This timeline documents the run-up to the war in Iraq
and includes memos leaked to the British Press that shows Tony Blair's
cabinet had concerns about invading Iraq. Ask yourself, were we tricked
into going to war?
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3/11/92 |
Paul Wolfowitz, then-under secretary of defense for policy, supervised the
drafting of a 1992 policy statement on America's mission in the post-Cold
War era. Called the "Defense Planning Guidance". The 46-page classified
document circulated for several weeks at senior levels in the Pentagon. But
controversy erupted after it was leaked to The New York Times and The
Washington Post and the White House ordered then-Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney to rewrite it. (PBS/Frontline) |
Sept. 2000 |
Rebuilding America's Defenses, a policy document published by DC think tank
called Project for the New American Century (includes Cheney, Wolfowitz,
Kristol, Perle, Bolton, "Scooter" Libby, Elliot Abrams). Included the "Wolfowitz
Doctrine", increase defense spending by $100 billion including weapons in
space. This "Pax Americana" would entail complete military and commercial
control of land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. This would be accomplished
by the waging of "multiple simultaneous large-scale wars" and the removal of
Saddam Hussein. “The process of transformation,” the plan said, “is likely
to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new
Pearl Harbor." (see Raw Story timeline below). |
1/1/01 |
Paul O'Neill reveals that at Bush's first National Security Council meeting
topic "A" was how to take out Saddam. ("60 Minutes"). |
2/1/01 |
CIA Director George Tenet testifies in front of Congress that Iraq posed no
threat to the U.S and its allies. |
Sept. 11, 2001 |
World Trade Center and Pentagon Attacked |
Sept. 11, 2001 |
Five hours after the Pentagon was hit, Rumsfeld wrote aids requesting "best
info fast. Judge whether good enough hit SH". |
Sept. 12, 2001 |
Bush asks Richard Clarke, "Go back over everything, everything. See if
Saddam did this, if he is linked in any way." (Richard Clarkes' Book,
"Against All Enemies") |
9/15/01 |
Rumsfeld sets up Office of Special Plans to create the rationale for the
already planned attack on Iraq. Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, worked in
the Department of Defense and witnessed how the DOD, Office of Special
Plans, issued talking points about Iraq to Senior Government Officials to
make sure they stayed on message concerning the WMD issue. (Hijacking
Catastrophe) |
9/15/01 |
War Council at Camp David. Wolfowitz says now is the perfect time to move
against state-sponsored terrorists, including Iraq. Powell tells the
president that an international coalition would only come together for an
attack on Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, not an invasion of Iraq.
The war council votes with Powell. Rumsfeld abstains. The president decides
that the war's first phase will be Afghanistan. Iraq will be reconsidered
later. (PBS) |
1/29/02 |
State of the Union Axis of Evil Speech |
3/1/02 |
"F____ Saddam, we're taking him out." President Bush said to Condoleeza
Rice and 3 U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the
United Nations. (Time Magazine) |
March 12 and 13, 2002 |
Sir David Manning meets with Condoleeza Rice. Says Blair will support but
has to manage press, parliament and public opinion that was different than
in the United States. (see afterdowningstreet.com below ) |
3/17/02 |
Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador to the US, meets with Paul
Wolfowitz. The next day he reports to Manning, "On Iraq, stuck very close
to script that you used with Condi Rice last week. Backed regime change…
Would be a tough sell for us domestically and tougher in Europe. ...there
had to be a strategy...(see afterdowningstreet.com below) |
Undated memo, about 3/17/2002 |
British Documents detail that the British Government considering regime
change in Iraq along with considerations to be addressed in supporting Bush
objectives. A legal justification is a necessary but far from sufficient
precondition for military action. "We have also to answer the big question
- what will this action achieve?" (see afterdowningstreet.com below) |
3/1/02 |
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and
legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and
WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the
WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the
political context were right, people would support regime change. The two
key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the
political strategy to give the military plan the space to work. ( see
afterdowningstreet.com below) |
5/2002 |
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations
resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued
gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids
had become a full air offensive. (London Sunday Times, May 29, 2005) |
5/5/02 |
"Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on
10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the
terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back
empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack — a report that
lead hijacker Mohamed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence official in
the Czech Republic — was discredited last week. (Time Mag., 5/5/02) |
7/23/02 |
Sir David Manning, Blair's Policy Advisor, "C reported on his recent talks
in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action
was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military
action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the
intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Tony Blair had
already agreed to back military action at a summit in Crawford Texas.
Participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002 said
since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions"
which would make it legal.... (see afterdowningstreet.com below) |
8/2/05 |
Powell reports trouble getting U.S allies on board for war with Iraq…Bush
agrees to take the case to the UN and asks advisors to begin preparing
speech. (PBS) |
9/8/02 |
Cheney tells a TV interviewer, “We do know, with absolute certainty, that
[Saddam] is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs
in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon"; |
Condoleezza Rice said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom
cloud”—a formulation that was taken up by hawks in the Administration. (New
Yorker) |
9/16/02 |
Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, was put forward to speak publicly
about the timing of the Iraq rollout. It was Rove who argued earlier this
year that the war on terrorism should be part of Republicans' campaigns.
Last week, White House political aides encouraged GOP candidates to
emphasize national security. Also, Andrew H. Card Jr., Bush's chief of
staff, said last week that the White House held back on promoting the Iraq
policy in the summer because, "from a marketing point of view, you don't
introduce new products in August." (Washington Post).
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9/17/02 |
Bush's National Security Strategy asserts that the US will never again allow
its military supremacy to be challenged and embraces unilateral preemptive
military strikes (G.W. Bush, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html) |
9/24/02 |
CIA Chief George Tenet briefs Senate Foreign Relations Committee on claims
about aluminum tubes and Niger uranium. Two days later Colin Powell before
the same Committee cites the same information. |
11/18/02 |
The UN Security Council unanimously approves resolution 1441 imposing tough
new arms inspections on Iraq and requiring Iraq to declare all weapons of
mass destruction and account for known chemical weapons material stockpiles
on pain of "serious consequences." Iraq accepts the terms of the resolution
and UN inspectors return. (Iraqwatch) |
12/19/02 |
Washington, for the first time, publicly identified Niger as the alleged
seller of the nuclear materials, in a State Department position paper that
rhetorically asked, “Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium
procurement?” |
1/23/03 |
President's State of the Union Address, "The British Government has learned
that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa……." (CIA had warned the President not to use the quote in Public) |
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Colin Powell is reportedly upset about the intelligence that he is supposed
to use to represent the case for war before the UN. At one point during the
rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this,"
he declared. "This is bullshit." (US News & World Report June 9, 2003) |
2/1/03 |
2/5/03 |
Colin Powell goes to UN to prove case for invading Iraq |
2/8/03 |
Downing Street is plunged into acute international embarrassment after it
emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq
- allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published
academic articles, some of them several years old ( The Guardian) |
3/7/03 |
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents
involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has
concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . .
. are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said. (The New Yorker 3/31/03) |
3/19/03 |
War begins |
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References: |
http://www.afterdowningstreet.com/
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http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/muriel/path_of_war_timeline_613.htm
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http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908792.html Info Please
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http://www.afsc.org/iraq/guide/war-timeline.htm American Friends Service
Committee
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/gulfguide/gwtimeline.html PBS
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/page/0,12438,793802,00.html Guardian
Newspaper
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http://www.mideastweb.org/iraqtimeline.htm Mideast Web
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/themes/1992.html
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