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Albert Wohlstetter in 1969. [Source: Bettmann / Corbis]Albert Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, gathers a cadre of fiery young intellectuals around him, many of whom are working and associating with the magazine publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965). Wohlstetter's group includes Richard Perle, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Paul Wolfowitz. Wohlstetter, himself a protege of the Machiavellian academic Leo Strauss, is often considered the "intellectual godfather" of modern neoconservatism. Formerly an analyst at the RAND Corporation, Wohlstetter wielded a powerful influence on the US's foreign policy during the heyday of the Cold War. Wohlstetter, who is believed to be one of several analysts who became a model for director Stanley Kubrick's title character in the 1968 film Dr. Strangelove, added dramatic phrases like "fail-safe" and "second strike" capability to the US nuclear lexicon, and pushed to increase the US's military might over what he saw as the imminent and lethal threat of Soviet nuclear strikes and the Soviet Union's plans for global hegemony. He was such a powerful figure in his hundreds of briefings that he projected far more certainty than his facts actually supported. Though his facts and statistics were often completely wrong, he was so relentless and strident that his ideas gained more credence than they may have warranted. By 1965, he is known in some circles as a "mad genius" who is now collecting and molding young minds to follow in his footsteps. Author Craig Unger writes in 2007, "To join Team Wohlstetter, apparently, one had to embrace unquestioningly his worldviews, which eschewed old-fashioned intelligence as a basis for assessing the enemy's intentions and military capabilities in favor of elaborate statistical models, probabilities, reasoning, systems analysis, and game theory developed at RAND." An analyst with the Federation of Atomic Scientists will write in November 2003: "This methodology exploited to the hilt the iron law of zero margin for error.… Even a small probability of vulnerability, or a potential future vulnerability, could be presented as a virtual state of emergency." Or as one-time Wohlstetter acolyte Jude Wanninski will later put it, "[I]f you look down the road and see a war with, say, China, twenty years off, go to war now." Unger will observe, "It was a principle his acolytes would pursue for decades to come—with disastrous results." [Unger, 2007, pp. 42-46]
Entity Tags: University of Chicago, Stanley Kubrick, Richard Perle, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, RAND Corporation, Leo Strauss, Albert Wohlstetter, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving Kristol, Federation of Atomic Scientists, Craig Unger, Jude Wanninski
Timeline Tags: Neoconservative Influence
Dick Cheney. [Source: Boston Globe]Dick Cheney, a long-term college student who avoided the Vietnam War by securing five student deferments [Washington Post, 1/17/2006] and now a Congressional aide, is hired by Donald Rumsfeld, who had been a congressman but resigned to run the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Cheney is a young staff assistant to Representative Bill Steiger (R-WI), who took Cheney under his wing and taught him what he knew of the ins and outs of Washington bureaucracy. There are two versions of how Cheney comes to Rumsfeld's attention. Rumsfeld sends a letter to Steiger asking for advice on how to run the OEO. The official story has Cheney spying the letter and writing a ten-page policy memo on how to run a federal agency, a memo that so impresses Steiger that he recommends Cheney to Rumsfeld's attention. Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will write, "A more plausible version has Steiger (who died in 1978) assigning Cheney the task of collecting information on the OEO for Rumsfeld." Either way, Rumsfeld is so taken with the memo that he hires Cheney on the spot. Rumsfeld, who is also an assistant to President Nixon, takes Cheney with him to morning and afternoon meetings in the White House. Cheney later says these meetings taught him "what [a president] has to do in the course of a day." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 24-25]
Entity Tags: Jake Bernstein, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard M. Nixon, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Office of Economic Opportunity, Lou Dubose, Bill Steiger
Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate, Neoconservative Influence
Henry 'Scoop' Jackson. [Source: US Congress]The recently formed neoconservatives, bound together by magazine publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965), react with horror to the ascendancy of the "McGovern liberals" in the Democratic Party, and turn to conservative senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) for leadership. Jackson calls himself a "muscular Democrat"; others call him "the Senator from Boeing" for his strong support of the US defense industry. Jackson merges a strong support of labor and civil rights groups with a harsh Cold War opposition to the Soviet Union. Jackson assembles a staff of bright, young, ideologically homogeneous staffers who will later become some of the most influential and powerful neoconservatives of their generation, including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, Abram Shulsky, and Paul Wolfowitz. Jackson's office—"the bunker," to staffers—becomes a home for disaffected, ambitious young conservative ideologues with a missionary zeal for change. Jackson presides over the cadre in an almost fatherly fashion. History of Two Dictators - Many of Jackson's neoconservative disciples came of age either fighting two foreign dictators—Stalin and/or Hitler—or growing up with family members who fought against them. [Unger, 2007, pp. 35-41] Wolfowitz's father's family perished in the Holocaust; he will later say that what happened to European Jews during World War II "shaped a lot of my views." [New York Times, 4/22/2002] Feith will tell the New Yorker in 2005, "[My] family got wiped out by Hitler, and… all this stuff about working things out—well, talking to Hitler to resolve the problem didn't make any sense." Most neoconservatives like Feith and Wolfowitz tend to look to military solutions as a first, not a last, resort. To them, compromise means appeasement, just as Britain's Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler. Stefan Halper, a White House and State Department official in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, will say of the neoconservatives, "It is use force first and diplomacy down the line." Former Trotskyites - On the other hand, many neoconservatives come to the movement from the hardline, socialist left, often from organizations that supported Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky (see Late 1930s - 1950s). Trotskyites accused Stalin of betraying the purity of the Communist vision as declaimed by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. "I can see psychologically why it would not be difficult for them to become [conservative] hard-liners," says Harvard Sovietologist Richard Pipes, himself a hardliner whose son, Daniel Pipes, will become an influential neoconservative. "It was in reaction to the betrayal." Many neoconservatives like Stephen Schwartz, a writer for the Weekly Standard, still consider themselves to be loyal disciples of Trotsky. Richard Perle is a Trotskyite socialist when he joins Jackson's staff, and will always practice what author Craig Unger calls "an insistent, uncompromising, hard-line Bolshevik style" of policy and politics. Like Trotsky, Unger writes, the neoconservatives pride themselves on being skilled bureaucratic infighters, and on trusting no one except a small cadre of like-minded believers. Disagreement is betrayal, and political struggles are always a matter of life and death. [Unger, 2007, pp. 35-41]
Entity Tags: Stefan Halper, Stephen Schwartz, Richard Pipes, Richard Perle, Neville Chamberlain, Abram Shulsky, Douglas Feith, Daniel Pipes, Craig Unger, Paul Wolfowitz, Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, Elliott Abrams, Leon Trotsky, Irving Kristol
Neoconservatives see Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's floundering campaign and eventual landslide defeat (see November 7, 1972) as emblematic of, in author Craig Unger's words, everything that is wrong with the "defeatist, isolationist policies of the liberals who had captured the Democratic Party." If the neoconservatives had had their way, their favorite senator, Henry "Scoop" Jackson (see Early 1970s), would have won the nomination. But the Vietnam War has put hawkish Cold Warriors like Jackson in disfavor in the party, and Jackson was set aside for the disastrous McGovern candidacy. The Republicans offer little interest themselves for the neoconservatives. Richard Nixon is enamored of one of their most hated nemeses, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, whose "realpolitik" did nothing to excite their ideological impulses. And under Nixon, the icy Cold War is slowly thawing, with summit meetings, bilateral commissions, and arms limitations agreements continually bridging the gap between the US and the neoconservatives' implacable foe, the Soviet Union. In Nixon's second term, the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM)—populated by Democratic neoconservatives like Jackson, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Nixon's domestic adviser), Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and James Woolsey, and joined by 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, will pressure Nixon to adopt a tough "peace through strength" policy towards the Soviet Union. Although it will take time, and the formation of countless other organizations with similar memberships and goals, this group of neoconservatives and hawkish hardliners will succeed in marginalizing Congress, demonizing their enemies, and taking over the entire foreign policy apparatus of the US government. [Unger, 2007, pp. 47-48]
Entity Tags: Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard M. Nixon, James Woolsey, Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, Ben Wattenberg, Coalition for a Democratic Majority, Irving Kristol, George S. McGovern, Craig Unger, Henry A. Kissinger, Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Timeline Tags: US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence
A group of conservative strategic thinkers and policymakers attends a dinner party in Santa Monica, California. It is at this dinner party that the notorious "Team B" intelligence analysis team will be formed (see Early 1976). The cohost of the gathering is Albert Wohlstetter (see 1965), the eminent neoconservative academic and policy analyst. The next day, the guests join fellow conservative ideologues at a Beverly Hills conference called "Arms Competition and Strategic Doctrine." Wohlstetter uses selectively declassified intelligence data to accuse the Pentagon of systematically underestimating Soviet military might. Wohlstetter will soon publish his arguments in the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy magazine, and Strategic Review. In July, respected Cold War figure Paul Nitze will use Wohlstetter's assertions in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee to accuse Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the CIA of dangerously underestimating both the Soviet Union's military strength and its intentions. Some old-line Cold Warriors—many of whom find themselves in sympathy with the upstart neoconservatives—begin attacking both the CIA's intelligence reporting and the US-Soviet policy of detente. Author Craig Unger will write, "This was the beginning of a thirty-year fight against the national security apparatus in which the [neoconservatives] mastered the art of manipulating intelligence in order to implement hard-line, militaristic policies." [Unger, 2007, pp. 48-49]
Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Paul Nitze, House Armed Services Committee, Craig Unger, 'Team B', Henry A. Kissinger, Albert Wohlstetter, Central Intelligence Agency
Gerald Ford takes the oath of office. [Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library]Vice President Gerald Ford prepares to take over the presidency from the resigning Richard Nixon (see August 8, 1974). Ford's transition team suggests that, in line with Ford's own views, Ford not appoint a chief of staff at this time. "However," says the team's memo, "there should be someone who could rapidly and efficiently organize the new staff organization, but who will not be perceived or eager to be chief of staff." Ford writes "Rumsfeld" in the margin of the memo. Donald Rumsfeld is a former Navy pilot and Nixon aide. Rumsfeld has been the US ambassador to NATO and, thusly, was out of Washington and untainted by Watergate. Rumsfeld harbors presidential ambitions of his own and has little use for a staff position, even such a powerful position as a president's chief of staff. [Werth, 2006, pp. 7-8] Rumsfeld believes that Ford's first task is to establish a "legitimate government" as far from the taint of Watergate as possible—a difficult task considering Ford is retaining Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the rest of the Nixon cabinet, Haig, and virtually the entire White House staff, although plans are for Haig and most of the White House staff to gracefully exit in a month. [Werth, 2006, pp. 21] Shortly after noon, Ford takes the oath of office for the presidency, becoming the first president in US history to enter the White House as an appointed, rather than an elected, official. Ford tells the nation: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.… I assume the presidency under extraordinary circumstances.… This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts." [Politico, 8/9/2007]
Entity Tags: Henry A. Kissinger, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Donald Rumsfeld, Richard M. Nixon
Timeline Tags: Nixon and Watergate
Alexander Haig, President Nixon's chief of staff, is briefly staying on at the White House to ease the transition into the new, hastily assembled Ford staff. Haig, knowing that President Ford will not consider retaining him in the position, believes that Donald Rumsfeld, the US ambassador to NATO, might be the person Ford needs to head his staff (see August 9, 1974). (Nixon held Rumsfeld in grudging admiration, referring to him as a "ruthless little b_stard," but had sent him to Europe and NATO headquarters because he did not like Rumsfeld's obvious ambition.) Although Ford is not sold on having a chief of staff at all, Haig believes Ford needs someone with Rumsfeld's "strong personality and fine administrat[ive skills]" to help him establish himself. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whom Ford is retaining, sees Rumsfeld as, in Kissinger's words, an exemplar of a "special Washington phenomenon: the skilled full-time politician bureaucrat in whom ambition, ability, and substance fuse seamlessly." Ford has a good relationship with Rumsfeld, who in the 1960s led an insurgency among House Republicans to replace Minority Leader Charles Halleck with Ford. He views Rumsfeld as something of a maverick, and wants someone not beholden to the entrenched Nixon loyalists remaining in the White House as well as someone with a good relationship with Congressional Republicans. Rumsfeld fits the bill. Rumsfeld, a former Navy pilot, will later write that Ford "had to provide sufficient change to make the transition from what many perceived to be an illegitimate White House and administration to a legitimate administration. It was a bit like climbing into an airplane, at 30,000 feet, going 500 miles an hour, and having to change part of the crew." [Werth, 2006, pp. 60-61; Unger, 2007, pp. 49-52] (Rumsfeld will, in turn, ask his own former assistant, Dick Cheney, to once again join him as his assistant in the Ford White House—see 1969). Ford's longtime aide and speech writer Robert Hartmann will be equally blunt in his own recollections: "The Nixon-to-Ford transition was superbly planned. It was not a failure. It just never happened." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 26]
Entity Tags: Robert Hartmann, Nixon administration, Henry A. Kissinger, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Donald Rumsfeld, Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
Conservative Democratic senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) meets with President Ford as part of a discussion about the standoff with the Soviet Union over trade and emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. Jackson—hawkish, defense-minded, and solidly pro-Israel—sees the standoff as an opportunity to undercut Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Jackson is a forerunner of what in later years will be called "neoconservatism" (see 1965), an ideology mostly espoused by a group of Democratic lawmakers and intellectuals who have abandoned their support for Rooseveltian New Deal economics and multilateralist foreign policies (see Early 1970s). Jackson and his outspoken pro-Israel aide, Richard Perle, view Kissinger as far too conciliatory and willing to negotiate with the Communist bloc. Jackson and Perle see the Soviet Union, not the Israeli-Palestine conflict, as the chief threat to US interests in the Middle East and the control of that region's oil fields. They see a strong, powerful Israel as essential to their plans for US domination of the region. Jackson resists a proposed compromise on the number of Soviet Jews the USSR will allow to emigrate to Israel—the Soviets offer 55,000 and Jackson insists on 75,000—and many in the meeting feel that Jackson is being deliberately recalcitrant. "It made mo sense to me because it was sure to be counterproductive," Ford later writes, "but he would not bend, and the only reason is politics." For his part, Kissinger respects Jackson's political abilities, but to his mind, Perle is a "ruthless… little b_stard." Kissinger knows that Republican hawks as well as the burgeoning neoconservative movement will pressure Ford to abandon Richard Nixon's policies of moderating relations with the Soviet Union and Communist China. But, author Barry Werth writes in 2006: "what Kissinger and now Ford would chronically underestimate was the neoconservatives' argument that the United States should not so much seek to coexist with the Soviet system as to overthrow it through direct confrontation. Or the extent to which the neoconservatives would go to exaggerate a foreign threat and stir up fear." [Werth, 2006, pp. 77-79]
Entity Tags: Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Richard M. Nixon, Barry Werth, Richard Perle, Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, Henry A. Kissinger
Republican political adviser and corporate lobbyist Bryce Harlow recommends former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller over former ambassador and current Republican National Committee chairman George H.W. Bush to serve as vice president (see August 20, 1974). Bush may be a better choice for party harmony, Harlow says, but that choice would be considered indecisive and overly partisan. On the other hand, Rockefeller, a liberal Republican, would be considered a "bold" choice and "would be hailed by the media normally most hostile to Republicans." Rockefeller's selection would also "encourage estranged groups to return to the Party and would signal that the new president will not be captive of any political faction." Watergate Allegations against Rockefeller - Rockefeller's naming as vice president, strongly supported by President Ford, is briefly held up by unfounded allegations that Rockefeller hired thugs to disrupt the 1972 Democratic National Convention, and that the papers to prove the allegations were stolen from the offices of convicted Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt. The charges are leveled by an elderly anti-Communist activist named Hamilton Long. The story leaks to the press, and Ford, taking no chances, orders the FBI to investigate Rockefeller, Bush, and senior staff aide Donald Rumsfeld for possible selection as the vice president. Long's allegations prove baseless when Watergate investigators locate the safety deposit boxes in which Long says the documents are stored, and find the boxes empty. Ford Offers VP - After learning that Rockefeller is free of any Watergate taint, Ford privately asks him to accept the vice presidency. Rockefeller will have strong influence on the Ford administration's domestic and economic policies, Ford promises, and, additionally, Rockefeller will be Ford's vice presidential choice in the 1976 presidential elections. The last obstacle is the press, which is all but convinced that the White House is involved in another Watergate cover-up, this time with Ford at the helm. A White House source tells reporters that the so-called "Rockefeller Papers" are nothing more than a hoax concocted by "right-wing extremists who decided it would be useful to blacken the name of Governor Rockefeller." The explanations by press secretary Jerald terHorst, himself a former reporter, and terHorst's acceptance of the blame for giving confusing and somewhat misleading information about the Rockefeller allegations, somewhat mollifies the press. White House counsel Robert Hartmann recalls the Long incident and its handling as an example of the inexperience of the Ford staff and of Ford himself. "[W]e were all babes in the White House," he later writes. "We had done the right thing and truthfully told what we had done, but it was unfair to Rockefeller to give presidential credence to Long's hearsay. And of course, the press castigated us for that the next day." [Werth, 2006, pp. 93-105]
Entity Tags: Robert Hartmann, Nelson Rockefeller, Hamilton Long, Jerald terHorst, George Herbert Walker Bush, Bryce Harlow, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, E. Howard Hunt, Ford administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Donald Rumsfeld
President Ford announces the selection of former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, a moderately liberal Republican, as his vice president. Ford gives Richard Nixon a courtesy call to inform him of the selection before making the public announcement. Nixon seems "very pleased," Ford will later write. "He said Nelson's name and experience in foreign policy would help me internationally, and that he was fully qualified to be president should something happen to me. The extreme right wing, he continued, would be very upset, but I shouldn't worry because I couldn't please them anyway." Ford then telephones George H.W. Bush, who is bitterly disappointed at being passed over. To make the public announcement, Ford enters the Oval Office with Rockefeller at his side. Ford characterizes the decision to select Rockefeller as "a tough call for a tough job." Rockefeller must be confirmed by the Senate, but no one expects any difficulties on that score. Rockefeller does cause a stir by confirming that Ford has "every intention" of running for president in 1976, though Rockefeller will not confirm that he will also be on the ticket. Most Republicans outside of the hard-core right applaud Rockefeller's selection. House Minority Leader John Rhodes (R-AZ), a longtime Ford ally, chides the extremists: "I can't believe conservative Republicans feel broadening the base of the party is a bad thing—unless they want to keep on losing and keep being a minority—and I just can't subscribe to that way of thinking." The mainstream media approves of Rockefeller as well, with CBS's Eric Sevareid calling the new Ford-Rockefeller administration a triumph of "common sense." He goes on to say the two are so popular that Democrats, "more deeply divided than the Republicans," may find themselves in for a "long stretch in the political wilderness.… They thought they could run against Nixon for the next twenty [years]. But as things stand now they can't run against Nixon even this year." [Werth, 2006, pp. 138-143]
Entity Tags: Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Eric Sevareid, George Herbert Walker Bush, John Rhodes, Nelson Rockefeller
Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford at a Los Angeles hotel, October 1974. [Source: David Hume Kennerly / Vanity Fair]The Republican governor of California, Ronald Reagan, has until now been undecided whether to run for president in 1976 against Ford. But Nelson Rockefeller's nomination as vice president (see August 20, 1974) galvanizes Reagan and his team. Conservative Republicans begin gathering under Reagan's banner to oppose what they see as an unacceptably left-leaning 1976 ticket of Ford and Rockefeller. Reagan is not universally popular in the GOP: Richard Nixon thought him "strange" and not "pleasant to be around." For his part, Reagan has until now staunchly supported Nixon throughout the Watergate debacle, but has begun exhorting young conservatives to forget Nixon and embrace conservative ideology. At a Maryland fund-raising party, Reagan tells the crowd that the Ford administration must reassert what he calls the "mandate of 1972," when Nixon trounced Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in the most lopsided victory in modern US history. By re-electing Nixon so overwhelmingly, Reagan says, "voters rejected an invitation to Utopia and reaffirmed the basic values from which our system was built. They voted for fiscal responsibility and individual determination of their own destinies.… They repudiated the idea that government should grow bigger and bigger, that we should embrace more costly programs to alleviate human misery—programs that somehow never succeed no matter how much money is spent on them. The mandate of 1972 was a matter of the people vs. big government. The people, I believe, have given the government a mandate which they expect to be enforced." [Werth, 2006, pp. 180-181]
Entity Tags: Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Ford administration, George S. McGovern, Nelson Rockefeller
Ford delivering the televised address in which he announces the pardon of Nixon. [Source: Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum]At 11:01 a.m., President Ford delivers a statement announcing the pardon of former President Richard Nixon to a bank of television cameras and reporters. He calls Watergate and Nixon's travails "an American tragedy in which we have all played a part." He says that to withhold a pardon would subject Nixon, and the country, to a drawn-out legal proceeding that would take a year or more, and "[u]gly passions would again be aroused." The American people would be even more polarized, and the opinions of foreign nations towards the US would sink even further as the highly public testimonies and possible trial of Nixon played out on television and in the press. It is doubtful that Nixon could ever receive a fair trial, Ford says. But Nixon's fate is not Ford's ultimate concern, he says, but the fate of the country. His duty to the "laws of God" outweigh his duty to the Constitution, Ford says, and he must "be true to my own convictions and my own conscience. My conscience tells me clearly and certainly that I cannot continue to prolong the bad dreams that continue to reopen a chapter that is closed.… [O]nly I, as president, have the constitutional power to firmly shut and seal this book.… I do believe with all my heart and mind and spirit that I, not as president, but as a humble servant of God, will receive justice without mercy if I fail to show mercy." Nixon and his family have "suffered enough," Ford continues, "and will continue to suffer no matter what I do." Thereby, Ford proclaims a "full, free and absolute pardon upon Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he… has committed or may have committed or taken part in" duiring his presidency. On camera, Ford signs the pardon document. [Werth, 2006, pp. 320-321]
Entity Tags: Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Richard M. Nixon
President Ford names outgoing chief of staff Alexander Haig to be supreme allied commander in Europe, provoking an outcry in Congress and unprecedented demands that Haig be confirmed for the post by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator William Proxmire (D-WI) says, "I'd like to put him under oath to learn his role in the Nixon pardon" (see September 8, 1974). Haig will not be compelled to testify before the committee, but he weathers another scare, this one from inside the White House. Haig is told by former Nixon White House lawyer Fred Buzhardt, who now works for Ford, that the group preparing Ford for his upcoming House testimony on the pardon (see Mid-October 1974) has "prepared sworn testimony for the president that could very well result in your indictment," as Haig will later write. Haig storms to the White House, reads the testimony, and demands an immediate audience with Ford. White House staffers refuse him. Haig then threatens to announce his knowledge of "a secret effort by Ford people to hurry Nixon out of the presidency behind Ford's back." Haig gets the meeting. He learns that Ford has not read the testimony, and decides that Buzhardt's threat is hollow. [Werth, 2006, pp. 335-336]
Entity Tags: Richard M. Nixon, William Proxmire, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Fred Buzhardt, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld speaking to reporters, 1975. [Source: Gaylinkcontent (.com)]President Ford asks Donald Rumsfeld to replace the outgoing Alexander Haig at the White House (see September 16-Late September, 1974). Rumsfeld has long been Haig's choice to replace him (see August 14, 1974). Ford does not want to give Rumsfeld the official title of "chief of staff," and instead wants Rumsfeld as "staff coordinator." The difference is academic. Ford wants the aggressive, bureaucratically savvy Rumsfeld to help him regain control over a White House that is, in the words of author Barry Werth, "riven with disunity, disorganization, and bad blood." Rumsfeld agrees, and names former Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney as his deputy (who makes himself valuable by initially doing the lowest forms of bureaucratic scutwork). Rumsfeld and Cheney will eventually wield almost Nixonian power in Ford's White House, successfully blocking the "in-house liberal," Vice President Rockefeller, from exerting any real influence, and hobbling Henry Kissinger's almost-limitless influence. Blocking of Rockefeller and Kissinger for Ideological and Political Reasons - Rumsfeld begins his in-house assault in classic fashion: trying to cause tension between Kissinger and White House officials by snitching on Kissinger to any White House official who will listen. Kissinger eventually tells Ford: "Don't listen to [Rumsfeld], Mr. President. He's running for president in 1980." Rumsfeld and Cheney do their best to open the White House to hardline defense hawks and the even more hardline neoconservatives led by Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) and Jackson's aide, Richard Perle. (Though Rumsfeld and Cheney are not considered neoconservatives in a strict sense, their aims are almost identical—see June 4-5, 1974). Kissinger's efforts to win a negotiated peace between Israel and Palestine in the Middle East are held in contempt by Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the neoconservatives; using Ford's press secretary Ron Nessen as a conduit, Rumsfeld and Cheney leak information about the negotiations to the press, helping to cripple the entire peace process. Rumsfeld and Cheney have larger personal plans as well: they want to secure the White House for Rumsfeld, perhaps as early as 1976, but certainly by 1980. One of their methods of winning support is to undercut Kissinger as much as possible; they believe they can win support among the GOP's right wing by thwarting Kissinger's "realpolitik" foreign policy stratagems. Rumsfeld as 'Wizard of Oz' - According to the chief of Ford's Economic Policy Board, William Seidman, Rumsfeld's bureaucratic machinations remind him of the Wizard of Oz: "He thought he was invisible behind the curtain as he worked the levers, but in reality everyone could see what he was doing." Rumsfeld and Cheney will make their most open grasp for power in orchestrating the "Halloween Massacre" (see November 4, 1975 and After). [Werth, 2006, pp. 336-337; Unger, 2007, pp. 49-52]
Entity Tags: William Seidman, Ron Nessen, Richard Perle, Barry Werth, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, Henry A. Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
President Ford testifies before a House subcommittee about his pardon of President Nixon (see September 8, 1974). When told, "People question whether or not in fact there was a deal" between Nixon and Ford—the presidency traded for a pardon—Ford replies, "There was no deal, period, under no circumstances." [Werth, 2006, pp. 333] Ford's testimony is "only the second time in history that the president had ever done that," Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney will later recall, marveling at Ford's near-unprecedented agreement. Cheney is incorrect; not only did Abraham Lincoln testify before the House Judiciary Committee in 1862 about a news leak, but both George Washington and Woodrow Wilson had also testified before Congress. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 28]
Entity Tags: Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Richard M. Nixon
Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as vice president (see August 20, 1974). [Rockefeller Family Archives, 6/7/2007] Bad Blood and Confirmation Difficulties - Rockefeller has trouble even before taking office. Branded as a liberal by many in the Republican Party, and winning as many enemies as friends with his outsized ego and gladhanding demeanor, Rockefeller garnered swift and obdurate resistance particularly from the right wing both outside the White House (see August 24, 1974) and in (see September 21, 1974 and After). During the Senate's confirmation hearings, many Democrats and some Republicans relished forcing Rockefeller, one of the wealthiest men in the country, to open his finances to public scrutiny. Even President Ford privately expresses his astonishment. "Can you imagine?" he asked during the hearings. "Nelson lost $30 million in one year and it didn't make any difference." When it was revealed that Rockefeller had given huge personal contributions to lawmakers and government officials—including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—in the form of "loans" that never needed repaying, the Senate hearings became even more inquisitorial. The hearings dragged on for months until Ford personally intervened, telling House and Senate leaders that it was "in the national interest that you confirm Rockefeller, and I'm asking you to move as soon as possible." [US Senate, 7/7/2007] Cheney Wanted Reagan - Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, far more conservative than either Ford or Rockefeller, opposes Rockefeller's influence from the start, and works with his boss, Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld, to minimize Rockefeller's influence. In 1986, Cheney will say that Ford "should have thought of Ronald Reagan as vice president in the summer of 1974, if you are talking strictly in political terms." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 38] Domestic Squabbles - Both Ford and Rockefeller want the new vice president to be what Ford calls "a full partner" in his administration, particularly on domestic issues. Ford appoints him to chair the Domestic Council, but behind the scenes, Rockefeller's implacable enemy, Rumsfeld, who sees Rockefeller as a "New Deal" economic liberal, blocks his influence at every term, both from personal and ideological dislike and from a desire to keep power in the White House to himself and his small, close-knit aides. (Cheney, ever attentive to indirect manipulations, inflames Rumsfeld's dislike of Rockefeller even further by suggesting to his nakedly ambitious boss that if Rockefeller was too successful in implementing domestic policy, he would be perceived as "the man responsible for drafting the agenda of 1976," thus limiting Rumsfeld's chances of being named vice president in Ford's re-election campaign (see November 4, 1975 and After). When Rockefeller tries to implement Ford's suggested policy that domestic policymakers report to Ford through Rockefeller, Rumsfeld interferes. When Rockefeller names one of his trusted assistants, James Cannon, to head the Domestic Council, Rumsfeld slashes the Council's budget almost to zero. When Rockefeller proposes a $100 billion Energy Independence Authority, with the aim to reduce and perhaps even end the nation's dependency on foreign energy sources, Rumsfeld joins Ford's economic and environmental advisers to block its creation. When Rockefeller proposes an idea for the president to Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld hands it off to Cheney, who ensures that it dies a quiet, untraceable bureaucratic death. Rockefeller Neutralized - Cheney later recalls that Rockefeller "came to a point where he was absolutely convinced that Don Rumsfeld and myself were out to scuttle whatever new initiatives he could come up with." Rumsfeld and other Ford staffers ensure that Rockefeller is not involved in key policy meetings; when Ford proposes large cuts in federal taxes and spending, Rockefeller complains, "This is the most important move the president has made, and I wasn't even consulted." Asked what he is allowed to do as vice president, Rockefeller answers: "I go to funerals. I go to earthquakes." He says, only half sardonically, that redesigning the vice-presidential seal is "the most important thing I've done." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 38-39; US Senate, 7/7/2007] Following in Rockefeller's Footsteps - Ironically, when Cheney becomes vice president in 2001, he uses what Rockefeller intended to do as a model for his own, extremely powerful vice presidency. James Cannon, who came into the Ford administration with Rockefeller, will marvel in 2006, "Cheney is now doing what he and Rumsfeld blocked Rockefeller from doing—influencing policy." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 39-40]
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Ford administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Henry A. Kissinger, James Cannon
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller (see December 19, 1974 and After) is instrumental in keeping Senate Democrats from finding out too much about the intelligence community's excesses. When the New York Times reveals the existence of a decades-old illegal domestic surveillance program run by the CIA (see December 21, 1974), President Ford heads off calls from Democrats to investigate the program by appointing the "Rockefeller Commission" to investigate in the Democrats' stead. Senate Democrats, unimpressed with the idea, create the Church Committee to investigate the intelligence community (see April, 1976). Rockefeller is adept at keeping critical documents out of the hands of the Church Committee and the press. When Senator Frank Church asks for materials from the White House, he is told that the Rockefeller Commission has them; when he asks Rockefeller for the papers, he is told that he cannot have them because only the president can authorize access. One Church aide later calls Rockefeller "absolutely brilliant" in denying them access in a friendly manner. "He winked and smiled and said, 'Gee, I want to help you but, of course I can't—not until we've finished our work and the president approves it,'" the aide recalls. Senator John Tower (R-TX), the vice chairman of the committee, will later reflect, "We were very skillfully finessed." But even Rockefeller, who has his own history of involvement with the CIA, is taken aback at the excesses of the CIA, particularly its history of assassinating foreign leaders. Rockefeller will eventually turn that information over to the Church Committee, giving that body some of the most explosive evidence as yet made public against the agency. [US Senate, 7/7/2007]
Entity Tags: John Tower, Church Committee, Nelson Rockefeller, Central Intelligence Agency, Frank Church, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, 'Rockefeller Commission'
President Ford fires a number of Nixon holdovers and replaces them with "my guys… my own team," both to show his independence and to prepare for a bruising 1976 primary battle with Ronald Reagan. The wholesale firings and reshufflings are dubbed the "Halloween Massacre." Donald Rumsfeld becomes secretary of defense, replacing James Schlesinger (see November 4, 1975). George H. W. Bush replaces William Colby as director of the CIA. Henry Kissinger remains secretary of state, but his position as national security adviser is given to Brent Scowcroft. Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld's deputy chief of staff, moves up to become the youngest chief of staff in White House history. Perhaps the most controversial decision is to replace Nelson Rockefeller as Ford's vice-presidential candidate for the 1976 elections. Ford's shake-up is widely viewed as his cave-in to Republican Party hardliners. He flounders in his defense of his new staffers: for example, when Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) asks him why he thinks Rumsfeld is qualified to run the Pentagon, Ford replies, "He was a pilot in the Korean War." The ultimate winner in the shake-up is Rumsfeld, who instigated the moves from behind the scenes and gains the most from them. Rumsfeld quickly wins a reputation in Washington as a political opportunist, gunning for the vice presidency in 1976 and willing to do whatever is necessary to get it. Rockefeller tells Ford: "Rumsfeld wants to be president of the United States. He has given George Bush the deep six by putting him in the CIA, he has gotten me out.… He was third on your [vice-presidential] list (see August 16-17, 1974) and now he has gotten rid of two of us.… You are not going to be able to put him on the [ticket] because he is defense secretary, but he is not going to want anybody who can possibly be elected with you on that ticket.… I have to say I have a serious question about his loyalty to you." Later, Ford will write of his sharp regret in pushing Rockefeller off the ticket: "I was angry at myself for showing cowardice in not saying to the ultraconservatives: It's going to be Ford and Rockefeller, whatever the consequences." [Werth, 2006, pp. 340-341] "It was the biggest political mistake of my life," Ford later says. "And it was one of the few cowardly things I did in my life." [US Senate, 7/7/2007]
Entity Tags: Ronald Reagan, William Colby, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, James R. Schlesinger, Barry Goldwater, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, George Herbert Walker Bush, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Henry A. Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller
President Ford and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign a communique relating to the SALT negotiations in November 1974. [Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library / Public domain]Newly ensconsced Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, after making a series of speeches attacking Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's policy of detente with the Soviet Union, waits until Kissinger is away visiting his Soviet counterparts in Moscow to persuade President Ford to shelve the second round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), the ongoing series of negotiations between the US and USSR to limit nuclear arms. "Rumsfeld won that very intense, intense political battle," recalls Melvin Goodman, the head of the CIA's Office of Soviet Affairs at the time. The move serves several purposes: to undercut Kissinger, Rumsfeld's rival (see September 21, 1974 and After); to push Rumsfeld's own Cold War, hawkish agenda (see June 4-5, 1974); and to set up a move to get Rumsfeld and a coterie of neoconservatives, including Paul Wolfowitz, in a position to either influence or counteract the CIA. The idea is to, in essence, hijack the US's national security apparatus and find intelligence that will support their much harsher, antagonistic view of US-Soviet relations—and to push their belief that the US can fight and win a nuclear war. [Unger, 2007, pp. 53]
Entity Tags: Henry A. Kissinger, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Melvin A. Goodman
Timeline Tags: US International Relations
Jimmy Carter celebrates his presidential victory. [Source: PBS]Gerald Ford loses the presidency to Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter, an obscure Georgia governor who contrasts himself to the Nixon and Ford administrations by promising "never to tell a lie to the American people." The Republican Party's widening rift between its moderate and conservative wings dooms Ford's chances at being elected to the office he has held by appointment for over two years (see August 9, 1974). [Werth, 2006, pp. 342] Ford's de facto campaign chairman, Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, contributes heavily to Ford's loss. Unready for the stresses and demands of a presidential campaign, Cheney nevertheless wrested control from Ford's ostensible chairman, Bo Calloway, and promptly alienated campaign workers and staffers. Press secretary Ron Nessen will later write, "Some reporters privately started calling him the Grand Teuton, a complex pun referring to his mountainous home state of Wyoming and the Germanic style of his predecessor in the Nixon administration, H. R. Haldeman." Cheney tried throughout the campaign to move Ford farther to the right than the president was willing to go; even with his attempts, Ford's primary challenge from Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA) did much to peel away the right-wing Republican base, while Cheney did little to reassure the liberal and moderate Republicans whom many feel are Ford's natural base. Cheney succeeded in persuading Ford to adopt a convention platform much farther to the right than Ford, and his supporters, wanted; in particular, the Reaganesque "Morality in Foreign Policy Plank," which stated, "we shall go forward as a united people to forge a lasting peace in the world based upon our deep belief in the rights of man, the rule of law, and guidance by the hand of God," alienated many more secular Republicans, who were not comfortable with the aggressive Christianity and implied imperialism contained in the statement. (Ultimately, it took the intervention of James Baker, a veteran Republican "fixer" and close friend of the Bush family, to head off disaster at the nominating convention.) Ford aide James Cannon will say that Cheney "was in over his head." Had Cheney's former boss Donald Rumsfeld stayed as chief of staff instead of moving to the Pentagon (see November 4, 1975 and After), Cannon believes Ford would have won a second term. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 40]
Entity Tags: Ron Nessen, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Ronald Reagan, James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr., James Cannon, James Baker, Bo Calloway, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr, H.R. Haldeman, Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld. [Source: US Defense Department]Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wholeheartedly embraces the "Team B" intelligence analysis of the Soviet nuclear and military threat (see Early 1976), regardless of the fact that the team's reports are riddled with errors (see November 1976 and November 1976). "No doubt exists about the capabilities of the Soviet armed forces," he proclaims after reading the team's final report. "The Soviet Union has been busy. They've been busy in terms of their level of effort; they've been busy in terms of the actual weapons they're producing; they've been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they've been busy in terms of expanding their industrial capacity to produce additional weapons at additional rates." [Unger, 2007, pp. 57]
Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, 'Team B'
In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]
Entity Tags: Richard Pipes, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Nationalities Working Group
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence, War in Afghanistan
Incoming presidential chief of staff James Baker asks a former chief of staff, Dick Cheney (see November 4, 1975 and After), for advice on handling the job. Baker takes four pages of handwritten notes covering his conversation with Cheney. Most of the notes cover mundane topics such as personnel and managing the president's schedule. But Cheney offers at least one piece of policy advice. According to Baker's notes: "Pres. seriously weakened in recent yrs. Restore power & auth [authority] to Exec Branch—Need strong ldr'ship. Get rid of War Powers Act—restore independent rights." Baker notes Cheney's emphasis of this last idea by marking it with two double lines and six asterisks, and a note in the margin, "Central theme we ought to push." [Savage, 2007, pp. 43]
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney, James A. Baker
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties
Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, along with then-President Gerald Ford, April 28, 1975. [Source: David Hume Kennerly / Gerald R. Ford Library] (click image to enlarge)Throughout the 1980s, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are key players in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan administration. Presently, Cheney is working as a Republican congressman, while Rumsfeld is head of the pharmaceutical company G. D. Searle. At least once per year, they both leave their day jobs for periods of three or four days. They head to Andrews Air Force Base, near Washington, DC, and along with 40 to 60 federal officials and one member of the Reagan Cabinet are taken to a remote location within the US, such as an underground bunker. While they are gone, none of their work colleagues, or even their wives, knows where they are. They are participating in detailed planning exercises for keeping government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Unconstitutional 'Continuity of Government' - This highly secret "Continuity of Government" (COG) program is known as Project 908. The idea is that if the US were under a nuclear attack, three teams would be sent from Washington to separate locations around the US to prepare to take leadership of the country. If somehow one team was located and hit with a nuclear weapon, the second or third team could take its place. Each of the three teams includes representatives from the State Department, Defense Department, CIA, and various domestic-policy agencies. The program is run by a new government agency called the National Program Office. Based in the Washington area, it has a budget of hundreds of million dollars a year, which grows to $1 billion per year by the end of Reagan's first term in office. Within the National Security Council, the "action officer" involved in the COG program is Oliver North, who is a key figure in the mid-1980s Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, also supervises some of the program's efforts. As well as Cheney and Rumsfeld, other known figures involved in the COG exercises include Kenneth Duberstein, who serves for a time as President Reagan's chief of staff, and future CIA Director James Woolsey. Another regular participant is Richard Clarke, who on 9/11 will be the White House chief of counterterrorism (see (1984-2004)). The program, though, is extraconstitutional, as it establishes a process for designating a new US president that is nowhere authorized in the US Constitution or federal law. After George H. W. Bush is elected president in 1988 and the effective end of the Soviet Union in 1989, the exercises continue. They will go on after Bill Clinton is elected president, but will then be based around the threat posed by terrorists, rather than the Soviet Union (see 1992-2000). According to journalist James Mann, the participation of Rumsfeld and Cheney in these exercises demonstrates a broader truth about them: "Over three decades, from the Ford administration onward, even when they were out of the executive branch of government, they were never too far away; they stayed in touch with its defense, military, and intelligence officials and were regularly called upon by those officials. Cheney and Rumsfeld were, in a sense, a part of the permanent, though hidden, national security apparatus of the United States." [Mann, 2004, pp. 138-145; Atlantic Monthly, 3/2004; Washington Post, 4/7/2004; Cockburn, 2007, pp. 85] No Role for Congress - According to one participant, "One of the awkward questions we faced was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them." Thus the decision is made to abandon the Constitutional framework of the nation's government if this plan is ever activated. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 198] Reactivated after 9/11 - The plan they rehearse for in the COG exercises will be activated, supposedly for the first time, in the hours during and after the 9/11 attacks (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 3/1/2002] Mann subsequently comments, "The program is of particular interest today because it helps to explain the thinking and behavior of the second Bush Administration in the hours, days, and months after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001." [Atlantic Monthly, 3/2004]
Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Oliver North, National Program Office, James Woolsey, Kenneth Duberstein, Donald Rumsfeld, George Herbert Walker Bush
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
In conjunction with his huge peacetime military buildup (see Early 1981 and After), President Reagan strongly opposes any sort of arms control or limitation discussions with the Soviet Union. Rostow to ACDA - As a member of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD—see 1976), Reagan had spoken out against the SALT II arms control treaty with the USSR (see June 18, 1979-Winter 1979), calling it "fatally flawed." He has opposed every significant arms limitation agreement since 1963, no matter whether it was negotiated by Republican or Democratic administrations. To continue his opposition, Reagan appoints Eugene Rostow to head the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Rostow, a fellow CPD member, is flatly opposed to any sort of arms control or disarmament agreement with the Soviet Union, and had led the CPD fight against the SALT II agreement. "Arms control thinking drives out sound thinking," he told the Senate. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 118-120] During his confirmation hearings, Rostow tells Senate questioners that the US could certainly survive a nuclear war, and gives World War II-era Japan as an example—that nation "not only survived but flourished after a nuclear attack." When asked if the world could survive a full nuclear attack of thousands of nuclear warheads instead of the two that Japan had weathered, Rostow says that even though the casualties might be between "ten million… and one hundred million… [t]he human race is very resilient." [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 126] Rostow's aide at the ACDA, Colin Gray, says that "victory is possible" in a nuclear war provided the US is prepared to fight. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 127] Burt to State Department - Reagan names Richard Burt to head the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs, the State Department's primary liaison with the Defense Department. Burt, a former New York Times reporter, is one of the few journalists synpathetic to the CPD, and recently called the SALT agreement "a favor to the Russians." Just before joining the Reagan administration, Burt called for reductions in nuclear arms controls: "Arms control has developed the same kind of mindless momentum associated with other large-scale government pursuits. Conceptual notions of limited durability, such as the doctrine of mutual assured destruction [MAD], have gained bureaucratic constituencies and have thus been prolonged beyond their usefulness. There are strong reasons for believing that arms control is unlikely to possess much utility in the coming decade." [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 118-120; US Department of State, 2008] Perle to Defense Department - Perhaps the most outspoken opponent of arms control is neoconservative Richard Perle, named as assistant defense secretary for international security affairs. Perle, until recently the national security adviser to Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA—see Early 1970s), will quickly become, in author J. Peter Scoblic's words, "the administration's chief arms control obstructionist, dubbed 'the Prince of Darkness' by his enemies." Perle once said: "The sense that we and the Russians could compose our differences, reduce them to treaty constraints… and then rely on compliance to produce a safer world. I don't agree with any of that." Now Perle is poised to act on his beliefs. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 118-120] Vice President Bush - Although seen as a pragmatist and not a hardline conservative (see January 1981 and After), Vice President George H. W. Bush is also optimistic about the chances of the US coming out on top after a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. During the 1980 campaign, he told a reporter: "You have a survivability of command and control, survivability of industrial potential, protection of a percentage of your citizens, and you have a capability that inflicts more damage on the opposition tham it inflicts on you. That's the way you can have a winner." [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 126-127] Other Appointees - Perle's immediate supervisor in Defense is Fred Ikle, who headed ACDA in 1973 and helped battle back part of the original SALT agreement. Ikle will be primarily responsible for the Pentagon's "five-year plan" that envisions a "protracted nuclear war" as a viable option (see March 1982). Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger considers the standoff between the US and the Soviet Union akin to the situation between Britain and Nazi Germany in 1938, with himself and his ideological confreres as Britain's Winston Churchill and any attempt at arms control as nothing but appeasement. Energy Secretary James B. Edwards says of a hypothetical nuclear war, "I want to come out of it number one, not number two." Pentagon official Thomas Jones tells a reporter that the US could handily survive a nuclear exchange, and fully recover within two to four years, if the populace digs plenty of holes, cover them with wooden doors, and bury the structures under three feet of dirt. "If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody's going to make it," he says. Reagan's second National Security Adviser, William Clark, will, according to Reagan official and future Secretary of State George Shultz, "categorically oppos[e] US-Soviet contacts" of any kind. Some of the administration's more pragmatic members, such as Reagan's first Secretary of State Alexander Haig, will have limited access to Reagan and be cut off from many policy-making processes by Reagan's more hardline senior officials and staffers. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 118-120, 127; Air Force Magazine, 3/2008]
Entity Tags: George Herbert Walker Bush, Fred C. Ikle, Committee on the Present Danger, Colin Gray, Caspar Weinberger, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Eugene V. Rostow, US Department of State, William Clark, Thomas Jones, Richard Burt, Richard Perle, Reagan administration, James B. Edwards, Ronald Reagan, J. Peter Scoblic, US Department of Defense, Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, George Shultz
Reagan officials reopen the stalled Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union, against the advice of President Reagan's more hardline officials (see January 1981 and After). The talks center on the Soviets' SS-20 missile, designed to strike European targets. In return, then-President Carter had agreed to deploy US intermediate-range nuclear missiles—Pershing II's and Tomahawks—in West Germany and Italy by 1983. According to author J. Peter Scoblic, the missiles have little real military value, as American ICBMs, submarine-based nuclear missiles, and long-range bombers could destroy Soviet targets with near-impunity. They do, however, have some political significance, mostly in helping tie European security to US security. Carter had agreed to open talks with the Soviets to get rid of the SS-20s entirely. Hardliners Sabotage Talks - The more pragmatic Reagan officials succeed in reopening the talks; Reagan hardliners, thwarted in stopping the talks, set about sabotaging them in any way available. When arguments in favor of delays and "further study" finally fail, they pressure Reagan to offer an agreement they know the Soviets will refuse: the so-called "zero option," which originates with Defense Department official Richard Perle (see Early 1981 and After). Perle says that the Soviets should remove all of the SS-20s, and in return, the US will not deploy its Pershings and Tomahawks—in essence, having the Soviets concede something for essentially nothing. State Department officials suggest a fallback position in case the Soviets reject Perle's offering; in his turn, Perle appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee and compares anyone who opposes his zero-sum offering to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938. 'Walk in the Woods' - When the Soviets reject Perle's option, Reagan hardliners argue that the government should accept no compromise. The head of the INF negotiation team, Paul Nitze—a Cold War figure who has come out against arms control (see January 1976) but is not fully trusted by the hardline ideologues because of his history as an arms negotiator—wants a compromise. In official negotiations, he sticks to the all-or-nothing position of Perle, but opens private, informal negotiations with his Soviet counterpart, Yuli Kvitsinsky. One afternoon in 1982, Nitze and Kvitsinsky go for what later becomes known as their "walk in the woods." Sitting together on a log during an afternoon rainstorm, the two hammer out an agreement that greatly favors the US—mandating a 67 percent reduction in Soviet SS-20s and allowing the US to deploy an equal number of Tomahawks. Not only would the Soviets have to reduce their already-deployed contingent of missiles and the US be allowed to deploy missiles, because the Tomahawks carry more independent warheads than the SS-20s, the US would have a significant advantage in firepower. The deal also sets limits on SS-20 deployments in Asia, and forbids the Soviets from developing ground-launched cruise missiles. In return, the US would agree not to deploy its Pershing missiles. Hardliners Block Agreement - Perle and his hardline allies in the Reagan administration succeed in blocking acceptance of the Nitze-Kvitsinsky agreement. As author J. Peter Scoblic later writes, "Perle's ideological obstructionism—concisely conveyed in his disparagement of Nitze as 'an inverterate problem-solver'—reached fantastic heights." Perle first tried to block Reagan from even learning the details of the agreement, and lied to Reagan, asserting falsely that the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed the agreement. Perle, in conjunction with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, eventually convinces Reagan to stick to the "zero option." Perle argues against pressure from key US allies such as Britain's Margaret Thatcher, telling Reagan, "We can't just do something; we've got to stand there—and stand firm." In 1983, Perle tells Weinberger that it would be better for the US to deploy no missiles at all than to accept the agreement. Scoblic will write: "In other words, he argued that foregoing deployment in return for nothing was better than foregoing deployment in exchange for something. The position made no sense, but the Reagan team held firm to it, once again preventing the adoption of a viable arms control deal." When the US deploys Pershing missiles in Europe in November 1983, the Soviets walk out of the talks. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 120-123]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Margaret Thatcher, Joint Chiefs of Staff, J. Peter Scoblic, Caspar Weinberger, Paul Nitze, Ronald Reagan, Reagan administration, Senate Armed Services Committee, US Department of State, Yuli Kvitsinsky
President Reagan, giving a speech at his alma mater, Eureka College, renames the US-USSR SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) negotiations START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks). The renamed negotiations reflect profound dissension within the administration for and against arms limitation talks (see January 1981 and After and Early 1981 and After). State Department official Richard Burt, formerly opposed to arms negotiations, wants to ramp up the SALT talks and seek reductions in warheads and launchers. Defense Department official Richard Perle, the neoconservative who is working to block another arms limitation with the Soviet Union (see September 1981 through November 1983), wants to focus on payloads and "throw weight." The administration's compromise between the two positions—START—"ma[kes] no sense whatsoever," according to author J. Peter Scoblic. Initial Proposal Unacceptable to Soviets - START's initial position—reducing each side's deployment to 850 nuclear missiles and 5,000 warheads, of which no more than 2,500 can be on ICBMs—sounds like a significant reduction on paper, but many experts on all sides of the nuclear arms issue worry that such an agreement, putting so many warheads on so few missiles, would actually encourage each side to consider a first strike in a crisis. Arms control proponent Paul Warnke says, "If the Russians accept Mr. Reagan's proposal, he'll be forced to reject it himself." But because of the disparity in missile configurations between the US and the Soviets, such an agreement would require the Soviets to drastically reduce their nuclear arsenal by 60 percent, while the US would lose almost nothing; therefore, the Soviets would never agree to such a proposal. Scoblic will note that as an opening gambit this proposal might be successful, if the Americans were prepared to back down somewhat and give the Soviets something. But the US negotiators have no intention of backing down. The Soviets are keenly interested in the US agreeing to reduce the number of cruise missiles it has deployed, but Reagan signs a National Security Directive forbidding US negotiators from even discussing the idea until the Soviets made significant concessions on "throw weight," essentially tying his negotiators' hands. Chief US Negotiator Insults Soviets - The negotiations are made more difficult by the US team's chief negotiator, Edward Rowny. Rowny, a former national security adviser to hardline Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), does not believe in diplomacy with anyone, particularly the Soviets. According to Scoblic, Rowny believes in "telling it like it is" to his Soviet counterparts, which Scoblic calls "insulting one's negotiating opponents." As he has no real negotiating latitude, Rowny's diplomacy consists of little more than insults towards his Soviet counterparts. He tells them they do not understand the issues, boasts of his own Polish (i.e. anti-Russian) heritage, even stages walkouts over the seating arrangements. Rowny feels that he is opening a new era in negotiations, but in reality, the START talks are making no progress. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 123-124]
Entity Tags: Paul Warnke, Edward Rowny, J. Peter Scoblic, Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan, Richard Burt, Richard Perle
Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle urges the CIA to promote a propaganda program urging Soviet soldiers to defect to the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. He is viewed by the CIA officers as the craziest of the many extreme right-wingers with whom they have dealt. [Crile, 2003, pp. 331-334]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle
The Central Intelligence Agency authors a classified report acknowledging that Iraq is still using chemical weapons as an "integral part" of its military strategy and that it is a "regular and recurring tactic." [New York Times, 2/13/2003]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: US-Iraq 1980s
Gorbachev and Reagan at the Reykjavik summit. [Source: Ronald Reagan Library]President Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavik, Iceland, for a second summit, to follow on the success of their first meeting almost a year before (see November 16-19, 1985). They base their discussion on Gorbachev's January proposals of deep cuts in the two nations' nuclear arsenals (see January 1986). Elimination of All Nuclear Weapons by 1996 - Gorbachev and his negotiators begin by reiterating Gorbachev's proposals for a 50 percent cut in all nuclear weapons, deep reductions in Soviet ICBMs, and the elimination of all European-based intermediate nuclear weapons. Reagan and his negotiators counter with a proposal for both sides to destroy half of their nuclear ballistic missiles in the next five years, and the rest to be destroyed over the next five, leaving both sides with large arsenals of cruise missiles and bomber-based weapons. Gorbachev ups the ante, proposing that all nuclear weapons be destroyed within 10 years. Reagan responds that it would be fine with him "if we eliminated all nuclear weapons," implicitly including all tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and everywhere else. Gorbachev says, "We can do that," and Secretary of State George Shultz says, "Let's do it." Agreement Founders on SDI - The heady moment is lost when the two sides fail to reach an agreement on SDI—the Americans' "Star Wars" missile defense system (see March 23, 1983). Gorbachev cannot accept any major reductions in nuclear weapons if the US has a viable missile defense system; Reagan is convinced that SDI would allow both sides to eliminate their nuclear weapons, and offers the SDI technology to the Soviets. Gorbachev finds Reagan's offer naive, since there is no guarantee that future presidents would honor the deal. Reagan, in another example of his ignorance of the mechanics of the US nuclear program (see April 1981 and After), does not seem to realize that even a completely effective SDI program would not defend against Soviet cruise missiles and long-range bombers, and therefore would not end the threat of nuclear destruction for either side. Author J. Peter Scoblic will later write, "[SDI] would have convinced the Soviet Union that the United States sought a first-strike capability, since the Americans were so far ahead in cruise missile and stealth bomber technology." Gorbachev does not ask that the US abandon SDI entirely, but simply observe the terms of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (see May 26, 1972) and confine SDI research to the laboratory. Reagan refuses. Gorbachev says that if this is the US's position, then they would have to "forget everything they discussed." Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze breaks in, saying that the two nations are "so close" to making history that "if future generations read the minutes of these meetings, and saw how close we had come but how we did not use these opportunities, they would never forgive us." But the agreement is not to be. Participants' Reactions - As Shultz later says, "Reykjavik was too bold for the world." Shultz tells reporters that he is "deeply disappointed" in the results, and no longer sees "any prospect" for a third summit. Gorbachev tells reporters that Reagan's insistence on retaining SDI had "frustrated and scuttled" the opportunity for an agreement. Gorbachev says he told Reagan that the two countries "were missing a historic chance. Never had our positions been so close together." Reagan says as he is leaving Iceland that "though we put on the table the most far-reaching arms control proposal in history, the general secretary [Gorbachev] rejected it." Scoblic will later write, "In the end, ironically, it was Reagan's utopianism, hitched as it was to a missile shield, that preserved the status quo." [Washington Post, 10/13/1986; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 140-142] Hardline Sabotage - One element that contributes to the failure of the negotiations is the efforts to undermine the talks by hardline advisers Richard Perle and Ken Adelman, who tell Reagan that confining SDI to research facilities would destroy the program. Perle and Adelman are lying, but Reagan, not knowing any better, believes them, and insists that SDI remain in development. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 143-144] Going Too Far? - Reagan's negotiators, even the most ardent proponents of nuclear reduction, are shocked that he almost agreed to give up the US's entire nuclear arsenal—with Shultz's encouragement. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterand are horrified at the prospect, given that NATO's nuclear arsenal in Europe is the only real counterweight to the huge Red Army so close to the borders of Western European nations. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 140-142] Failure of Trust - The US-Soviet talks may well have foundered on an inability of either side to trust the other one to the extent necessary to implement the agreements. During the talks, Soviet aide Gyorgy Arbatov tells US negotiator Paul Nitze that the proposals would require "an exceptional level of trust." Therefore, Arbatov says, "we cannot accept your position." [National Security Archives, 3/12/2008]
Entity Tags: Paul Nitze, J. Peter Scoblic, Kenneth Adelman, Gyorgy Arbatov, George Shultz, Francois Mitterand, Margaret Thatcher, Richard Perle, Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev
Richard Perle serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board, an unpaid but influential position in the Pentagon. [Inter Press Service, 6/29/2004]
When Dick Cheney becomes defense secretary (see March 20, 1989 and After), he brings into the Pentagon a core group of young, ideological staffers with largely academic (not military) backgrounds. Many of these staffers are neoconservatives who once congregated around Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (see Early 1970s). Cheney places them in the Pentagon's policy directorate, under the supervision of Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, himself one of Jackson's cadre. While most administrations leave the policy directorate to perform mundane tasks, Wolfowitz and his team have no interest in such. "They focused on geostrategic issues," one of his Pentagon aides will recall. "They considered themselves conceptual." Wolfowitz and his team are more than willing to reevaluate the most fundamental precepts of US foreign policy in their own terms, and in Cheney they have what reporters Franklin Foer and Spencer Ackerman call "a like-minded patron." In 1991, Wolfowitz will describe his relationship to Cheney: "Intellectually, we're very much on similar wavelengths." A Different View of the Soviet Union - Cheney pairs with Wolfowitz and his neoconservatives to battle one issue in particular: the US's dealings with the Soviet Union. Premier Mikhail Gorbachev has been in office for four years, and has built a strong reputation for himself in the West as a charismatic reformer. But Cheney, Wolfowitz, and the others see something far darker. Cheney opposes any dealings with the Soviets except on the most adversarial level (see 1983), and publicly discusses his skepticism of perestroika, Gorbachev's restructing of the Soviet economy away from a communist paradigm. In April, Cheney tells a CNN news anchor that Gorbachev will "ultimately fail" and a leader "far more hostile" to the West will follow in his footsteps. Some of President Bush's more "realistic" aides, including James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, and Condoleezza Rice, as well as Bush himself, have cast their lot with Gorbachev and reform; they have no use for Cheney's public advocacy of using the USSR's period of transitional turmoil to dismember the nation once and for all. Cheney's Alternative Policy - Cheney turns to the neoconservatives under Wolfowitz for an alternative strategy. They meet on Saturday mornings in the Pentagon's E ring, where they have one maverick Sovietologist after another propound his or her views. Almost all of these Sovietologists echo Cheney and Wolfowitz's view—the USSR is on the brink of collapse, and the US should do what it can to hasten the process and destroy its enemy for good. They assert that what the Soviet Union needs is not a reformer guiding the country back into a papered-over totalitarianism, to emerge (with the US's help) stronger and more dangerous than before. Instead, Cheney and his cadre advocate enforced regime change in the Soviet Union. Supporting the rebellious Ukraine will undermine the legitimacy of the central Soviet government, and supporting Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian Republic, will strike at the heart of the Gorbachev regime. Bush and his core advisers worry about instability, but Cheney says that the destruction of the Soviet Union is worth a little short-term disruption. Failure - Bush will not adopt the position of his defense secretary, and will continue supporting Gorbachev through the Soviet Union's painful transition and eventual dissolution. After Cheney goes public one time too many about his feelings about Gorbachev, Baker tells Scowcroft to "[d]ump on Dick" with all deliberate speed. During the final days of the Soviet Union, Cheney will find himself alone against Bush's senior advisers and Cabinet members in their policy discussions. [New Republic, 11/20/2003]
Entity Tags: George Herbert Walker Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Boris Yeltsin, Franklin Foer, US Department of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, James A. Baker, Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, Mikhail Gorbachev, Spencer Ackerman
US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie (see July 25, 1990) leaves the country for long-planned, long deferred home leave. Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson is left in charge of the US Embassy in Baghdad. Many other ambassadors also leave the city, as is customary due to the extremely high seasonal heat in late July and August. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 106]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, April Glaspie
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson is in charge of the US Embassy in Baghdad after US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie departed for her twice-delayed annual vacation to the US (see July 31, 1990). At 2:30 a.m., local time, Wilson is awakened by a phone call from Washington. The operator tells him, "Mr. Wilson, I have the White House on the line." Wilson, assuming he is going to speak directly to the president, finds himself standing at attention, stark naked in the middle of his bedroom. Instead, the line goes dead. (Phone service in Iraq is unreliable at best, and the Iraqis often cut service to the embassy phones.) Wilson calls Sandra Charles, a National Security Council specialist on the Middle East, and Charles tells him that she is receiving reports that the US Embassy in Kuwait City, Kuwait, is being surrounded by hostile Iraqi troops (see August 2, 1990). At 7:30 a.m., Wilson, having gotten dressed, pounds on the door of Iraq's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz. The two have what Wilson will later recall as a forceful exchange, and Aziz agrees to restore phone service to the embassy. More pertinently, Wilson tells Aziz that the US is flatly opposed to any military moves against Kuwait. "It seems to me that with your army in Kuwait City and my navy in the Gulf we have an obligation to avoid any escalation of this crisis if we can," Wilson tells Aziz. A member of the embassy staff later recalls being impressed with Wilson's political dexterity. "I always knew Joe was bright," the former staffer recalls, "but he really showed here he could be quick on his feet. That was a pretty smart way to handle the situation." The meeting with Aziz is the first of many diplomatic efforts Wilson will make over the next few weeks to defuse the situation (see August 2-4, 1990) and protect the Americans in Iraq and Kuwait, whom Wilson fears will be taken hostage by Iraqi forces. [Vanity Fair, 1/2004]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, April Glaspie, Tariq Aziz, National Security Council, Sandra Charles
Two days of intense fighting follow Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990); Kuwait's small military is overrun by Iraq's much larger ground forces. Many Kuwaiti military units flee to Saudi Arabia rather than fight the Iraqis. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007] The invasion is such a surprise to the Kuwaitis that the Emir and the royal family barely escape with their lives. [PBS Frontline, 1/9/1996; Wilson, 2004, pp. 98]
Entity Tags: Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Iraq
Over 100 Americans are trapped in the US Embassy in Kuwait City. Perhaps 2,000 Americans are hiding from Iraqi soldiers throughout the capital city, and at least 115 are already in Iraqi custody, essentially being held as hostages. Iraqi forces bring a number of Americans, mostly oilfield workers, to Baghdad, where they are put up at local hotels. The Iraqis do not allow the "freed" Americans to leave the hotels or meet with US Embassy officials. It is clear that though the Iraqis call them "guests," they are hostages. Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad, learns to his dismay that his superiors in the US are similarly reluctant to consider the Americans as hostages, arguing that if US officials begin calling them hostages, then the Iraqis will treat them as such. Perhaps Iraq is holding the Americans only until their control of Kuwait is complete, and will release them. But, except for the release of a single American girl (see Early August, 1990), the Iraqis release no hostages. Embassy personnel succeed in rounding up around 100 Americans, mostly workers for the Bechtel Corporation, and housing them in the confines of the Embassy building. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 117-118, 126]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Bechtel
Joseph Wilson and Saddam Hussein, during their August 6 meeting. [Source: Joseph Wilson / New York Times]Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the ranking US diplomat in Baghdad (see July 31, 1990 and August 1-2, 1990), is admitted to an unexpected and impromptu meeting with Saddam Hussein. Wilson, determined not to let Hussein get the better of him in front of the Iraqi photographers present at the meeting, refuses to do anything that could be construed as bowing to Hussein (an effect Hussein is known to strive to create with his "guests") and is careful not to laugh for fear a picture could be taken out of context by Iraqi propagandists. As Wilson will later recall, "It dawned on me that the last thing in the world that I wanted to be beamed around the world was a picture of me yukking it up with Saddam Hussein." Hussein proposes a solution to the Iraq-Kuwait conflict, involving the US giving its blessing to Iraq's annexation of Kuwait (see August 2-4, 1990) and in return promising to provide cheap oil to the US from Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil fields. He also promises not to strike against Saudi Arabia unless that country allows itself to be used as a launching pad for a strike against Iraq. If the US reacts militarily to the invasion, Hussein says, then the US will be responsible for the "spilling of the blood of ten thousand soldiers in the Arabian desert." Wilson will later write, "There it was then, the carrot of cheap oil coupled with the stick of dead American soldiers." Wilson, in turn, presses for Hussein to allow foreign citizens in general, and American citizens in particular, to leave Iraq immediately (see August 4, 1990). Hussein asks if such a request indicates that the US is planning to launch its own military response; Wilson responds that he knows nothing of any such plans, but that he intends "to be here so long as there is a role for diplomats to play in resolving this situation peacefully." The meeting adjourns with nothing being agreed upon; Wilson has no power to negotiate on behalf of the US, Wilson does not trust Hussein to keep any such bargains, and most importantly, the US has not shown any indication of any willingness to allow Hussein to stay in Kuwait. [Vanity Fair, 1/2004; Wilson, 2004, pp. 118-123]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Joseph C. Wilson
Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson and the other US diplomats in Baghdad learn that the Iraqis have taken about 115 Americans as hostages (see August 4, 1990) and are placing them at strategic sites they consider most likely to be targeted by US air and ground strikes—in essence using the hostages as human shields. Two thousand Americans still remain trapped in Kuwait City, where Iraqis are, Wilson will write, "terrorizing the population." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 126]
Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson
Saddam Hussein inquires about the health of young British hostage Stuart Lockwood, a scene broadcast on Iraqi television and shown worldwide. [Source: BBC]Iraqi officials announce that their forces will hold the citizens from any country threatening Iraq as hostages until the threats are ended. According to US diplomat Joseph Wilson, currently holed up in the US Embassy in Baghdad with his fellow diplomats, staffers, and at least 100 Americans hoping for protection from Iraqi depredations, the Iraqi announcement ends the fiction that Iraq is holding these citizens as "guests" (see August 4, 1990 and August 8, 1990). Still, Saddam Hussein tries to maintain the fiction for the press; in what Wilson will describe as "one notorious television appearance," Hussein ruffles the hair of a seven-year old British boy, Stuart Lockwood, and asks if he had had his milk that day. Wilson will write, "The scared look on Stuart's face, and his parents' equally frightened expressions, chilled viewers worldwide." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 133-134; NationMaster, 12/23/2007]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Stuart Lockwood, Joseph C. Wilson
Morton Abramowitz. [Source: Bradley Olsen]Morton Abramowitz, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, establishes a number of blue-ribbon commissions, headed by a select group of foreign policy elite, to create a new post-Cold War foreign policy framework for the US. Some of the group's members are Madeleine Albright, Henry Cisneros, John Deutch, Richard Holbrooke, Alice Rivlin, David Gergen, Admiral William Crowe, Leon Fuerth, as well as Richard Perle and James Schlesinger, the two token conservatives who quickly resign. The commission will issue a number of policy papers recommending the increased use of military force to intervene in the domestic conflicts of other countries. Some of the commission's members are appointed to brief Democratic presidential candidates on the commission's reports ahead of their release. [American Spectator, 6/1999] Abramowitz is also influential in the career of counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke, who refers to Abramowitz as his "boss and mentor" at the State Department. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 48]
Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Richard Holbrooke, William Crowe Jr., Richard Perle, Morton I. Abramowitz, Madeleine Albright, Leon Fuerth, David Gergen, Henry Cisneros, John Deutch, Alice Rivlin, Arthur M. Schlesinger
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence
One of the many air strikes launched against Iraqi targets during Operation Desert Storm. [Source: US Air Force]The US launches a massive air assault against Iraq in retaliation for that country's invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990). The air assault begins the day after a UN deadline for Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait expires (see November 29, 1990). F-117 Stealth bombers hit Baghdad with an array of high-tech bombs and missiles; many of the explosions are televised live, or on briefly delayed feeds, on CNN, which launches virtually 24-hour coverage of the air strikes. In the first 48 hours of the war, 2,107 combat missions drop more than 5,000 tons of bombs on Baghdad alone, nearly twice the amount that incinerated Dresden in World War II. 'Thunder and Lightning of Desert Storm' - US Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), announces the beginning of hostilities by transmitting the following: "Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the United States Central Command, this morning at 0300, we launched Operation Desert Storm, an offensive campaign that will enforce the United Nation's resolutions that Iraq must cease its rape and pillage of its weaker neighbor and withdraw its forces from Kuwait. My confidence in you is total. Our cause is just! Now you must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm. May God be with you, your loved ones at home, and our country." [US Navy, 9/17/1997] Initial Attacks Obliterate Iraqi Navy, Much of Air Force, Many Ground Installations - The attack begins with an assault of over 100 Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAMs) launched from US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and attack helicopter strikes on Iraqi radar installations near the Iraq-Saudi Arabian border. The assaults destroy much of Iraq's air defense and command-and-control capabilities. The missile assault is quickly followed by fighter, bomber, and assault helicopter strikes which continue pounding at Iraqi government buildings, power stations, dams, military sites, radio and television stations, and several of Saddam Hussein's palaces. The strikes essentially obliterate the Iraqi Navy, and drastically cripple the Iraqi Air Force. (Between 115 and 140 aircraft and crews of the Iraqi Air Force flees to Iran over the course of the war, a move that surprises US commanders, who expected the aircraft and their crews to attempt to flee to Jordan, not Iran. The Iranians will never give Iraq back its aircraft, and will not release Iraqi air crews for years to come.) A US Navy review later calls the combined Navy-Marine air campaign, conducted in concert with US Air Force strikes, "successful beyond the most optimistic expectations." The Navy later reports that "allied air forces dropped over 88,500 tons of ordnance on the battlefield." [US Navy, 9/17/1997; NationMaster, 12/23/2007] Iraqi anti-aircraft counterattacks are surprisingly effective, downing around 75 US and British aircraft in the first hours of attacks. The US media does not widely report these downings, nor does it give much attention to the dozens of pilots and air crew captured as POWs. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007] 'The Mother of All Battles' - Five hours after the first attacks, Baghdad state radio broadcasts a voice identified as Saddam Hussein. Hussein tells his people that "The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins." [NationMaster, 12/23/2007] US Embassy Helped Locate Targets for Air Strikes - Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the last American to leave Baghdad (see January 12, 1991), and his staff provided critical assistance to the US battle planners in choosing their initial targets. Over the months, Wilson and his staff developed a "hostage tracking system," monitoring and recording the movements of the American hostages as they were transferred from site to site to be used as human shields in the event of a US strike (see August 4, 1990 and August 8, 1990). Wilson and his staff were able to identify some 55 sites that were being used around the country, presumably some of the most critical military and infrastructure sites in Iraq. Wilson gave that information to the Pentagon. He will later write, "I was gratified when several months later, on the first night of Desert Storm, long after the hostages had been released, many of those sites were ones hit by American bombs." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 141]
Entity Tags: US Department of the Navy, United Nations, US Department of the Marines, US Department of the Air Force, US Department of the Army, CNN, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Norman Schwarzkopf, Joseph C. Wilson, US Department of Defense, US Department of State, Saddam Hussein
The former Deputy Chief of Mission to the US Embassy in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, reflecting on the ramifications and consequences of the Gulf War as it comes to an end (see February 28, 1991), will later write: "The war… established the blueprint for the post-Cold War New World Order. For the first time since the Korean War, the world had engaged in a conflict sanctioned by international law. In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, America's foreign policy establishment understood that the next generation's war would not be of the World War II variety, with huge mobilizations of national assets and a fight for survival among the major powers; it would instead consist of small, bloody conflicts that would best be dealt with by a coalition of the willing operating under the mandate of the United Nations. Our challenge would be to ensure that the United States did not become the world's policeman, a costly and enervating task, but rather used our power to mobilize coalitions and share costs and responsibilities. In my mind, Desert Shield and Storm were case studies of how to manage both the diplomacy and the military aspects of an international crisis. We were successful in obtaining international financing to cover most of the costs of the war, we were successful in putting together a coalition force with troops from more than twenty nations, and we were successful in obtaining an international legal mandate to conduct the war. It was, in every way, an international effort driven by American political will and diplomatic leadership." Wilson agrees with President Bush and others that the US had been right not to drive into Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein (see February 1991-1992, August 1992, and September 1998). The US-led coalition had no international mandate to perform such a drastic action, Wilson will note. To go farther than the agreed-upon mandate would alienate allies and erode trust, especially among Arab nations fearful that the US would overthrow their governments and seize their oilfields, or those of their neighbors. Wilson will observe, "The credibility that we later enjoyed—which permitted us to make subsequent progress on Middle East peace at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, and through the Oslo process (see September 13, 1993)… was directly related to our having honored our promises and not exceeded the mandate from the international community." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 178-179]
Entity Tags: United Nations, George Herbert Walker Bush, Saddam Hussein, Joseph C. Wilson
The New York Times headline on March 8, 1992. [Source: Public domain]The Defense Planning Guidance, "a blueprint for the department's spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union," is leaked to the New York Times. [New York Times, 3/8/1992; Newsday, 3/16/2003] The document will cause controversy, because it hasn't yet been "scrubbed" to replace candid language with euphemisms. [New York Times, 3/10/1992; New York Times, 3/11/1992; Observer, 4/7/2002] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role, it "must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." [New York Times, 3/8/1992; New York Times, 3/8/1992] As the Observer summarizes it: "America's friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington." [Observer, 4/7/2002] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who hold relatively low posts at this time, but become deputy defense secretary and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, respectively, under President George W. Bush. [Newsday, 3/16/2003] The authors conspicuously avoid mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US "should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted." [New York Times, 3/8/1992] They call for "punishing" or "threatening punishment" against regional aggressors before they act. [Harper's, 10/2002] Interests to be defended preemptively include "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism." The section describing US interests in the Middle East states that the "overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve US and Western access to the region's oil… deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect US nationals and property, and safeguard… access to international air and seaways." [New York Times, 3/8/1992] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) will later say, "It is my opinion that [George W. Bush's] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report." [Newsday, 3/16/2003] In response to the controversy, the US will release an updated version of the document in May 1992, which stresses that the US will work with the United Nations and its allies. [Washington Post, 5/24/1992; Harper's, 10/2002]
Entity Tags: Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Lincoln Chafee, United States, Soviet Union, Paul Wolfowitz
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, US International Relations, Neoconservative Influence
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publishes "Self-Determination in the New World Order" by Morton H. Halperin (head of State Department policy planning under Madeleine Albright) and David Scheffer (Albright's special envoy for war crimes issues). The book proposes a set of criteria for the US to use in responding to the independence and separatist movements that have arisen since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The authors argue that in certain circumstances, such as when civil unrest threatens to create a humanitarian crisis, "American interests and ideals" compel the US to assume "a more active role." Interventions "will become increasingly unavoidable," the authors write. Foreshadowing the unabashed unilateralist foreign policy adopted by the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks, they write that "the United States should seek to build a consensus within regional and international organizations for its position, but should not sacrifice its own judgment and principles if such a consensus fails to materialize."
[Review of International Affairs, 4/2000]
Entity Tags: David Scheffer, Morton H. Halperin, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Madeleine Albright
Valerie Plame, a young CIA case officer working in the Europe Division at the agency's Directorate of Operations following a tour in Greece (see Fall 1985 and Fall 1989), decides on a risky career move—becoming a NOC, or Nonofficial Covered Officer. As reporter Laura Rozen will later explain: "Becoming a NOC would require Plame to erase all visible connections to the US government, while, with the help of the agency's Office of Central Cover, developing and inhabiting a plausible new private sector career and professional identity that would serve as useful cover for her to meet and develop potential sources of intelligence value to the agency without revealing herself as an agent of the US government. It also meant giving up the protection of diplomatic status should her covert activities be discovered." "A NOC has no overt affiliation with the US government," Plame will later write. "If he was caught, the United States would deny any connection." The CIA accepts her as a NOC candidate, and in order to distance herself from her former association with her former "cover" career as a junior State Department officer in Athens, Plame begins pursuing double graduate degrees in international affairs and European studies. She studies at both the London School of Economics and at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, where the entire curriculum is taught in French. By 1996 she is ensconced in an apartment in Brussels, where she begins a "career" as an energy executive and secret NOC. She has a far wider range of potential contacts within the corporate world as an apparent private citizen, and her new assignment introduces her to the world of weapons proliferation, WMD, counternarcotics, economic intelligence, technological developments, and counterterrorism. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 332-333]
Entity Tags: Laura Rozen, College of Europe, US Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, London School of Economics
Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Intelligence services operating in the Balkans, especially US intelligence, become increasingly politicized and are under pressure to produce reports with a pro-Bosnian, anti-Serb slant. [Wiebes, 2003, pp. 86, 141] For instance, one CIA report in 1995 blaming the Bosnian Serbs for the vast majority of the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia will later be accused of distorting the facts to fit an anti-Serb slant (see March 9, 1995).
Entity Tags: US intelligence
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline
It is revealed in the New York Times that a CIA report completed earlier in the year has concluded that 90 percent of the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia has been carried out by the Bosnian Serbs, and that leading politicians in Bosnian Serbia and possibly Serbia itself almost certainly played a role in these war crimes. One anonymous US official says: "To those who think the parties are equally guilty, this report is pretty devastating. The scale of what the Serbs did is so different." [New York Times, 3/9/1995] However, three months later, the Telegraph will report that "authoritative diplomatic sources in Europe" believe that pro-Bosnian Muslim factions in Washington, DC, including parts of the CIA, are "blatantly distorting" intelligence summaries to push for US intervention on the Bosnian Muslim side. [Daily Telegraph, 6/2/1995] Peter Viggers, a senior Conservative British member of Parliament, will claim the report was leaked at a diplomatically important moment to influence policy. Viggers is a member of the British House of Commons Defence Committee and will say the report conflicted with the committee's own experience in visits to Bosnia, where it was clear that ethnic cleansing had been carried out by all sides. [Daily Telegraph, 6/3/1995] The 1999 documentary Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War later shown on the History Channel will claim that the CIA report only looked at areas held by the Bosnian Serbs and that international agencies later determined that 40 percent of the war refugees were Serbian, suggesting that Serbians were the target of a similar percentage of "ethnic cleansing" war crimes. [George Bogdanich, 4/14/2001]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Peter Viggers
Richard Perle. [Source: Public domain]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." [Washington Times, 10/7/2002; Chicago Sun-Times, 3/6/2003] 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: influential neoconservative academic and former Bush adviser Richard Perle, primarily responsible for the content of the paper; Meyrav Wurmser, the future director of the neoconservative Hudson Institute's Center for Middle East Policy; her husband David Wurmser, the future chief adviser for Middle East policy for future vice-president Dick Cheney; neoconservative Douglas Feith, who will be the prime architect of the Iraq war; and a number of lesser-known neoconservatives, including James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Jeffrey T. Bergner, Jonathan Torop, and Robert Loewenberg. Rebuilding Zionism by Abandoning Past Policies - 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.…" [Guardian, 9/3/2002] Aggressive, Militant Israeli Policy towards Arab Neighbors - Much along the lines of an earlier paper by Israeli Oded Yinon (see February 1982), 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. A war with Iraq will destabilize the entire Middle East, allowing governments in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and other countries to be replaced. "Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them," the paper says. [Perle, 7/8/1996; Guardian, 9/3/2002; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/19/2003] Iraq is first on the list of nations to be transformed. Saddam Hussein must be overthrown, the authors say. But Iraq has long served as a counterweight to the Shi'ite theocracy of Iran; with the two at loggerheads, neither could pose as serious a threat to Israel as it could if not opposed by the other. To counter this, Perle and his co-authors propose restoring the Hashemites (an ancient Arab dynasty; King Faisal I of Iraq was a Hashemite) to power. Instead of the largely Shi'ite Iraqis aligning themselves with their fellow Shi'a in Iran after Hussein's overthrow, the Hashemite government would align itself with the pro-Western Jordan, long a Hashemite regime. Unfortunately, the authors propose no plan to actually make such an extraordinary regime succession happen, nor do they seem concerned with some Iraqi Shi'ites' alignment with Islamist terrorists or with many Shi'ites' close ties to Iran. [Unger, 2007, pp. 145-148] Abandoning Oslo Accords, Militant Palestinian Policy - Other suggestions for Israel include abandoning the Oslo Accords, developing a foreign policy based on a traditional balance of power strategy, reserving its right to invade the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a strategy of "self-defense," abandoning any notion of "land for peace," reestablishing a policy of preemptive strikes, forging closer ties to the US while taking steps towards self-reliance, and seeking an alternative to Yasser Arafat as leader of the PLO. [Perle, 7/8/1996] 'Seeds of a New Vision' - All these questions need not be answered right away, according to co-author Meyrav Wurmser. The document is "the beginning of thought," she says, "… the seeds of a new vision." Similar to American Christian Right's Vision - According to author Craig Unger, the ideology of "ACB" is, in essence, a secularized version of the theology of the American Christian Right. Christian Zionists insist that Jews were ordained by God to reclaim the Biblican land of Judea and Samaria in the West Bank; the paper asserts that claim as well. The paper echoes Christian fundamentalists by demanding "the unconditional acceptance of Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension." Perle and his fellow neoconservatives want to push the boundaries even further: the Bible can be interpreted to countenance Jewish dominion over all or parts of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and even Saudi Arabia. Thusly, the authors claim that Israel and the US, by waging war against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, would reshape the "strategic environment" in the Middle East and greatly expand Israel's influence in the region. Influence in Upcoming Bush Administration - Perle will later become chairman of President Bush's influential Defense Policy Board and will be instrumental is moving Bush's US policy toward war with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, as will Feith and the Wurmsers. [Unger, 2007, pp. 145-148]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Robert Loewenberg, Meyrav Wurmser, Jonathan Torop, Richard V. Allen, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Benjamin Netanyahu, David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Douglas Feith
After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States (see July 8-10, 1996), US neoconservatives mount an orchestrated push for war against Iraq and an overall reshaping of the Middle East (see July 8, 1996). At first, the offensive takes place in the pages of US newspapers and magazines. William Kristol and Robert Kagan write articles for the magazines Foreign Policy and the Weekly Standard; syndicated columnists Charles Krauthammer and A. M. Rosenthal use their columns to push the idea; Zalmay Khalilzad and Paul Wolfowitz pen op-eds for the Washington Post; "Clean Break" co-author David Wurmser writes op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and publishes a book, Tyranny's Ally, in which he proposes that the US use its military to literally redraw the map of the Middle East (see Late Summer 1996). Neoconservatives are transforming Christian evangelicals' argument that Americans are God's "chosen people" into secular terms, and argue in their op-eds and articles that it is, in author Craig Unger's words, the US's "moral duty to project that greatness throughout the world—using American military power, if necessary." [Unger, 2007, pp. 148-149]
Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, A. M. Rosenthal, Benjamin Netanyahu, David Wurmser, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay M. Khalilzad
Neoconservative Douglas Feith writes a position paper entitled "A Strategy for Israel." Feith proposes that Israel re-occupy "the areas under Palestinian Authority control" even though "the price in blood would be high." [Commentary, 9/1997; American Conservative, 3/24/2003; In These Times, 3/13/2007] Feith is the co-author of the 1996 position paper "A Clean Break" (see July 8, 1996), which advocates a similar aggressive posture for Israel. [In These Times, 3/13/2007]
Entity Tags: Douglas Feith
David Wurmser, director of the Middle East program at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, writes an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that the US government should support Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress [INC] and work to foment "an Iraqi insurgency to depose the butcher of Baghdad." Wurmser writes: "Washington has no choice now but to abandon the coup option and resurrect the INC. An insurgency may be able to defeat Saddam's weak and demoralized conventional army. But one thing is clear: There is no cost-free way to depose Saddam. He is more resolute, wily and brutal than we. His strength lies in his weapons of terror; that is why he is so attached to them…. Organizing an insurgency to liberate Iraq under the INC may provoke Saddam to use these weapons on the way down. Better that, though, than current policy, which will lead him to use them on his way back up." [Wall Street Journal, 11/12/1997]
Entity Tags: David Wurmser, Saddam Hussein, Ahmed Chalabi
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence
PNAC logo. [Source: Project for the New American Century]The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, publishes a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a "hazard" to "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil." In a foretaste of what eventually happens, the letter calls for the US to go to war alone, attacks the United Nations, and says the US should not be "crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." The letter is signed by many who will later lead the 2003 Iraq war. 10 of the 18 signatories later join the Bush Administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretaries of State Richard Armitage and Robert Zoellick, Undersecretaries of State John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, presidential adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams, Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, and George W. Bush's special Iraq envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Other signatories include William Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Peter Rodman, William Schneider, Vin Weber, and James Woolsey. [Project for the New American Century, 1/26/1998; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 3/16/2003; Unger, 2007, pp. 158] Clinton does heavily bomb Iraq in late 1998, but the bombing doesn't last long and its long term effect is the break off of United Nations weapons inspections. [New York Times, 3/23/2003] The PNAC neoconservatives do not seriously expect Clinton to attack Iraq in any meaningful sense, author Craig Unger will observe in 2007. Instead, they are positioning themselves for the future. "This was a key moment," one State Department official will recall. "The neocons were maneuvering to put this issue in play and box Clinton in. Now, they could draw a dichotomy. They could argue to their next candidate, 'Clinton was weak. You must be strong.'" [Unger, 2007, pp. 158]
Entity Tags: Robert B. Zoellick, Vin Weber, William Kristol, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William Schneider Jr., Richard Perle, William J. Bennett, Richard Armitage, Robert Kagan, Paula J. Dobriansky, Donald Rumsfeld, Craig Unger, Peter Rodman, Elliott Abrams, John R. Bolton, James Woolsey, Francis Fukuyama, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Paul Wolfowitz
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence
The Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG), a bipartisan group made up largely of foreign policy specialists, sends an "Open Letter to the President" calling for President Clinton to use the US military to help Iraqi opposition groups overthrow Saddam Hussein and replace him with a US-friendly government. US law forbids such an operation. The group is led by, among others, former Representative Stephen Solarz (D-NY) and prominent Bush adviser Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense. Largely Neoconservative in Makeup - Many of its co-signers will become the core of the Bush administration's neoconservative-driven national security apparatus. These co-signers include Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Stephen Bryen, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Fred Ikle, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Bernard Lewis, Peter Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, Gary Schmitt, Max Singer, Casper Weinberger, Paul Wolfowitz, David Wurmser, and Dov Zakheim. [CNN, 2/20/1998; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] The CPSG is closely affiliated with both the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC—see June 3, 1997 and January 26, 1998) and the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), both of which boast Perle as a powerful and influential member. Jim Lobe of the Project Against the Present Danger later learns that the CPSG is funded in large part by a sizable grant from the right-wing Bradley Foundation, a key funding source for both the PNAC and the AEI. According to Counterpunch's Kurt Nimmo, the plan for overthrowing Iraq later adopted by the Bush administration, and currently advocated by the CPSG, will be echoed in the PNAC's September 2000 document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (see September 2000). [CounterPunch, 11/19/2002] Advocates Supporting Iraq-Based Insurgency - The letter reads in part: "Despite his defeat in the Gulf War, continuing sanctions, and the determined effort of UN inspectors to root out and destroy his weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein has been able to develop biological and chemical munitions.… This poses a danger to our friends, our allies, and to our nation.… In view of Saddam Hussein's refusal to grant UN inspectors the right to conduct unfettered inspections of those sites where he is suspected of storing his still significant arsenal of chemical and biological munitions and his apparent determination never to relinquish his weapons of mass destruction, we call upon President Clinton to adopt and implement a plan of action designed to finally and fully resolve this utterly unacceptable threat to our most vital national interests." The plan is almost identical to the "End Game" scenario proposed in 1993 (see November 1993) and carried out, without success, in 1995 (see March 1995). It is also virtually identical to the "Downing Plan," released later in 1998 (see Late 1998). In 2004, then-Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang will observe, "The letter was remarkable in that it adopted some of the very formulations that would later be used by Vice President [Dick] Cheney and other current administration officials to justify the preventive war in Iraq that commenced on March 20, 2003" (see March 19, 2003). The CPSG advocates: US support for Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC—see 1992-1996) as the provisional government to replace Hussein's dictatorship; Funding the INC with seized Iraqi assets, designating areas in the north and south as INC-controlled zones, and lifting sanctions in those areas; Providing any ground assault by INC forces (see October 31, 1998) with a "systematic air campaign" by US forces; Prepositioning US ground force equipment "so that, as a last resort, we have the capacity to protect and assist the anti-Saddam forces in the northern and southern parts of Iraq"; Bringing Hussein before an international tribunal on war crimes charges. Carrying out these actions, Solarz says, would completely eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction that he claims Iraq owns. [Abrams et al., 2/19/1998; CNN, 2/20/1998; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Entity Tags: Richard Burt, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Paula J. Dobriansky, Peter Rosenblatt, Project for the New American Century, Richard V. Allen, Peter Rodman, Robert A. Pastor, Saddam Hussein, Robert Kagan, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, William Kristol, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William B. Clark, Sven F. Kraemer, Stephen Solarz, Roger Robinson, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Bryen, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Ledeen, Patrick Lang, Fred C. Ikle, Dov S. Zakheim, Elliott Abrams, Frank Carlucci, Douglas Feith, Frank Gaffney, Donald Rumsfeld, Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, American Enterprise Institute, Ahmed Chalabi, Max Singer, David Wurmser, Bernard Lewis, Caspar Weinberger, Gary Schmitt, Kurt Nimmo, Leon Wienseltier, Martin Peretz, Joshua Muravchik, Frederick L. Lewis, John R. Bolton, Jeffrey T. Bergner, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Jarvis Lynch, Jeffrey Gedmin, Jim Lobe, Iraqi National Congress
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) publishes a letter addressed to Congressman Newt Gingrich and Senator Trent Lott. The letter argues that the Clinton administration has capitulated to Saddam Hussein and calls on the two legislators to lead Congress to "establish and maintain a strong US military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect [US] vital interests in the Gulf—and, if necessary, to help removed Saddam from power." [Century, 5/29/1998]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Newt Gingrich, US Congress, Project for the New American Century, Trent Lott, Clinton administration
The "Team B" intelligence analysis exercise of 1975, which so disastrously overestimated the Soviet threat (see November 1976), returns in the form of the "Rumsfeld Commission," which issues its report this month. Conservative commentators and former participants have called for a second "Team B"-style competitive intelligence analysis ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall (see 1990, 1994, and 1996). The "Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States" (see July 15, 1998), led by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is packed with conservative and neoconservative hardliners much as the original Team B cadre was; it includes some former Team B members such as former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz. Like the original Team B, the Rumsfeld Commission challenges CIA estimates of foreign military threats; like the original Team B, the Rumsfeld Commission wildly overestimates the impending threat from countries such as Iran and North Korea, both of which it judges will be capable of striking the US with nuclear weapons in five years or perhaps less. The original Team B findings impelled thirty years of full-bore military spending by the US to counter a Soviet threat that was fading, not growing; the Rumsfeld Commission's equally alarmist findings impels a new push for spending on the so-called "Star Wars" ballistic missile defense system (see March 23, 1983). Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly will observe that the Rumsfeld Commission's report "provided Congress with enough talking points to win the argument [on missile defense] both in the strategic arena and in the 20-second soundbite television debates." Former State Department intelligence analyst Greg Thielmann will later observe, "time has proven Rumsfeld's predictions dead wrong." Author and professor Gordon R. Mitchell will write that the second "Team B" exercise shows "that by 1998, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had honed the art of intelligence manipulation through use of competitive intelligence analysis. Retrospective assessments revealing serious flaws in the Team B work products came long after political officials had already converted the alarmist reports into political support for favored military policies." [Quarterly Journal of Speech, 5/2006 ]
Entity Tags: Strategic Defense Initiative, 'Team B', Central Intelligence Agency, Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, Donald Rumsfeld, Gordon R. Mitchell, Phyllis Schlafly, Paul Wolfowitz, Greg Thielmann
Cover of 'A World Transformed.' [Source: Bookpage (.com)]Former president George H. W. Bush and his close colleague, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, publish a book entitled A World Transformed. Recalling the 1991 Gulf War (see January 16, 1991 and After), Bush and Scowcroft defend their decision not to enter Baghdad and overthrow the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, calling it the proper and pragmatic thing to do. They do admit, however, that they were certain Hussein would shortly be overthrown by an internal revolution sparked by the crushing defeat of his military. [New York Times, 9/27/1998] US Might Still Occupy Hostile Iraq Eight Years Later - "Trying to eliminate Saddam… would have incurred incalculable human and political costs," they write. "We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq… there was no viable 'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 314-315] Younger Bush Disagrees with Assessments - Bush's son, Texas Governor George W. Bush, preparing for his own presidential run (see April-May 1999), explicitly disagrees with the book's assessments of US actions during and after the 1991 Gulf War. According to Mickey Herskowitz, the writer working on Bush's campaign biography, "He thought of himself as a superior, more modern politican than his father and [the elder Bush's close adviser and friend] Jim Baker. He told me, '[My father] could have done anything [during the Gulf War]. He could have invaded Switzerland. If I had that political capital, I would have taken Iraq." [Unger, 2007, pp. 169]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Mickey Herskowitz, James A. Baker
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, US International Relations
In his book, Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute urges the US to support an insurgency aimed at toppling the Bath'ist government of Saddam Hussein as part of a broader policy to defeat pan-Arabism in Iraq. In its place, the US should encourage the creation of a "loosely unified Iraqi confederal government, shaped around strong sectarian and provincial entities," Wurmser argues. [Wurmser, 1999, pp. 136-137] What happens in Iraq is vitally important, Wurmser notes, because the country is of extreme strategic importance. "It is a key transportation route, and it is rich in both geographic endowments and human talent," he explains. "Its location on pathways between Asia and Europe, Africa and Asia, and Europe and Africa makes it an ideal route for armies, pipelines, and trade from both the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. Iraq also has large, proven oil reserves, water, and other important resources. Its geographic centrality and abundance of natural advantages alone make the country a regionally important center." [Wurmser, 1999, pp. 116-117]
Entity Tags: David Wurmser
As the presidential campaign of Texas Governor George W. Bush takes shape, many in the media assume that a Bush presidency would be much like the father's: moderate and centrist with a pronounced but not extreme rightward tilt. Bush will be "on the 47-yard line in one direction," says former Clinton counsel Lanny Davis, while Democratic contender Al Gore is "on the 47-yard line in the other." But while the media continues to pursue that story, the hardliners and neoconservatives surrounding Bush (see December 1998 - Fall 1999) are working quietly to push their favored candidate much farther to the right, especially in foreign affairs, than anyone suspects. Two of the Bush campaign's most prominent advisers, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, are making regular and secret visits to the governor's mansion. "They were brought in and out under very tight security," a source in the governor's office will later recall. "They snuck in and snuck out. They didn't hold press conferences. [Bush political adviser Karl] Rove didn't want people to know what they were doing or what they were saying." [Unger, 2007, pp. 165-168] Bush is Willing to be Educated - Perle, like many other neoconservatives, is pleased that the younger Bush may well not be a repeat of the moderate policy stances of the father. "The first time I met [George W. Bush]… two things became clear," Perle will recall in 2004. "One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much." [Slate, 5/7/2004] Perle will continue: "Most people are reluctant to say when they don't know something—a word or a term they haven't heard before. Not him." A State Department source will put it more bluntly: "His ignorance of the world cannot be overstated." Rice a 'Fellow Traveler' with Neoconservatives - One of Bush's most diligent tutors is Condoleezza Rice, a former Bush administration official. Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who had mentored Rice, wrongly expects her to tutor Bush in his own "realist" world view, but Rice is far more aligned with the neoconservatives than Scowcroft realizes (see April-May 1999). "She was certainly a fellow traveler," the State Department source will say. "She came at it more with a high-level academic approach while the other guys were operational. [Her role] was a surprise to Scowcroft. She had been a protege and the idea that she was going along with them was very frustrating to him." The absence of retired General Colin Powell, one of the elder Bush's most trusted and influential moderates, is no accident (see April-May 1999). "That's a critical fact," the State Department source will observe. "The very peculiar personal relationship between Rice and Bush solidified during those tutorials, and Wolfowitz established himself as the intellectual face of the neocons and the whole PNAC crew" (see June 3, 1997). Wolfowitz: Redrawing the Map of the Middle East - Wolfowitz teaches Bush that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only incidental to the larger issues engulfing the Middle East (see March 8, 1992). The State Department source will recall: "Wolfowitz had gotten to Bush, and this is where Bush thought he would be seen as a great genius. Wolfowitz convinced him that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was to leap over this constant conflict and to remake the context in which the conflict was taking place; that democracies don't fight each other. [He convinced Bush] that the fundamental problem was the absence of democracy in the Middle East, and therefore we needed to promote democracy in the Middle East, and out of that there would be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." The US must, Wolfowitz says, exert its moral and military might to eliminate the brutal dictators in the region and replace them with Western-style democratic leaders. Wolfowitz believes "[t]he road to peace in Jerusalem," as author Craig Unger will write, "run[s] through Baghdad, Damascus, even Tehran." It is unclear if Bush grasps the full implications of the theories of Wolfowitz and Rice. Certainly the idea of this "reverse domino theory," as Unger will call it, is far different from anything previously espoused in US foreign affairs—a permanent "neo-war," Unger will write, "colossal wars that would sweep through the entire Middle East and affect the world." [Unger, 2007, pp. 165-168]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Colin Powell, Craig Unger, Paul Wolfowitz, Lanny Davis, Richard Perle, Karl C. Rove, Condoleezza Rice, US Department of State
Michael Ledeen. [Source: Publicity photo via American Enterprise Institute]In his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, neoconservative Michael Ledeen measures modern leaders against Machiavelli's rules for leadership and concludes that "[e]ven after a half a millennium, Machiavelli's advice to leaders is as contemporary as tomorrow." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 185] He laments that contemporary Western leaders, "like their counterparts in the rest of the world, have fallen short of Machiavelli's standards." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 187] According to Ledeen, "[I]f new and more virtuous leaders do not emerge, it is only a matter of time before we are either dominated by our enemies or sink into a more profound crisis." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 187] Such a situation, he explains, would put the US in the "same desperate crisis that drove Machiavelli to call for a new dictator to set things aright." He adds, "In either case, we need Machiavellian wisdom and leadership." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 188] Throughout the book Ledeen highlights certain qualities that he believes make strong leaders. A leader "must be prepared to fight at all times," he writes, and must be of "manly vigor." Women, he says, are rarely strong leaders because women generally cannot achieve virtue for they lack the "physical wherewithal and the passionate desire to achieve" military glory. To Ledeen, the ends may justify the means. In some situations, "[i]n order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.'" [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 90] According to Ledeen, the Christian god sanctions this view. Machiavelli, he notes approvingly, wrote: "I believe that the greatest good that one can do, and the most gratifying to God is that which one does for one's country." Ledeen thus adds: "Since it is the highest good, the defense of the country is one of those extreme situation in which a leader is justified in committing evil." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 117]
Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen
People involved in the 2000 PNAC report (from top left): Vice
President Cheney, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld,
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney Chief of Staff I. Lewis
Libby, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of Defense Dov
Zakheim, and author Eliot Cohen.
[Source: Public domain]The neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century writes a "blueprint" for the "creation of a 'global Pax Americana'" (see June 3, 1997). The document, titled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century, was written for the George W. Bush team even before the 2000 presidential election. It was written for future Vice President Cheney, future Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, future Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor and Bush's brother Jeb Bush, and Cheney's future chief of staff Lewis Libby. [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000, pp. iv and 51 ] Plans to Overthrow Iraqi Government - The report calls itself a "blueprint for maintaining global US preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests." The plan shows that the Bush team intends to take military control of Persian Gulf oil whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power and should retain control of the region even if there is no threat. It says: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." The report calls for the control of space through a new "US Space Forces," the political control of the internet, the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates "regime change" in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran and other countries. It also mentions that "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool" (see February 7, 2003). [Project for the New American Century, 9/2000 ; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] Greater Need for US Role in Persian Gulf - PNAC states further: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." 'US Space Forces,' Control of Internet, Subversion of Allies - PNAC calls for the control of space through a new "US Space Forces," the political control of the Internet, and the subversion of any growth in political power of even close allies, and advocates "regime change" in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iran, and other countries. Bioweapons Targeting Specific Genotypes 'Useful' - It also mentions that "advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool." 'A New Pearl Harbor' - However, PNAC complains that thes changes are likely to take a long time, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor." [Los Angeles Times, 1/12/2003] Bush Will Claim a 'Humble' Foreign Policy Stance - One month later during a presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush will assert that he wants a "humble" foreign policy in the Middle East and says he is against toppling Saddam Hussein in Iraq because it smacks of "nation building" (see October 11, 2000). Around the same time, Cheney will similarly defend Bush's position of maintaining President Clinton's policy not to attack Iraq, asserting that the US should not act as though "we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world, taking down governments." [Washington Post, 1/12/2002] Author Craig Unger will later comment, "Only a few people who had read the papers put forth by the Project for a New American Century might have guessed a far more radical policy had been developed." [Salon, 3/15/2004] A British member of Parliament will later say of the PNAC report, "This is a blueprint for US world domination—a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world." [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/7/2002] Both PNAC and its strategy plan for Bush are almost virtually ignored by the media until a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war (see February-March 20, 2003).
Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, Robert Martinage, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Robert Killebrew, Peter Rodman, Project for the New American Century, Roger Barnett, Paula J. Dobriansky, Saddam Hussein, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Steve Forbes, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William J. Bennett, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Vin Weber, Stephen A. Cambone, Steve Rosen, Thomas Donnelly, Norman Podhoretz, Phil Meilinger, Midge Decter, Donald Kagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dov S. Zakheim, Devon Gaffney Cross, Aaron Friedberg, Abram Shulsky, Michael Vickers, Dan Quayle, Eliot A. Cohen, Dan Goure, Alvin Bernstein, Barry Watts, David Epstein, Elliott Abrams, Frank Gaffney, John Ellis ("Jeb") Bush, James Lasswell, Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Mark P. Lagon, Mackubin Owens, Francis Fukuyama, Henry S. Rowen, Gary Schmitt, Fred C. Ikle, Frederick Kagan, David Fautua, Hasam Amin, George Weigel
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, 9/11 Timeline, Neoconservative Influence
After the 2000 Presidential Election, Bush's White House political adviser, Karl Rove, tells neoconservative Michael Ledeen "Anytime you have a good idea, tell me." From that point on, according to Ledeen, every month or six weeks, Ledeen offers Rove "something you should be thinking about." On more than one occasion, ideas faxed to Rove by Ledeen, "become official policy or rhetoric," the Post reports. [Washington Post, 3/10/2003]
Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Karl C. Rove
A set of documents is forged implicating Iraq in an attempt to purchase 500 tons of uranium oxide, also known as "yellowcake," from Niger. [Agence France-Presse, 7/19/2003; Reuters, 7/19/2003; New Yorker, 10/27/2003; Talking Points Memo, 10/31/2003; La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005] It is possible that official stamps and letterhead stolen from the Niger embassy in Rome (see January 2, 2001) are used to fabricate the documents, though a subsequent police investigation suggests that the break-in may have been staged to provide a cover story for the origins of the documents. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 88] Material gleaned from real Italian intelligence (SISMI) documents dating back to the 1980s concerning Iraq's yellowcake purchases from Niger during that period are also incorporated into the set of forged documents. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005; San Francisco Chronicle, 10/30/2005] But it is unclear who exactly is responsible for the forgeries. In August 2004, the Financial Times will report that according to Rocco Martino, the Italian information peddler who later tries to sell the documents, the documents are fabricated by SISMI, which passes them on to Martino through embassy employee Laura Montini, a paid SISMI asset. [Financial Times, 8/2/2004] In October 2005, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica will suggest the forgery is done by Montini and fellow embassy employee Zakaria Yaou Maiga under the guidance of Martino and Antonio Nucera, the deputy chief of the SISMI center in Viale Pasteur in Rome. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/24/2005] In 2006, an official investigation will add support to this account, concluding that Montini and Maiga, motivated by money, were indeed the forgers of the documents. [Sunday Times (London), 4/9/2006] SISMI director Nicolo Pollari will later acknowledge that Martino had worked as a SISMI agent in the past, but deny any SISMI involvement in the Iraq-Niger affair. "[Nucera] offered [Martino] the use of an intelligence asset [Montini]—no big deal, you understand—one who was still on the books but inactive—to give a hand to Martino," Pollari will explain. Author Craig Unger will observe that the issue is, if Pollari is to be believed, just one friend helping another friend by loaning him an intelligence asset to help disseminate forged documents. Martino has a different explanation: "SISMI wanted me to pass on the documents, but they didn't want anyone to know they had been involved." The information is quite contradictory. The Italian newspaper La Repubblica will call Martino "a failed carabiniere and dishonest spy," and a "double-dealer" who "plays every side of the fence." But Unger will later note that assets like him are valuable precisely because they lack credibility. "If there were a deep-cover unit of SISMI, it would make sense to hire someone like Rocco," says former DIA analyst Patrick Lang. "His flakiness gives SISMI plausible deniability. That's standard tradecraft for the agencies." Until Martino stops talking to journalists in 2005, he will insist he believed the documents were authentic (see Summer 2004). "I sell information, I admit," he will tell a London reporter. "But I only sell good information." [Unger, 2007, pp. 236]
Entity Tags: Rocco Martino, Nicolo Pollari, Laura Montini, La Repubblica, Zakaria Yaou Maiga, Antonio Nucera, Craig Unger, SISMI, Patrick Lang
Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
President-elect George W. Bush meets with Donald Rumsfeld in Washington, and offers him the position of secretary of defense. Insiders are amazed that Bush would even consider Rumsfeld, the chief of staff for former President Ford (see September 21, 1974 and After), after Rumsfeld's open contempt and enmity towards the elder Bush, the "Team B" onslaught against the elder Bush's CIA (see Late November 1976 and Late November, 1976), and his attempts to keep Bush off the presidential tickets in 1976 and 1980 (see Before November 4, 1975). "Real bitterness there," a close friend of the Bush family later says. "Makes you wonder what was going through Bush 43's head when he made [Rumsfeld] secretary of defense." The Bush family's great friend and fixer, James Baker, even tries to dissuade Bush from choosing Rumsfeld, telling him, "All I'm going to say is, you know what he did to your daddy." But Bush chooses Rumsfeld anyway. Not only does Rumsfeld have a long and fruitful relationship with Vice President Cheney (see 1969), but Rumsfeld, described as always an ingratiating courtier by author Craig Unger, plays on Bush's insecurity about his lack of experience and his desire to be an effective commander in chief. Rumsfeld is also a key element of Cheney's long-term plan to unify power in the executive branch (see 1981-1992), to the detriment of Congress and the judiciary. [Unger, 2007, pp. 186-187]
Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Craig Unger, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George W. Bush, James A. Baker
Timeline Tags: US Military
The Bush team moves into Washington. Neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad heads the Pentagon transition team, and he ensures that plenty of his friends and colleagues move into the civilian offices of the Defense Department. Four of the most influential advocates for the US overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein—Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Abram Shulsky—are waiting to learn where they will serve in the department. But Vice President Cheney is still concerned with ensuring the placement of his own colleagues and cronies who will help him build what many will call the "imperial presidency." Secretary of State Colin Powell, Cheney's ideological rival, is working to install his friend and colleague Richard Armitage as deputy secretary of defense. For Cheney, Armitage would be a calamity—although Armitage is sufficiently hardline and in line with conservative foreign policy aims, he is far too centrist for Cheney and the neoconservatives. The neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard alerts the faithful to the potential problem with an article entitled "The Long Arm of Colin Powell: Will the Next Secretary of State Also Run the Pentagon?" Powell does not get his wish; Armitage eventually becomes deputy secretary of state. Abrams will join the National Security Council; Khalilzad, Feith, and Shulksy will join the Defense Department; and Perle will head the Defense Policy Board, an independent group that advises the Pentagon. [Weekly Standard, 12/25/2000 ; Unger, 2007, pp. 115, 191-192, 204, 249]
Entity Tags: Elliott Abrams, Colin Powell, Bush administration (43), Abram Shulsky, Douglas Feith, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Richard Armitage, US Department of Defense, Richard Perle, Weekly Standard, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Saddam Hussein
Shaha Ali Riza. [Source: World Bank]With Donald Rumsfeld in as Defense Secretary (see December 28, 2000), Vice President Cheney is moving closer to getting a team in place that will allow him to fulfill his dream of the "unitary executive"—the gathering of power into the executive branch at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches. One key piece to Cheney's plan is to place neoconservative academic Paul Wolfowitz as the head of the CIA. However, Wolfowitz's personal life is proving troublesome for Cheney's plans. Wolfowitz's marriage is crumbling. His wife of over 30 years, Clare, is threatening to go public with her husband's infidelities. Wolfowitz is having one affair with a staffer at the School of International Studies, and is openly romancing another woman, Shaha Ali Riza, a secular Muslim neoconservative with close ties to Iraqi oppositions groups, including Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Smitten with the idea of a secular Muslim and a secular Jew forming a romantc liaison, Wolfowitz frequently escorts Riza, and not his wife, to neoconservative social events. Many insiders joke about Wolfowitz's "neoconcubine." His dalliances, particularly with a Muslim foreign national, raise questions about his ability to obtain the necessary national security clearance he will need to head the CIA. Cheney does not intend to allow questions of security clearances or wronged and vengeful wives to stop him from placing Wolfowitz at the head of the agency, but this time he does not succeed. After Clare Wolfowitz writes a letter to President-elect Bush detailing her husband's sexual infidelities and possible security vulnerabilities, Wolfowitz is quietly dropped from consideration for the post. Current CIA Director George Tenet, after reassuring Bush that he can work with the new regime, is allowed to keep his position. Author Craig Unger later writes, "If Cheney and the neocons were to have control over the national security apparatus, it would not come from the CIA." [Unger, 2007, pp. 187-189]
Entity Tags: Iraqi National Congress, Clare Wolfowitz, Craig Unger, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Shaha Ali Riza, George W. Bush, George J. Tenet
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties, Neoconservative Influence
The neoconservative National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) issues a report calling for the increased reliance upon, and the broad potential use of, nuclear weapons in conflicts by the United States. The NIPP is a think tank headed by Keith Payne, who in 1980 coauthored an article arguing that the US could win a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. (Payne wrote that American casualties would be an "acceptable" twenty million or so.) The NIPP report is written by a group of hardline conservatives and neoconservatives, including veterans of the "Team B" exercises (see November 1976). The report advocates the deployment and potential use of nuclear weapons against an array of potential enemies, from geostrategic opponents such as Russia or China, to "rogue" nations such as Iran, Iraq, or North Korea, to non-national enemies such as an array of terrorist organizations. It argues that "low-yield, precision-guided nuclear weapons" be developed "for possible use against select hardened targets such as underground biological weapons facilities," weapons later nicknamed "bunker-busters." Nuclear weapons, the report states, can be used not only as deterrents to other nations' military aggression, but as a means to achieving political and military objectives even against non-nuclear adversaries. President Bush will put Payne in charge of the nation's Nuclear Posture Review (see December 31, 2001), and, upon its completion, will name Payne assistant secretary of defense for forces policy, in essence putting him in charge of nuclear force planning. Payne's thinking will inform later nuclear planning (see January 10, 2003 and March 2005). [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 182-183]
Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, 'Team B', George W. Bush, Keith Payne, National Institute for Public Policy
There are discussions among future members of the Bush administration, including Bush himself, about making the removal of Saddam Hussein a top priority once they are in office. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke will say that the Bush team had been planning regime change in Iraq since before coming to office, with newly named Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see December 28, 2000) and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz (see January 11, 2001) taking the lead. "Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq," he will write in his book Against All Enemies. "My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometime in 2002." [Clarke, 2004, pp. 7-9; Unger, 2007, pp. 192] During an appearance on Good Morning America on March 22, 2004, he will say, "[T]hey had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came into office." [Good Morning America, 3/22/2004] Evidence of pre-inaugural discussions on regime change in Iraq comes from other sources as well. Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, who heads the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, will tell the New York Times in early 2004 that he spoke with Bush about removing Saddam Hussein six or seven times, both before and after the 2000 elections. [New York Times, 1/12/2004] In 2007, author Craig Unger will write: "In certain respects, their actions were a replay of the 1976 Team B experiment (see Early 1976 and November 1976), with one very important difference. This time it wasn't just a bunch of feverish ideologues presenting a theoretical challenge to the CIA. This time Team B controlled the entire executive branch of the United States." [Unger, 2007, pp. 192]
Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, Craig Unger, Saddam Hussein, 'Team B', George W. Bush, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion
An orchestrated push in the media begins to make the case for the need to invade Iraq. The San Diego Union-Tribune reprints a Weekly Standard article by William Kristol and Robert Kagan that tells readers (after comparing President Bush favorably to Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Harry Truman, and lauding Bush's "steely determination") that US military action "could well be necessary to bring Saddam down." They write: "At some point, Bush could well find himself confronted by an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction. During these past few years, it was relatively easy for congressional Republicans to call for arming and funding the Iraqi opposition. That remains a good idea. But the more sober of Bush's advisers, like Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and February 27, 2001), have recognized that this alone will not do the trick. Some use of American military force, both from the air and on the ground, could well be necessary to bring Saddam down, no matter how wonderfully the Iraqi opposition performs. Whether he chooses it or not, Bush may quickly be faced with the same decision his father had to make in 1990. He has in his cabinet at least one person who counseled inaction the last time [referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell]. If the crisis comes, Bush, like his father, will not be able to rely only on the judgment of the men and women around him: He will have to act from his own instincts and his own courage." [Weekly Standard, 1/22/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 206] In the coming weeks, an onslaught of print and television op-eds and commentaries, some from Bush administration officials, will advocate the overthrow of Hussein (see February 27, 2001, February 16, 2001, April 9, 2001, and July 30, 2001).
Entity Tags: Robert Kagan, William Kristol
Defense Policy Board chairman and prominent neoconservative Richard Perle tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "Does Saddam [Hussein] now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons.…How far he's gone on the nuclear-weapons side I don't think we really know. My guess is it's further than we think. It's always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we're able to prove and demonstrate…. And, unless you believe that we've uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we're able to report." Perle fails to offer any evidence of his claims to the senators, and fails to provide evidence from UN inspectors that shows virtually all of Iraq's WMD stockpiles and programs have long since been destroyed. [Hersh, 2004, pp. 209-210]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Saddam Hussein
Neoconservative journalist Lawrence Kaplan argues that the US must withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (see May 26, 1972) and immediately begin development of a new missile defense system (see March 23, 1983 and January 29, 1991). "[M]issile defense is about preserving America's ability to wield power abroad," Kaplan writes. "It's not about defense. It's about offense. And that's exactly why we need it." [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 176]
Entity Tags: Lawrence F. Kaplan
President Bush gives a speech at the National Defense University outlining what he calls a "new strategic framework" for the nation's strategic defense policy. "This afternoon, I want us to think back some 30 years to a far different time in a far different world," he tells his listeners. "The United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a hostile rivalry.… Our deep differences were expressed in a dangerous military confrontation that resulted in thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hair-trigger alert. Security of both the United States and the Soviet Union was based on a grim premise: that neither side would fire nuclear weapons at each other, because doing so would mean the end of both nations." Bush is referring to the concept of "mutual assured destruction," or MAD, which has driven the policies of the US and the former Soviet Union since the 1950s. "We even went so far as to codify this relationship in a 1972 ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty (see May 26, 1972), based on the doctrine that our very survival would best be insured by leaving both sides completely open and vulnerable to nuclear attack," he says. A Different Threat - Times have now changed: "Today, the sun comes up on a vastly different world.… Today's Russia is not yesterday's Soviet Union.… Yet, this is still a dangerous world, a less certain, a less predictable one. More nations have nuclear weapons and still more have nuclear aspirations. Many have chemical and biological weapons. Some already have developed… ballistic missile technology.… And a number of these countries are spreading these technologies around the world. Most troubling of all, the list of these countries includes some of the world's least-responsible states. Unlike the Cold War, today's most urgent threat stems not from thousands of ballistic missiles in the Soviet hands, but from a small number of missiles in the hands of these states, states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life." Bush cites the example of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, who, he says, could have forced a very different outcome to the 1991 Gulf War (see January 16, 1991 and After) had he "been able to blackmail with nuclear weapons." Hussein is an exemplar of today's hate-driven dictators, Bush asserts: "Like Saddam Hussein, some of today's tyrants are gripped by an implacable hatred of the United States of America. They hate our friends, they hate our values, they hate democracy and freedom and individual liberty. Many care little for the lives of their own people. In such a world, Cold War deterrence is no longer enough." ABM Treaty Now a Hindrance to US Security - "To maintain peace, to protect our own citizens and our own allies and friends, we must seek security based on more than the grim premise that we can destroy those who seek to destroy us," Bush says. "Today's world requires a new policy, a broad strategy of active non-proliferation, counter proliferation and defenses.… We need new concepts of deterrence that rely on both offensive and defensive forces. Deterrence can no longer be based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation.… We need a new framework that allows us to build missile defenses to counter the different threats of today's world. To do so, we must move beyond the constraints of the 30-year-old ABM Treaty. This treaty does not recognize the present, or point us to the future. It enshrines the past. No treaty that prevents us from addressing today's threats, that prohibits us from pursuing promising technology to defend ourselves, our friends and our allies is in our interests or in the interests of world peace.… We can, and will, change the size, the composition, the character of our nuclear forces in a way that reflects the reality that the Cold War is over." Bush is heralding his intention of withdrawing from the 1972 ABM Treaty (see December 13, 2001). Bush says of the treaty: "We should leave behind the constraints of an ABM Treaty that perpetuates a relationship based on distrust and mutual vulnerability. This Treaty ignores the fundamental breakthroughs in technology during the last 30 years. It prohibits us from exploring all options for defending against the threats that face us, our allies and other countries. That's why we should work together to replace this Treaty with a new framework that reflects a clear and clean break from the past, and especially from the adversarial legacy of the Cold War." [White House, 5/1/2001; CNN, 5/1/2001; Scoblic, 2008, pp. 171-172] An Old Response to a New Threat - Author J. Peter Scoblic later calls Bush's rationale "disingenuous." He explains: "Conservatives had wanted to field missile defenses ever since the Soviet Union had developed ICBMs.… But somewhat paradoxically, following the collapse of the Soviet Union—and with it the likelihood of of a missile attack—conservative calls for missile defense increased" (see September 27, 1994). [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 171-172] Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace calls Bush's proposal "tragically mistaken." [PBS, 5/1/2001] Senator John Kerry (D-MA), an outspoken opponent of Bush's foreign policies, says: "This is essentially a satisfy-your-base, political announcement. It serves no other purpose." [New York Times, 5/1/2001]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, J. Peter Scoblic, John Kerry, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Cirincione
Just hours after the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, neoconservative writer and former CIA asset Michael Ledeen writes an op-ed at the National Review's website attacking the more moderate "realists" in the Bush administration. Ledeen urges someone in the White House to remind President Bush that "we are still living with the consequences of Desert Storm [referencing the decision not to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 1991—see February 1991-1992 and September 1998] when his father and his father's advisers—most notably Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft—advised against finishing the job and liberating Iraq." Ledeen is clearly implying that Iraq is responsible for the attacks, and that Bush should "correct" his father's mistake by invading Iraq. [Unger, 2007, pp. 215]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Michael Ledeen, Brent Scowcroft, Bush administration (43), George Herbert Walker Bush
According to a later account provided by CIA Director George Tenet, he bumps into Pentagon adviser Richard Perle in the White House who tells him, "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday, they bear responsibility." Tenet, recalling his reaction to Perle's statement, later says, "I've got the manifest with me that tells me al-Qaeda did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way shape or form and I remember thinking to myself, as I'm about to go brief the president, 'What the hell is he talking about?'" (Note: Tenet says in his book that this incident happened on September 12; however, after Perle insists that he was not in the country that day, Tenet concedes that it may have happened a little later). [Tenet, 2007; CBS News, 4/29/2007; CNN, 4/30/2007] On September 16, 2001, Perle will hint in a CNN interview that Iraq should be punished for the 9/11 attacks (see September 16, 2001).
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, George J. Tenet
During a morning meeting with advisers at Camp David, President Bush indicated that he wanted to focus on attacking Afghanistan first, and then look at the issue of attacking Iraq later (see September 15, 2001). During the lunch break, he sends a message to the neoconservatives in attendance that he does not want to hear any more about Iraq that day. But one of the neoconservatives there is Richard Perle, who holds no government position but heads the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon. According to Vanity Fair, Perle will later claim that the morning discussion about Iraq "had planted a seed. Bush told Perle at Camp David that once Afghanistan had been dealt with, it would be Iraq's turn." [Vanity Fair, 5/2004]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, George W. Bush
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence, War in Afghanistan
The Defense Policy Board (DPB) meets in secret in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon conference room on September 19 and 20 for 19 hours to discuss the option of taking military action against Iraq. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] They also discuss how they might overcome some of the diplomatic and political pressures that would likely attempt to impede a policy of regime change in Iraq. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] Among those attending the meeting are Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Princeton academic Bernard Lewis, Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi (see 1992-1996), Chalabi's aide Francis Brooke, and the 18 members of the DPB. [New York Times, 10/12/2001; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 236; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang will later call the DPB "a neocon[servative] sanctuary," boasting such members as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former CIA Director James Woolsey, former arms control adviser Ken Adelman, former Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle, and former Vice President Dan Quayle. [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] Powell, State Officials Not Informed of Meeting - Secretary of State Colin Powell and other State Department officials in charge of US policy toward Iraq are not invited and are not informed of the meeting. A source will later tell the New York Times that Powell was irritated about not being briefed on the meeting. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] Chalabi, Lewis Lead Discussion - During the seminar, two of Richard Perle's invited guests, Chalabi and Lewis, lead the discussion. Lewis says that the US must encourage democratic reformers in the Middle East, "such as my friend here, Ahmed Chalabi." Chalabi argues that Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists and asserts that Saddam Hussein's regime has weapons of mass destruction. [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 232; Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004] He also asserts "there'd be no resistance" to an attack by the US, "no guerrilla warfare from the Ba'athists, and [it would be] a quick matter of establishing a government." [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Overthrow of Hussein Advocated - Attendees write a letter to President Bush calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein. "[E]ven if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack [of 9/11], any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism," the letter reads. The letter is published in the Washington Times on September 20 (see September 20, 2001) in the name of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative think tank that believes the US needs to shoulder the responsibility for maintaining "peace" and "security" in the world by strengthening its global hegemony. [Project for the New American Century, 9/20/2001; Manila Times, 7/19/2003] Bush reportedly rejects the letter's proposal, as both Vice President Dick Cheney and Powell agree that there is no evidence implicating Saddam Hussein in the 9/11 attacks. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] Woolsey Sent to Find Evidence of Hussein's Involvement - As a result of the meeting, Wolfowitz sends Woolsey to London to find evidence that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks and the earlier 1993 attack on the World Trade Center (see Mid-September-October 2001). [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
Entity Tags: Newt Gingrich, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Kenneth Adelman, Patrick Lang, Harold Brown, Defense Policy Board, Francis Brooke, Adm. David E. Jeremiah, Fred C. Ikle, Ahmed Chalabi, Dan Quayle, Bernard Lewis, Henry A. Kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld
Neoconservative author, ad hoc White House foreign policy adviser, and one-time intelligence asset Michael Ledeen, one of the loudest voices for US military expansionism throughout the Middle East (see February 19, 1998 and October 29, 2001), writes that the US must use Iraq as the first battle of a much larger war. Must Expand Mission to Destroy Governments, Not Merely Terror Organizations - In his book The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win, Ledeen writes that the US must destroy the governments of the nations that he claims sponsor Islamist terrorism. "First and foremost, we must bring down the terror regimes, beginning with the Big Three: Iran, Iraq, and Syria," Ledeen writes. "And then we have to come to grips with Saudi Arabia.… Once the tyrants in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have been brought down, we will remain engaged.… We have to ensure the fulfillment of the democratic revolution.… Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize." US a Force for 'Creative Destruction' - The US's current mission of battling Islamist terror is "unworthy" of such a militarily powerful nation, Ledeen asserts, and defines its true "historic mission:" "Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace.… [W]e must destroy them to advance our historic mission." The US must be "imperious, ruthless, and relentless," he continues, until there has been "total surrender" by the Muslim world. "We must keep our fangs bared, we must remind them daily that we Americans are in a rage, and we will not rest until we have avenged our deed, we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline for a dime a gallon on an American military base near the Arctic Circle." Buchanan: Ledeen's Statement Not Truly Conservative - Conservative author and commentator Pat Buchanan will write in 2003, "Passages like this owe more to Leon Trotsky than to Robert Taft and betray a Jacobin streak in neoconservatism that cannot be reconciled with any concept of true conservatism." [American Conservative, 3/24/2003; Unger, 2007, pp. 231-232]
Entity Tags: Bush administration (43), Michael Ledeen
In an op-ed column for the neoconservative Weekly Standard, writers Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt state that the US's enemies "want to push the United States out of the Middle East. Our response must be to prevent that." Donnelly and Schmitt, members of the Project for the New American Century think tank (PNAC—see January 26, 1998 and September 2000), say that such an effort "will require more than a vague, unfocused 'war on terrorism.'… Last week's strikes represent a new and more complex phase of this war. But this is not a new war. This is a 'theater war' in the classic sense. Neither [O]sama bin Laden nor Saddam [Hussein] cares much about America's role in Europe or East Asia. They want us out of their region." Reasserting Dominance in Middle East - The US can win this "struggle for power in the Persian Gulf" by "reasserting our role as the region's dominant power; as the guarantor of regional security; and as the protector of Israel, moderate Arab regimes, and the economic interests of the industrialized world." Donnelly and Schmitt trace the US's problems in the region back to the decision not to overthrow Hussein in 1991 (see January 16, 1991 and After). "As Saddam has crawled back from defeat," they write, "bin Laden has grown increasingly bold. Meanwhile, our regional allies have begun to hedge their bets, not only with the terrorists and Iraq, but with Iran as well." The US should focus on routing both bin Laden and Hussein from the region, they say. It is unclear if Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks, they say, though they assert that Hussein was "implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993 and October 2000).… But as with bin Laden, we have long known that Saddam is our enemy, and that he would strike us as hard as he could. And if we have learned anything at all from [the] past week, it is that adopting a defensive posture risks attacks with unacceptable consequences. The only reasonable course when faced with such foes is to preempt and to strike first." Overthrowing Hussein "is the key to restoring our regional dominance and preventing our enemies from achieving their war aims.… When Bush administration officials speak of 'ending' regimes that participate in the war against America, they must mean Saddam Hussein's Iraq" (see Before January 20, 2001). Cowing Other Nations, Restoring 'Global Credibility' - Overthrowing the Iraqi government will also cow Iran, Syria, and other regional threats, the authors say, and "will restore the global credibility tarnished in the Clinton years. Both our friends and our enemies will be watching to see if we pass this test." Although attacking Afghanistan is not necessary, toppling the Saddam regime will not be difficult in a military sense, and "the larger challenge will be occupying Iraq after the fighting is over." Surpluses Will Pay for Effort - The so-called "lockboxes"—Social Security funds and others—previously kept from being spent on other government programs are, the authors write, "yesterday's news," but the sharp increases in defense spending that this war effort will require will not be difficult to fund: "given the surpluses that exist, there is no impediment to such increases." [Weekly Standard, 9/24/2001]
Entity Tags: Thomas Donnelly, Gary Schmitt, Weekly Standard, Project for the New American Century
Neoconservative commentator and publisher William Kristol writes that the US must implement "regime change where possible" throughout the Middle East, and especially in Iraq. He excoriates Secretary of State Colin Powell for being against such an aggressive policy. The next day, the Washington Times, a right-wing newspaper, prints an editorial agreeing with Kristol about the need for regime change, and adds its voice to Kristol's in criticizing Powell. [Unger, 2007, pp. 217]
Entity Tags: Washington Times, Colin Powell, William Kristol
James Bamford. [Source: PBS]According to author James Bamford, SISMI passes on details of the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal "to the Executive Committee of the Intelligence and Security Services (CESIS), which in turn pass[es] it on to the Faresine, the Italian Foreign Ministry, and to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at his office in Rome's Palazzo Chigi. Only the Farnesina raise[s] 'strong objection' and 'reservations' about the report—primarily from the African Countries Directorate. They [are] greatly concerned about the reliability of the information." [Bamford, 2004, pp. 303]
Entity Tags: Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Foreign Ministry, SISMI, Committee of the Intelligence and Security Services
Italy's military intelligence service (SISMI) provides Jeff Castelli, the CIA station chief in Rome, with papers documenting an alleged uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Castelli, who is not permitted to duplicate the papers, writes a summary of them and sends the report to Langley. [New Yorker, 10/27/2003; Knight Ridder, 11/4/2005; La Repubblica (Rome), 11/11/2005] The allegations - The report includes four allegations: The report states that Iraq first communicated its interest in purchasing uranium from Niger at least as early as 1999. [US Congress, 7/7/2004] As blogger ERiposte will conclude through his analysis at TheLeftCoaster.Org [ERiposte, 10/31/2005] , none of the documents that are later provided to the US as the basis for this allegation include actual proof of uranium negotiations in 1999. Two of the source documents for this allegation do mention a 1999 visit by Wissam Al-Zahawi to Niger; however, no evidence has ever surfaced suggesting that there were any discussions about uranium during that visit (see February 1999). The first document (possibly authentic) is a letter, dated February 1, 1999, from the Niger embassy in Rome to Adamou Chekou, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Niger, announcing Zahawie's trip. It does not mention uranium. (Note that the SISMI report does not mention Al-Zahawi's trip, it only states that uranium negotiations between the two countries began by at least 1999.) The second document is a letter dated July 30, 1999 from the Niger Ministry of Foreign Affairs to his ambassador in Rome requesting that he contact Zahawie, concerning an agreement signed June 28, 2000 to sell uranium to Iraq. The letter is an obvious forgery because it refers to an event that it describes as taking place 11 months later. [Unknown, n.d.; La Repubblica (Rome), 7/16/2003] The SISMI report states that in "late 2000," the State Court of Niger approved an agreement with Iraq whereby Niger would sell Iraq a large quantity of uranium. This allegation appears to be based on a forged document titled "Annex 1," which was possibly an annex to the alleged uranium agreement. It is evident that this document was forged because it says that the state court "met in the chamber of the council in the palace… on Wednesday, July 7, 2000." But July 7, 2000 was, in fact, a Friday, not a Wednesday. One of SISMI's reports to the US, possibly this one, actually reproduces this error. [Unknown, n.d.; La Repubblica (Rome), 7/16/2003; ERiposte, 10/31/2005] According to the report, Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja approved the agreement and communicated this decision to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The source for this is apparently a forged letter from the president of Niger to Saddam Hussein, in which the president refers to his authority under the country's obsolete 1966 constitution. At the time the letter was presumed to have been written, the constitution in effect would have been that of December 26, 1992, which was subsequently revised by national referendum on May 12, 1996 and again by referendum on July 18, 1999. [Unknown, n.d.; Reuters, 3/26/2003; La Repubblica (Rome), 7/16/2003; US Department of State, 9/2005] The report also alleges that in October 2000, Nigerien Minister of Foreign Affairs Nassirou Sabo informed one of his ambassadors in Europe that Niger had agreed to provide several tons of uranium to Iraq. [Unknown, n.d.; La Repubblica (Rome), 7/16/2003] This is seemingly based on a forged letter that accompanied the alleged uranium sales agreement. The letter, dated October 10, 2000, is stamped as being received in Rome on September 28, 2000—nearly two weeks before the letter was presumably written. Furthermore, there is a problem with the signature. Unlike what is reported in the SISMI papers provided to the CIA, the actual letter is signed by Allele Elhadj Habibou, who left office in 1989. This indicates that someone must have corrected this information, replacing the name of Allele Elhadj Habibou with that of Nassirou Sabo (the minister in October 2000), before the letter was included in this report. [ERiposte, 10/31/2005] Distribution within US Intelligence Community - After receiving the report from its Rome station, the CIA distributes it to other US intelligence agencies. According to a later Senate investigation, the "CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Department of Energy (DOE) analysts considered the reporting to be 'possible' while the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) regarded the report as 'highly suspect,' primarily because INR analysts did not believe that Niger would be likely to engage in such a transaction and did not believe Niger would be able to transfer uranium to Iraq because a French consortium maintained control of the Nigerien uranium industry." [US Congress, 7/7/2004] Sources later interviewed by New Yorker's Seymour Hersh portray US intelligence analysts' assessment of the report in slightly harsher terms, saying that they "dismissed [it] as amateurish and unsubstantiated." [New Yorker, 10/27/2003] "I can fully believe that SISMI would put out a piece of intelligence like that," a CIA consultant later tells Hersh, "but why anybody would put credibility in it is beyond me." [New Yorker, 5/17/2004, pp. 227] Langley asks for further clarification from Rome and receives a response three days later (see October 18, 2001). [La Repubblica (Rome), 11/11/2005] Repeated Dissemination - The documents and reports based on the documents are sent to the CIA at least three separate times. They are also sent to the White House, the US embassy in Rome, British and French intelligence, and Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba of the news magazine Panorama. Each recipient in turn shares the documents, or their contents, with others, creating what author Craig Unger later calls "an echo chamber that gives the illusion that several independent sources had corroborated an Iraq-Niger uranium deal." [Unger, 2007, pp. 237]
Entity Tags: Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Central Intelligence Agency, Craig Unger, Defense Intelligence Agency, Mamadou Tandja, SISMI, Elisabetta Burba, Nassirou Sabo, Wissam al-Zahawie, Saddam Hussein, Jeff Castelli, US Department of Energy
Brent Scowcroft, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a close adviser and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, is becoming increasingly marginalized in the current administration. Realizing he has little real influence in the White House, he goes public with his measured objections to a US invasion of Iraq by publishing an editorial in the Washington Post entitled "Build a Coalition." Scowcroft reflects on the decision not to invade Baghdad in the 1991 Gulf War (see September 1998), and writes that if the US had then overthrown Saddam Hussein, "Our Arab allies… would have deserted us, creating an atmosphere of hostility to the United States [that] might have well spawned scores of Osama bin Ladens. [We] already hear voices declaring that the United States is too focused on a multilateral approach. The United States knows what needs to be done, these voices say, and we should just go ahead and do it. Coalition partners just tie our hands, and they all will exact a price for their support. Those are the same siren songs of delusion and defeat that we heard in 1990. We can no more succeed in our present campaign by acting unilaterally than we could have in 1990." If the "war on terror" is to succeed, he writes, it will have to be "even more dependent on coalition-building than was the Gulf War." Scowcroft finally understands, author Craig Unger will observe, that the neoconservatives are using 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. "He knew they were going to try to manipulate the president into thinking there was unfinished business" in Iraq, an administration official will recall in 2007. "For [Scowcroft] to say something publicly was a watershed. This was where the roads diverged." [Washington Post, 10/16/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 228]
Entity Tags: Brent Scowcroft, Issuetsdeah, Osama bin Laden, Bush administration (43), Craig Unger, George Herbert Walker Bush
The CIA issues a senior executive intelligence brief (SEIB) summarizing a recent report from SISMI (see October 15, 2001), Italy's military intelligence service, which suggested that Iraq had struck a deal with Niger to purchase uranium. The CIA report, titled "Iraq: Nuclear-Related Procurement Efforts," notes, "There is no corroboration from other sources that such an agreement was reached or that uranium was transferred."
[US Congress, 7/7/2004] As blogger ERiposte of TheLeftCoaster.Org will point out [ERiposte, 11/4/2005] , there is a discrepancy between this report and the Italian intelligence report it is summarizing. In this report, the CIA states that the uranium purchase deal was approved by the State Court of Niger in "early 2001," whereas the SISMI report had reported that the approval took place in "late 2000." The document, upon which this reporting is presumably based, states that the deal was approved by the court on Wednesday July 7, 2000 (which was actually a Friday). [Unknown, n.d.]
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Michael Ledeen, speaking at an event sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), 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." [Institute, 10/29/2001; Village Voice, 11/21/2001] Interestingly, several sources credit fellow AEI neoconservative Richard Perle, and not Ledeen, with the quote, including John Pilger's book The New Rulers of the World [Pilger, 2002, pp. 10] and former State Department and USAID official William Fisher. [Informed Comment, 2/1/2005] Perle is the moderator of the AEI event where Ledeen speaks. [Institute, 10/29/2001; Village Voice, 11/21/2001]
Entity Tags: Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute
PBS's Frontline broadcasts an October 2001 interview with Bush foreign policy adviser Brent Scowcroft as part of its Gunning for Saddam episode. Scowcroft recently cemented his status as an outsider in the administration with an op-ed calling for the US to focus on building a coalition of allies before considering invading Iraq (see October 16, 2001). Scowcroft says that a unilateral move to invade Iraq and "deal with Saddam Hussein" will destroy the coalition of nations that still exists ten years after the 1991 Gulf War "virtually instantly." Suspicion that the US is manipulating information to prove its rationale for war with Iraq is paramount throughout the Middle East and even among the US's closest allies in Europe. Part of the responsibility for that perception, Scowcroft notes, comes from Iraq: "Saddam has managed to get the view out that the Iraqi people are suffering because of the [UN-mandated economic] sanctions. In fact, they're suffering because Saddam Hussein doesn't use the income from the oil he sells to provide for his people. But that's the fact. So if we turn on Iraq now, it will look like we're just using September 11 as an excuse to go after our favorite enemy.… So we need to sort of reestablish the kind of confidence that the United States enjoyed a decade ago around the time of the Gulf War. And to do that, we need to prosecute the Afghan/Osama bin Laden part of this whole thing in a way which will demonstrate that we know what we're doing, that we do it carefully, not wildly and so on." Focusing on Terrorist Threat, Not Iraq, a Necessity - Scowcroft calls Hussein and Iraq "a separate problem" from al-Qaeda and global Islamist terrorism. "It is not at all clear that he is a part of a global terrorist network, which is what we're focusing on.… Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden have one thing in common, and that is they both hate the United States. Otherwise, they have very little in common. As a matter of fact, my guess is, if it weren't for the United States, Osama bin Laden would turn on Saddam Hussein." Scowcroft says that even if the US manages to render al-Qaeda impotent, Iraq might not be the next problem on the list. "It's a problem which right now should be differentiated from the Osama bin Laden problem.… Hezbollah, for example, is a global terrorist network, which has attacked the United States and US interests before. How about that?… We need to be skillful about this. We need to use scalpels, not sledgehammers." He continues: "Nobody has said what 'going after Saddam' really means. What does it mean? Five hundred thousand troops again, based in a Saudi Arabia that would not accept them now? What does 'going after Saddam' mean?" INC Not a Viable Replacement for Hussein - Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC) may or may not be a "viable alternative to Saddam," Scowcroft says, but it is "certainly not a viable means to" overthrow Hussein. "It is weak, disparate, riven with disputes—probably unattractive to almost anyone inside or out." [PBS Frontline, 11/8/2001; PBS Frontline, 11/8/2001]
Entity Tags: Saddam Hussein, Ahmed Chalabi, Brent Scowcroft, Hezbollah, Iraqi National Congress, Public Broadcasting System, Osama bin Laden
Neoconservative Richard Perle, the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, says during remarks at the Foreign Policy Research Institute that the proposed invasion of Iraq is merely the first step in a much larger military strategy that should encompass most of the Middle East and other states which, in Perle's view, pose threats to the US. "Those who think Iraq should not be next may want to think about Syria or Iran or Sudan or Yemen or Somalia or North Korea or Lebanon or the Palestinian Authority," Perle says. "These are all institutions, governments for the most part, that permit acts of terror to take place, that sponsor terrorists, that give them refuge, give them sanctuary, and very often much more help than that. When I recite this list, people typically say 'Well, are we going to go to war against a dozen countries?' And I think the answer to that is that, if we do it right with respect to one or two, we've got a reasonable chance of persuading the others that they should get out of the business of supporting terrorism. If we destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan, and I'm confident we will, and we then go on to destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein, and we certainly could if we chose to do so, I think we would have an impressive case to make to the Syrians, the Somalis, and others. We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: 'You're next. You're next unless you stop the practice of supporting terrorism.' Given the fact that until now there has been no cost attached to supporting terror, I think there's a reasonable prospect that looking at the costs on the one side—that is, that those regimes will be brought to an end—and the benefits on the other—they will decide to get out of the terrorist business. It seems to me a reasonable gamble in any event." [Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11/14/2001]
Entity Tags: Defense Policy Board, US Department of Defense, Saddam Hussein, Richard Perle
Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, discussing the US's planned reaction to the 9/11 attacks, says that Iraq is next on the US's military strike list. CNN anchor John King asks, "Next phase Saddam Hussein?" and Perle replies, "Absolutely." The day before, on ABC, Perle explained why the US had to make such a move: "Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein, plus his known contact with terrorists, including al-Qaeda terrorists, is simply a threat too large to continue to tolerate." And what would the upshot of such an invasion be? Perle tells his CNN listeners, "We would be seen as liberators in Iraq." [PBS, 4/25/2007]
Entity Tags: ABC News, Richard Perle, CNN, Al-Qaeda
The US Embassy in Niamey, Niger's capital, disseminates a cable summarizing a recent meeting between the US ambassador and the director general of Niger's French-led mining consortium. The director general reportedly explained that "there was no possibility" that the government of Niger could have diverted any of the 3,000 tons of uranium produced by the consortium's two mines. [US Congress, 7/7/2004]
Christopher DeMuth. [Source: American Enterprise Institute]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." [Woodward, 2006, pp. 83-85]
Entity Tags: Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Steve Herbits, Paul Wolfowitz, Fareed Zakaria, Fouad Ajami, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Mark Palmer, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Bernard Lewis, Christopher DeMuth, James Wilson
Greg Thielmann, director for strategic proliferation and military affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), reviews Iraq's alleged WMD programs for Secretary of State Colin Powell. Thielmann's review concludes that Italian reports of a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, October 15, 2001, October 18, 2001, November 20, 2001, February 5, 2002, Late April or Early May 2002-June 2002, and Late June 2002) are completely false. Thielmann will later recall: "A whole lot of things told us that the report was bogus. This wasn't highly contested. There weren't strong advocates on the other side. It was done, shot down" (see March 1, 2002). [Unger, 2007, pp. 229]
Entity Tags: Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Colin Powell, Greg Thielmann, US Department of State
Michael Ledeen, an avid admirer of Machiavelli, argues in a piece published by National Review Online that the US must be "imperious, ruthless, and relentless" against the Muslim world until there has been "total surrender." Any attempt on the part of the US to be "reasonable" or "evenhanded" will only empower Islamic militants, he asserts. He writes: "We will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle."
[National Review, 12/7/2001] The piece is republished in the Jewish World Review four days later. [Jewish World Review, 12/11/2001]
Manucher Ghorbanifar. [Source: Ted Thai / Getty Images]The Bush administration sends two defense officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to meet with Iranians in Rome in response to an Iranian government offer to provide information relevant to the war on terrorism. The offer had been backchanneled by the Iranians to the White House through Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms trader and a central person in the Iran-Contra affair, who contacted another Iran-Contra figure, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute. Ledeen passed the information on to his friends in the Defense Department who then relayed the offer to Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Hadley, who expressed no reservations about the proposed meeting, informed CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. According to officials interviewed by the New York Times, the United States Embassy in Rome was not notified of the planned meeting as required by standard interagency procedures. Neither the US embassy nor the CIA station chief in Rome learns of the three-day meeting until after it happens (see December 12, 2001). When they do catch wind of the meeting, they notify CIA and State Department headquarters in Washington which complain to the administration about how the meetings were arranged. [Newsday, 8/9/2003; Washington Post, 8/9/2003; New York Times, 12/7/2003] In addition to Ghorbanifar, Ledeen, Franklin, and Rhode, the meeting is attended by Nicolo Pollari, head of SISMI, and Antonio Martino, Italy's minister of defense. [Washington Monthly, 9/2004] Destabilizing the Iraqi Government - According to the Boston Globe, either at this meeting, a similar one in June (see June 2002), or both, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar discuss ways to destabilize the Iranian government, possibly using the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), a US-designated terrorist group, as a US proxy. [Boston Globe, 8/31/2004] The meetings are suspected of being an attempt by what investigative reporters Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Gastris will later call "a rogue faction at the Pentagon… trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a 'regime-change' agenda." The fact that MEK members attend the meetings adds weight to the claim. [Unger, 2007, pp. 234-235] Italian Intelligence on Iraq-Niger Allegations - Additionally, according to an unnamed SISMI source, Pollari speaks with Ledeen about intelligence his agency has collected (see October 15, 2001) suggesting that Iraq made a deal with Niger to purchase several tons of uranium. SISMI already sent a report to Washington on the matter in mid-October (see October 15, 2001). Reportedly, Pollari has also approached CIA Station Chief Jeff Castelli about the report, but Castelli has since indicated he is not interested in the information. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/25/2005]
Entity Tags: Manucher Ghorbanifar, People's Mujahedin of Iran, Paul Gastris, Stephen J. Hadley, Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Nicolo Pollari, Harold Rhode, Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, George J. Tenet, Antonio Martino
Timeline Tags: US confrontation with Iran, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Iran-Contra Affair, Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Former ambassador Joseph Wilson has numerous conversations with Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser to the first President Bush (see September 1998), and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, about what Wilson sees as the worrisome drive to war with Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Wilson is particularly worried about the neoconservatives in the current Bush administration and their call for the implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act (see October 31, 1998) by declaring war against Iraq. Scowcroft is dismissive of the administration neoconservatives, calling them "right-wing nuts" and assuring Wilson, "They will not win the policy." Wilson is not so sure, telling Scowcroft that, as he will write in 2004, "[w]e were committing our future… to a band of fanatics whose approach was the opposite of that pursued by the first President Bush, or articulated by candidate George W. Bush (see October 3, 2000 and October 11, 2000)…" Wilson believes, wrongly that Scowcroft's "sage counsel [is] being listened to in the White House" (see October 16, 2001). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 290-291]
Entity Tags: Issuetsdeah, Brent Scowcroft, Joseph C. Wilson, George Herbert Walker Bush, George W. Bush
Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Neoconservative Influence, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Norman Podhoretz, the editor of the neoconservative magazine Commentary, writes a call to arms called "How to Win World War IV." For Podhoretz, the US has already won World War III—the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Now, he asserts, it is time to win the war against Islamist terrorism. The US must embrace this war against civilizations, and President Bush must accept that it is his mission "to fight World War IV—the war against militant Islam." To win this war, Podhoretz writes, the nations of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea must be overthrown, but also Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. Bush must reject the "timorous counsels" of the "incorrigibly cautious Colin Powell [and] find the stomach to impose a new political culture on the defeated" Islamic world. The 9/11 attacks caused the US to destroy the Afghan Taliban in the process of battling al-Qaeda, Podhoretz writes: "We may willy-nilly find ourselves forced… to topple five or six or seven more tyrannies in the Islamic world (including that other sponsor of terrorism, Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority). I can even [imagine] the turmoil of this war leading to some new species of an imperial mission for America, whose purpose would be to oversee the emergence of successor governments in the region more amenable to reform and modernization than the despotisms now in place.… I can also envisage the establishment of some kind of American protectorate over the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, as we more and more come to wonder why 7,000 princes should go on being permitted to exert so much leverage over us and everyone else." A year later, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan will explain why Podhoretz wants to so drastically remake the map of the Middle East: "[O]ne nation, one leader, one party. Israel, [Ariel] Sharon, Likud." [Commentary, 2/2002; American Conservative, 3/24/2003]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Ariel Sharon, Likud, Patrick Buchanan, Taliban, Norman Podhoretz, Al-Qaeda
The CIA Directorate of Operations issues a second intelligence report from SISMI, Italy's military intelligence service, on Iraq's alleged agreement with Niger to purchase 500 tons of uranium annually. This report provides details that were not included in Italy's October 15 report (see October 15, 2001), including a "verbatim text" of the accord. (It is not clear what the source is for the "verbatim text". [ERiposte, 3/6/2006] ) According to the report, the purported agreement was signed by Iraqi and Niger officials during meetings held July 5-6, 2000. [US Congress, 7/7/2004; Knight Ridder, 11/4/2005] The SISMI report also draws attention to a 1999 trip to Niger made by Wissam al-Zahawie (see February 1999), Iraq's former ambassador to the Vatican, and alleges that its mission was to discuss the future purchase of uranium. This is the first report from SISMI that names al-Zahawie and refers directly to his 1999 trip. (SISMI's previous report had only stated that negotiations had begun by at least 1999.) This report, as well as the previous report, is based on the forged Niger documents. [New Yorker, 10/27/2003; US Congress, 7/7/2004; ERiposte, 11/3/2005] Analysts at the CIA and the DIA are more impressed with the detail and substance of this second report, but analysts at the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) remain skeptical of the report's allegations noting that it was unlikely that Niger would sell uranium to Iraq because the Nigeriens would have considered the risk of being caught too great. An INR analyst asks the CIA if the source of the report would submit to a polygraph. A CIA analyst who also asks about the source is told by the DO that the source is "very credible." [US Congress, 7/7/2004]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issues "a finished intelligence product" summarizing the February 5, 2002 SISMI report (see February 5, 2002). The report, entitled "Niamey Signed an Agreement to Sell 500 Tons of Uranium a Year to Baghdad," states as irrefutable fact that Iraq intends to buy weapons-grade uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, October 15, 2001, October 18, 2001, November 20, 2001, February 5, 2002, March 1, 2002, Late April or Early May 2002-June 2002, and Late June 2002). It concludes, "Iraq probably is searching abroad for natural uranium to assist in its nuclear weapons program." It does not comment on the credibility of the sourcing. The report is sent directly to Vice President Dick Cheney. Within hours, Cheney directs the CIA (see February 5, 2002) to investigate the claims. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 report on Iraqi WMD (see July 9, 2004), CIA and DIA analysts find the subsequent reports more informative and believable than the first, more sketchy reports (see February 5, 2002). The CIA's Directorate of Operations tells one agency analyst that the report comes from a "very credible source." Analysts with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) continue to find the reports unconvincing. [US Congress, 7/7/2004; Unger, 2007, pp. 239] Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern will later describe Cheney's receipt of this document as "odd." "[I]n more than two years of briefing then-Vice President George H. W. Bush every other morning, not once did he ask a question about a DIA report or even indicate that he had read one," McGovern will note. "That this particular report was given to Cheney almost certainly reflects the widespread practice of 'cherry picking' intelligence." [AfterDowningStreet (.org), 7/25/2005]
Entity Tags: Defense Intelligence Agency, Ray McGovern, Richard ("Dick") Cheney
Kenneth Adelman. [Source: PBS]Neoconservative Kenneth Adelman, who served as an assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975-1977 and was arms control director in the Reagan administration, writes an op-ed for the Washington Post titled "Cakewalk in Iraq." Adelman is straightforward in his insistence that defeating the Iraqi military and beginning a transition to a democratic government in Iraq will be a "cakewalk." He derides predictions that the US could lose "thousands of troops in the process," writing, "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." He gives what he calls "simple, responsible reasons:" it was a cakewalk in 1991, Iraq is significantly weaker than during the Gulf War, and "now we're playing for keeps." Adelman details just how weak and insignificant the much-vaunted Iraqi ground forces are, and says that US forces are "much fiercer." Between that quality and the sophisticated "gizmos"—unmanned Predator drones, "smart" bombs, and other technological wonders—Adelman says the Iraqi military should be routed with ease. He gives similar short shrift to the idea that the US needs to build a multinational coalition. In 1991, he writes, the US "engaged a grand international coalition because we lacked a domestic coalition. Virtually the entire Democratic leadership stood against that President Bush. The public, too, was divided." The situation is different today. "This President Bush does not need to amass rinky-dink nations as 'coalition partners' to convince the Washington establishment that we're right. Americans of all parties now know we must wage a total war on terrorism." Saddam Hussein, and not Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, is "the number one threat against American security and civilization. Unlike Osama bin Laden, he has billions of dollars in government funds, scores of government research labs working feverishly on weapons of mass destruction—and just as deep a hatred of America and civilized free societies.… Measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America's war on terrorism." [Washington Post, 2/13/2002]
Entity Tags: Kenneth Adelman, George W. Bush
The CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) Counterproliferation Division (CPD) holds a meeting with former ambassador Joseph Wilson, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and several individuals from the DO's Africa and CPD divisions. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the merits of sending Wilson to Niger. Wilson is introduced by his wife Valerie Plame Wilson, who heads CPD's Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI). [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 94-95] Wife Does Not Participate in Meeting - In her 2007 book Fair Game, Plame Wilson will write that she brings her husband into the briefing room, introduces him to the "10 or so participants," and "[a]fter a minute or so, I went back to my desk to attend to what seemed like a hundred other operational crises. When the meeting broke, Joe poked his head in my office to say that the group had asked him to consider going to Niger to discuss the report." [Wilson, 2007, pp. 111] Wilson's Qualifications - Wilson will later describe himself as "the insider increasing [the CIA analysts'] store of information, supplying that perspective missing from their raw data. I had served as a junior diplomatic officer in Niger in the mid-1970s, a period that happened to coincide with the growth in the uranium business there. We had followed this issue closely from the American Embassy in Niamey, Niger's capital, just as my staff and I had when I was ambassador to Gabon, another uranium-producing country, from 1992 to 1995. When I worked on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration two years later, among my areas of responsibility was the African uranium industry. Rarely did conversations with Africans from uranium-producing countries fail to touch on the subject. Niger, where I had traveled frequently over the years, was always of particular interest." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 8] Details Shared with Wilson - In the meeting, Wilson learns of a report that purports to document a memorandum of sale from Niger to Iraq, and that the report had aroused the interest of Vice President Dick Cheney (see (February 13, 2002)). Cheney's office has tasked the CIA to determine the truth or falsity of the report. The report is lacking in key details. Wilson's knowledge of the region, particularly of the government and private interests involved in mining and distributing uranium, will be particularly helpful. Wilson later writes, "The Nigeriens were the same people I had dealt with during and after my time at the National Security Council, people I knew well." The former minister of mines, the man responsible for oversight of the industry at the time of the alleged sales, is a friend of his. Skepticism among Participants about Report - Wilson will later describe himself as "skeptical, as prudent consumers of intelligence always are about raw information." He will note that much of this kind of intelligence is classified as "rumint," or rumors passing as fact, and is usually "no more reliable than Bigfoot sightings. Rumint is a necessary and unfortunate reality in a world where many people will tell you what they think you want to hear, as opposed to simple facts." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 14-15] Notes taken by INR analyst Douglas Rohn, as well as e-mails from other participants, indicate that INR expresses skepticism that the alleged uranium contract could have taken place. Rohn, who served as deputy chief of mission in Niger during the '90s, writes that it would have been very difficult to conceal such a large shipment of yellowcake because "the French appear to have control of the uranium mining, milling and transport process, and would seem to have little interest in selling uranium to the Iraqis." INR also says that the embassy in Niger has good contacts and is thus in a position to get to the truth on the matter, and therefore believes the proposed trip to Niger would be redundant. Others attending the meeting argue that the trip would probably not resolve the matter because the Nigeriens would be unlikely to admit to a uranium sales agreement with Iraq. An e-mail from a WINPAC analyst to CPD following the meeting notes, "[I]t appears that the results from this source will be suspect at best, and not believable under most scenarios." CPD nonetheless concludes that sending Wilson would be worth a try. [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 94-95] Open and Public Visit - Wilson is willing, but points out that he is not a spy, but a former diplomat with no experience with clandestine work. He will be recognized in Niger. Therefore, there can be no expectation of any covert or clandestine actions on his part; everything he does will be open and above board. He also insists on obtaining the approval of both the State Department and the US Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, before entering the country. He expects no payment for his visit, but will accept reimbursement for expenses. The others in the meeting agree. The rest of the two-hour meeting is spent considering and plotting out various scenarios, based on who he might see and what he might learn during his visit. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 16-17] "I went through what I knew about… uranium," Wilson later recalls. "I went through what I knew about the personalities.… People chimed in, and I answered them as best I could. It was a kind of free-for-all, and at the end they sort of asked, 'Well, would you be able to clear your schedule and go out there if we wanted?' and I said, 'Sure.'" [Vanity Fair, 1/2004]
Entity Tags: Douglas Rohn, Counterproliferation Division, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, US Embassy in Niger, Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Joseph Wilson. [Source: public domain]The CIA sends Joseph C. Wilson, a retired US diplomat, to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from that country (see February 13, 2002). The CIA pays Wilson's expenses for the trip, but does not pay him in any other respect. The identity of the party who requests the mission is later disputed. While Wilson will claim the trip was requested directly by Dick Cheney's office, other sources will indicate that the CIA had decided (see February 19, 2002) that a delegation to Niger was needed in order to investigate questions raised by one of Dick Cheney's aides (see (February 13, 2002)). [New York Times, 5/6/2003; Washington Post, 6/12/2003 ; Independent, 6/29/2003; New York Times, 7/6/2003; US Congress, 7/7/2004] Reason behind Request - Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman will later note that "Wilson was asked to go to Niger for one specific purpose. It was the CIA's idea to get Cheney off their backs. Cheney would not get off their backs about the yellowcake documents. They couldn't get Cheney to stop pressing the issue. He insisted that was the proof of reconstitution of [Iraq's nuclear] program." [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 214] Normal Skepticism - Wilson goes into the situation with a healthy dose of skepticism. "My skepticism was the same as it would have been with any unverified intelligence report, because there is a lot of stuff that comes over the transom every day," he will recall in 2006. Wilson knows nothing of the influence of the Pentagon neoconservatives (see July 8, 1996, January 26, 1998, July 1998, September 2000, Late December 2000 and Early January 2001, Shortly after January 20, 2001, and Shortly After September 11, 2001) or the growing rift in the intelligence community over the reports: "I was aware that the neocons had a growing role in government and that they were interested in Iraq," he will recall. "But the administration had not articulated a policy at this stage." He is not given a copy of the Niger documents before leaving for Africa, nor is he told of their history. "To the best of my knowledge, the documents were not in the possession of the [CIA] at the time I was briefed," he will recall. "The discussion was whether or not this report could be accurate. During this discussion, everyone who knew something shared stuff about how the uranium business worked, and I laid out what I knew about the government in Niger, what information they could provide." With this rather sketchy preparation, Wilson leaves for Niger. [Unger, 2007, pp. 240; Wilson, 2007, pp. 113] Wilson's wife, senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, will later write, "He figured that if the vice president had asked a serious and legitimate question, it deserved a serious answer and he would try to help find it." [Wilson, 2007, pp. 111] No Trouble Finding Information - Wilson, who knows the Nigerien government and many of its officials, has little trouble finding the information he needs in the following week. In 2006, he will recall: "Niger has a simplistic government structure. Both the minister of mines and the prime minister had gone through the mines. The French were managing partners of the international consortium [which handles Niger's uranium]. The French mining company actually had its hands on the project. Nobody else in the consortium had operators on the ground." Wilson also personally knows Wissam al-Zahawie, Iraq's ambassador to the Vatican who supposedly negotiated the uranium deal with Niger (see February 1999). Wilson will later observe: "Wissam al-Zahawie was a world-class opera singer, and he went to the Vatican as his last post so he could be near the great European opera houses in Rome. He was not in the Ba'athist inner circle. He was not in Saddam [Hussein]'s tribe. The idea that he would be entrusted with the super-secret mission to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger is out of the question." [Unger, 2007, pp. 240-241] Wilson meets with, among other officials, Niger's former minister of mines, Mai Manga. As later reported by the Senate Intelligence Committee (see July 9, 2004), Manga tells Wilson "there were no sales outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) channels since the mid-1980s," and he "knew of no contracts signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of uranium." Manga says a "French mining consortium controls Nigerien uranium mining and keeps the uranium very tightly controlled from the time it is mined until the time it is loaded onto ships in Benin for transport overseas," and, "it would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a special shipment of uranium to a pariah state given these controls." [CounterPunch, 11/9/2005] Meeting with US Ambassador - Wilson arrives in Niger on February 26, two days after Marine General Carlton W. Fulford Jr.'s meeting (see February 24, 2002) with Nigerien officials. Wilson first meets with US Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, a veteran Foreign Service official, whom Wilson will later describe as "crisp" and well-informed. Over tea in the US Embassy offices in Niamey, Niger's capital, Owens-Kirkpatrick tells Wilson that she has already concluded that the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq are unfounded. "She had already debunked them in her reports to Washington," Wilson will later recall. "She said, yeah, she knew a lot about this particular report. She thought she had debunked it—and, oh, by the way, a four-star Marine Corps general had been down there as well—Carlton Fulford. And he had left satisfied there was nothing to report." [Wilson, 2004, pp. 20-22] Details of Alleged Uranium Production - Niger extracts uranium from two mines, both located in remote locations in the Sahara Desert. It takes well over a day to drive from the mines to Niamey. The mines are owned by a consortium of foreign companies and the Nigerien government, and managed by a French mining company, COGEMA. Because of a recent upswing in the production of Canadian uranium, Niger's uranium is mined at a net loss, and its only customers are consortium members. Wilson will later write, "[T]he Nigerien government has sold no uranium outside the consortium for two decades." If Iraq had bought 500 tons of uranium, as the story is told, that would have represented a 40 percent production increase. "There is no doubt," Wilson will later write, "that such a significant shift from historic production schedules would have been absolutely impossible to hide from the other partners, and most certainly from the managing partner, COGEMA. Everyone involved would have known about it." Any Nigerien government decision to produce such an amount of uranium would have involved numerous government officials and many well-documented meetings. Because the transaction would have been to a foreign country, Niger's Foreign Ministry would also have been involved in the decision. To sell Iraq uranium during that time would have been a violation of international law and of UN sanctions against Iraq, a weighty decision that would have ultimately been made by the president of Niger in conjuction with the foreign minister and the minister of mines. Such a decision would have been published in the Nigerien equivalent of the Federal Register and would have dramatic tax and revenue implications. The unexpected huge infusion of cash from the sale would have had a strong impact on the Nigerien economy, and would have been much anticipated and talked about throughout the Nigerien business community. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 22-25] Off-the-Books Production Virtually Impossible - It is conceivable that such an enormous operation could have been conducted entirely "off the books," Wilson will write, but virtually impossible to pull off. True, a military junta was in power at the time of the alleged sale, one that felt no responsibility or accountability to the Nigerien people. But even a secret transaction would have been impossible to conceal. Such a transaction would have involved thousands of barrels of clandestinely shipped uranium, extensive and complex adjustments to shipping schedules, and other ramifications. "It simply could not have happened without a great many people knowing about it, and secrets widely known do not remain hidden for long. And again, COGEMA, as the managing partner, would have had to know and be complicit." Add to that Niger's dependence on US foreign economic aid and its unwillingness to threaten the loss of that aid by secretly shipping uranium to a country that the US considers a dangerous rogue nation. All told, Wilson concludes, the possibility of such a clandestine operation is remote in the extreme. [Wilson, 2004; Wilson, 2004] 1999 Meeting with Iraqi Official - While speaking with a US Embassy official, Wilson learns about a 1999 meeting between the embassy official and an Iraqi representative in Algiers, perhaps in concert with a similar meeting between Iraqi officials and Niger's prime minister (see June 1999). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 27-28] Confirmation that Allegations are Unrealistic - After spending several days talking with current government officials, former government officials, and people associated with the country's uranium business, Wilson concludes the rumors are completely false. He will later call the allegations "bogus and unrealistic." [Washington Post, 6/12/2003 ; Knight Ridder, 6/13/2003; Independent, 6/29/2003; New York Times, 7/6/2003; CBS News, 7/11/2003; Vanity Fair, 1/2004; Wilson, 2004, pp. 20-28, 424; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 282; Wilson, 2007, pp. 113]
Entity Tags: Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, Wissam al-Zahawie, Carlton W. Fulford, COGEMA, Mai Manga, Valerie Plame Wilson, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, Melvin A. Goodman, Central Intelligence Agency, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, Joseph C. Wilson
Retired Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft leads a presidential panel which proposes that control of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency be transferred from the Department of Defense to the head of the CIA, the director of central intelligence (DCI). The plan is favored by the Congressional 9/11 joint inquiry but opposed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney. For years experts have argued that the US intelligence community's 13 disparate agencies—"85 percent of whose assets reside in the Defense Department"—should be consolidated under the head of the CIA. [US News and World Report, 8/12/2002; Washington Post, 8/19/2004] Intelligence Community Still Focused on Cold War Needs, Scowcroft Finds - Scowcroft, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a close friend and confidant of former President George H. W. Bush, actually revises a report he began before the 9/11 attacks. The report concludes that the US intelligence apparatus had been designed to meet the needs of the Cold War era and should now be overhauled. The 9/11 attacks are evidence of this, Scowcroft believes. The attacks came from rogue Islamist terrorists, not a superpower like China or the old USSR. Opposition from Rumsfeld, Cheney - But, as Ron Suskind will write in his 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine, Rumsfeld is "strongly opposed" to Scowcroft's idea, presumably because, by transferring control of the NSA from the Pentagon to the CIA, it would take power away from him. Scowcroft approaches Cheney with the dilemma. Scowcroft is well aware of Cheney and Rumsfeld's long political partnership, and gives Cheney an easy out. If his proposals are overly "disruptive," Scowcroft says, "I'll just fold my tent and go away. I don't want to… but I'll be guided by you." Cheney now has a choice. Knowing this is a battle Scowcroft will not win, he can either call Scowcroft off now and defuse a potential political conflict within the administration, or, in author Craig Unger's words, he can "send Scowcroft off on a fool's errand, pitting Bush 41's close friend, as Suskind noted, against Bush 43's cabinet secretary [Rumsfeld], who just happened to be Bush 41's lifelong nemesis (see September 21, 1974 and After). Cheney chose the latter." Cheney tells Scowcroft to "go ahead, submit the report to the president." He knows President Bush will listen to Cheney and Rumsfeld's advice and ignore the report. Unger later notes, "Scowcroft had once been Cheney's mentor, his patron. Now the vice president was just humoring him." [Unger, 2007, pp. 225-226]
Entity Tags: National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Ron Suskind, Richard ("Dick") Cheney, George W. Bush, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Issuetsdeah, Central Intelligence Agency, Brent Scowcroft, Craig Unger, Donald Rumsfeld, George Herbert Walker Bush
A few days after the State Department determines that the reported secret uranium deal between Iraq and Niger is "unlikely" (see March 1, 2002), former ambassador Joseph Wilson returns from his fact-finding trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Wilson tells CIA officials that he found no evidence to show that any such deal ever took place. [Unger, 2007, pp. 241] Wilson's wife, senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, will later write that the debriefing actually begins shortly after Wilson's arrival in the US, with "two clean-cut CIA officers, one of whom was the reports officer who had suggested sending Joe to Niger in the first place" (see February 13, 2002), arriving at the Wilson home, "clearly eager to debrief Joe so they could immediately write up an intelligence report on his trip." Plame Wilson deliberately absents herself from the debriefing taking place in her living room, though she joins her husband and the two CIA officers for a late dinner of takeout Chinese food, where they discuss general subjects. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 29; Wilson, 2007, pp. 112] Based on Wilson's information, the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO)'s case officer writes a draft intelligence report and sends it to the DO reports officer, who adds additional relevant information from his notes. [US Congress, 7/7/2004] The report will be distributed by March 8, 2002 (see March 8, 2002). [Wilson, 2007, pp. 370]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency
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