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Intel - History
Iraq War 2003

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

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• While still serving as Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney releases a documented titled “Defense Strategy for the 1990s,” in which he reasserts the plans for US global domination outlined in the Defense Policy Guide leaked to the press in March 1992.
• Clinton’s inauguration as president later in the month precludes Cheney from actually implementing his plans.

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• After Saddam's brother-in-law Kemal Hussein defected to Jordan in the mid 1990's and exposed some (but not all) of the numerous Iraqi WMD programs... (John Loftus "Shattering Conventional Wisdom About Saddam's WMD's")

• The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”
• The paper, whose lead author is neoconservative Richard Perle, is meant to advise the new, right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Other authors include James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser.

• It advocates making a complete break with past policies by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism.…”
•  Much along the lines of an earlier paper by Israeli Oded Yinon, the document urges the Israelis to aggressively seek the downfall of their Arab neighbors—especially Syria and Iraq—by exploiting the inherent tensions within and among the Arab States.
• The first step is to be the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

• As part of their "grand strategy," they recommended that once Iraq was conquered and Saddam Hussein was overthrown, he should be replaced by a puppet leader friendly to Israel.
• Then they suggested that Syria would be the next country to be invaded.
• "Israel can shape its strategic environment," they said.

• The recommendation of Feith, Perle, and Wurmser was for Israel to once again invade Lebanon with air strikes. But this time, to counter potentially hostile reactions from the American government and public, they suggested using a pretext.
• They would claim that the purpose of the invasion was to halt "Syria's drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure" located there. They were subjects in which Israel had virtually no interest, but they were ones, they said, "with which America can sympathize.

Daniel Benjamin, National Security Council

• The National Security Council (NSC) completes a review of Iraq and terrorism. In an interview with journalist Robert Dreyfuss four years later, Daniel Benjamin, then-director of counterterrorism at the NSC, summarizes the report’s conclusions: “[W]e went through every piece of intelligence we could find to see if there was a link [between] al-Qaeda and Iraq. We came to the conclusion that our intelligence agencies had it right: There was no noteworthy relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq. I know that for a fact. No other issue has been as closely scrutinized as this one.”

• Australian diplomat Richard Butler, the head of the United Nations Special Commission, told the New York Times...that the Iraqis had enough anthrax and botulin toxin "to blow away Tel Aviv."
• He added that the missiles Iraq could use for that purpose "were very crude, but they work".

"Study of Revenge" in its' first edition

• Laurie Mylroie, a researcher who held faculty positions at Harvard and the US Naval War College, publishes the book Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America.
• She argues that the Iraqi government was behind the 1993 WTC bombing. The book is published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a prominent neoconservative think tank, and her book has strong support from many important neoconservatives.
• Richard Perle calls the book “splendid and wholly convincing,” while Paul Wolfowitz calls it a “provocative and disturbing book.”

• Former CIA official Tyler Drumheller summed up Curveball as "a guy trying to get his green card essentially, in Germany, and playing the system for what it was worth."

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• The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000.  (Petrodollar Warfare, p. 114, quoting Karen Kwiatkowski)

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

• At 2:40 that afternoon, an aide to the Defense Secretary jotted notes of Rumsfeld's conversations. Written deep  in the War Room, the notes describe the Pentagon chief as wanting "best info fast, judge whether good enough to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL (Osama bin Laden)." "Go massive," he noted. "Sweep it up. Things related, and not." (A Pretext for War, p. 285)

Richard Clarke Stunned by Push Towards 
Iraq in Retaliation for September 11th

• Twelve hours later, around two o'clock on the morning of September 12, Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke headed back to the White House for a series of meetings..."I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq...

• Having been attacked by Al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor." At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq."  (A Pretext for War, p. 285)

Richard Clarke Stunned by Push Towards 
Iraq in Retaliation for September 11th

• Bush warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." He and other US officials have said that renegade Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden is the most likely suspect in the attacks.
• His use of the word "crusade," said Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in Marseille, France, "was most unfortunate", "It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim world," by Christian knights, who launched repeated attempts to capture Jerusalem over the course of several hundred years.

Douglas Feith

• Douglas Feith suggests in a draft memo that the US should consider “hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al-Qaeda target like Iraq.”
• Other regions he proposes attacking include South America and Southeast Asia.
• He reasons that an initial attack against such targets would “surprise… the terrorists” and catch them off guard.

• According to Newsweek, the content of Feith’s memo derives from the work of the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, a project headed by Michael Maloof and David Wurmser.
• The group suggested that an attack on the remote Triborder region, where Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil meet and where Iranian-backed Hezbollah is said to have a presence, would have a ripple effect among international Islamic militant groups.

John Yoo

• In a secret 15-page memo to Deputy White House Counsel Timothy Flanigan, Justice Department lawyer John Yoo reasons that it is “beyond question that the president has the plenary constitutional power to take such military actions as he deems necessary and appropriate to respond to the terrorist attacks” of 9/11. Those actions can be extensive. “The President may deploy military force preemptively against terrorist organizations or the States that harbor or support them,” Yoo writes, “whether or not they can be linked to the specific terrorist incidents of Sept. 11… Force can be used both to retaliate for those attacks, and to prevent and deter future assaults on the nation. 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.” This power of the president, Yoo states, rests both on the US Congress’ Joint Resolution of September 14 and on the War Powers Resolution of 1973. “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.” He argues further that the September 14 resolution does not represent the limits to the president’s authority. “It should be noted here that the Joint Resolution is somewhat narrower than the president’s constitutional authority,” as it “does not reach other terrorist individuals, groups or states which cannot be determined to have links to the September 11 attacks.” the president’s broad power can be used against selected individuals suspected of posing a danger to the US, even though it may be “difficult to establish, by the standards of criminal law or even lower legal standards, that particular individuals or groups have been or may be implicated in attacks on the United States.” Yoo concludes: “[W]e do not think that the difficulty or impossibility of establishing proof to a criminal law standard (or of making evidence public) bars the president from taking such military measures as, in his best judgment, he thinks necessary or appropriate to defend the United States from terrorist attacks. In the exercise of his plenary power to use military force, the president’s decisions are for him alone and are unreviewable.”

• Michael Ledeen, speaking at an event sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, states: “No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq… this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war… our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

• General Wesley Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, meets with an unnamed senior general at the Pentagon. Six weeks earlier, this general had told him, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq”.
• Now Clark asks if the plan to attack Iraq is still under consideration.
• According to Clark, the general replies, “Yes, sir, but it’s worse than that.” He holds up a piece of paper and says: “I just got this memo… from the office of the secretary of defense upstairs. It’s a, it’s a five-year plan. We’re going to take down seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan, we’re going to come back and get Iran in five years.”

• When the general says the paper is classified, Clark tells him, “Well, don’t show it to me, because I want to be able to talk about it.”
• Clark will tell CNN this paper “wasn’t a plan. Maybe it was a think piece. Maybe it was a sort of notional concept, but what it was was the kind of indication of dialogue around this town in official circles.”
• Clark also later claims that when he sees the general again around early 2006 and asks him about the paper, the general replies: “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”

• Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz arranges for Christopher DeMuth, president of the neoconservative think tank The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), to create a group to strategize about the war on terrorism. The group DeMuth creates is called Bletchley II, named after a team of strategists in World War II. The dozen members of this secret group include:
• Bernard Lewis, a professor arguing that the US is facing a clash of civilizations with the Islamic world.
• Fareed Zakaria, a Newsweek editor and columnist.
• Mark Palmer, a former US ambassador to Hungary.
• Fouad Ajami, director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
• James Wilson, a professor and specialist in human morality and crime.
• Ruel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA Middle East expert.
• Steve Herbits, a close consultant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

• According to journalist Bob Woodward, the group comes to quick agreement after just two days of discussions and a report is made from their conclusions. They agree it will take two generations for the US to defeat radical Islam. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the keys to the problems of the Middle East, but the problems there are too intractable. Iran is similarly difficult. But Iraq is weak and vulnerable. DeMuth will later comment: “We concluded that a confrontation with Saddam [Hussein] was inevitable. He was a gathering threat - the most menacing, active, and unavoidable threat. We agreed that Saddam would have to leave the scene before the problem would be addressed.” That is the key to transform the region. Vice President Dick Cheney is reportedly pleased with their report. So is National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who finds it “very, very persuasive.” It is said to have a strong impact on President Bush as well. Woodward later notes the group’s conclusions are “straight from the neoconservative playbook.”

• COLIN POWELL WARNED AGAINST 2003 IRAQ WAR, DISLIKED THE AFGHAN OPERATIONS TOO Opposition to the... (2003 US invasion of Iraq - ed) came from the Army and the State Department - not incidentally, run by a former Army four-star general, Colin Powell. The Army always had a jaundiced view of the claims made for air power, and nothing that happened in Afghanistan persuaded them otherwise...Powell basically said that if Afghanistan was the model, the United States really couldn't afford another victory like that. [source: America's Secret War, p. 251???]

• US MILITARY TOLD TO LEAVE SAUDI KINGDOM By March 2002, the US was starting to move its equipment in Saudi Arabia to Qatar. The US had, as early as February, hired contractors to start moving equipment out of Prince Sultan Air Base, a major US facility in Saudi Arabia. Both sides tried to keep it quiet...The Saudis had completely miscalculated the mood in Washington, having assumed that anti-Saudi feeling had been confined to the Defense Department. [source: America's Secret War, pp. 259-260]

• In a speech, President Bush announces a “new” US policy of preemptive attacks: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge.”
• This preemptive strategy is included in a defensive strategic paper the next month, and formally announced in September 2002.
• Despite the obvious parallels, the mainstream media generally fails to report that this “new” antiterrorism strategy was first proposed by Bush’s key administration officials in 1992 and has been continually advocated by the same people ever since.

• Concerning Iraq’s weapons programs, prominent critics included Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector who argued in 2002 that inspections had eliminated the nuclear and chemical weapons programs, and that evidence of their reconstitution would “have been eminently detectable by intelligence services …”

• Moreover, many of Saddam's own tapes and documents concerning chemical and biological weapons are ambiguous.
• When read together as a mosaic whole, Saddam's secret files certainly make a persuasive case of massive WMD acquisition right up to a few months before the war. Not only was he buying banned precursors for nerve gas, he was ordering the chemicals to make Zyklon B, the Nazis favorite gas at Auschwitz.
• However odious and well documented his purchases in 2002, there is no direct evidence of any CW or BW actually remaining inside Iraq on the day the war started in 2003.

• As stated in more detail in my full report, the British, Ukrainian and American secret services all believed that the Russians had organized a last minute evacuation of CW and BW stockpiles from Baghdad to Syria. (John Loftus "Shattering Conventional Wisdom About Saddam's WMD's")

Weapons Inspector David Kay

• Joseph C. Wilson, an American diplomat who investigated claims that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons in Niger. The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee "found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts." Prior to the invasion, Wilson also argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."

• Once the oil revenues are restored to the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government will be able rebuild itself, and reimburse us for our expenses.

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• The US military releases a new Defense Planning Guidance strategic vision.
• It “contains all the key elements” of a similar document written ten years earlier by largely the same people now in power.
• Like the original, the centerpiece of this vision is preventing any other powers from challenging US world dominance.
• Some new tactics are proposed, such as using nuclear weapons for a preemptive strike, but the basic plan remains the same.

• David Armstrong notes in Harper’s magazine: “[In 1992] the goal was global dominance, and it met with bad reviews. Now it is the answer to terrorism. The emphasis is on preemption, and the reviews are generally enthusiastic. Through all of this, the dominance motif remains, though largely undetected.”

• A Newsweek article suggests that some of President Bush’s advisers advocate not only attacking Iraq, but also Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Egypt, and Burma, shocking many. One senior British official tells the magazine: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.”

• "Team B" was a two-man analysis cell, which cherry-picked raw data from the entire database of the CIA, NSA, and DIA, seeking "proof" of Saddam Hussein links to Al Qaeda, and evidence of Saddam's secret weapons programs.
• The first members of "Team B" were David Wurmser...and Michael Maloof.

• President Bush tells the UN, in a speech, that Saddam is "the guy who tried to kill my dad", implying a revenge motivation

• The Bush administration submits to Congress a 31-page document entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United States.”
• Preemptive War - It openly advocates the necessity for the US to engage in “preemptive war” against nations it believes are likely to become a threat to the US’s security.
• It declares: “In an age where the enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world’s most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle. The United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”

• The declaration that the US will engage in preemptive war with other nations reverses decades of American military and foreign policy stances; until now, the US has held that it would only launch an attack against another nation if it had been attacked first, or if American lives were in imminent danger.
• President Bush had first mentioned the new policy in a speech in July 2002, and it echoes policies proposed by Paul Wolfowitz during the Bush Sr. administration.

• US Must Maintain Military "Beyond Challenge" - It states the ultimate objective of US national security policy is to “dissuade future military competition.”
• The US must therefore “build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge. Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.”

• Ignoring the International Criminal Court
• The NSS also states, “We will take the actions necessary to ensure that our efforts to meet our global security commitments and protect Americans are not impaired by the potential for investigations, inquiry, or prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction does not extend to Americans and which we do not accept.”

• Very small number of analysts tasked to the project
• Quickest time to produce in the history of the NIE
• Thomas Fingar says "if you want it really bad" (i.e. so quickly) "then you'll get it really bad"

• Hundreds of members of Congress report being misled by an estimate they never read

• 133 House members voted against the war, as well as 21 Democrats in the Senate, 1 Independent Senator, and 1 Republican Senator
• The vote came up three weeks before the election

• What do I think about it? Well, there isn't anyone alive who wouldn't prefer unanimity. I mean, you just always would like everyone to stand up and say, Way to go! That's the right to do, United States.
• Now, we rarely find unanimity in the world. I was ambassador to NATO, and I -- when we would go in and make a proposal, there wouldn't be unanimity. There wouldn't even be understanding. And we'd have to be persuasive. We'd have to show reasons. We'd have to -- have to give rationales. We'd have to show facts. And, by golly, I found that Europe on any major issue is given -- if there's leadership and if you're right, and if your facts are persuasive, Europe responds. And they always have.

• Now, you're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.
• Q: But opinion polls --
• Rumsfeld: But -- just a minute. Just a minute. But you look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They're not with France and Germany on this, they're with the United States.

• One of the earliest whistleblowers who witnessed the prewar activities of the OSP firsthand was US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Kwiatkowski. She worked in the Near East South Asia (NESA), a policy arm of the Pentagon, from May 2002 until February of 2003. Before resigning, she began writing forceful articles about her experiences in the Pentagon. The following interview with Kwiatkowski illustrated how a small but radical group of ideologically "pure"  neoconservatives successfully bypassed the CIA and DIA. [source: Petrodollar Warfare, p. 110]

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• In February 2003, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton will say in meetings with Israeli officials that he has no doubt America will attack Iraq, and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterward.
• This is largely unreported in the US media.

• The Hans Blix-led United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission report concluded on "no evidence of forbidden military nuclear activities", "no evidence of mass destruction weapon" (Iraq’s unconventional weapons program would had been successfully dismantled during the 1990s), but "Baghdad must cooperate more".

• COLIN POWELL WARNED AGAINST 2003 IRAQ WAR, DISLIKED THE AFGHAN OPERATIONS TOO Opposition to the... (2003 US invasion of Iraq - ed) came from the Army and the State Department - not incidentally, run by a former Army four-star general, Colin Powell. The Army always had a jaundiced view of the claims made for air power, and nothing that happened in Afghanistan persuaded them otherwise...Powell basically said that if Afghanistan was the model, the United States really couldn't afford another victory like that. [source: America's Secret War, p. 251???]

• On February 12, 2003 following the U.N. inspection report delivery, each one of the 15 representative of the U.N Security Council were given a 10 minute speech to expose the position they chose for their country...First speaker was the Syrian Arab Republic representative —sole Arab state in the council— who strongly supported the continuation of the inspections, arguing that Iraq was accused to not respect the UN resolutions while Israel ignored more than 500 of them and owned mass destruction weapons as well.

• "It is beyond doubt that this Crusader war is first and foremost directed against the family of Islam irrespective of whether the (Baath) Socialist party and Saddam survive or not. It is incumbent on Muslims in general and specifically those in Iraq - seriously and in the manner of jihad - to roll up their sleeves against this tyrannical campaign. Furthermore they are duty bound to accumulate stocks of ammunition and weapons. Despite our belief and our proclamation concerning the infidelity of socialists, in present day circumstances there is a coincidence of interests between Muslims and socialists in their battles against the Crusaders… Socialists are unbelievers wherever they may be, be it in Baghdad or Aden. The fight that is taking place today is to a great extent similar to the Muslims’ previous fight against the Christians. The coincidence of interests in beneficial. The Muslims’ fight against the Christian coincided with the interests of the Persians and did not in any way harm the companions of the Prophet." (Great War for Civilization, p. 1034)

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• "An Iraqi dissident going by the name of "Abu Abdallah" claims that on March 10, 2003, 50 trucks arrived in Deir Al-Zour, Syria after being loaded in Baghdad. …Abdallah approached his friend who was hesitant to confirm the WMD shipment, but did after Abdallah explained what his sources informed him of. The friend told him not to tell anyone about the shipment."
• These interrogation reports should be re-evaluated in light of the recently opened Iraqi secret archives, which we submit are the best evidence. But the captured document evidence should not be overstated. It must be emphasized that there is no one captured Saddam document which mentions both the possession of WMD and the movement to Syria.(John Loftus "Shattering Conventional Wisdom About Saddam's WMD's")

• The night of March 19, 2003, U.S. forces abandoned the plan for initial, non-nuclear decapitation strikes against fifty-five top Iraqi officials, in light of reports that Saddam Hussein was visiting his daughters and sons, Uday and Qusay at Dora Farms, within the al-Dora farming community on the outskirts of Baghdad. At approximately 05:30 UTC four enhanced, satellite-guided 2,000-pound Bunker Busters GBU-27 and 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles were dropped on the compound. 

• One missed the compound entirely and the other three missed their target landing on the other side of the wall of the palace compound. Saddam Hussein was not present nor were any members of the Iraqi leadership or Hussein family. The attack resulted in the deaths of fifteen civilians, including one child.

• In April 2003, former CIA Director James Woolsey will say that the US is engaged in a “world war,” where the enemies include not only Islamic extremists like al-Qaeda, but also the religious rulers of Iran, and the “fascists” of Iraq and Syria.
• Former CIA Director James Woolsey says the US is engaged in a world war, and that it could continue for years: “As we move toward a new Middle East, over the years and, I think, over the decades to come… we will make a lot of people very nervous.”
• He calls it World War IV (World War III being the Cold War according to neoconservatives like himself ), and says it will be fought against the religious rulers of Iran, the “fascists” of Iraq and Syria, and Islamic extremists like al-Qaeda.

• He singles out the leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, saying, “We want you nervous.”
• This echoes the rhetoric of the PNAC, of which Woolsey is a supporter, and the singling out of Egypt and Saudi Arabia echoes the rhetoric of the Defense Policy Board, of which he is a member.
• In July 2002, a presentation to that board concluded, “Grand strategy for the Middle East: Iraq is the tactical pivot. Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot. Egypt the prize.”

US troops in Saudi Arabia at some point before 9/11

• On April 30, 2003, the US announces that it is withdrawing most of its troops from Saudi Arabia.
• About 10,000 US soldiers have been stationed there since the first Gulf War.
• The withdrawal is completed by the end of August 2003.
• About several hundred US military personnel remain in the country to train Saudi forces and tend to military sales.
• The US moves the rest of its troops to new bases in Qatar and other Persian Gulf countries, as well as building new bases in Iraq, conquered just a month before the announcement.

• The withdrawal of US troops from Saudi Arabia has been bin Laden’s most persistent demand since the troops entered the country in 1990.
• For instance, in his 1996 fatwa, he said, “The latest and greatest of these aggressions incurred by Muslims since the death of the Prophet… is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places… by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies.”
• One senior US military official says the decision to leave was made partly to help relieve internal political pressure on the royal family: “The Saudis will be happy when we leave. But they’re concerned that it not look as if it’s precipitous, because it will look like bin Laden won.”

• It was reported that the National Museum of Iraq was among the looted sites. The assertion that U.S. forces did not guard the museum because they were guarding the Ministry of Oil and Ministry of Interior is apparently true. According to U.S. officials the "reality of the situation on the ground" was that hospitals, water plants, and ministries with vital intelligence needed security more than other sites. 

• There were only enough U.S. troops on the ground to guard a certain number of the many sites that ideally needed protection, and so, apparently, some "hard choices" were made. Also, it was reported that many trucks of purported Iraqi gold and $1.6 billion of bricks of U.S. cash were seized by U.S. forces.

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• CSIS fellow Anthony Cordesman spent nearly two weeks in Iraq and filed an unclassified report.
• "Some of the uncertainties in Iraq are the fault of major strategic and tactical mistakes made by the United States. US officials relied on ideology instead of planning for effective nation-building, internal security, and the risk of asymmetric warfare. They failed to make realistic assessments of the country's divisions and problems, or properly prepare for the fall of the regime...Iraq will not suddenly emerge as a model to the Arab world, and its regional impact on change and modernization will be at best far more limited than many American neo-conservatives hoped."

•  Two prominent neoconservatives, Richard Perle and David Frum, publish a book titled An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror.
• Both are fellows at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute.
• In the book, they suggest mobilizing Shi’ites living in eastern Saudi Arabia, where most of the Saudi oil is.

• They note that the Saudi government has long feared “that the Shi’ites might someday seek independence for the Eastern Province—and its oil.… Independence for the Eastern Province would obviously be a catastrophic outcome for the Saudi state. But it might be a very good outcome for the United States. Certainly it’s an outcome to ponder. Even more certainly, we would want the Saudis to know we are pondering it.”

• Hans Blix told BBC's "Breakfast with Frost" program, it was unclear what was meant by the claim in a September 2002 intelligence dossier that Iraq could deploy some weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes notice. "The intention was to dramatize it just as the vendors of some merchandise are trying to increase and exaggerate the importance of what they have. From politicians, from our leaders in the Western world, I think we expect more than that. A bit more sincerity."i

• Oct 5, 2004 NY Times - Rumsfeld said no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda

• British Journalist Michael Smith, 'Downing Street Memo'

Widely considered the "trigger" of civil war

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• al-Askari Mosque

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