the official.
Cheney and Libby begin visits to the CIA to have direct exchanges with analysts, creating an environment in which analysts often feel pressured to make intelligence and assessments match what the White House wants. "The analysts at the CIA. were beaten down defending their assessments," a former CIA official later tells The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh.
June 21, 2002
A CIA report entitled "Iraq and al Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship" says, "Reporting is contradictory on hijacker Mohammed Atta's alleged trip to Prague and meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer, and we have not verified his travels."
July 11, 2002
"Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance, the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will," Pentagon advisor Richard Perle tells PBS.
July 15, 2002
John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to two counts, fighting for the Taliban and carrying explosives. The government has dropped the most damaging charge, conspiracy to kill Americans. He is sentenced to 20 years in prison.
July 20, 2002
General Franks requests $700 million for war preparations. The President agrees and Congress is not informed. The money comes from a supplemental appropriation for the war in Afghanistan that Congress previously approved, Bob Woodward reports in Plan of Attack.
July 21, 2002
Sources in the British government tell the British press that the decision to go to war has been made. "President Bush has already made up his mind. This is going to happen. It is a given," says one source. The quote will not be reprinted by any mainstream American news sources except the conservative National Review, which attempts to downplay its importance in June 2005.
The so-called "Cabinet Office Paper" is written to prep Tony Blair's closest aides for a discussion on war in Iraq. It reads, "US military planning unambiguously takes as its objective the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime, followed by elimination of Iraqi WMDs. A post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise. As already made clear, the US military plans are virtually silent on this point."
July 23, 2002
The Downing Street memo is produced. It is the minutes of a meeting held by top members of Tony Blair's administration and intelligence community. It reads, in part: "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
August 1, 2002
Then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales writes a memo suggesting that President Bush's authority as commander-in-chief supercedes laws and treaties banning the use of torture against terror suspects.
A Justice Department memo, co-authored by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee and John Yoo, asserts that torture only includes physical pain so great that it leads to "death [or] organ failure," and that "mental pain requires lasting psychological harm." The memo also argues that the criminal law prohibiting torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations undertaken of enemy combatants pursuant to the President's Commander-in-Chief powers."
Lt. Carolyn Wood, MI, becomes officer in command of interrogators at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. She oversees use of dogs, stress positions, sexual degradation, hooding, and sleep deprivation.
The White House Iraq Group is created. Its members include Karl Rove, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen J. Hadley, as well as Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin. Its job is to sell the Iraq War to the public.
August 5, 2002
General Tommy Franks presents President Bush with an updated war plan.
August 7, 2002
The Washington Times reports that all of the Joint Chiefs have signed on to an Iraq invasion. Some have resisted for months, but "they can read the handwriting on the wall," says a source close to the administration.
August 8, 2002
Air strikes against Iraq, which have been ongoing through the summer, reach the level of a full air offensive.
August 20, 2002
"As we think through Iraq, we may or may not attack. I have no idea yet. But it will be for the objective of making the world more peaceful." President Bush tells Bob Woodward.
The same day, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says: "There are al Qaeda in Iraq. There are."
August 26, 2002
At a speech in Nashville, Vice President Cheney says, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
He also says, "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors, including Saddam's own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction."
The New York Times later reports that this is a gross misrepresentation. "The one specific source [Cheney] did cite was Hussein Kamel al-Majid, a son-in-law of Mr. Hussein's who defected in 1994 after running Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. But Mr. Majid told American intelligence officials in 1995 that Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled. What's more, Mr. Majid could not have had any insight into Mr. Hussein's current nuclear activities: he was assassinated in 1996 on his return to Iraq." It was impossible that Saddam's son-in-law was the source of what "we now know."
Newsweek alleges abuse of Taliban prisoners by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. In a prescient article, the magazine describes prisoners being beaten and dying of asphyxiation in sealed shipping containers.
September 1, 2002
U.S. Army General James "Spider" Marks is named the top intelligence officer for the coalition forces planning to invade Iraq. He begins looking at the intelligence on WMD. He finds the information in disarray and top officials disinterested. Intelligence analysts offer him 946 sites in Iraq that could hold WMD, but the information is old, poorly sourced, or not sourced at all. "There was no sense of urgency to get this as granular, as specific as possible, so that I could turn it over to a young private or a young sergeant that was going to come upon this WMD site and do something with that," Marks later tells Congressional Quarterly. As for Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials, their attention was not turned to WMD. "They ostensibly cared, but their give-a-shit level was really low."
Tyler Drumheller, the head of CIA spying in Europe, calls an official in German intelligence seeking access to Curveball. They meet for lunch. According to Drumheller, the German officer tells him that Curveball had suffered a mental breakdown. "They won't let you see him; there are a lot of problems. Principally, we think he's probably a fabricator."
Some 30 Americans are sent as CIA moles to Iraq, reports James Risen in his 2006 book State of War. They all have relatives in Iraq who are close to Iraq's weapons program, and are supposed to come back with information on WMD. All report that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs have been abandoned, and that the nuclear program hasn't been active for years. This intelligence is buried in the CIA, which suspects the moles were duped. No one informs President Bush, and one month later the intelligence community will release an intelligence estimate saying firmly that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program."
September 3, 2002
President Bush summons congressional leadership to the White House to make the case for war in Iraq. The next day a larger body of lawmakers is taken to the Pentagon to discuss Iraqi policy with Cheney, Rumsfeld, and CIA director Tenet.
September 5, 2002
Sen. Bob Graham hosts Tenet in a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee. Graham later writes, "CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared." Graham asks for one to be presented to Congress. It will go on to be one of the most controversial documents in the Iraq War period.
September 6, 2002
"From a marketing point of view you don't introduce new products in August." White House Chief of Staff Andy Card on selling the Iraq war to the American public.
September 7, 2002
In a news conference with Tony Blair, President Bush claims that an IAEA report says Iraq is six months from developing a nuclear weapon. Because there is no new report from the IAEA saying this, most news agencies interpret the President to be referring to a 1998 report. When the IAEA objects and says that none of their 1998 reports argue anything of the kind, Scott McClellan tries to clear up the confusion. "He's referring to 1991 there. In '91, there was a report saying that after the war they found out they were about six months away." There are no IAEA reports from 1991 saying this.
September 8, 2002
Judith Miller and Michael Gordon write on the front page of the New York Times, "Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the aluminum tubes had persuaded American intelligence experts that they were meant for Iraq's nuclear program." This is factually incorrect, as the administration knew at the time.
Later the same day, the administration goes on the offensive, pushing the aluminum-tubes-as-nuclear-threat story in multiple TV appearances. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice appears on CNN, saying the aluminum tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs. We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
On Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney says that Saddam Hussein "is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium, specifically aluminum tubes. There's a story in the New York Times this morning. We do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs to build a nuclear weapon."
The New York Times later writes that "almost a year before, Ms. Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons.... The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets."
Vice President Cheney also says on Meet the Press: "Mohamed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center."
Tim Russert: "What does the CIA say about that?"
Vice President Cheney: "It's credible."
The CIA in fact deemed this not credible a few days after Cheney first mentioned it.
September 10, 2002
The attorney general elevates the terror alert to orange, or "high risk," citing terrorist "chatter" about an attack on the anniversary of 9/11.
September 11, 2002
A member of the "Lackawanna Six" is arrested while traveling in Bahrain, in part because he uses the term "wedding," often code for a terrorist attack, in emails. The FBI knows that the man is in fact in Bahrain to get married, but Bush and Cheney, who are being briefed daily on the "Lackawanna Six," order his arrest.
The man admits during interrogation that he met bin Laden in a terrorist training camp, and that he did so with other men from the Lackawanna area. They are all arrested soon after by the FBI.
FBI counterterrorism chief Dale Watson will later tell the New York Times that the FBI was "99 percent sure" that the "Lackawanna Six" couldn't execute a terrorist act as the FBI watched them and waited for more evidence of their terrorist involvement. That percentage was not good enough for the White House. "The FBI had just received a primer on the Cheney Doctrine," writes Ron Suskind in The One Percent Doctrine.
September 12, 2002
The White House issues a report on Iraq intelligence entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance." It cites information from Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, the Judith Miller source who failed a CIA polygraph test. The information remains on the White House website to this day. When al-Haideri is taken back to Iraq to identify sites with biological weapons, he is unable to locate a single site.
Bush tells the UN General Assembly that Iraq is a "grave and gathering danger," and that "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year."
Cheney also says, "We will work with the UN Security Council for the necessary resolutions." But author Ron Suskind will later write that it was clear "to anyone in the innermost circle around the President [that UN resolutions] would be a faithless exercise; an exercise for show."
September 14, 2002
Dick Cheney tells Rush Limbaugh, "What's happening, of course, is we're getting additional information that, in fact, [Saddam] is reconstituting his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs and that's what really precipitates the concern now."
A deputy attorney general announces the capture of the "Lackawanna Six": "federal authorities have arrested five United States citizens who reside near Buffalo, New York on charges of providing material support to al Qaeda." He mentions that they have been to an al Qaeda training camp, noting that it was the same one that John Walker Lindh visited.
September 15, 2002
White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay estimates the high limit on the cost of the Iraq War to be 1-2 percent of GNP, or about $100-$200 billion. Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, will later discount this, estimating the cost at $50-$60 billion.
September 16, 2002
Iraq agrees to let UN weapons inspectors return the country "without conditions." The Bush Administration dismisses the offer, one official saying, "If [Saddam] thinks this is about letting inspectors in, or playing the same old game of give a little when under pressure, he is about to learn differently."
Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly tells reporters, "The President hasn't made a decision with respect to Iraq."
September 18, 2002
Bush calls Saddam 's offer to let inspectors back in "his latest ploy."
Donald Rumsfeld tells Congress, "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam Hussein is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain; we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
September 19, 2002
Colin Powell tells Congress, "The President has not decided on a military option. Nobody wants war as a first resort."
Donald Rumsfeld tells Congress: "[Saddam has] amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons, including Anthrax, botulism, toxins, and possibly Smallpox. He's amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, Sarin and mustard gas. His regime has an active program to acquire nuclear weapons."
A memo from John Scarlett, chairman of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), to Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's director of communications and strategy, explains that the discussion of aluminum tubes must be toned down in public documents because "there is no definitive intelligence that [they are] destined for a nuclear programme."
September 20, 2002
President Bush, in a reversal, announces his support for the creation of an independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks.
Vice President Cheney says: "We now have irrefutable evidence that [Saddam] has once again set up and reconstituted his program to take uranium, to enrich it to sufficiently high grade, so that it will function as the base material as a nuclear weapon. And there's no doubt about the fact that the level of effort has escalated in recent months."
September 24, 2002
Downing Street publishes a 55-page dossier on Iraq's weapons capabilities. It states without qualification that Iraq can launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes. It also says Saddam has sought to acquire "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa.
September 25, 2002
President Bush tells journalists, "You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."
September 26, 2002
President Bush says in a Rose Garden speech, "the Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons." A Defense Intelligence Agency report distributed in the White House around the time of the speech says there is "no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons or whether Iraq has or will establish its chemical agent production facilities."
In a speech in Houston later that same day, President Bush discusses the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying: "After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad."
September 27, 2002
Donald Rumsfeld calls the link between Iraq and al Qaeda "accurate and not debatable."
September 28, 2002
Bush addresses the nation: "The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year."
October 1, 2002
At the request of Congress, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is produced. It is supposed to represent the best the intelligence community can offer, and contains the claims that will eventually be justifications for war. Many turn out to be completely wrong. The NIE does include dissents, mostly from the State Department's intelligence bureau, INR. They are largely ignored by policymakers.
In advance of the NIE's release, the Vice President and his Chief of Staff make several unprecedented visits to the CIA, which many say had the effect of distorting the intelligence assessment process. One former CIA officer tells PBS, "I was at the CIA for 24 years. The only time a Vice President came to the CIA building was for a ceremony, to cut a ribbon, to stand on the stage. But not to harangue analysts about finished intelligence."
One of the primary authors of the NIE will later say of its creation, "This wasn't an inquiry into how can Iraq threaten the United States; it wasn't an inquiry into what are Al Qaeda sources of support. It instead was basically research in support of a specific line of argument. I regret having had a role in it."
Copies of the NIE are kept in vaults on Capitol Hill protected by armed guards, and are available only to lawmakers who show up in person and without staff. No more than six senators and a handful of congressmen read past the executive summary.
After meeting with members of Congress, President Bush tells reporters: "Of course, I haven't made up my mind we're going to war with Iraq. I've made up my mind we need to disarm the man."
October 2, 2002
In a Rose Garden speech, President Bush says, "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
"If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong," CIA counsel Jonathan Fredman tells U.S. officials at Guantanamo asking how far they can go in extracting information from detainees.
October 4, 2002
Jonathan Landay of Knight Ridder reports that intelligence officials and weapons experts are having doubts about the way the Bush Administration handles dissent on intelligence. LexisNexis records only one newspaper as having run the article: The Bradenton Herald, of Bradenton, Florida.
It reads, in part: "Several senior administration and intelligence officials, all of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity, charged that the decision to publicize one analysis of the aluminum tubes and ignore the contrary one is typical of the way the administration has been handling intelligence about Iraq.
"The White House and the Pentagon, these officials said, are pressuring intelligence analysts to highlight information that supports Bush's Iraq policy and suppress information and analysis that might undercut congressional, public or international support for war."
October 5, 2002:
George Tenet reads a draft of a speech George Bush is set to deliver in Cincinnati on October 7. It includes the claim that Saddam has "been caught attempting to purchase" uranium in Niger. The CIA tells Stephen Hadley and others at the White House that the statement is incorrect. Specifically, they say: "[R]emove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from the source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory."
October 6, 2002
Seeing that the Niger uranium claim, despite CIA objections, has not been taken out of the draft of George Bush's upcoming Cincinnati speech, George Tenet calls Stephen Hadley and expresses concern.
As a follow-up, the CIA sends a memo to the White House, specifically to Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, saying: "Why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British."
Convinced, the White House takes the claim out of the Cincinnati speech. It will, however, be included in the President's next State of the Union address.
October 8, 2002
Knight Ridder reporters Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott write:
"A growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in [Bush's] own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.
"These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses -- including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network -- have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East.
"They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary."
October 9, 2002
In response to Bush's October 7 speech in which the President made his case for war against Iraq, anonymous officials tell the Guardian that Bush "relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence" and that analysts are being pressured into finding intelligence that supports the administration's policy. "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," says the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence.
October 10, 2002
Press Secretary Ari Fleischer mentions a "coalition of the willing" regarding possible military action in Iraq. The phrase, used occasionally in the past to refer to other conflicts, will become a standard as war in Iraq approaches.
October 11, 2002
The Senate and House both vote overwhelmingly to give Bush authorization to go to war. The bill reads: "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq." Authorization is not tied to any UN resolutions. All serious Democratic candidates for President vote yes.
October 15, 2002
Saddam Hussein empties Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were systematically tortured for decades. After invasion it is looted and vandalized.
October 16, 2002
President Bush tells the public, "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary."
October 21, 2002
Six suspected Al Qaeda members living in Lackawanna, NY, are indicted.
Saddam Hussein empties his prisons.
October 23, 2002
Roughly one year after Rumsfeld and some of his senior advisers set up their own Iraq intelligence shop, Pentagon officials acknowledge its existence in the press.
October 29, 2002
Congress passes the Help America Vote Act in response to the controversy over the 2000 Presidential elections. Instead of addressing the issue of voter suppression and intimidation, the act concentrates in large part on replacing punch-card ballots with electronic voting machines. The act requires that all voting systems be auditable and produce a permanent paper record with a manual audit capacity available as an official record for any recount conducted; many of the machines sold to states for elections do not.
November 1, 2002
High-level CIA operatives stationed in the Middle East gather in London for a secret meeting. They are told war is inevitable, and just a few months away, according to James Risen's book, State of War.
Naji Sabri, Iraq's foreign minister, makes a deal to reveal Iraqi state secrets, according to the later account of Tyler Drumheller, former CIA chief in Europe. The White House is excited to have a high-level spy in the Iraqi government until Sabri tells them Saddam has no weapons of mass destruction. "The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they're no longer interested," Drumheller later tells CBS. Secretary of State Rice says Sabri was just "a single source among multiple sources," and therefore that his information could not be regarded as definitive. But, as Drumheller would point out, "They certainly took information that came from single sources on uranium, on the yellowcake story, and on several other stories."
An inexperienced CIA case officer, working at the CIA's largest "black site" in Afghanistan, allegedly orders that an uncooperative young detainee be stripped naked and chained to a concrete floor. The detainee is left overnight without blankets and freezes to death. The CIA officer is later promoted.
November 2, 2002
"We know he's got chemical weapons," President Bush tells a crowd in Tampa, Florida.
November 5, 2002
Election Day. Republicans gain control of the Senate.
In Florida, Broward County officials admit that software glitches caused a failure to report 100,000 votes from turnout figures, but claim it did not affect actual votes in races.
November 7, 2002
"War is not my first choice, it's my last choice," President Bush tells reporters.
November 8, 2002
The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1441, which the Bush Administration eventually uses as legal justification for military action in Iraq. The original draft of the resolution had to be reworked because it too clearly tipped the Bush Administration's intention to get Saddam to balk and thus justify war. Hans Blix, the head of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq, said of the first draft, "It was so remote from reality...[it] was written by someone who didn't understand how [inspections] function." (Vanity Fair, May 2004) The second draft, which passes, calls for Iraq to disarm or face "serious consequences."
November 14, 2002
"Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that. It won't be a World War III." Donald Rumsfeld, predicting the length of the war in Iraq, on a call-in radio program.
November 25, 2002
November 27, 2002
Donald Rumsfeld receives a memo requesting that he sign off on "Category III" interrogation techniques for use on prisoners. He does so. It is later shown that Category III interrogation techniques are consistent with torture as defined in U.S. federal law, something the DOD knew at the time of the memo
Weapons inspections resume in Iraq, headed by Hans Blix.
December 2002
Bush appoints Michael Brown, a political crony with no disaster-management experience, as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Boston Herald later confirms that Brown had been fired from his previous job, as manager of the International Arab Horse Association, over a series of lawsuits arising from his performance failures.
December 2, 2002
DOD memo approves interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, including dogs and nudity. Rumsfeld adds a handwritten note that says, "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours? D.R."
December 6, 2002
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, speaking at a 100th birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond, says: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
Thurmond ran for President in 1948 on a platform of strictly segregating the black and white races.
Paul O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsay are forced off President's Bush economic team. Many suspect that Lindsay's public estimate for the cost of the war ($100-200 billion, as against the administration's official estimate of $50-60 million) plays a role.
December 7, 2002
Iraq submits a 12,200-page declaration to the UN purporting to document all its unconventional arms.
December 13, 2002
President Bush on Thursday sharply rebukes incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott for comments that some have called racist, saying any suggestion that segregation was acceptable is "offensive and it is wrong."
December 19, 2002
The US discounts the Iraqi weapons declaration because it fails to account for various weapons that a UN inspection team said it "could have produced," and because it does not mention the tubes purchased for a uranium centrifuge or the attempts to procure uranium from Niger.
Secretary of State Colin Powell declares, "The Iraqi regime is required by Resolution 1441 to report those attempts. Iraq, however, has failed to provide adequate information about the procurement and use of these tubes. Most brazenly of all, the Iraqi declaration denies the existence of any prohibited weapons programs at all." The State Department issues a fact sheet saying that "The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger."
December 20, 2002
Wounded by the political firestorm over his comments criticized by many as racially divisive, Sen. Trent Lott announces he is stepping down as Republican leader in the Senate. Lotts been under increasing pressure to step aside because of the furor, which Republicans fear will distract from their congressional agenda and undermine efforts to reach out to minority voters.
December 21, 2002
The CIA's leadership goes to the White House to present the evidence for WMD in Iraq. Bush is underwhelmed, telling Tenet, "Nice try, but that isn't gonna sell Joe Public. This is the best we've got?" Tenet responds, "It's a slam dunk case!"
December 26, 2002
A Washington Post article by Dana Priest and Barton Gellman exposes the abuse of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, detailing a "brass-knuckled quest for information" that includes "stress and duress techniques." "Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment," the Post reports, say that "captives are often 'softened up' by MPs and U.S. Army Special forces troops who beat them up and then confine them in tiny rooms." The paper also reports the practice of "extraordinary renditions"—shipping prisoners to countries where they can be tortured more freely. One official who was "directly involved" explained: "We don't kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them."
December 30, 2002
Director of the OMB Mitch Daniels tells the New York Times that the estimate for the cost of the war is $50-60 billion, not $100-200 billion, as Lawrence Lindsay had earlier said.
December 31, 2002
President Bush tells a reporter, "You said we're headed to war in Iraq. I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war in Iraq. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you."
January 1, 2003
Two reports from the National Intelligence Council warn Bush that an Iraq invasion could spark sectarian violence and an anti-US insurgency. One says an occupation could "increase popular sympathy for terrorist objectives." They also express skepticism about the Niger uranium story.
The former head of Bush's office of faith-based initiatives, John DiIulio, tells Esquire, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything--and I mean everything--being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
The CIA finally balks at being assigned over and over to confirm what it viewed as phony intelligence, according to a later report in The Washington Post. In an angry dispute, CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin tells Cheney's aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, "I'm not going back to the well on this. We've done our work."
January 3, 2003
January 9, 2003
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (and, two years later, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient), contradicts President Bush on the aluminum tubes intelligence
Hans Blix appears before the UN on the same day as ElBaradei to comment on the Iraqi weapons declaration and to present an update on inspections. He reports that inspectors have found no "smoking guns" in Iraq after two months' work, and that they have not encountered any impediments from the Iraqis. He does say the Iraqi declaration was incomplete, and calls on the Iraqis to show more evidence of disarmament.
January 10, 2003
The Department of Homeland Security advises Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape to protect themselves against radiological or biological attack.
January 11, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld shows Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar the administration's war plans for Iraq and says, "You can count on this. This is going to happen." Two days later, Bush tells Colin Powell he has decided to go to war.
January 13, 2003
A State Department intelligence analyst working on Iraq's nuclear program sends an email to several members of the intelligence community arguing that "the uranium purchase agreement was probably a hoax."
January 20, 2003
President Bush signs National Security Presidential Directive No. 24, assigning to the Pentagon control over post-war Iraq. According to George Packer's book The Assassin's Gate, the State Department's "Future of Iraq" project has been making plans for Iraq's reconstruction for almost a year; the Defense Department will use little of State's work and will shut its officials out from crucial posts. With the directive, the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), is created. Subsumed by the Coalition Provisional Authority six months later, it will be the first post-war authority in Iraq.
January 23, 2003
In a vote termed "an unusual triumph of privacy concerns," the Senate temporarily halts the activities of the Information Awareness Office, home of Total Information Awareness. Around this time, the logo for the program, which depicts an eye atop a pyramid surveying the globe, is removed from its website. The Defense Department issues an explanation.
January 24, 2003
The IAEA tells the Washington Post that the aluminum tubes often cited as evidence of Saddam's nuclear ambitions are perfect fits for 81mm rockets used in many rocket launchers. One actually bears the imprint "Rocket." Says one official, "It may be technically possible that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium, but you'd have to believe that Iraq deliberately ordered the wrong stock and intended to spend a great deal of time and money reworking each piece."
January 27, 2003
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei tells the UN Security Council that inspections have turned up no evidence of nuclear weapons programs in Iraq. "[I]t appears that the aluminum tubes would be consistent with the purpose stated by Iraq and, unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing centrifuges."
The UN issues a press release regarding Iraq's response to Resolution 1441. "It would appear that Iraq had decided in principle to provide cooperation on substance in order to complete the disarmament task through inspection." The press release reports that UN weapons inspectors, after 60 days on the job, have inspected 106 locations and found "no evidence that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons programme."
January 28, 2003
In his State of the Union address, Bush says: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Various intelligence agencies know this to be false. The CIA made sure the claim was removed from an October 2002 speech Bush gave in Cincinnati.Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson later writes in the New York Times that he had already debunked this claim to administration officials.
(As a former journalist, I notice what Bush didn't say: He didn't actually say that Hussein sought uranium from Africa. He says that the British government had learned of it. In the news business, we learned to attribute any information to a source whenever possiblt. That way, you aren't responsible for the truth of the statement; the source you quote is.)
Bush's speech contains other highly questionable claims: "[Saddam] has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." "From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq has mobile biological weapons labs" designed to produce "germ warfare agents." Saddam builds and keeps "weapons of mass destruction."
"We will consult," Bush says. "But let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.
"This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost and we dread the days of mourning that always come. We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail."
In his address, Bush also advocates "clean, hydrogen-powered vehicles." However, practical hydrogen fuel-cell technology is an estimated thirty years from providing vehicles that would pose any threat to the oil industry. Meanwhile, as shown in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?, electric-powered cars were being driven in a successful pilot program in California; failure by the Bush administration to push electric-vehicle technology instead is cited in the film as one reason the electric car manufacturers were allowed to quietly recall and destroy all the test vehicles.
Bush also proposes to make his income tax cuts permanent. While he says these cuts are "for everyone who pays income taxes," they disproportionately benefit the richest 1% of Amwericans. These latter would also benefit mightily from his other tax proposal: to end the taxation of stock dividends.
Bush says, "I will send you a budget that increases discretionary spending by 4 percent next year--about as much as the average family's income is expected to grow. And that is a good benchmark for us. Federal spending should not rise any faster than the paychecks of American families." (Actually, under Bush and the Republican-led Congress, federal spending [and deficits] will grow at an unprecedented rate, especially once the Iraq war is under way.)
After praising Americans' acts of charity and volunteerism, Bush asks Congress to pass his faith-based initiative, which will funnel Americans' tax dollars to churches and religious organizations.
Bush's speech includes a six-paragraph section on AIDS, which asks for an additional $10 billion in U.S. aid to fight the disease in Africa and the Caribbean, with an emphasis on retroviral drugs. Condoms are never mentioned.
January 29, 2003
In a report entitled "Iraqi Support for Terrorism," the CIA revisits the claim that Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. "Some information asserts that Atta met with IIS chief al-Ani, but the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility.... A CIA and FBI review of intelligence and open-source reporting leads us to question the information."
A day after the President's State of the Union address, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld backs him up. "[Saddam's] regime has the design for a nuclear weapon; it was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The regime plays host to terrorists, including al Qaeda."
United State ambassador to the UN John Negroponte, asked about IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei's skepticism that the aluminum tubes bound for Iraq were to be used in a centrifuge, responds, "If your question to me is, 'Are we convinced that those tubes were designed and are being, were intended, for enrichment of uranium?' The answer is definitively yes."
January 30, 2003
The White House announces the launch of Operation TIPS, a program to enlist "millions of American transportation workers, truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, and utility employees in the effort to prevent terrorism and crime."
January 31, 2003
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush meet in the Oval office to discuss the impending invasion of Iraq. A memo of the private meeting written by two senior British officials later reveals that Bush and Blair were aware that no WMDs had been found and that it was possible that they never would be, but Bush, determined to invade, spent the meeting discussing ways in which the two could justify the invasion.
According to the memo, President Bush tells British PM Tony Blair he plans to invade Iraq even if UN inspectors find no evidence of banned Iraqi weapons programs. He also says he will not need a second UN resolution condemning Iraq. Blair gives assurances that he's "solidly with the president."
The memo has Bush telling Blair the US is casting around for a stronger pretext to invade and that it once considered "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]." Bush adds that he thinks it "unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between [Iraq's] different religious and ethnic groups" after the attack.
During a news conference following their meeting, Bush tells the press that "Saddam is not disarming; this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months."
February 1, 2003:
Officials in the Bush Administration come together to prepare for Secretary of State Powell's February 5 speech to the UN, in which Powell will put all credible US evidence on the table and make the case for war to the international community. Powell reads an early draft based on work down by Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and, finding the material poorly sourced and misleading, throws several pages in the air and exclaims, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit." The preparations will go on for four days and three nights. Intense scrutiny will be applied to assertions made routinely by Cheney and others, in hopes that Powell will commit himself to only the very best of American intelligence. One 38-page list of allegations against Iraq is whittled down to six pages by Powell and his team.
February 4, 2003
CIA agent Tyler Drumheller makes a personal appeal by phone to George Tenet for Curveball's intelligence to be deleted from Colin Powell's February 5 speech to the UN. However, attendees at preparatory meetings with Powell say no one from CIA ever mentioned Drumheller or the name Curveball. Powell himself will comment later that Tenet assured him the reporting was solid. Says Powell, "What really made me not pleased was they had put out a burn notice on this guy, and people who were even present at my briefings knew it."
The only American intelligence official to ever actually meet Curveball reads a portion of Powell's upcoming UN speech in order to vet statements about mobile weapons labs. Afterwards, the official writes to his superior at the CIA:"I believe I am still the only United States Government (USG) person to have had direct access to him. There are a few issues associated with that contact that warrant further explanation, in my opinion, before using him as the backbone for the Iraqi mobile program. I do have a concern with the validity of the information based on CURVE BALL were having major handling issues with him and were attempting to determine, if in fact, CURVE BALL was who he said he was. These issues, in my opinion, warrant further inquiry, before we use the information as the backbone of one of our major findings of the existence of a continuing Iraqi BW program!" His superior responds, "As I said last night, let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say, and that the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about."
February 5, 2003
Colin Powell addresses the UN in an attempt to sway world opinion in favor of war in Iraq. Powell makes a series of inaccurate statements that will badly tarnish his reputation.Powell says, "I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida." This is al-Libi, who provided information under torture and will recant everything. Powell highlights Curveball's "eyewitness" account when he warns that Iraq's mobile labs can brew enough weapons-grade microbes "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people." Curveball has been doubted for some time by intelligence agencies at home and abroad. In fact, the senior German intelligence officer who supervised Curveball's case later tells the Los Angeles Times that when his colleagues hear Powell cite Curveball, "We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven." Powell also says that Saddam's son Qusay has ordered WMD removed from palace complexes; that key WMD files are being driven around Iraq by intelligence agents; that bioweapons warheads have been distributed to the Iraqi military; that a water truck at an Iraqi military installation is a "decontamination vehicle" for chemical weapons; that Iraq has drones it can use for bioweapons attacks; and that WMD experts have been corralled into one of Saddam's guest houses. Every one of those claims has been flagged by an congressional intelligence assessment of the speech as "WEAK."
February 6, 2003
Bush follows Powell's presentation with a national address reiterating the administration's standard claims: Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, possesses "at least seven mobile factories" for germ warfare, and harbors terrorist networks. Bush adds that Iraq has developed spray devices for chemical and biological weapons that could be attached to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). "A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland." The U.S. government agency most knowledgeable about UAVs, the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center, wrote months earlier in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that "U.S. Air Force does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents. The small size of Iraq's new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of reconnaissance." A senior analyst with the Air Force will express shock months later, saying, "We were pretty sure this thing was dead."
February 7, 2003
Three State Department bureau chiefs prepare a secret memo for their superior and cite "serious planning gaps for post-conflict public security and humanitarian assistance." They write that "a failure to address short-term public security and humanitarian assistance concerns could result in serious human rights abuses which would undermine an otherwise successful military campaign, and our reputation internationally." They advocate that the State Department stand strong against the Pentagon, which is ignoring the State Department's work in preparation for post-invasion Iraq.
Ashcroft, Ridge, and Mueller raise the terror alert level to orange. Ashcroft says, "Recent intelligence reports suggest that Al Qaeda leaders have emphasized planning for attacks on apartment buildings, hotels, and other soft or lightly secured targets in the United States."
Donald Rumsfeld ballparks the length of the coming war at a "town hall" meeting, on an Air Force base. "It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
February 8, 2003
The Los Angeles Times reports in 2005: "Three days after Powell's speech, the U.N.'s Team Bravo conducted the first search of Curveball's former work site. The raid by the American-led biological weapons experts lasted 3 & 1/2 hours. It was long enough to prove Curveball had lied."
February 14, 2003
Hans Blix appears before the UN Security Council and says his inspectors have enjoyed uninhibited access to 300 sites over a period of 11 weeks. Everything is in accordance with the Iraqi weapons declaration, and no weapons of mass destruction have been found. He singles out Colin Powell's assertion to the UN that trucks found in Iraq are mobile weapons labs, saying that the trucks, photographed weeks apart, could have easily been engaged in "routine activity."
February 15, 2003
Anti-war protesters mob cities worldwide. A crowd at the United Nations is estimated by police at 100,000.
February 20, 2003
In an interview with PBS's NewsHour, Donald Rumsfeld has the following exchange with Jim Lehrer.
Q: Do you expect the invasion, if it com
es, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?
A: There is no question but that [the troops] would be welcomed. Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda would not let them do.
He will later deny saying that America would be welcomed--"Never said that. Never did. You may remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. I may look like somebody else."--even though a transcript of the interview is still on the Department of Defense web site.
February 21, 2003
Retired Army Lt. General Jay Garner, who has been tapped to head the body in charge of Iraq reconstruction efforts, initially known as the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), brings relevant parties together for a "rock drill" to hash out unanswered questions about post-invasion Iraq. Garner had previously spearheaded humanitarian efforts in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, but at the time of his appointment was president of defense contractor SYColeman, which designs missile communications and targeting systems. A weekend of diagrams and presentations reveals serious holes in the war plan, two of the most important being that there is no plan for policing or any thoughts on the makeup of an I raqi government. Garner's second-in-command notes the plans he witnessed were "overly optimistic" and lacked "reality." A report about the "rock drill" forecasts much of what goes awry in Iraq.
February 23, 2003
Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, in a short article for the American Enterprise Institute, writes the "terrified and brutalized people of Iraq will rejoice at the downfall of Saddam Hussein." He adds, "U.N. weapons inspectors are being seriously deceived. It reminds me of the way the Nazis hoodwinked Red Cross officials."
February 25, 2003
Rumsfeld demands that two of Jay Garner's most qualified team members be let go. One is Tom Warrick, who has led the State Department's work on regime change issues and has attended a conference of Iraqi opposition leaders, many of whom are opposed to Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraq National Congress taking control.
General Eric Shinseki tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Defense Department's estimate of troops needed for occupying Iraq is too low and says "several hundred thousand soldiers" will be needed. (FDCH Political Transcript, 02/25/03)
February 27, 2003
Paul Wolfowitz, appearing before Congress responds that Shinseki's estimate of hundreds of thousands of troops is "wildly off the mark." Says Wolfowitz, "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his Army. Hard to imagine."
Rumsfeld names Shinseki's successor one year before the end of Shinseki's term, making him a lame duck and an example to the rest of the military. Three months after Shinseki's comments, former Army secretary Thomas White will admit that he was right.
OHRA chief Gen. Jay Garner prepares a document for Rumsfeld decrying the fact that his team has only $27 million to rebuild Iraq. Garner forecasts the cost of reconstruction to be upwards of $12 billion. Shortly before Garner deploys to the Middle East, Rumsfeld tells him, "If you think we're spending our money on that, you're wrong. We're not doing that. They're going to spend their money rebuilding their country." (By fall 2006, the US is spending $2 billion a week in Iraq.)
Diplomat John Brady Kiesling resigns his post at the US embassy in Greece with a scathing letter to Colin Powell. "Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. We have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far."
February 28, 2003
Gen. Jay Garner goes to the White House to meet President Bush for the first time. Garner tells the assembled parties that four of the nine tasks his small team at the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) are supposed to be in charge of are plainly beyond their capabilities, including dismantling weapons of mass destruction, defeating terrorists, and reshaping the Iraqi military. He suggests that OHRA will need 200,000-300,000 Iraqi army troops for reconstruction.
March 1, 2003
Iraq destroys four missiles, meeting a U.N. deadline to begin disarming.
March 3, 2003
March 5, 2003
"I have no qualms about our strategic plan" for Iraq, Sen. John McCain tells the Hartford Courant.
March 7, 2003
Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, appears before the Security Council and says that searches have found "no evidence" of mobile biological production facilities in Iraq. He also says that the Iraqis are cooperating with the inspectors. The IAEA's ElBaradei also speaks and says, "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq." He says the Niger uranium documents are "not authentic."
March 8, 2003
President Bush tells the nation, "We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq."
Halliburton is awarded a $7 billion reconstruction contract over the objections of Army Corps of Engineers procurement officer Bunnatine Greenhouse. Testifying before Congress, she later calls the contract "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed." She is demoted in short order.
Joseph Wilson appears on CNN and is asked to comment on ElBaradei's appearance at the U.N. the day before, in which ElBaradei called the Niger uranium document forgeries. Wilson says it's an embarrassment that the U.S. intelligence community couldn't come to this conclusion on its own. "It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early '60s. All this stuff is open." He doubts that ElBaradei's announcement was the first time the U.S. had reason to think the documents were fakes. "I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday."
In Wilson's book, The Politics of Truth, he will claim that this appearance prompted the "workup" meeting between top Cheney aides that led to the decision to smear him and the disclosure of his wife's identity.
March 9, 2003
On CBS's Face the Nation, Condoleezza Rice says, "We know from a detainee that...the head of training for Al Qaeda...that they sought help in developing chemical and biological weapons because they weren't doing very well on their own. They sought it in Iraq. They received the help." Libi, the detainee in question, has been doubted by American intelligence since February 2002. All of his intel was obtained under torture, and in 2004 the CIA will recall all intelligence assessments based on his testimony.
March 10, 2003
Frank Miller, an official handpicked by Condoleezza Rice to handle postwar policy issues, briefs national security deputies and the President on postwar plans. Miller assures them that only the top one percent of Baath Party officials will be purged from the government and that deBathification will leave the Iraqi army largely intact. George Packer writes in The Assassin's Gate, "Everyone up to the president approved these eleventh-hour decisions. And yet, somehow, they would never matter in Iraq. They seemed to exist so that, in case anyone ever asked, someone would say, 'Yes, the president was briefed and he signed off.'" Miller adds that it is important that deBaathification doesn't cripple the Iraqi military because the army will be integral to the postwar plan. Coalition forces do not have the manpower to control Iraq nor do the troops understand the political situation in the country.
March 14, 2003
As it becomes increasingly clear that a U.N. resolution justifying the use of force will not pass (Bulgaria is the only country other than the original sponsors to publicly support it), President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar meet in the Portuguese Azores for an "emergency summit." At its conclusion, the three leaders restate their commitment to a March 17 deadline for the U.N. to authorize war. Bush says, "tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world."
March 16, 2003
Cheney appears on Meet the Press. He says, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." On the fact that the IAEA's ElBaradei doubts Saddam Hussein has a nuclear program: "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing."
After saying several times that Saddam is trying to build a nuclear weapons, Cheney says: "And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Six months later after the beginning of the war, Cheney will claim that he misspoke.
Three days before the bombing of Baghdad begins, 169 members of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance fly to Kuwait. Confusion abounds. No one has an org chart of the Iraqi ministries. USAID contractor Albert Cevallos is asked by Army civil affairs officers: "What's the plan for policing?" Cevallos replies: "I thought you knew the plan. Haven't you talked to ORHA?" "No," they reply, "no one talked to us."Anxious, several members of ORHA - precursor to the Coalition Provisional Authority - draw up a list of sixteen key sites around Baghdad that the military should protect after the fall of the city. The first and second are the central bank and the Iraqi Museum. The last is the Oil Ministry.
Many officials are there because of connections, not expertise. Head of ORHA's civil administration team is Michael Mobbs, a former law partner of Pentagon official and prominent neoconservative Douglas Feith; Mobbs has been appointed at Feith's insistence.
March 17, 2003
With little international support, the U.S., Britain, and Spain officially scrap the quest to obtain a new U.N. resolution on Iraq. Four and a half months have passed since U.N. Resolution 1441, and a new resolution would signal the world's belief that Iraq had failed the terms of that resolution and now faced the consequences. The "coalition of the willing" announces it will enforce the U.N. resolution without the U.N.'s approval.
Bush addresses the nation on the eve of war: "Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it." He gives Saddam and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face military action.
"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near. "
March 18, 2003
A Washington Post article runs, inside the paper on page A13, under the headline, "Bush Clings To Dubious Allegations About Iraq." It reads, in part: "As the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that have been challenged--and in some cases disproved--by the United Nations, European governments, and even US intelligence reports."
March 19, 2003
Operation Iraqi Freedom begins. Coalition forces start striking selected targets in Iraq. President Bush warns a "campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict," but "we will prevail."
March 21, 2003
Shane Childers is the first soldier killed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is shot when a pickup truck full of armed Iraqis, mistaken for a civilian vehicle, opens fire on an Iraqi oil station. Journalist Michael Gordon, in his book Cobra II, will describe the incident as a perfect illustration of American troops' poor preparation for the Iraq invasion. Instead of engaging armed divisions directly, they face un-uniformed forces, precursors to the Iraqi insurgents, who attack sporadically and frequently on supply lines away from the front lines.
"Shock and Awe" aerial attacks begin.
March 23, 2003
Private First Class Jessica Lynch is injured in an ambush. Iraqis take her to a hospital.
March 26, 2003
ORHA gives the U.S. military a list of 16 sites to secure when Baghdad falls. It is ignored.
March 27, 2003
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz tells Congress that Iraq's oil revenues "could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years... We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."
March 30, 2003
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld deflects criticism that he hasn't deployed enough troops. Of Iraq's purported WMD he says: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
March 31, 2003
NBC fires Peter Arnett for telling Iraqi TV that the Pentagon's war plan had failed. FOX agrees to send Geraldo Rivera home after the Pentagon accuses him of revealing the position of his embed unit on TV.
April 1, 2003
The Red Cross warns the Coalition that its troops are abusing prisoners.
A few weeks after the start of the war, top Libyan officials contact the United States to make overtures about disarmament. Negotiations between Libya and the U.S. have been ongoing for nearly a decade and Libya expressed an interest in getting rid of its weapons programs years earlier, but was told at the time to first complete the payment of reparations to families of the victims of the Lockerbie plane bombing, a Libyan-sponsored terror attack. The fact that the timing of Libya's disarmament coincides with the Iraq War is coincidental, but is later presented to the public as a direct consequence of the U.S. invasion.
April 2, 2003
Within hours of recovering Pfc. Jessica Lynch with much fanfare from a hospital it knew to be unguarded, the Pentagon shows film of her "rescue" to reporters. In a typical story, the Washington Post reports Lynch "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds" and was mistreated by hospital staff. Lynch later says her gun jammed before she could fire, she was well treated by hospital staff, but felt used by the military and the media.
April 4, 2003
A Department of Defense report states that the Geneva Convention applies to detainees in Iraq.
April 6, 2003
The Pentagon flies Ahmad Chalabi and 700 followers to southern Iraq. Chalabi is quickly installed in Baghdad's ritzy Hunting Club. An aide warns Gen. Garner that Chalabi's men are acting like "a warlord group." Garner eventually holds a press conference and tells the media that he will not be handing power over to a bunch of exiles. Top DOD official Douglas Feith calls Garner into his office and says: "You don't understand. Chalabi is a great guy; he could be president of Iraq. Don't go and do that." Garner responds: "Look, Doug, either fire me or shut the fuck up." Feith and the Pentagon will do the former.
U.S. forces take Salman Pak military base, where Iraqis supposedly trained hijackers and kept WMDs. Troops turn up no evidence of either.
April 7, 2003
American GIs are photographed relaxing in captured palaces.
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, aka Baghdad Bob, declares: "The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad. Be assured, Baghdad is safe, protected. Iraqis are heroes." Baghdad Bob will become an internet celebrity.
April 8, 2003
U.S. forces fire on Al Jazeera's office in Baghdad, killing a journalist, Tareq Ayoub. In a different attack, U.S. forces fire a shell at the Palestine Hotel, well known for holding foreign journalists. Two are killed.
April 9, 2003
Coalition forces roll into Baghdad almost unopposed. Saddam's statue in Firdos Square is toppled. Media reports the act as a spontaneous celebration by "jubilant" Iraqis. Questions of whether the event was staged by U.S. troops begin the next day.
(In the documentary Control Room, an Al Jazeera journalist notes that the flag-hanging "celebration" hardly looks spontaneous. Indeed, video footage shows a dozen or so Iraqi men of much the same age marching across an otherwise deserted city center, ignored by the U.S. tanks guarding the square, and climbing the statue to hang U.S. and Iraqi flags which they conveniently had on hand. If this were a spontaneous celebration and not a staged event, where are all the women and children and old folks? Hiding from a battle still raging in the city, evidently.)
Looting soon runs rampant. U.S. forces protect only Baghdad airport and the Oil Ministry. Seventeen other ministries are destroyed, 14,000 artifacts are stolen from the Iraqi National Museum, and 341 tons of high explosives are stolen from the Al Qaqaa armory, which will soon be used against U.S. troops.
April 10, 2003
In a televised address, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair assures the Iraqi people, "Saddam gave us no choice [but] to act."
April 11, 2003
U.S. and Kurdish forces take the northern city of Mosul after Iraqi forces lay down their arms. With no security established, the city immediately descends into chaos, with widespread looting, arson and shootings. Rioters burst open the central bank, grabbing money by the fistful. Fights break out between looters fighting for stolen cash. "This is barbaric. This is not Saddam's money. This is the nation's and the people's money," says one Iraqi observer. Mosul University's library, with many rare manuscripts, is ravaged, despite appeals blared from local minarets to stop destroying the city. A market is set on fire. At local hospitals, ambulances and doctors' cars are stolen by force. "There is absolutely no security. The medical staff is scared for their safety. The city has fallen into anarchy," says one staff physician.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says of the widespread looting and rioting, "Think what's happened in our cities when we've had riots, and problems, and looting. Stuff happens! ... Freedom's untidy."
A later Coalition Provisional Authority estimate puts at $12 billion the cost of the looting that went uncontrolled as U.S. troops sat at the Baghdad airport. The New Yorker's George Packer later writes that the cost of the looting canceled out the "projected revenues of Iraq for the first year after the war. The gutted buildings, the lost equipment, the destroyed records, the damaged infrastructure, would continue to haunt almost every aspect of the reconstruction."
CNN reports that a "sense of lawlessness" pervades Baghdad, as "government offices, presidential palaces, homes of former ruling Baath Party officials and other sites, including hospitals" are ravaged. Sporadic small arms fire is heard in the city. Guns and munitions are available for the taking.
U.S. prints 55-card deck of "most wanted" members of Saddam's former regime in Iraq.
April 12, 2003
Foreign journalists become aware that the Iraqi National Museum has been ransacked, with thousands of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts and pieces of artwork missing or destroyed. Museum officials say they struggled in vain to get American troops to guard the building. Science magazine will write: "Scholars are calling last week's looting of Baghdad's Iraq Museum, the chief repository for all archaeological research in the country since 1933, the most severe single blow to cultural heritage in modern history." Some of the stolen pieces will eventually be found and returned.
$2.5 billion per year is allocated for Iraq's reconstruction. The military receives 32 times that.
Jessica Lynch leaves for the U.S.
April 14, 2003
Baghdad's National Library goes up in flames, taking centuries-old manuscripts with it.
April 15, 2003
Iraqi nuclear scientists begin making entreaties to the American military and intelligence agencies, offering to share what they know about Iraq's history with nuclear weapons programs. One even has blueprints and prototype parts buried in his yard. None of the scientists can get any traction; many begin to fear that if they indicate that they have knowledge of Iraq's weapons, they will be detained indefinitely and harshly interrogated. They begin to disperse across the Middle East. With no attention paid to them, some end up in Syria. Others cannot be located to this day. The lack of interest on the part of the American government baffles international observers and weapons experts.
Michael Brown, commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association until he was forced to resign amid scandal in 2001, takes over from Joe Allbaugh, former Bush-Cheney campaign chief, as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Brown's scant qualifications will come under fire as a result of the agency's mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
April 16, 2003
Criticism of Army contracting policy increases after it is revealed that eight contracts worth tens of millions of dollars have all been awarded without competitive bidding.
General Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, makes his first trip to Baghdad and informs his commanders that the vision of the administration is that all but one division of American forces will be removed from Iraq by September 2003. There are currently no troops in the Anbar province, the base of the growing Sunni insurgency. Condoleezza Rice tells Michael Gordon of the New York Times: "American forces are still in the Balkans. We're still stuck there. The people in those societies have become dependent on us and on NATO for everything. This is an unhealthy sort of a relationship. The purpose of the American military is not peacekeeping or stability operations. ... We don't want to be stuck in these places for years and years to come. This is not really our responsibility."
Bush signs a $79 billion wartime supplemental budget.
April 17, 2003
USAID awards Bechtel a $680 million limited-bid Iraq reconstruction contract. The few other companies allowed to bid include big-time political contributors like Halliburton, Fluor, and Parsons.
April 18, 2003
Tens of thousands of Iraqis protest the U.S. occupation.
April 19, 2003
A trailer is seized at a Kurdish checkpoint. Bush will later claim it's a mobile weapons lab.
April 23, 2003
April 24, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld tells the Associated Press: "How would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country? The answer is: That ain't gonna happen."
Jay Garner says: "I think you'll begin to see the governmental process start next week. It will have Iraqi faces on it. It will be governed by the Iraqis."
April 28, 2003
U.S. troops fire on demonstrators near Baghdad, killing 13 and wounding 75.
May 1, 2003
After landing in a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier, Bush stands on the deck in a flight suit under a banner reading "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" and announces "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended," adding: "We have removed an ally of Al-Qaeda."
The White House claimed that the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner was requested by the crew of the ship, who did not have the facilities for producing such a banner, and was intended to refer to the ship's own mission, not the Iraq war. Afterwards, the administration and naval sources stated that the banner was the Navy's idea, White House staff members made the banner, and it was hung by the U.S. Navy personnel. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told CNN "We took care of the production of it. We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up." According to John Dickerson of TIME magazine, the White House later conceded that they actually hung the banner but still insists it had been done at the request of the crew members. It is later revealed that the two words were in Bush's original speech for that day, but Rumsfeld took them out.
On the day of the speech, the White House says Bush needed to take a jet to the ship because the Lincoln was too far from shore for a helicopter landing. However, the White House later concedes that at the time of the president's visit, the ship was close enough that he could have used a helicopter, rather than making a dramatic "tailhook" landing on the carrier deck.
Warning of the unguarded Al Qaqaa weapons bunker, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, an internal IAEA memorandum cautions that terrorists might be helping ''themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history.'' In October 2004, it is revealed that nearly 380 tons of high explosives have gone missing. The Pentagon replies that with "thousands of tons" of munitions to safeguard around the country, they can only do so much. Though the most egregious example, Al Qaqaa is not an isolated case.
May 6, 2003
The handover of control of Iraq, from Gen. Jay Garner to Paul Bremer, is made public. Garner later says it was because he favored free elections and rejected forced privatization. "We as Americans like to put our template on things. And our template's good for us, but it's not good for everyone else." Garner's OHRA becomes the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). According to Paul Bremer's memoir of his time in Iraq, before leaving for Baghdad Bremer sends Donald Rumsfeld a copy of a RAND report estimating that 500,000 troops would be needed to keep the peace in postwar Iraq. It is a figure three times higher than the number of troops then deployed. "I think you should consider this," Mr. Bremer writes in a cover
George Bush touts the supposed bio-lab trailer found at a Kurdish checkpoint: "I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program. I will leave the details... to the experts."
May 9, 2003
Just over a week after Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech, Maj. General Paul D. Eaton is ordered to hurry to Baghdad where he is to command an organization to rebuild Iraq's military. He later says: "I would have expected this to have been done well before troops crossed the line of departure. That was my first reaction: 'We're a little late.'" Pentagon officials tell Eaton that rebuilding the army is their fifth priority, behind building up a civil defense corps, the police force, the border forces, and guards for government buildings, power plants, and oil lines. Decrying shoddy equipment and "a revolving door or individual loaned talent that would spend between two and six months," Eaton says he never received even half the 250 men he was promised: "We set out to man, train, and equip an army for a country of 25 million with six men."
Paul Wolfowitz tells Vanity Fair: "The truth is that, for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction."
May 11, 2003
U.N. reports Iraqi agriculture is on the brink of collapse, threatening Iraqis with starvation.
May 12, 2003
New reconstruction chief Paul Bremer arrives in Baghdad, marking the end of Gen. Jay Garner's term, which is widely seen as a failure. A defense official recalls: "Garner was a fall guy for a bad strategy. He was doing exactly what Rummy wanted him to do. It was the strategy that failed."
May 14, 2003
U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says that finding WMDs is "not crucially important."
May 15, 2003
The Pentagon's Jim O'Beirne, husband of National Review's Kate O'Beirne, begins vetting Coalition Provisional Authority hires with special attention to their GOP bona fides. Questions asked of job applicants include "Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000?" and "Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror?" At least two people are asked their position on Roe v. Wade. The staff person pegged to head up police and prison planning at the Ministry of Interior is a 25-year-old in his first year out of school. Thomas Hammes, counterinsurgency adviser to the CPA, asks him how big his team is. His response is that it's pretty small, "but we're really tight because we're frat brothers."
BBC describes the Jessica Lynch rescue as "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived," a commando raid orchestrated like a "Hollywood film." The Pentagon responds that BBC report is "void of all facts."An authorized biography of Lynch titled I Am a Soldier, Too and written by Rick Bragg later claims that Lynch was sexually assaulted by her Iraqi captors. It reads, "The records do not tell whether her captors assaulted her almost lifeless, broken body after she was lifted from the wreckage, or if they assaulted her and then broke her bones into splinters until she was almost dead." Iraqi hospital workers contest the suggestion of sexual assault. Lynch herself remembers no such thing.
May 16, 2003
Paul Bremer issues the first of two deBaathification orders, banning all former members of the Baath Party above a certain rank from holding any position in the new Iraqi government. A huge portion of Iraq's most capable civil servants will be locked out of the reconstruction process.
May 17, 2003
May 18, 2003
The U.S. Justice Department recommends 6,600 police advisers be sent to Iraq. The White House sends one man, former NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik, given the titles of Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq and Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Presidential Envoy to Iraq, L. Paul Bremer.
Kerik, who prepares for his job by watching A&E documentaries on Saddam Hussein, turns out to be an incompetent manager, holding only two staff meetings in his tenure, and leaves amidst failure saying, "I did my own thing."
In Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Kerik is said to be arrogant, incompetent, and undedicated in his position. Kerik is also criticized by George Packer in his book, Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq:
"Kerik spent his time in Baghdad going on raids with South African mercenaries while his house in New Jersey underwent renovation. He went home after just three months, leaving almost nothing behind."
Kerik, later nominated by Bush to act as head of Homeland Security, will eventually pay $200,000 in fines for gifts he accepted while a public official in New York, and ultimately be indicted on federal corruption charges.
May 19, 2003
The final member of the "Lackawanna Six" pleads guilty to supporting terrorism.
May 20, 2003
GOP insider Mike Battles arrives in Baghdad. His firm Custer Battles is soon awarded $100 million in contracts for, among other things, securing the airport for nonexistent flights. He and partner Scott Custer are later sued by ex-employees for defrauding the U.S. government, though the government itself never seeks a prosecution.
The U.S. government raises the nation's terror threat level to orange, saying that the intelligence community believes al Qaeda is entering an "operational period worldwide." Though they have no "credible, specific information" about targets or a method of attack, they warn that terrorists might strike within U.S. borders.
The Pentagon sends a report on Total Information Awareness to Congress in an attempt to reactivate its funding, an effort that involves changing its name to Terrorism Information Awareness.
May 22, 2003
Bush signs an economic stimulus package giving a $100,000 tax deduction to purchasers of gas-guzzling Humvees, allowing the well-to-do to essentially purchase one for free, while a $1,500 deduction for buying fuel-efficient hybrids is allowed to phase out.
Bush signs Executive Order No. 13303, granting immunity to oil companies in Iraq.
May 23, 2003
Bremer issues the second deBaathification order, which disbands the Iraqi army, the intelligence service, the Republican Guard, and the ministries of Defense and Information. Bremer's predecessor, Jay Garner, is stunned by the two orders and later says they created "400,000 new enemies." A few days later, Bremer meets with the Iraqi advisory group Garner had created
May 27, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld tells the Council on Foreign Relations, "As Thomas Jefferson put it, 'We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.' ...It took time and patience...before the Founders got it right, so too, it will take time...for the Iraqi people.... Because of the speed...and the execution of the war plan...the vast majority of those oil fields were not destroyed...the infrastructure of the country is largely intact, and the coalition took great care to protect the lives of innocent civilians as well as the important holy sites."
May 28, 2003
The CIA reports publicly that a seized Iraqi trailer is a bioweapons lab. The claim is based heavily on Iraqi defector Curveball's "assessment" of photos relayed to Germany. Only one of 15 intelligence analysts buys the conclusion. A few months later, a British WMD expert inspects the trailer and reports, "The equipment was singularly inappropriate.... You'd have better luck putting a couple of dustbins on the back of the truck and brewing it in there."
May 29, 2003
Andrew Gilligan sparks a cataclysmic row between the government and the BBC when he reports allegations that Downing Street had ordered an intelligence dossier on Iraq weapons of mass destruction to be "sexed up".
May 30, 2003
British Prime Minister Tony Blair denies that WMD intelligence was distorted or exaggerated.
Photos emerge of British soldiers torturing POWs. One shows a man gagged, bound, and dangling in a net from a forklift.
June 1, 2003
The CIA creates the Iraq Survey Group to conduct a methodical search for WMD in Iraq. Scientist David Kay is appointed to lead.
June 2, 2003
1,000 Iraqi soldiers protest the disbanding of the army outside CPA headquarters. Ministry of Defense members state that they will resort to suicide attacks if their complaints are left unaddressed. Days later, Bush and Bremer meet in Qatar. Bremer tells the President, "Our most urgent problem is unemployment."
Paul Bremer approves the Justice Department's plan for policing Iraq. Although DynCorp International, the private company slated to hire police advisers, rounds up 1,150 retired and active officers eager to serve, only 50 make it to Iraq in the following six months. Deeming the civilian effort a failure, the military takes over policing policy in Iraq in 2004. In defense of this situation, the White House and the Pentagon say that it would have been impossible to find thousands of qualified advisers willing to go to Iraq.
Rumsfeld brings Gen. Jay Garner, whom he has just fired, on a visit to the White House to meet with the president. Not once does Bush ask Garner about the state of Iraq, though the meeting lasted for almost an hour. But at the end of the meeting, Bush asks Garner "jokingly," "You want to do Iran for the next one?" To which Garner replies, "No, sir, me and the boys are holding out for Cuba."
June 4, 2003
Tony Blair rejects calls for an independent judicial inquiry into case for the Iraq war.
June 5, 2003
The Washington Post reports, "Former and current intelligence officials said they felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Cheney and Libby, but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Feith, and less so from CIA Director George J. Tenet, to find information or write reports in a way that would help the administration make the case that going into Iraq was urgent. 'They were the browbeaters,' said a former defense intelligence official who attended some of the meetings in which Wolfowitz and others pressed for a different approach to the assessments they were receiving. 'In interagency meetings,' he said, 'Wolfowitz treated the analysts' work with contempt.'"
U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix on suspected Iraqi WMD sites: "In none of these cases were there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must say. I thought, my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?"
June 6, 2003
Donald Rumsfeld tells the media, "In those regions where pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute, Gen. Franks and his team are rooting them out. In short, the coalition is making good progress."
June 9, 2003
In a retrospective of pre-war intelligence, Newsweek reports that the aluminum tube claims were doubted early on within the intelligence community: "At the CIA, Tenet seems to have latched on to the tubes as a kind of smoking gun. He brought one of the tubes to a closed Senate hearing that same month. But from the beginning, other intelligence experts in the government had their doubts. After canvassing experts at the nation's nuclear labs, the Department of Energy concluded that the tubes were the wrong specification to be used in a centrifuge, the equipment used to enrich uranium. The State Department's INR [intelligence arm] concluded that the tubes were meant to be used for a multiple-rocket-launching system. (And Saddam was not secretly buying them; the purchase order was posted on the Internet.) In two reports to Powell, INR concluded there was no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted a nuclear program at all. 'These were not weaselly worded,' said [Greg] Thielmann [formerly of the State Department]. 'They were as definitive as these things go.' These dissents were duly recorded in a classified intelligence estimate. But they were largely dropped from the declassified version made available to the public."
June 10, 2003
Hans Blix lashes out at the "bastards" in Washington who smeared him.
June 12, 2003
Bush Administration announces that it will propose changes to Roadless Rule to exempt Tongass and Chugach National Forests and grant waivers upon request of individual State governors.
June 13, 2003
Almost 100 Iraqis are killed in two bloody attacks. The Guardian reports on a survey indicating that 10,000 Iraqi civilians might have died in the war to date.
Mid-June 2003
An unnamed administration official,later revealed to be Colin Powell's deputy Richard Armitage, tells Bob Woodward that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, works for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction, making him, in all likelihood, the first leakee.
June 16, 2003
In a speech to small business owners in New Jersey, President Bush says: "Saddam Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003. He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted."
June 17, 2003
CIA analysts write to George Tenet and retract their Niger uranium reporting. "Since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad."
June 18, 2003
Former head of reconstruction in Iraq, Gen. Jay Garner tells Rumsfeld in a private meeting that the U.S. has made "three tragic decisions" and that disbanding the army was the worst of the three. Garner assures Rumsfeld that there is "still time to rectify" the situation. Rumsfeld responds, "I don't think there is anything we can do, because we are where we are." Garner meets with Bush later that day and says nothing of these tragic errors.
June 21, 2003
Bush addresses disquiet over U.S. troop deaths. One in three have been killed since end of "major combat operations." As many as 7,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since invasion began.
June 24, 2003
Bush calls for more oil and gas drilling on public lands.
June 26, 2003
Nearly a decade after Republicans launched a campaign to oust Democrats from top lobbying jobs in Washington, sometimes through intimidation and private threats, they are seizing a significant number of the most influential positions at trade associations and corporate government affairs offices -- and reaping big financial rewards, the Washington Post reports.
Partly because of the "K Street Project" -- and partly because of GOP control of Congress and the presidency -- virtually every major company or trade association looking for new top-level representation is hiring or seeking to hire a prominent Republican politician or staffer, according to Republicans and Democrats tracking the situation.
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) once held up a House vote on legislation to protest the decision of a trade association to hire a Democrat for a top position.
This year, General Electric, Comcast, Citigroup and many other Fortune 500 companies have hired Bush administration officials and former GOP congressional advisers for top lobbying posts. A Republican National Committee official recently told a group of GOP lobbyists that 33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans, according to someone who attended the meeting.
Late June, 2003
U.S. Army reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski is put in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade with jurisdiction over military prisons in Iraq. It is her first experience dealing with prisoners. Her command includes three large jails (including Abu Ghraib), eight battalions, and 3,400 army reservists. Most have no training in handling prisoners. Karpinski will come under fire for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and eventually lose her rank, but she will in turn become an outspokencritic of the U.S. military leadership in Iraq, accusing superiors of making her the scapegoat for the scandal.
July 1, 2003
The Washington Monthly reports on the K Street Project, and in particular on Sen. Rick Santorum's Tuesday project meetings: "Every week, the lobbyists present pass around a list of the jobs available and discuss whom to support. Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each one is filled by a loyal Republican--a senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated. After Santorum settles on a candidate, the lobbyists present make sure it is known whom the Republican leadership favors. 'The underlying theme was [to] place Republicans in key positions on K Street. Everybody taking part was a Republican and understood that that was the purpose of what we were doing,' says Rod Chandler, a retired congressman and lobbyist who has participated in the Santorum meetings. 'It's been a very successful effort.'"
July 2, 2003
Asked about the situation in Iraq, Bush tells a news conference: "There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on."
July 6, 2003
The New York Times publishes Joseph Wilson's "What I Didn't Find in Africa," in which the former diplomat recounts his mission to Niger, and how he reported to CIA and State Department officials early in 2002...nearly a year before Bush made the claim in his State of the Union address...how he found no truth to the rumors that Iraq had sought yellow-cake uranium from Niger. In fact, the U.S. Ambassador to Niger told him she had already debunked this rumor in her reports to Washington.
July 14, 2003
Columnist Robert Novak's "Mission to Niger" includes the passage:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counterproliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."
Novak seems unaware that Valerie Plame is a covert operative for the CIA. Revealing the identity of a covert agent is a federal offense.
July 15, 2003
President Bush says he had "darn good intelligence" on Iraq despite his disputed State of the Union claim that Baghdad sought to purchase uranium from Africa.
"The larger point is and the fundamental question is, 'Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program?' And the answer is, 'Absolutely,' " Bush tells reporters after a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
August 4, 2003
August 25, 2003
Abu Ghraib reopens as U.S.-run prison. Troops replace Saddam's portrait with slogan "America is a friend of all Iraqi people."
August 31, 2003
Angry with what he considers poor intelligence coming out of Iraq, Rumsfeld orders Guantanamo commander Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller to go to Iraq and "Gitmoize" detention and interrogation operations there.
September 2, 2003
Paul Bremer says, "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."
September 11, 2003
September 14, 2003
September 16, 2003
September 17, 2003
October 1, 2003
MPs from the 372nd Company arrive to guard prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Spc. Joseph Darby later tells GQ he "saw like fifteen prisoners sitting in their cells in women's underwear.... This stuff was going on before we arrived. After we took over, it basically just escalated."
The Atlantic cover story condones the Bush administration's interrogation program.
Insurgents launch Ramadan Offensive.
October 8, 2003
October 20, 2003
Spc. Sabrina Harman, an MP with the 372nd, writes her girlfriend, describing the brutalities of sleep deprivation, stress positions, and interrogation. "Not many people know this shit goes on," she says. "I don't know if I can take it mentally, what if that was me in their shoes. These people will be our future Terrorists."
October 24, 2003
MP Cpl. Charles Graner attaches leash to naked detainee and has his girlfriend, Pfc. Lynndie England, pose for photographs holding it. "I assumed it was okay, because he was an MP, he had the background as a corrections officer, he was older than me. I didn't question it," she later testifies.
November 3, 2003
November 4, 2003
November 5, 2003
Computer voting machines in Boone County, Indiana, somehow record 144,000 votes cast in a country where only 19,000 registered voters live. When corrected, it turned out a mere 5,352 ballots had actually been cast.
"Everyone here uses Ambien," gushes Secretary of State Colin Powell.
November 7, 2003
Abu Ghraib prisoners stacked into naked pyramid, made to masturbate and simulate fellatio. "A present for your birthday," Graner tells England, who is turning 21.
November 19, 2003
Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th MI Brigade, is designated commander of Abu Ghraib base, further blurring the lines of authority between Military Police and Military Intelligence.
November 20, 2003
On Gen. Miller's advice, dog teams arrive at Abu Ghraib.
December 4, 2003
MP, MI, and military legal personnel gather to discuss critical Red Cross report on Abu Ghraib.
Capt. Carolyn Wood leaves Abu Ghraib on emergency leave and never returns.
December 8, 2003
The Justice Department says it will investigate reports that Republican Congressional leaders attempted to bribe Republican Congressman Nick Smith of Missouri on the floor on Congress last month in order to win his vote to overhaul Medicare. Smith held out in supporting the Medicare until the last hour. Last week Smith repeatedly said he was bribed and threatened but now as an investigation seems imminent he now claims he wasn’t. In a November 23 newspaper column he wrote “Bribes and special deals were offered to convince members to vote yes.” Then Smith, who is preparing to retire, said in a radio interview that Republican leaders promised to give $100,000 to his son’s campaign for his seat.
December 13, 2003
Saddam Hussein captured in "spider hole" near Tikrit.
December 15, 2003
December 24, 2003
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski signs a letter to the Red Cross, prepared by military lawyers, that "tends to gloss over" abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib, according to later investigation by Maj. Gen. George Fay. Military leadership ignores Red Cross recommendations.
January 2004
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, tells Mother Jones how the Pentagon's Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq's weapons and ties to terrorists. "It wasn't intelligence‚ it was propaganda," she says.
January 13, 2004
Spc. Darby gives prisoner-abuse photos to Army's Criminal Investigation Command. "I had the choice between what I knew was morally right and my loyalty to other soldiers. I couldn't have it both ways," he will later say.
January 19, 2004
January 21, 2004
Sources reveal new details from the Army's criminal investigation into reports of abuse of Iraqi detainees, including the location of the suspected crimes and evidence that is being sought. U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners, a Pentagon official tells CNN.
February 8, 2004
February 17, 2004
Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly, a distinguished Iraqi chemistry professor dies in American custody from a sudden hit to the back of his head caused by blunt trauma. It was uncertain exactly how he died, but someone had hit him from behind, possibly with a bar or a pistol. His battered corpse turned up at Baghdad's morgue and the cause of death was initially recorded as "brainstem compression".
February 23, 2004
With a seemingly total lack of irony, John Podhoretz titles his new book, Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane.
February 29, 2004
Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba briefs superiors on his findings on detainee abuse.
Highlights:
a. Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear;
f. Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; …
j. Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;
k. A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee …
These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements. …
In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses:
a. Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
b. Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
c. Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
d. Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
e. Threatening male detainees with rape; …
March 4, 2004
Taguba's preliminary report implicates MPs and recommends disciplinary action against their commanders. It also suggests that Jordan, Pappas, and two civilian contractors "were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses," faults Jordan for failing to supervise his subordinates, and accuses him of lying about his true oversight role at Abu Ghraib.
March 9, 2004
Florida holds its Presidential primary election. A survey by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel finds that the percentage of votes not recorded by touchcreen machines (made by both ES&S and Sequoia Voting Systems) is eight times higher than when paper ballots are used with optical scanners.
March 12, 2004
March 16, 2004
Donald Rumsfeld tells the BBC, "There's still remnants of that regime that would like to take it back. They could torture people and have rape rooms, and the world would turn their head from that and let it happen. But they can't do that anymore."
March 19, 2004
March 20, 2004
March 21, 2004
CNN reports that between Bush's inauguration and September 11, 2001, neither Bush, Condoleezza Rice nor Dick Cheney ever said the words "al Qaeda" or "Osama bin Laden" in public.
March 31, 2004
April 4, 2004
CNBC correspondent Brooke Hart reports: "But in a 53-page secret report, Army Major General Antonio Taguba says an investigation found a disturbing pattern of sadistic, blatant, wanton criminal abuses. The report was completed in February, but the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Rumsfeld hadn't read it. Democratic lawmakers are frustrated."
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) says: "This is an unacceptable response. That's not the level of concern the American people would expect of their military commanders for this type of conduct."
April 9, 2004
Military Police Specialist Matthew Wisdom testifies before a hearing on detainee abuse: "SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. …. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. … I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open."
April 13, 2004
"I don't plan on losing my job," Bush says during his first prime time news conference of the year. "I plan on telling the American people that I've got a plan to win the war on terror. And I believe they'll stay with me. They understand the stakes."
As he did earlier in the week, Bush seeks to play down the significance of the intelligence memo -- titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." and delivered to the president a month before the attacks.
"Frankly, I didn't think there was anything new," Bush said. "I mean, major newspapers had talked about bin Laden's desires on hurting America."
The president said he took comfort in the fact that the memo said the FBI was conducting field investigations of al Qaeda, bin Laden's terrorist network.
"Had there been a threat that required action by anybody in the government, I would have dealt with it," Bush said.
Acknowledging the failure to find WMDs in Iraq, Bush says, "Of course, I want to know why we haven't found a weapon yet. But I still know Saddam Hussein was a threat. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein."
Bush also comments that Iraq's oil revenues are "bigger than we thought."
April 14, 2004
"The administration insisted that Iraq's oil revenues could finance rebuilding the country, but the people of the United States have provided more than $120 billion thus far, much of it for reconstruction efforts," Pelosi says in a written statement. "From the outset, the president's Iraq policy has had little basis in reality."
April 15, 2004
President Bush tells a crowd in Iowa, "Our military is … performing brilliantly. See, the transition from torture chambers and rape rooms and mass graves and fear of authority is a tough transition. And they're doing the good work of keeping this country stabilized as a political process unfolds."
April 19, 2004
President Bush tells a crowd in Pennsylvania, "We're facing supporters of the outlaw cleric, remnants of Saddam's regime that are still bitter that they don't have the position to run the torture chambers and rape rooms. … They will fail because they do not speak for the vast majority of Iraqis who do not want to replace one tyrant with another. They will fail because the will of our coalition is strong. They will fail because America leads a coalition full of the finest military men and women in the world."
April 20, 2004
During a campaign appearance in Buffalo, Bush says: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."
At the time he made this statement, warrantless wiretaps had been in place under Bush's direct order for the past three years.
April 23, 2004
Arizona Cardinals lineman Patrick Tillman is shot and killed while serving in Afghanistan.
At a Victory 2004 reception in Florida, President Bush remarks, "We acted, and there are no longer mass graves and torture rooms and rape rooms in Iraq."
April 24, 2004
The Oakland Tribune prints documents showing that Diebold altered the software running on voting machines prior to an election, but never bothered to submit the software for testing or even notify the state that the software update had been made. The documents were leaked by Steve Heller, a temp at the law firm that represented Diebold.
April 28, 2004
CBS's 60 Minutes II airs a report on Abu Ghraib. Says correspondent Dan Rather: "The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners. There are shots of the prisoners stacked in a pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In some, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other. And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up."
April 29, 2004
CBS News issues a statement on its broadcast of Abu Ghraib photographs: "Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes II received an appeal from the Defense Department, and eventually from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to delay this broadcast, given the danger and tension on the ground in Iraq."
April 30, 2004
At a Rose Garden appearance, Bush says: "A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier, saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we'd accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq."
The New Yorker publishes Seymour M. Hersh's "Torture at Abu Ghraib" report on the Taguba investigation.
May 3, 2004
President Bush tells a crowd in Michigan, "Because we acted, torture rooms are closed, rape rooms no longer exist, mass graves are no longer a possibility in Iraq."
May 4, 2004
Donald Rumsfeld tells a press briefing, "I'm not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. … I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word."
May 5, 2004
President Bush tells Al Arabiya television, "Iraq was a unique situation because Saddam Hussein had constantly defied the world and had threatened his neighbors, had used weapons of mass destruction, had terrorist ties, had torture chambers..." As for the Abu Ghraib abuses, President Bush pledges that "people will be held to account. People in Iraq must understand that I view those practices as abhorrent."
May 7, 2004
Before Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld claims "full responsibility" for Abu Ghraib and calls abuse "fundamentally un-American." Along the way he outs whistleblower Darby to worldwide audience. Gen. Sanchez later tells committee Abu Ghraib will be renamed Camp Redemption.
Gen. Taguba is reassigned, realizes career has been dead-ended.
May 11, 2004
Intelligence officers of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq estimated that 70 percent to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, the Red Cross said in a report that was disclosed Monday, and Red Cross observers witnessed U.S. officers mistreating Abu Ghraib prisoners by keeping them naked in total darkness in empty cells. Abuse was, “in some cases, tantamount to torture,” it said.
May 12, 2004
Senators are given three hours to view some 1,800 Abu Ghraib images. Sen. Trent Lott chooses not to: "Why would I want to go see a bunch of perverted pictures?"
May 19, 2004
In first Abu Ghraib plea deal, MP Jeremy Sivits receives one year in prison. He testifies in court that he watched and took pictures as inmates were beaten and forced to masturbate. "I've let everybody down. I love the Army. I love that flag. That's all I have ever wanted to be, an American soldier. Sir, I'm truly sorry for what I've done."
May 24, 2004
A three-hour wedding video surfaces, showing celebrants who later were killed in what the U.S. military still insists was a strike targeting Iraqi militants. Among the guests shown on the video are a popular Iraqi wedding singer, Hussein Ali, whose family reports him killed in the attack, and an organist who is also seen among the corpses filmed after the attack by the Associated Press. The response of U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt? "Bad people have parties, too."
May 28, 2004
Former Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman is posthumously awarded the Silver Star. Tillman was shot and killed in Afghanistan while fighting “without regard for his personal safety,” the Army said Friday in announcing the award, adding that Tillman was leading his Army Rangers unit to the rescue of comrades caught in an ambush. Later, an entirely different story will emerge.
May 29, 2004
June 12, 2004
The Washington Post reports that the ranking officer in Iraq, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, approved letting senior officials at a Baghdad jail use dogs, temperature extremes, sleep and sensory deprivation, and diets of bread and water on detainees "whenever they wished."
June 17, 2004
In an interview with CNBC's Gloria Borger, Dick Cheney vehemently denies ever having said that the alleged meeting between 9/11 plotter Mohammad Atta and Al Qaeda agents in Prague had been "pretty well confirmed."
Cheney: No, I never said that.
Borger: OK.
Cheney: I never said that.
Borger: I think that is...
Cheney: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9 of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down, we just don't know.
Of course, Cheney actually said exactly what Borger quoted, on the December 9, 2001 episode of Meet the Press. In addition, he falsely claimed on a September 8, 2002 appearance on the same show that the CIA found the story "credible."
June 22, 2004
The U.S. State Department concedes its report showing global terrorism declining in 2003 was "in error," and that in fact acts of terrorism reached an all-time high.
July 12, 2004
USDA Secretary Veneman officially announces that Administration will propose replacing the Roadless Rule with Governor petition process.
August 1, 2004
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says there's no evidence of a cover-up of the circumstances of Army Ranger Cpl. Pat Tillman's death. Testifying before a House committee, Rumsfeld says that he doesn't recall precisely when he learned of Tillman's death, or the possibility that it was the result of fratricide.
August 3, 2004
A preliminary hearing is held in case against Pfc. Lynndie England, the lowest-ranking soldier implicated. She is seven months pregnant with the child of Cpl. Graner and faces a prison term of 38 years, the harshest penalty threatened against any low-ranking soldier. Many charges relate to sexually explicit photos of acts with Graner and have nothing to do with prisoners.
August 12, 2004
Arch-conservative Patrick Buchanan publishes Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, a scathing indictment of the Bush administration's abandonment of conservative principles.
August 14, 2004
The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." The letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompts Democrats to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
August 24, 2004
Former Sec. Def. James Schlesinger releases an Abu Ghraib report that blames poor leadership throughout the chain of command. But to reporters, Schlesinger emphasizes, "There was sadism on the night shift at Abu Ghraib, sadism that was certainly not authorized. It was kind of Animal House."
August 25, 2004
Maj. Gen. Fay releases report, tells reporters of "some instances where torture was being used."
September 3, 2004
September 11, 2004
October 17, 2004
Ron Suskind, writing in the New York Times, quotes an un-named Bush aide who accused him of being part of the "reality-based community":
"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"
October 18, 2004
With memories of 2000 and the state's bitter fight over ballots still fresh, early voting begins in Florida and within an hour problems crop up. In Palm Beach County, the center of the madness during the recount four years ago, a Democratic state legislator says she wasn't given a complete absentee ballot when she asked to opt for paper instead of the electronic touch-screen machines. And in Orange County, the touch-screen system briefly crashes, paralyzing voting in Orlando and its immediate suburbs.
November 2, 2004
Exit polls show Kerry leading Bush. On hearing the news, Bush says, "The numbers are what they are. I'm surprised."
Voters in the battleground state of Ohio wait up to 10 hours in line to vote; problems include too few voting machines, some of which don't work. Delays are heaviest in predominantly African-American precincts and other Democratic strongholds.
New Mexico leads the nation in undervotes (ballots showing no vote for President). Although only 41% of the state's voters cast their ballots on push-button electronic voting machines, these machines accounted for 77% of the presidential undervotes, raising doubts about their accuracy. Undervotes are particularly high in heavily Hispanic or Native American precincts which traditionally vote Democratic.
80 percent of the votes cast in the Presidential election are counted on machines made by two companies, ES&S and Diebold, owned by brothers Bob & Todd Urosevich and both with strong Republican Party connections.
Once the votes from electronic voting machines are tallied, they neatly flip the exit poll data, showing 51% for Bush and 48% for Kerry. During the course of the night, CNN changes its exit poll data for Ohio to conform to the official vote tallies.
George Bush is "re-elected"; "values" credited as pivotal issue.
November 10, 2004
President Bush nominates Alberto Gonzales to be U.S. Attorney General, saying ""His sharp intellect and sound judgment have helped shape our policies in the war on terror." As a White House aide, Gonzales authored a memo declaring that the President's executive powers leave him free to order the use of torture.
December 3, 2004
On Rudy Giuliani's personal recommendation, Bush nominates Bernard Kerik to be the new head of Homeland Security. Before Giuliani appointed him to serve as corrections commissioner and then police commissioner for New York, Kerik's sole experience had been serving Giuliani as a driver and bodyguard. Almost immediately upon the announcement, allegations of misconduct begin to surface. Kerik will ultimately pay $200,000 in fines in 2006 for accepting more than $165,000 in gifts as a city official, and be indicted by a Federal grand jury in 2007.
December 6, 2004
Curtis Clark, a former programmer for Florida's Yang Enterprises, submits an affidavit and testifies before Congress. Clark says he was approcahed by Tom Feeney, Yang's lobbyist and general counsel--and Florida's Speaker of the House--to develop software that would manipulate voting machines to give a losing candidate 51 percent of the vote. Feeney is later elected to Congress three times.
December 10, 2004
Bernard Kerik withdraws his nomination to be head of Homeland Security, stating that he had unknowingly hired an undocumented worker as a nanny and housekeeper who had used someone else's social security number.
January 6, 2005
Senate Judiciary Committee considers nomination of White House counsel Alberto Gonzales for attorney general. He says human rights violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Guantanamo are not due to administration policy but to "a failure in training and oversight." Asked whether U.S. personnel would not be bound by the War Crimes Act, he says, "I don't believe that would be the case, but I would like to have the opportunity to get back to you on that."
January 10, 2005
In opening statements, Cpl. Graner's attorney argues that piling detainees into a naked pyramid was about control and not abuse. "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year?" he asked. "Is that torture?"
January 14, 2005
Cpl. Graner is found guilty and tells court, "A lot of what I did there was wrong. A lot of it was criminal." His 10-year sentence is toughest handed down.
January 15, 2005
The British Museum reports vast amounts of earth containing tens of thousands of archaeological fragments have been bulldozed into piles to fill up sandbags. Defensive trenches have been dug right through remains. A 2,600-year-old brick pavement has been reduced to dust by tracked military vehicles. Someone has even tried to gouge out the decorated bricks that form part of the dragons on the priceless Ishtar Gate.
January 26, 2005
James Dale Guckert, using the pseudonym Jeff Gannon, gains national attention during a White House news conference when he asks Bush a question some in the press corps consider "so friendly it might have been planted." "Gannon" represents the website Talon News, a virtual front for conservative activist group GOPUSA. Gannon comes under public scrutiny for his lack of a journalistic background prior to his work with Talon and his alleged involvement with various homosexual escort service websites using the professional name "Bulldog".
January 28, 2005
A syndicated newspaper columnist received at least $4,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services for work in support of President Bush's effort to promote marriage, USA Today reports. Mike McManus is the third commentator known to receive money from a federal agency to boost Bush policy initiatives. News of the McManus contract follows the disclosure that syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher was being paid $21,500 by HHS to push the White House's $300 million initiative to encourage marriage. Columnist and commentator Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the Education Department to plug Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation.
February 2, 2005
By a vote of 60-36, the Senate confirms Alberto Gonzales.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggests that Republicans will deploy the so-called "go nuclear" option to prevent Democrats from using filibusters to block controversial judicial nominations.
April 8, 2005
Gen. Karpinski is relieved of command of the 800th MP Brigade. A month later, Bush approves her demotion to colonel.
May 5, 2005
The Bush Administration announces plans to overturn the Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
May 13, 2005
Bush Administration issues final regulation repealing the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and replacing it with a state petition process.
May 16, 2005
Bush appoints Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank. The Washington Post reports the nomination is "met with much surprise, little enthusiasm and some outright opposition in Europe, where he is best known as a leading proponent of a conflict deeply unpopular here, the Iraq war." Wolfowitz will resign two years later in a scandal over the transfer of his girlfriend, a World Bank employee, to a lucrative Pentagon post.
Senate minority leader Harry Reid breaks off talks with his Republican counterpart, Bill Frist, on efforts to head off a showdown on judicial nominations, saying he cannot consent to Republican demands. Frist's position is that all judicial nominees must have an up-or-down vote on the floor, and he has proposed allowing up to 100 hours of debate on nominees and eliminating some committee practices that Republicans used in the Clinton era to block nominees.
May 24, 2005
June 22, 2005
The Washington Post calls "influence peddling" the new growth industry: "The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750 while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent. Only a few other businesses have enjoyed greater prosperity in an otherwise fitful economy." Republican control of Congress is cited as a major factor.
July 20, 2005
Bush nominates John Roberts, Jr. as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
August 1, 2005
Having failed to receive approval for the nomination from the Senate, Bush makes a temporary recess appointment making John Bolton the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for the next 16 months.
Democrats and one Republican, Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio), opposed Bolton's confirmation because of concerns raised by some former colleagues, who described him as an abrasive bully who sought to remove people who got in his way.
August 10, 2005
Bush signs a $286 billion highway spending bill, after having threatened a veto because it exceeded his announced spending limit by $30 billion. Among the projects included: A $223 million bridge between two scantily-populated sites in Alaska, home of long-time Republican Senator Ted Stevens.
August 27, 2005
President Bush's weekly radio address makes no mention of Hurricane Katrina.
August 28, 2005
In a videoconference attended by an unresponsive President Bush, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield expresses concern that Katrina might push its storm surge over the city's levees and flood walls.
August 29, 2005
FEMA Director Michael Brown waits five hours after Katrina has hit to ask his boss, Michael Chertoff, for 1000 Homeland Security employees to be sent to the region and gives them two days to arrive. Brown urges emergency responders "not to respond to hurricane impact areas unless dispatched by state, local authorities."
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson offers National Guard troops to help with the Katrina effort. Richardson later complains that his offer of help went unanswered for two days until Washington finally gave orders to move the troops, who were flown to the hurricane zone the next day.
August 30, 2005
President Bush delivers a speech in San Diego on the 60th anniversary of V-J Day. President begins speech with brief remarks on hurricane relief efforts, tells audience, "The federal, state and local governments are working side-by-side to do all we can to help people get back on their feet." Remainder of the speech is dedicated to the need to "stay the course" in Iraq.
Late Tuesday, DHS Secretary Chertoff declares Katrina an Incident of National Significance, "triggering for the first time a coordinated federal response to states and localities overwhelmed by disaster." Declaration is first use of DHS National Response Plan.
August 31, 2005
President Bush
heads back to Washington from vacationing in Crawford, TX. Though he does not land in Louisiana, Air Force One flies over the Gulf Coast so that he can view the devastation.
September 1, 2005
In an interview with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America, Bush says, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
The suburban Chicago Daily Herald reports that House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert says rebuilding New Orleans "doesn't make sense to me."
FEMA announces guidelines to contractors interested in "doing business with FEMA during the Hurricane Katrina recovery."
On NPR's "All Things Considered," Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff claims, ""I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water."
On Nightline, Michael Brown tells Ted Koppel, "We just learned of the convention center--we being the federal government--today."
September 2, 2005
While visiting Mobile, Alabama, Bush says to FEMA Director Michael Brown: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Bush adds, "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house...he's lost his entire house ...there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
September 3, 2005
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declares that Katrina constituted "a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight." CNN reports that "government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years."
September 4, 2005
Jefferson Parrish president Aaron Broussard claims on Meet the Press that aid to his parrish was blocked by FEMA.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the USS Bataan, a large navy ship positioned close to New Orleans, is "underused and waiting for a larger role in the effort," with its 600 beds and six medical operating rooms empty. The Tribune notes that the ship's 1,200 sailors have not been asked to join the relief effort.
September 5, 2005
The AP reports that Kellogg Brown & Root, the subsidiary of Halliburton Co that has been criticized for its reconstruction work in Iraq, has begun work on a $500 million U.S. Navy contract for emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and marine facilities that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
While touring the Astrodome, Former First Lady Barbara Bush tells American Public Media's "Marketplace" program:"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them."
September 8, 2005
Citing a "national emergency," Bush suspends the Davis-Bacon Act--requiring the paying of prevailing wages for public-works projects--in storm-ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
September 12, 2005
Michael Brown resigns as director of FEMA, three days after losing his on-site command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
September 14, 2005
September 28, 2005
A Texas grand jury indicts House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) on a charge of criminally conspiring with two political associates to inject illegal corporate contributions into 2002 state elections that helped the Republican Party reorder the congressional map in Texas and cement its control of the House in Washington. DeLay steps aside as majority leader.
October 3, 2005
President Bush nominates Harriet Meiers to the Supreme Court. Meiers, a lawyer and crony of Bush's from Texas, with no judicial experience, has served Bush as White House Counsel. Conservatives who just months earlier had been demanding an up-or-down vote on every one of Bush's nominees raise such a furor over Meiers' lack of verifiable pro-life credentials that her nomination never makes it to the floor.
October 6, 2005
Bush threatens to veto provision, authored by Sen. John McCain, banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of detainees; administration pushes for an exemption for CIA. McCain eventually caves.
October 12, 2005
Karpinski publishes a memoir, One Woman's Army. She blames contractors and her military and civilian superiors, including Rumsfeld, for the abuse.
October 31, 2005
Bush nominates Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Alito's confirmation, slammed Bush's decision as pandering to his conservative base.
November 2005
Senior Air Force officers steer a controversial $50 million contract a company that barely exists in an effort to reward a recently retired four-star general and a millionaire civilian pilot who had grown close to senior Air Force officials and the Thunderbirds.
November 2, 2005
December 2, 2005
January 3, 2006
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleads guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials. In court papers, prosecutors refer to only one congressman: Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio). But Abramoff, who built a political alliance with House Republicans, including former majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, agrees to provide information and testimony about half a dozen House and Senate members.
January 9, 2006
Even conservative bastion The Wall Street Journal decries the Republicans' naked lust for power: "The real House GOP problem isn't about lobbyists so much as it is the atrophying of its principles. As their years in power have stretched on, House Republicans have become more passionate about retaining power than in using that power to change or limit the federal government. Gathering votes for serious policy is difficult and tends to divide a majority. Re-election unites them, however, so the leadership has gradually settled for raising money on K Street and satisfying Beltway interest groups to sustain their incumbency.
"This strategy has maintained a narrow majority, but at the cost of doing anything substantial. The last year in particular was an historic lost opportunity. House Republicans were also the main culprit in watering down Medicare reform, while Ohio's Mike Oxley has run the Financial Services Committee more or less as liberal Barney Frank would. Beyond welfare reform and tax cuts (and perhaps health-savings accounts), the GOP has achieved little in the last decade that will outlast the next Democratic majority."
January 11, 2006
January 17, 2006
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) denies that his Tuesday K Street Project meetings are designed to secure lobbying jobs for Republican congressional staffers and other loyalists. Santorum claims the K Street Project "vrhas not been about putting pressure on people to hire individuals. We never did that. We don’t do that and we wouldn’t do that."
January 29, 2006
February 28, 2006
Steve Heller, the whistle-blower who leaked documents that proved that Diebold was using dodgy machines to run an election, is charged with three felonies: stealing computer data, commercial burglary and receiving stolen property. Heller eventually pays a $10,000 fine and gives his former employer an apology.
March 2006
Bruce Funk, an elections official in Emery County, Utah, discovers discrepancies in the Diebold touch-screen voting machines sent to his county. The New York Times later calls it the "nuclear bomb" of security flaws. After six Diebold lawyers fly to Utah to meet behind closed doors with Emery County officials, Funk is removed from his elected position, although he denies he agreed to resign.
March 6, 2006:
The Defense Department launches a new probe into aspects of the friendly-fire death of Patrick Tillman in Afghanistan, including allegations by his family that the Army covered up the facts. His family wasn't told the truth about Tillman's death until five weeks after the incident, when Tillman's unit returned home.
April 4, 2006
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, under indictment in Texas, announces he will not seek re-election and resigns his seat in Congress.
April 30, 2006
The Boston Globe reveals that President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
May 2, 2006
In Cleveland), seventy memory cards that record votes disappear during the May 2, 2006 election.
May 8, 2006
June 10, 2006
The Denver Election Commission acknowledges losing 150,000 voter records while moving offices. It later claims to have recovered 87,000, but the rest remain missing.
June 28, 2003
The U.S. Supreme Court today upholds all but one district of Texas' Republican-friendly U.S. House election district map.
June 30, 2006
About 18 months after his nomination to serve as head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kerik pleads guilty to accepting more than $165,000 in gifts while a city official and failing to report the money as required. He pays more than $200,000 in fines and is spared any jail time.
September 12, 2006
Retiring Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid tells the Hampton Roads Daily Press that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had specifically instructed war planners not to plan for a post-war occupation of Iraq:
"The secretary of defense continued to push on us ... that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we're going to take out the regime, and then we're going to leave," said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid.
"I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that."
September 20, 2006
Judge Elizabeth LaPorte of the U.S. District Court Northern District of California rules that the Administration illegally repealed the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, sets aside the State Petitions Rule and reinstates the Roadless Rule nationwide except in the Tongass National Forest.
September 22, 2006
EPA Administator Steven Johnson rejects a unanimous recommendation by the 22 scientists on the agency's advisory panel urging tougher standards on soot polluton. NPR obtains internal government documents showing an additional 5,000 Americans might die each year because because of the lower standards.
September 25, 2006
President Bush uses his veto power Wednesday for the first time since taking office 5 1/2 years ago, saying that an embryonic stem-cell research bill "crossed a moral boundary." The bill, which the Senate passed Tuesday, 63-37, would have loosened the restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research.
September 29, 2006
Mark Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, resigns after it is revealed he sent sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages to teenaged Congressional pages. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is criticized over how soon Republican leaders knew of Foley's behavior and whether they tried to cover it up. Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, also resigns his current post as chief of staff for Rep. Tom Reynolds. The scandal is widely believed to be a contributing factor to the Republicans' loss of Congress in the November elections.
October 3, 2006
The New York Times reports that, tucked away inside the latest military spending bill, is $20 million allocated for a victory celebration to commemorate success in Iraq and Afghanistan. The money goes unspent and rolls over to 2007.
October 9, 2006
North Korea carries out a successful underground test of a nuclear weapon.
October 17, 2006
Bush signs the Military Commissions Act, which strips "unlawful enemy combatants" of Geneva protections and the right to habeas corpus, establishes military tribunals, and legalizes "advanced interrogation tactics."
October 18, 2006
The Bush Administration is putting plans in place to approve more than 118,000 new gas and oil wells on public lands in Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana over the next two decades, which is nearly double the current total number of producing wells on public lands throughout the Rocky Mountains.
October 27, 2006
The Nation reports that Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel in the 1999 impeachment of President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, is defending Blackwater against a wrongful-death suit brought by the families of four contractors killed in Fallujah in 2004.
November 5, 2006
Pastor Ted Haggard of the New Life Church of Colorado Springs resigns, saying he is guilty of "sexual immorality." The disgraced former president of the National Evangelical Association is accused of paying for the services of a male escort and using methamphetamine. Haggard's defense is that he only paid the escort for a massage, and bought the methampetamine from him but never used it. At the height of his power, Haggard spoke weekly by phone with President Bush and his top advisors.
November 6, 2006
Rumsfeld writes letter of resignation. But Bush doesn't announce the news until two days later, after Election Day.
November 8, 2006
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigns the day after Republicans lose both houses of Congress.
November 9, 2006
A Democrat who narrowly lost the Congressional race here seeks a recount after a significant number of ballots had no recorded votes in the high-profile race. The Democrat, Christine Jennings, lost to her Republican opponent, Vern Buchanan, by just 373 votes out of a total 237,861 cast — one of the closest House races in the nation.
More than 18,000 voters in Sarasota County, or 13 percent of those who went to the polls Tuesday, did not seem to vote in the Congressional race when they cast ballots, a discrepancy that Kathy Dent, the county elections supervisor, said she could not explain.
In comparison, only 2 percent of voters in one neighboring county within the same House district and 5 percent in another skipped the Congressional race, according to The Herald-Tribune of Sarasota. And many of those who did not seem to cast a vote in the House race did vote in more obscure races, like for the hospital board.
More than 100 voters have told the Jennings campaign that their votes for her did not show up on the summary screen at the end of the touch-screen voting process, and that they had to re-enter them. The candidate’s lawyers said they feared that not everyone had noticed the problem or realized that they could re-enter the vote.
November 15, 2006
A US Army soldier pleads guilty to raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and helping murder her and her family in their home south of Baghdad last March. Specialist James Barker, who agreed to a plea deal to escape a death sentence, is one of four US soldiers charged with murder. They are alleged to have helped a former private to plan, carry out and cover up the attack. Two of the soldiers could face the death penalty if found guilty.
December 5, 2006
After serving a 16-month term, John Bolton resigns his recess appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations after it is clear the Senate will not approve his re-nomination.
Late 2006
December 30, 2006
Saddam Hussein is hanged. Initial news reports of the execution and Saddam's final words are contradicted when a cellular phone video is discovered, showing a mob of black-clad Shi'ite militia gleefully chanting "Muqtada Al-Sadr! Muqtada Al-Sadr!" shortly before the rope nearly separates Saddam's head from his neck.
December 31, 2006
January 13, 2007
A federal judge dismisses a defamation suit filed against the New york Times by Dr. Stephen J. Hatfill, a former US Army germ-warfare researcher who was named a "person of interest" by the FBI in its investigations of anthrax mailings shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Hatfill sued the Times for libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress after the newspaper published a story stating that the government's decision not to further pursue Hatfill as a suspect was the result of "poor investigation." The FBI has never solved the case.
February 7, 2007
A special unit run by former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's top policy aide inappropriately produced "alternative" intelligence reports that wrongly concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime had cooperated with al-Qaida, a Pentagon investigation has determined. The Department of Defense Inspector General's Office finds that former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and his staff did nothing illegal or unauthorized. But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who requested the investigation, calls the findings "devastating" because senior administration officials, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, used Feith's work to help make their case for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
February 18, 2007
February 28, 2007
A suicide bomber strikes the largest US base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, forcing vice-president to scurry into a bunker. At least 22 people, including an American soldier, are killed when the bomber dashes through an Afghan checkpost at Bagram air force base.
March 6, 2007
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is convicted of lying and obstructing the Valerie Plame leak investigation. No one else in the Bush administration is ever indicted for leaking Plame's identity or the subsequent cover-up.
March 23, 2007:
Pentagon investigator recommends that nine officers, including up to four generals, be held accountable for missteps in the aftermath of the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Dozens of soldiers — those immediately around Tillman at the scene of the shooting, his immediate superiors and high-ranking officers at a command post nearby — knew within minutes or hours that his death was fratricide. Even so, the Army persisted in telling Tillman’s family he was killed in a conventional ambush, including at his nationally televised memorial service 11 days later.
April 30, 2007
May 14, 2007
The Defense Department blocks access on its computers to YouTube, MySpace and 11 other Web sites, severing some of the most popular ties linking U.S. troops in combat areas to their far-flung relatives and friends, and depriving soldiers of a favorite diversion f rom the boredom of overseas duty. Officials cite "bandwidth" concerns.
May 16, 2007
White House officials announce they "strongly oppose" a 3.5 percent increase in military pay. The White House also opposes increasing benefits for widows of slain soldiers by $40 per month, and opposes additional benefits for surviving family members
May 18, 2007
President Bush "reluctantly accepts" Paul Wolfowitz's resignation as head of the World Bank. Bush appointed Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the Iraq invasion and its aftermath, to the World Bank post in 2005. A World Bank committee concluded Wolfowitz violated staff rules when he arranged a raise and transfer for his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, a longtime bank employee. After Wolfowitz took over at the bank in 2005, Riza was transferred to a U.S. State Department job at a tax-free government salary of almost $194,000 a year.
May 19, 2007
Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.
June 11, 2007
Idaho's Republican Senator Larry Craig is arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer in a Minnesota airport restroom. After the story breaks, Craig attempts to withdraw his guilty plea to the charge, but the judge is unsympathetic. Craig announces he will resign, then changes his mind. The Idaho Statesman announces the results of a five-month investigation into allegations of homosexual encounters with Craig dating as far back as 1982.
June 12, 2007
Investors in a 10-month-old Bear Stearns (BSC) hedge fund learn the hard way about making risky bets on sub-prime mortgages. The investment firm's High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund is down a whopping 23% for the year. The situation is so bleak that Bear Stearns' asset management group is suspending redemptions at the onetime $642 million fund, meaning investors have no choice but to sit on their losses.
June 25, 2007
Gen. Taguba, who retired as ordered six months earlier, talks to The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, who writes that Taguba believed military leadership in Iraq "had extensive knowledge of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib even before Joseph Darby came forward with the CD."
June 28, 2007
The Senate delivers a stinging political setback to President Bush, rejecting his plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.
July 2, 2007
President Bush commutes Scooter Lewis's 30-month prison sentence, leaving intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation.
July 17, 2007
August 7, 2007
Millions of Americans who took out sub-prime mortgages could lose their homes, economists warn. The risky loans began hitting a boom in September 2005, yet federal regulators didn't begin issuing rules covering them until 2006.
August 21, 2007
Bush acknowledges “a certain level of frustration” with the Iraqi government’s failure to unify its warring ethnic factions. His comments at a meeting of North American leaders in Canada come just hours after the top American diplomat in Baghdad, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, calls political progress in Iraq “extremely disappointing” and warns that United States support for the Maliki government did not come with a “blank check.”
August 22, 2007
A Black Hawk helicopter goes down in northern Iraq, killing all 14 U.S. soldiers aboard. It's the deadliest crash since January 2005.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lashes out at American criticism a day after President Bush expresses frustration with the Iraqi government's inability to bridge political divisions. "No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people," the Shiite leader says at a news conference in Damascus. "Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere."
August 27, 2007
Attorney General Gonzales resigns amid scandal surrounding the politically-motivated firings of U.S. attorneys. In heading the Justice Dept., he says he "lived the American dream."
August 28, 2007
Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan is acquitted of all prisoner-abuse charges. He's found guilty of disobeying an order from Gen. Fay, and is given criminal reprimand.
September 10, 2007
Nine American soldiers are killed in Iraq, including eight who died in vehicle accidents that also claimed the lives of two detainees.
September 16, 2007
September 17, 2007
President Bush nominates former federal judge Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as U.S. attorney general. Mukasey may be best known for presiding over terrorism cases involving Jose Padilla and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. The former federal judge made headlines in the Padilla case when he ruled the president had the authority as commander in chief to hold someone as an enemy combatant, despite the fact Padilla is an American citizen and was arrested on U.S. soil. However, Mukasey later ruled against the Bush administration when he found that Padilla had a due-process right to see his attorney, despite government arguments that doing so would affect efforts to interrogate him.
September 27, 2007
"Participants in a contentious Baghdad security operation this month have told American investigators that during the operation at least one guard continued firing on civilians while colleagues urgently called for a cease-fire," the New York Times reports of the September 16 Blackwater incident. "At least one guard apparently also drew a weapon on a fellow guard who did not stop shooting, an American official said."
September 30, 2007
Swiss banking giant UBS AG, which recently ousted its chief executive in the wake of losses at an in-house hedge fund and defections of top investment bankers, plans to write down as much as 4 billion Swiss francs, or $3.41 billion, in assets, including securities tied to U.S. subprime mortgages.
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, suporting Bush's veto of an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), says, "First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it's a good idea. I'm happy that the President's willing to do something bad for kids."
October 15, 2007
The U.S. Air Force's No. 2 acquisition official, facing scrutiny for a temporary job arranged by the service while he awaited Senate confirmation, is found dead at his home in an apparent suicide. The Washiongton Post had earlier href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001402.html">the Air Force helped arrange a job through an intelligence contractor that required him to do no work for the company
October 17, 2007
Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey promises lawmakers that, if confirmed, he will follow the rule of law and take partisan politics out of Justice Department decision-making.
Iraq's prime minister demands private military contractor Blackwater leave his country after an Iraqi probe finds Blackwater guards randomly shot civilians without provocation in a Baghdad square last month.
October 27, 2007
The US army says as many as 20% of its soldiers and marines have suffered "mild traumatic brain injury" (mTBI) from blows to the head or shockwaves caused by explosions. The condition, which can lead to memory loss, depression and anxiety, has been designated as one of four "signature injuries" of the Iraq conflict by the Department of Defense, which is introducing a large-scale screening program for troops returning from the frontline.
October 29, 2007
In an internal memo, Federal Emergency Management Agency chief David Paulison rips the agency's public affairs staff for a staged news conference in which staff members pretending to be reporters posed questions to FEMA 's No. 2 official, Harvey Johnson.
Paulison says the entire episode "represented egregious decision-making" by the director of external affairs for FEMA, Pat Philbin, and his staff, who, he says, "lost perspective of the core imperative that they preserve the credibility of our agency."
Philbin was scheduled to become director of public affairs for the director of national intelligence -- a job National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell says Philbin will not be doing.
October 31, 2007
Michael Mukasey calls waterboarding "repugnant," but the nominee for U.S. attorney general stops short of saying whether waterboarding is torture.
November 8, 2007
A Federal grand jury indicts Bernard Kerik on charges stemming from the acceptance of free rent and apartment renovations, tax evasion and lying on his application for the job as head of the Department of Homeland Security, two federal sources and a source involved in the defense told ABC News. President Bush had nominated Kerik to serve as head of the Department of Homeland Security on Rudy Giuliani's recommendation. Further investigation shows Kerik to be extremely close to businessmen with reputed mob ties who paid for his $250,000 wedding.
November 11, 2007
The Senate votes to confirm Michael Mukasey as the new U.S. attorney general, but 40 Democrats object to Mukasey's failure to define his opinion on the interrogation technique known as waterboarding.
November 26, 2007
Early December, 2007
December 3, 2007
A national intelligence estimate concludes Iran halted its nuclear weapons development program in the fall of 2003 under international pressure
December 13, 2007
December 19, 2007
Morgan Stanley reports a $9.4 billion writedown from bad bets on mortgage-related debt, leading it to take a $5 billion infusion from an arm of the Chinese government. The writedown, nearly triple what Morgan Stanley warned of in November, pushes the nation's second-largest investment bank to the first quarterly loss in its 73-year history.
December 24, 2007
Bush admininstration and military officials tell the New York Times that much of the $5 billion+ in anti-terror aid to Pakistan has not gone to front-line units fighting the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but to heavy weapons systems for use aganst India. Merry Christmas, Musharraf!
January 2, 2008
California sues the federal Environmental Protection Agency for preventing the state from reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its cars.
Passed in 2002, the Clean Car law requires cars sold in California to emit 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases by 2020. Because the law is stricter than federal Clean Air Act standards, California had to ask the EPA for permission. Such waivers are routinely granted for tailpipe emission laws, and federal courts recently supported California's rights to make such demands, but in late December the EPA refused.
The alleged leader of US troops who killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2005 in Haditha will not face murder charges, a U.S. Marines spokesman says. Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 27, will stand trial for voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, dereliction of duty and other charges.
January 3, 2008
January 8, 2008
Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe, the convening authority for Lt. Col. Jordan's court-martial, dismisses guilty verdict, gives Jordan an administrative reprimand instead, and clears his record of any criminal act.
January 23, 2008
Blasts and bullets kill at least 21 people in Iraq, among them 12 who die when a powerful booby-trap flattens buildings in the northern city of Mosul. The following day, a provincial police chief is killed by a suicide bomber as he surveys the wreckage.
January 24, 2008
The Kentucky Supreme Court affirms the suspension of former county attorney Donald “Champ” Maze on Thursday. The court’s ruling upholds an automatic suspension of Maze imposed by the Kentucky Bar Association after Maze pleaded guilty to vote buying and perjury in connection with a May 2006 primary corruption scheme. Six others have pleaded guilty in connection with the case.
January 28, 2008
In his State of the Union Address, Bush announces: "I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress."
What Bush doesn't mention is that he already signed a spending bill including 11,000 earmarks, many of which will benefit Republicans running for re-election. And since no more spending bills are likely to come before him before he leaves office, no such restrictions will apply to him; only to his successor, who could presumably overturn the order.
Curiously, Bush never raised such vociferous objections to earmarks during the six years of his Presidency that the Republicans had a majority in Congress.
Five U.S. soldiers are killed in Mosul when their convoy is attacked by a combination of a roadside bomb and a barrage of gunfire.
February 1, 2008
J.P. Morgan fleeced school districts out of millions, Bloomberg News reports.
February 8, 2008
The Bush administration acknowledges for the first time that the CIA used waterboarding on suspected al-Qaida terrorists, and the current CIA director says the simulated drowning technique may be illegal now.
Democrats ask Attorney General Michael Mukasey whether he would prosecute those who used the controversial technique. He says, bluntly, no.
February 13, 2008
February 13, 2008:
February 15, 2008
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt proposes boosting Medicare premiums for higher-income beneficiaries. House Energy and Commerce chair John Dingell (D-Mich.) responds, "This proposal shows us exactly where Republicans stand when it comes to helping seniors and people with disabilities. The president's idea for 'improving' the program is to stick the beneficiaries with more of the bill."
February 20, 2008
Febuary 23, 2008
A barrage of rockets hits Baghdad's heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone, just a day after powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to extend its cease-fire by another six months.
The federal government prepares to relax a decades-old ban on bringing loaded firearms into national parks.
February 25, 2008
The Associated Press reports that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hasn't spoken once during his past two years on the bench, during which time the court has heard oral arguments in 144 cases.
February 26, 2008
After promising last year to search its computers for tens of thousands of e-mails sent by White House officials, the Republican National Committee informs a House committee that it no longer plans to retrieve the communications by restoring computer backup tapes.
February 27, 2008
The Air Force tightens restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."
February 29, 2008
February 29, 2008: U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey says he will not ask a federal grand jury to investigate whether two top Bush administration officials should be prosecuted for contempt of Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday asked Mukasey to look into whether White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers committed contempt of Congress in the investigation of the 2006 firings of several U.S. attorneys.
Pelosi says the two were unresponsive to Congress’ inquiry, while the White House argues that contempt laws don’t apply to the president or any of his staffers who invoke executive privilege.
Mukasey, a Bush appointee, agrees.
“The department has determined that the noncompliance by Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas did not constitute a crime,” Mukasey writes in a letter to Pelosi.
“Therefore the department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute Mr. Bolten or Ms. Miers.”
Mukasey says Miers and Bolten cannot be prosecuted because they were following legal advice from the Justice Department.
The price of oil reaches a record high of $103 per barrel before retreating to $102.
March 1, 2008
Britain's denials that its territories have been used for 'extraordinary rendition' are dramatically undermined after the United Nations claims that Diego Garcia has been used as a detention centre to hold US suspects.
Manfred Novak, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, who is charged with investigating human rights abuses, says he has received credible evidence from well-placed sources familiar with the situation on the island that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.
March 1, 2008
A public relations aide to President George W Bush resigns after admitting to plagiarising an academic in a newspaper column on education. Timothy Goeglein had worked for the president since 2001.
March 2, 2008
March 3, 2008
The price of oil jumps to an inflation adjusted record high of $103.95.
March 4, 2008
Nearly a year after the Supreme Court ordered him to do so, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency tells a Senate hearing he can't say when he determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles should be regulated. In a tense exchange with a Senator Dianne Feinstein, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson suggests that few, if any, people at the agency are directly working on the issue now. The high court in April 2007 said the EPA was required to determine whether carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases posed a danger to public health. Feinstein accuses Johnson of "stonewalling" and says she finds it strange that the EPA chief "can't give me a number (of people engaged) on something that is a Supreme Court finding."
Drug makers increased their prices in 2007 by an average of 7.4 percent for brand-name medicines most commonly prescribed to the elderly, AARP reports. The increase was about 2.5 times overall inflation, continuing a long-standing trend. AARP, which has been tracking drug prices since 2002, notes that the price increases have been slightly greater since the Medicare drug benefit kicked in on Jan. 1, 2006.
An Iraqi military helicopter crashes in northern Iraq, killing an American soldier and seven Iraqis aboard. The crash is a blow to the Iraqi military's efforts to rebuild its air force, which was devastated during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and never recovered.
Condoleezza Rice insists a peace deal between Israel and Palestine could still be in place by the time president George Bush leaves office in January, even though the Palestinian leadership has just rejected her appeal to resume talks. An Israeli offensive on Hamas rocket-launching positions in Gaza has killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them noncombatants.
March 5, 2008
A Justice Department report says the FBI abused the use of national security letters to get personal data on U.S. citizens through at least 2006. The agency has been criticized for its use of the anti-terror investigatory tactic, which a federal judge has barred as unconstitutional.
March 6, 2008
Oil prices hit another record high, spiking at $105.97.
A twin bombing in a packed Baghdad shopping district kills at least 68 people and wounds 120, a grim reminder that Iraq's violence has slackened but not abated.
March 7, 2008
Oil prices hit a new high of over $106 a barrel. Adjusted for inflation, oil prices are higher than during the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
The Interior Department's inspector general begins a preliminary investigation into why the department has delayed for nearly two months a decision on whether to list the polar bear as threatened because of the loss of Arctic Sea ice.
Employers slash jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people drop out of the labor force -- ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one.
U.S. soldiers and Marines caught in roadside bombings and firefights in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home in epidemic numbers with permanent hearing loss and ringing in their ears.
An extremist attacks a police station in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, driving his explosives-laden car through protective barriers before detonating it outside the station's front gate, killing at least three and wounding 32.
The Internal Revenue Service is spending $42 million on letters to alert taxpayers to expect rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus plan. "There are countless better uses for $42 million than a self-congratulatory mailer that gives the president a pat on the back for an idea that wasn't even his," Sen. Charles Schumer said Friday, arguing the IRS could more effectively spend the money to catch tax cheats.
March 8, 2008
Bush says he will veto a bill banning waterboarding.
A longtime Republican district in Illinois falls to the Democrats when a wealthy businessman and scientist snatches former House Speaker Dennis Hastert's congressional seat in a closely watched special election. Democrat Bill Foster wins 53 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for Republican Jim Oberweis.
March 9, 2008
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost $1.2 to $1.7 trillion by 2017, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts, with Iraq accounting for three-quarters of that cost. Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda Barnes report in a new book that the cost of the Iraq war in 2008 will be $12 billion a month, triple the burn rate of its earliest years. Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.
After nearly two decades of low food inflation, prices for staples such as bread, milk, eggs, and flour are rising sharply, surging in the past year at double-digit rates, according to the Labor Department. Milk prices, for example, increased 26 percent over the year. Egg prices jumped 40 percent. Escalating food costs could present a greater problem than soaring oil prices for the national economy because the average household spends three times as much for food as for gasoline.
Around 6 am, a roadside bomb explodes in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood. No casualties or damage recorded. Around 7am, two roadside bombs explodes in sequence at near a Baghdad gas factory. One person is killed and another injured. Police found two dead bodies in Baghdad today. In Diyala Province, the Iraqi army finds a mass grave of 6 dead men, who were handcuffed, blindfolded and shots sometime in the past few months.
A roadside bomb planted on top of a rescue car in downtown Tikrit explodes, killing an officer and injuring two others. In downtown Mosul, a car bomb targeting a joint forces patrol (Iraqi army and police) kills two and injures five.
March 10, 2008
Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.
A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq. The Defense Department's inspector general's report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.
Five U.S. soldiers on a foot patrol are killed in central Baghdad when a suicide bomber approaches them and detonates his explosives vest. Three American troops and an Iraqi interpreter are wounded. Iraqi police say two civilians also are killed in the attack.
The bombing shows the insurgents' ability to strike in the heart of the heavily fortified capital. Three more American soldiers die in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad. The attacks mark the deadliest day for American forces in Iraq since Sept. 10, when eight soldiers died in two road accidents and two Marines were killed fighting insurgents in Anbar province.
The United Nations reports insurgent and terrorist violence in Afghanistan increased sharply in 2007. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says there were more than 8,000 conflict-related deaths and an average of 566 incidents a month, compared with an average of 425 incidents a month in 2006, or a 25 percent increase. The violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level since U.S forces invaded in 2001.
President Bush says he will send Dick Cheney to press for peace in the Middle East. Bush said Monday in the Oval Office that Cheney would "reassure people that the United States is committed to a vision of peace in the Middle East." Cheney will visit Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Turkey. Oil is also on his agenda, as the White House — coping with high energy prices that have socked American consumers — continues to push for greater oil production in the Mideast.
Subprime-related losses at global financial institutions hit $215 billion, with about 55 percent of that coming from the United States, according to the head of Japan's financial regulator.
The House Judiciary Committee files a lawsuit to enforce subpoenas against President Bush's chief of staff and his former counsel in a probe of suspected White House involvement in the 2006 firings of nine federal prosecutors. The committee's action marks the first time in U.S. history that either chamber of Congress has sued the Executive Branch to enforce a subpoena, according to a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee. It says the year-long investigation "has uncovered substantial evidence" that the Bush administration and Justice Department "injected partisan considerations into the forced resignations or retention of U.S. attorneys." It cites "credible evidence" that U.S. attorneys who "failed to return desired indictments or failed to bring voter fraud prosecutions that were considered politically useful to the administration were forced to resign," as were those who "prosecuted officeholders allied with the administration."
Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, known for his high-profile prosecutions of corporate misdeeds, is found to be a client of a high-class prostitution ring after results of an FBI investigation are leaked. Questions arise almost immediately as to why he was under investigation by the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Division, which has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every case against a Republican.
March 11, 2008
The U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigns. Adm. William Fallon is the subject of an article in this week's Esquire, portraying him as a lone voice against taking military action against Iran. The article includes comments Fallon made to Al-Jazeera television that "a constant drumbeat of conflict" from Washington directed at Iran and Iraq "was not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions." Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, "I don't think there were differences at all."
A roadside bomb hits a bus traveling in southern Iraq, killing at least 16 civilians, while gunmen open fire on another bus in the capital, leaving one person dead. The U.S. military later denies that any deaths occurred.
A Pentagon-sponsored review of more than 600,000 documents captured after the 2003 invasion of Iraq finds no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network, McClatchy Newspapers report.
Despite increased counterterrorism efforts by Damascus, as much as 90 percent of the foreign fighters in Iraq cross the border from Syria, according to a Pentagon report that says Iran's support for Shiite militants also is hurting efforts to improve Iraq security.
Bush calls for NATO allies to commit more troops and money to battle a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Speaking before the National Association of Religious Broadcasters, Bush portrays the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a mission to defeat terrorism that will be passed on to his successors.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft denies receiving "a backroom, sweetheart deal" after getting a multimillion-dollar contract on the recommendation of a former employee, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie. A House Judiciary subcommittee asked Ashcroft to explain how the Ashcroft Group, the lobbying and consulting firm he started after he left government, won the no-bid contract worth $28 million to $52 million.
Sen. John McCain says his inquiries into a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract were designed to ensure evenhanded bidding, and denies they were motivated by lobbyists who are close advisers to his presidential campaign. The Associated Press reports that some of his current advisers lobbied last year for the parent company of plane maker Airbus, which beat Boeing Co. for the lucrative aerial refueling contract. McCain prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to change proposed bidding procedures opposed by Airbus.
March 12, 2008
Three American soldiers are killed in a rocket attack in southern Iraq, bringing to 12 the number of soldiers who have been killed in Iraq over the past three days.
March 13, 2008
Both houses of congress endorse budget plans that bring the government into the black by letting Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010. Sen. John McCain votes for extending the full roster of tax cuts, which he opposed seven years ago as being tilted in favor of the wealthy.
Two-and-a-half years after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of miserable homeowners are still waiting for their government rebuilding checks, and many complain they can’t even get their calls returned. But the company that holds the big contract to distribute the aid is doing quite well for itself. ICF International of Fairfax, Va., has posted strong profits, gone public, landed additional multimillion-dollar government contracts, and, it was learned this week, secured a potentially big raise recently from the state of Louisiana. In the waning days of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration, state officials increased the management contract ceiling from $756 million to $914 million — this, after the Legislature wanted to fire ICF over its handling of the homeowner recovery program.
March 14, 2008
The recession is here, economists tell the Wall Street Journal. Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd agree.
March 16, 2008
JPMorgan Chase says it will acquire rival Bear Stearns for a bargain-basement $236.2 million — or $2 a share — a stunning collapse for one of the world’s largest and most storied investment banks. The last-minute buyout is aimed at averting a Bear Stearns bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system. The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government swiftly approve the all-stock deal, showing the urgency of completing the deal before world markets opened. Early indications, though, point to continued fear about the stability of the U.S. market, as the dollar hits fresh record lows against the euro, gold breaks through $1,015 an ounce and Asian stocks sink.
March 17, 2008
America Was Conned: Who Will Pay?, writes the Guardian:
Ultimately, though, action will be taken because there will be political pressure for it. Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that there is not already rioting in the streets, given the gigantic fraud perpetrated by the financial elite at the expense of ordinary Americans.
The US has just had its weakest period of expansion since the 1950s. Consumption growth has been poor. Investment growth has been modest. Exports have been sluggish. But if you are at the top of the tree, the years since the last recession in 2001 has been a veritable golden age. Salaries for executives have rocketed and profits have soared, because the productivity gains from a growing economy have been disproportionately skewed towards capital. For ordinary Americans, though, it has been a different story. Real wages have been growing slowly; at just 1.6% a year on average over the latest upswing, well down on the experience of earlier decades.
March 18, 2008
"No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq," President Bush says on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. "The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around; it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror." Still, large-scale attacks by terrorists and insurgent groups continue in Iraq. Bombings killed six Iraqis and wounded 51 in northeastern Baghdad and Mosul on the previous day, and the death toll from a Monday suicide bombing in Karbala rose to 50.
Five years into the war:
Dick Cheney again links the Iraq invasion to 9/11. "This long-term struggle became urgent on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001," Cheney tells soldiers in Iraq.
Major Sunni and Shiite political blocs boycott a national conference aimed at reconciling Iraq's rival communities, underscoring the deep divisions tearing at the country despite a decline in violence.
Marine Sgt. Ryan Weemer is charged with first-degree murder in death of a detainee in Fallujah, after he fails a polygraph exam while applying for a job with the Secret Service. Weems was asked about his involvement with a Marine squad that shot a group of unarmed captives in November 2004.
The Fed slashes a key interest rate by three-quarters of a point, wrapping up its most aggressive two months of rate cuts in a quarter-century.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation has seized voting machines for forensic analysis and has launched a criminal investigation into the Franklin County Board of Elections. The investigation was launched after Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's Secretary of State and chief election official, found that a candidate's name was marked as withdrawn on the electronic voting machine that she used during the recent primaries, an irregularity that was also reported by voters in other precincts.
The state attorney general is now working with a team of computer forensic consultants to determine if there was any tampering.Preliminary analysis conducted by specialists from SysTest Labs indicates that the internal audit capability of the Franklin County voting machines had been manually disabled by county election board programmers last year, making it almost impossible to tell if any nefarious changes have been made to the systems. SysTest also discovered that the election board had failed to adhere to routine machine testing standards and had tested only one machine in each precinct rather than all of the machines.
Ohio has seen one electronic voting disaster after another ever since counties in the state began adopting the technology. Two Cuyahoga election officials were convicted of rigging a recount in May 2004 because they literally admitted to doing precounts and displayed the evidence while being recorded on videotape. A different Cuyahoga county recount, for a November 2007 local election, was equally marred when Brunner turned the state's voter-verifiable paper audit trail law into a mockery by conducting the recount with paper ballots reprinted after the election from voting machine memory cards.
March 19, 2008
Federal regulators say Wednesday they will allow mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to reduce the capital they are required to keep on hand, a move that could pump $200 billion into mortgage markets.
Before dining with Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Cheney borrows his 60-foot royal yacht and goes fishing in the waters between Oman and Iran. Cheney tells ABC News that while December's National Intelligence Estimate said Iran abandoned its program to develop a nuclear warhead three years ago, "We don't know whether or not they've restarted."
March 20, 2008
The commander of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, says "mistakes" were made in sending injured Fort Carson soldiers to Iraq. Hammond, who now oversees all troops in Baghdad, admits problems with ordering soldiers to war who had been deemed medically unfit to fight, including some who were unable to get medical care they needed in the Middle East.
The State Department fires two contract workers for snooping in Barack Obama's passport file. A spokesman for Obama's campaign demands a complete investigation.
The George Bush Presidential Library at SMU will be personally censored by Karl Rove, with an attached "think tank" pushing a partisan, ideological agenda. Arab oil kingdoms, corporate sponsors and wealthy heiresses will pony up the $500 million price tag.
March 22, 2008
Three soldiers die when a roadside bomb hits their vehicle near Baghdad. Another US soldier dies after an attack the previous day. Six people are killed in a US air strike near the Iraqi town of Samarra; the US denies claims by a police source and a militia member that those killed at the checkpoint were members of one of the Awakening Councils, US-funded groups credited with helping to curb the level of violence.
March 23, 2008
The number of United States military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion passes the 4,000 mark when four soldiers in a patrol vehicle are killed by a bomb in southern Baghdad on Sunday.
March 24, 2008
Gasoline prices at the pump reach an all-time high after climbing 7 cents a gallon in two weeks.
March 25, 2008
With Iraq's top leaders directing the battle, Iraq's army and national police press a major operation Tuesday to wrest control of the southern port city of Basra from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia. Fighting between government forces and the militia quickly spreads through Iraq's south and into Baghdad. Medical officials estimate that 10 to 20 people were killed and that 100 are wounded in the fighting. But with most hospitals and the morgue barely functioning amid the fighting, it's impossible to get an accurate tally of the casualties. Militiamen carrying rocket-propelled grenades take over many of the streets, preventing residents from leaving their homes.
The Bush administration tells a seemingly receptive Supreme Court that the U.S. military should be allowed to turn over two American citizens to the Iraqi government for criminal proceedings. For now, defense lawyers have successfully stopped the transfers of Shawqi Omar, who allegedly assisted a terrorist network, and Mohammad Munaf, who allegedly set up the 2005 kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Baghdad. Omar and Munaf proclaim their innocence and both are Sunni Muslims who say they will be tortured if they end up in Iraqi hands. Lawyers for the two say they are under the U.S. military's control, while the Bush administration says they are held by the "multinational force" in Iraq, of which the U.S. contingent is only a part. "American citizens, when they go abroad, they have to take what they get," says Deputy Attorney General Gregory Garre.
The Supreme Court rules President Bush does not have the "unilateral authority" to force state officials to comply with an international treaty. Chief Justice Roberts writes the chief executive's power, "as with the exercise of any governmental power, must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself."
March 26, 2008
U.S. forces join Iraqi troops in Baghdad to fight Shi'ite militants, and police say that at least 20 people are killed in the Sadr City neighborhood, a stronghold for backers of Radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The city's fortified Green Zone sustains a third round of intense mortar fire that seriously injures three U.S. government employees. A mortar round strikes near Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's office. According to health ministry officials in Basra, at least 33 people have been killed and 150 wounded in the fighting.
Bush pardons two Colorado men convicted in 1994 of selling mounted migratory birds.
March 27, 2008
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledges "no retreat" in the fight against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra, as thousands of protesters demand he resign over the crackdown and extremists fire rockets into the U.S.-protected Green Zone. Gunmen in Baghdad seize a government spokesman from his home in a Shiite neighborhood, killing three of his bodyguards and torching his house. A bomb strikes a major oil pipeline in Basra.
The federal government releases figures showing the economy grew at a rate of only 0.6% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Compared to the third quarter, fourth-quarter corporate profits fell 3.3 percent. Profits in the fourth quarter were adjusted to exclude unusually large asset write-downs and higher provisions for loan losses.
March 28, 2008
The Iraqi military push into the southern city of Basra is not going as well as American officials had hoped, several U.S. officials say. A closely held U.S. military intelligence analysis of the fighting in Basra shows that Iraqi security forces control less than a quarter of the city, and Basra's police units are deeply infiltrated by members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army. "This is going to go on for a while," one U.S. military official says.
American and Iraqi troops unearth 14 badly decomposed bodies in a mass grave in Muqdadiyah, northeast of Baghdad. It is the second such find since Thursday, when 37 bodies were found.
Bush phones China's President Hu Jintao to confront him over the crackdown on Tibet, but must acknowledge an embarrassing blunder: the U.S. shipment of nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan, which went undiscovered for 18 months. Bush says he will attend the Beijing Olympics because they are an athletic event, not a political one.
March 30, 2008
"...Al Qaeda has been able for the past 18 months or so to establish a safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, and...they're bringing in operatives into the region for training," says CIA Director Michael Hayden, who warns that any future terrorist attack against Americans will certainly originate from that region.
In Iraq, Muqtada al-Sadr orders his Shiite militiamen off the streets Sunday but calls on the government to stop its raids against his followers. Seven people are killed when a mortar strikes a residential district in Baghdad's Karradah district. A U.S. airstrike kills 25 suspected militants after American ground forces come under heavy fire in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad. A suicide car bomber kills five U.S.-backed Sunni fighters and wounds eight other people near the oil hub of Beiji. Gunmen kill five policemen in Duluiyah. A U.S. soldier and a Marine are killed in separate roadside bombings in Baghdad and in Anbar province, raising to 4,010 the number of American service members killed since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
After 60 years, Aloha Airlines announces it is shutting down its passenger service. The airline blames rising fuel prices and new competition for driving it out of business.
March 31, 2008
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson proposes the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. The administration's plan draws criticism from Democrats that it does not go far enough to deal with abuses in mortgage lending and securities trading that were exposed by the current credit crisis. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin blasts Paulson's approach as "a disastrous backward step that would put the investor in jeopardy" because it would pre-empt state regulation of securities and insurance.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigns amid a criminal investigation into favoritism in awarding contracts, leaving the nation without a top housing official in the midst of a vast mortage crisis that has shaken the global economy.
At least three rockets or mortar rounds are fired at Baghdad's fortified Green Zone today, U.S. officials said, despite an order by radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr to his followers to end weeklong clashes that have killed more than 350 people in the capital and across southern Iraq.
A blast strikes a NATO patrol in southern Afghanistan, killing two British soldiers.
April 1, 2008
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claims that a week-old operation against Shiite militias has been a "success" despite a cease-fire that did not disarm the gunmen and left him politically battered and humbled within his Shiite power base. At least 1,247 Iraqis were killed in March, making it their deadliest month since last August.
61% of historians rate Bush the worst president ever, in an informal poll conducted by George Mason University's History News Network. Another sizeable percentage rank him at or near next-to-the-bottom of the list.
Hardball host Chris Matthews asks Sen. Claire McCaskill about Obama: "Let me ask you about how he -- Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?" Because, apparently, African-Americans aren't regular people.
April 2, 2008
For the first time, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke admits "a recession is possible" in the first half.
April 3, 2008
ATA Airlines ceases all flights as it files for bankruptcy. A company statement blames the loss of a key military contract.
Economist Howard Glekman critiques the subprime mortgage mess: "A $45 trillion market in immensely complex derivative securities, with no regulation, no capital requirements, no transparency, and a Federal Reserve that is so terrified of the consequences of this market blowing up that it seems prepared to bail out the losers at almost any cost." In the words of Fortune Senior Editor Allan Sloan, "Private profits, socialized losses."
Hanging in the Bush White House is the president's favorite painting, W.H.D. Koerner's "A Charge to Keep." In Bush's own words, it depicts "a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail." Bush tells visitors it depicts a Methodist minister riding his circuit. In fact, it depicts a horse thief frantically fleeing a lynch mob.
April 4, 2008
Employers slashed 80,000 jobs in March, the most in five years and the third straight month of losses, the Labor Departmet reports. At the same time, the national unemployment rate rose from 4.8 percent to 5.1 percent, the clearest signal yet that the economy might already be shrinking.
In a dramatic reversal, Iraq's prime minister orders a nationwide freeze Friday on Iraqi raids against Shiite militants, bowing to demands by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr only one day after promising to expand the crackdown to Baghdad. In Basra, military and police officials say about 900 Iraqi soldiers and police deserted or refused to fight the militias after the offensive was launched March 25.
A suicide bomber kills at least 15 people and wounds eight when he blows himself up during a policeman's funeral in Sadiyah, a town 60 miles north of Baghdad. A roadside bomb kills four policemen and wounds one in Hillah, a mostly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
April 6, 2008
Rocket attacks kill two U.S. soldiers in the heavily fortified Green Zone and another at a Baghdad military base. A fourth is killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala province. An Iraqi army spokesman says 11 people are killed when U.S. soldiers fire two missiles in support of an Iraqi army team that came under RPG attack. 42 soldiers in a bus bound for Mosul are kidnapped at gunpoint; Iraqi troops with U.S. helicopter support rescue them.
April 7, 2008
Three more U.S. troops are killed amid fierce street battles between Shiite Muslim militias and Iraqi and American soldiers. Thousands of Iraqis the Sadr City, where fighting has left at least 41 dead and 185 wounded since Sunday. A U.S. military spokesman rejects Iraqi allegations that U.S. airstrikes and gunfire have killed mostly civilians. "There might be some civilians that are getting caught, but for the most part, we're killing the bad guys," says Lt. Col. Steven Stover.
John McCain admits he lacks a command of economic issues. His chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, gained his expertise working in the current administration.
April 8, 2008
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq tells the Senate Armed Forces Commitee that there has been "significant but uneven progress" in security in the war-ravaged nation. Gen. David Petraeus warns, however, that recent violence in Iraq shows the progress there is "fragile and reversible." Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, says "Success is within reach." The Petraeus plan might still leave 140,000 troops in Iraq by the time Bush leaves office...more than invaded the country in 2003.
A U.S. soldier is killed by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad.
A Senior Al-Qaida operative responsible for the 2005 London bombings has died of hepatitis in Pakistan's tribal regions, U.S. officials say. Abu Abaida al-Masri's death undercuts Pakistan's rejection of U.S. claims that al Qaida's leadership has been directing terrorist plots from inside the borders region's safe havens of soaring mountains and rugged valleys.
April 9, 2008
Soldiers already serving in Iraq will be excluded from President Bush's plan to cut combat tours from 15 to 12 months. Two more U.S. soldiers in Iraq die of wounds from improvised explosive devices.
Democrats plan to push legislation this spring that would force the Iraqi government to spend its own surplus in oil revenues to rebuild the country, sparing U.S. dollars. Iraq has about $30 billion in surplus funds stored in U.S. banks, according to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.
The New York Times reports: In a major shift of policy, the Justice Department, once known for taking down giant corporations, including the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, has put off prosecuting more than 50 companies suspected of wrongdoing over the last three years. Instead, many companies, from boutique outfits to immense corporations like American Express, have avoided the cost and stigma of defending themselves against criminal charges with a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, which allows the government to collect fines and appoint an outside monitor to impose internal reforms without going through a trial. In many cases, the name of the monitor and the details of the agreement are kept secret. Deferred prosecution agreements, or D.P.A.’s, have become controversial because of a medical supply company’s agreement to pay up to $52 million to the consulting firm of John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, as an outside monitor to avoid criminal prosecution. That agreement has prompted Congressional inquiries and calls for stricter guidelines.
April 10, 2008
April 11, 2008
Frontier Airlines files for bankruptcy, plans to keep flying.
Gunmen kill Riyadh al-Nouri, a senior aide to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in the holy city of Najaf.
April 12, 2008
Army Spc. William E. Allmon, 25, of Ardmore, Okla., is killed by an explosive in Baghdad. Two Marines are killed by a roadside bomb in Anbar province.
April 13, 2008
April 14, 2008
April 15, 2008
A car bombing in central Baqubah, the capital of northeastern Diyala province, kills at least 47 people. A suicide bomber in Ramadi, in Anbar province, kills at least 10 people at a restaurant frequented by police. The bombings strike directly at U.S. claims that the Sunni insurgency is waning and being replaced by Shiite militia violence as a major threat.
In Karbala, south of Baghdad, suspected Shiite militia members kidnap six Iraqi soldiers, toruring and killing five. Three aides to Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, escape assassination in separate attacks Tuesday, although two of them are seriously wounded.
The House votes 238 to 179 to kill an Internal Revenue Service program that relies on private debt collectors to pursue back taxes. The IRS has lost more than $34 million as it pays contractors to do what the government's own tax experts say IRS agents could do more efficiently.
April 16, 2008
A U.S. airstrike kills four gunmen in Basra, military officials say. Clashes between Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen kill two and injure 18 others, police say. A mortar shell slams into a house in eastern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and wounding three others.
Roughly one in five U.S. troops that has survived duty in Iraq and Afghanistan suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, according to a Rand Corp. study which puts the toll at 300,000 or more. An equal number report possible brain injuries from explosions or other head wounds.
The FBI currently has 2,500 public corruption cases under investigation, an increase of 50 percent from five years ago, Director Robert Mueller says.
April 18, 2008
April 21, 2008
May 14, 2008
The U.S. drops charges against the alleged "20th hijacker." Mohammad al-Qatani's confessions and evidence against others are tainted because he underwent protracted torture at Guantanamo.
May 15, 2008
Speaking in Israel, President Bush compares his political opponents to Nazi appeasers.
May 16, 2007
Consumer confidence hits a 28-year low amid rising gas and food prices.
Iran angrily blames the U.S. when three of its diplomats are wounded in a Baghdad shooting.
May 17, 2008
An American sniper is removed from Iraq after using a copy of the Quran for target practice, a day after a U.S. commander held a formal ceremony apologizing to Sunni tribal leaders. The elaborate ceremony — in which one U.S. officer kissed a new copy of Islam's holy book before giving it to the tribal leaders — reflects the military's eagerness to stave off anger among Sunni Arabs it has been cultivating as allies.
May 19, 2008
A congressional report includes the first solid evidence of White House interference in the EPA's decision blocking California and other states from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows Environmental Protection Agency head Stephen Johnson originally supported California's right to limit tailpipe emissions, but reversed himself after hearing from the White House.
May 20, 2008
May 21, 2008
Gasoline prices hit an all-time high of $3.807 a gallon, the 14th straight day of record prices.
May 25, 2008
Internal Veterans Administration memos show there are 1,000 suicide attempts a month at VA facilities. A CBS News study shows more than 6,250 American veterans committed suicide in 2006 alone.
A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier based at Fort Carson is killed by an improvised explosive device near Najaf, Iraq. Sgt. Frank Joseph Gasper, 25, is the fifth 10th Special Forces soldier to be killed in Iraq and the 238th Fort Carson soldier killed in Iraq.
May 27, 2008
June 2, 2008
June 3, 2008:
General Motors will close four pickup truck and SUV plants and slash 8,350 jobs.
June 4, 2008
The US military awards an $80 million contract to a Saudi financier who's wanted by the FBI for a multibillion bank fraud case. The French parliament has also linked Gaith Pharaon to money transfer networks used by Al-Qaeda. Pharaon was an investor in George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
June 5, 2008
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousts the Air Force's top officials, faulting them for failing to secure sensitive materials, including nuclear missile warhead fuses that were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan, and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that were flown across the country in a B-52 with no one realizing they were aboard.
The first Guantamano detainees to go to trial, the confessed mastermind of the 9/11 hijackings and four alleged co-conspirators, face a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.
June 6, 2008
Unemployment jumps to 5.5 percent, the biggest monthly rise since 1986.
Home foreclosures and late payments soar to new highs.
June 8, 2008
The nationwide average price of regular gasoline reaches $4 a gallon for the first time.
June 9, 2008
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich calls for President Bush's impeachment.
Iraqi lawmakers reject a U.S. "status of forces" proposal which they claim would give the U.S. 58 bases in Iraq, give the U.S. power to decide if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq, give the U.S. control of Iraqi air space, and grant immunity from prosecution to U.S. troops and private contractors.
Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff had 150 contacts with White House officials, including six meetings with President Bush, a House committee reports.
June 10, 2008
The Pentagon advised federal agents to destroy any written records of their interrogation of terror suspects to "minimize certain legal issues," a Navy lawyer reveals after reading a 2003 Guantamo "standard operating procedures" manual. The Senate Judiciary Committee hears testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Guantamano.
The World Bank says infighting within the Aghan government and failure to confront graft "has resulted in the widely held view that corruption is being ignored or tacitly acknowledged." The bank calls for the ouster of government officials connected to Afghanistan's drug trade, the world's unrivalled center of heroin production.
June 11, 2008
"We'll give diplomacy a chance to work," Bush says of Iran. "All options are on the table."
June 12, 2008
June 13, 2008
June 15, 2008
Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatens to send troops after Taliban leaders inside Pakistan in an angry warning to his eastern neighbor that he will no longer tolerate cross-border attacks.
June 16, 2008
Taliban fighters overrun villages on the outskirts of Kandahar.
An eight-month investigation shows abuse of detainees in Afghanistan was routine. No serious punishments have been issued, even in the case of two detainees who died after American guards beat them.
Investigation also shows that many Guantanamo detainees were wrongly imprisoned. Top Bush administration officials knew within months of opening the Guantanamo detention center that many of the prisoners there weren't "the worst of the worst." From the moment that Guantanamo opened in early 2002, former Secretary of the Army Thomas White says, it was obvious that at least a third of the population didn't belong there.
A Senate investigation concludes that top Pentagon officials assembled lists of harsh interrogation techniques for detainees in the summer of 2002, later passing the blame to officers far down the chain of command. Military lawyers questioned the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them.
June 17, 2008
The Pentagon pursued abusive interrogation techniques once used by North Korea and Vietnam on American POWs despite stern warnings by several military lawyers that the methods were cruel and even illegal, a Senate investigation finds. The military hid detainees from Red Cross inspectors at Guantanamo to conceal evidence of the abuse, documents show.
A car bomb in Baghdad kills 51 and injures 75 in the capital's deadliest bombing in months.
June 18, 2008
Former detainees still traumatized.
Physicians for Human Rights say former detainees were tortured. The group examined 11 detainees from Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Afghanistan, none of whom were ever charged.
For the second time the House overrides a Bush veto of a $290 billion farm bill. The House also agrees to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year.
Bush calls for an end to the ban on offshore oil drilling.
June 19, 2008
June 21, 2008
A female suicide bomber kills at least 15 in Baghdad.
June 22, 2008
A U.S. soldier is killed and five wounded by small-arms fire outside Baghdad.
June 23, 2008
GAO: No post-surge strategy for Iraq.
June 24, 2008
June 27, 2008
A U.S. commando raid kills a cousin of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
June 29, 2008
July 8, 2008
Iraqi officials press for a timeline on withdrawing U.S. troops.
July 10, 2008
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House may hold hearings on a resolution to impeach Bush.
Former White House adviser Karl Rove defies a congressional subpoena and refuses to testify about allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department. Committee Chair Linda Sanchez shoots down Rove's claims of "executive privilege."
June 13, 2008
Nine American soldiers are killed in an insurgent attack on a base in southern Afghanistan.
June 14, 2008
Bush lifts offshore drilling ban.
The government's terrorist watch list hits one million names.
Borger: Well, let's get to Mohamed Atta for a minute because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
When pressed on the quote, Cheney will angrily shout, "Never happened! Never happened!"
It is now clear that no end is in sight to the turmoil, and the reason for that is that the Fed and the US treasury are no closer to solving the underlying problem than they were eight months ago. The crisis will only end when house prices stop falling and banks stop racking up huge losses on their loans. Doing that, however, will require the US government to intervene directly in the real estate market to end the wave of foreclosures. Ideologically, it is ill-equipped to take that step and, as a result, property prices will fall and the financial meltdown will go on and on.
* Baghdad has seven hours of power a day; before the war it had 16 to 24.
* Poor neighborhoods receive little or no water.
* Of the city's three major sewage treatment plants, two are not working; the other is at half capacity. Entire neighborhoods are ankle-deep in untreated filth.
* More than 2.4 million Iraqis are internally displaced; another 2.2 million have fled the country entirely.
* Even so, unemployment remains at 60-70% and 43% of Iraqis live in poverty.
* Of the more than 700 schools bombed in 2003, almost none have been rebuilt.
* In Baghdad, violence against women and sexual slavery are on the rise. In the south, killings of women to "preserve family honor" have increased sharply.
* Reporters are largely confined to the Green Zone and Baghdad hotels. "In all, just one in six stories about the war has been focused on Iraqis, Iraqi casualties or the internal political affairs of their country," reports the Project for Excellence in Journalism.