Playing With Fire

Editorial
November 12, 2005
The New York Times

It certainly is a relief that the Senate is finally getting around to doing the job it so shamefully refused to do four years ago, after the 9/11 attacks: requiring the administration to follow the law and the Geneva Conventions in dealing with prisoners taken by the military and intelligence operatives.

But what started as an admirable attempt by Senator John McCain to stop the torture and abuse of prisoners has become a tangle of amendments and back-room deals that pose a real danger of undermining the sacred rule that the government cannot just lock people up forever without saying why. On Thursday, the Senate passed a measure that would deny foreigners declared to be "unlawful enemy combatants" the right to a hearing under the principle known as habeas corpus, which dates to Magna Carta.

Instead, the measure would mandate an automatic review by a federal court of the status of the inmates now at Guantánamo Bay and any future prisoners of that kind. It would exclude coerced confessions from that review, and place important new controls over Guantánamo operations.

These safeguards, proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has shown real courage in condemning prisoner abuse, are long overdue. Mr. Graham, a former military lawyer, also proposed the exemption to habeas corpus, arguing that it had never been meant to apply to prisoners of war, let alone to foreign terrorists. He says Guantánamo inmates are clogging the courts with petitions that hamper efforts to get vital intelligence.

Mr. Graham is a careful and principled senator who argues eloquently for his measure. The Senate should adopt his proposal for a federal court review of detentions, preferably by a huge margin, and the House should follow suit. We'd love to see Congress then defy the inevitable veto threats from the White House, driven by Vice President Dick Cheney, who is still skulking around Capitol Hill trying to legalize torture at the C.I.A.'s secret prison camps around the world. But we cannot support Mr. Graham in trying to rewrite the habeas corpus law.

Fewer than 200 of the approximately 500 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have filed petitions for habeas corpus hearings. They are not seeking trials, merely asking why they are being held. And according to government and military officials, an overwhelming majority should not have been taken prisoner in the first place. These men have been in isolation for nearly four years, subject to months of interrogation. Do they really have anything left to say?

The habeas petitions are not an undue burden. And in any case, they are a responsibility that this nation has always assumed to ensure that no one is held prisoner unjustly.

Senator Graham argues that the 9/11 attacks were an act of war, not a crime for American courts to judge, and he is trying to put antiterrorist operations back under the Geneva Conventions. Mr. McCain's amendment banning torture, abuse and cruelty has the same goal, and we share it. But the administration shredded the Geneva Conventions after 9/11 and cannot be trusted to follow them now.

There will be amendments and counteramendments in the Senate next week. In the end, the right coalition of senators may actually pass valuable new rules for "unlawful combatants." But they are sure to draw the fierce opposition of the White House, which is hardly likely to agree to an automatic federal court review of its detention policies.

The danger is that the House may do the administration's bidding and produce a bill that strips away the good parts of the Graham amendment, leaving the dangerous parts, and that such a version may be approved behind closed doors during a House-Senate conference.

The problem in creating one exemption to habeas corpus, no matter how narrow, is that it invites the creation of more exemptions. History shows that in the wrong hands, the power to jail people without showing cause is a tool of despotism. Just consider Natan Sharansky or Nelson Mandela. The administration hates that sort of comparison, so we wonder why it keeps inviting it. Just the other day, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said with a sneer that the Guantánamo prisoners on hunger strikes had gone "on a diet where they don't eat" for publicity.

We'd rather see the Senate delete the suspension of habeas corpus from Mr. Graham's measure now. Some constitutional principles are too important to play around with.

The Arab League to the Rescue

By MILTON VIORST
Op-Ed Contributor
November 12, 2005
The New York Times

The question, of course, is how do we get out of Iraq? President Bush is increasingly isolated in claiming we are on our way to victory or democracy or human rights or even the restoration of Baghdad's electric grid. Even before Iraqi violence began spilling over into Jordan, American forces have clearly failed at maintaining order. It is time for a different approach, one that may lie with the Arab League.

In Lebanon 16 years ago, the Arab League ended a seemingly intractable civil war. The Lebanese - Christians, Druzes, Shiites, Sunnis, even Palestinians - had been killing one another since 1975. Interventions by Syria, Israel and the United States made matters only worse. President Ronald Reagan withdrew a contingent of marines after a suicide bombing killed 241 servicemen. Throughout the 1980's, private militias fought pitched battles and imprisoned civilian hostages, many of them Americans. The only way to end the bloodshed seemed to be to divide Lebanon along religious lines. But none of the factions, not even the Christians, wanted the country split. Exhausted as the Lebanese were by the fighting, the vision of a unified nation remained intact. That is when the Arab League stepped in.

The Arab League was always known as a weakling. But the fractious Arab states agreed at last that Lebanon's civil war and the prospect of partition threatened them all. Pulling Lebanon together was an incentive that superseded their divisions.

In January 1989, the Arab foreign ministers met and set up a Committee of Six - Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Sudan, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates - to devise a peace proposal. At a subsequent Arab League summit, a troika of the Saudi and Moroccan kings and the Algerian president was given six months to come up with an agreement. Lakhdar Ibrahimi, then a highly regarded adviser to Algeria's president, was named the project's chief diplomat. Though Mr. Ibrahimi had no army behind him, he spoke as an Arab to Arabs, with the full moral authority of the Arab community. The Lebanese listened.

In September of that year, after Mr. Ibrahimi had negotiated a cease-fire in Lebanon, the troika invited Lebanon's Parliament to meet in Taif, a mountain town in Saudi Arabia, to discuss an Arab League draft of a new charter. After three weeks of bargaining, the parliamentarians signed an accord based on the draft, with all the Lebanese factions conceding more than they ever imagined they would. To be sure, the time was right: Lebanon was fed up with war. But crucial to Taif was the absence of foreign involvement. It was an Arab triumph.

The Taif agreement did not produce a perfect ending. Given Lebanon's inherent volatility, that would have been too much to ask. For years, Syrian and Israeli forces continued to intrude in Lebanese affairs. And Taif did not stop the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and other officials. But parliamentary rule has been working, and life has become more or less normal That is far more than anyone expected before Taif.

Is there a lesson for President Bush? Even more than Lebanon's combatants, Iraq's factions agree on one thing: they want no more Western intrusions. Although Iraqis recently ratified a new constitution, the insurgency goes on. In contrast to the Arab League in Lebanon, the United States has a huge army in Iraq - and no moral force to stop the killing.

Since failing to head off the invasion of Iraq, the Arab League has been waiting in the wings. It has made clear that it considers the regional autonomy contained in the constitution a bad precedent, divided as many Arab countries are by sectarianism. And with insurgents attacking their diplomats, Arab nations have been slow to send representatives to Baghdad.

But given the chance, the Arab League might well pull together, as it did in Lebanon, to settle what looks increasingly like a hopeless war.

The Arab League can be America's best exit strategy. True, we would be asking Arabs to clean up our mess. But the Arab states have an interest both in America's leaving and in Iraq's cohesion. At the very least, the Taif model suggests that Arabs are likely to do better than America at getting Iraqis to rebuild their society together. The alternative, as it was in Lebanon, is more bloodshed.

Milton Viorst is the author of the forthcoming "Storm from the East: The Arab World in the 20th Century."

I don't think you can win it

The New York Times runs a correction on a story it published online Friday November 11, 2005:

{The article "misstated the subject of a comment he [President Bush] made to Matt Lauer of NBC in August 2004, 'I don't think you can win it.' He referred to the war on terror, not the war in Iraq."}

President Bush Commemorates Veterans Day, Discusses War on Terror

Tobyhanna Army Depot
Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania
November 11, 2005

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Thank you all for coming, please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm glad to be back in Pennsylvania and I'm proud to be the first sitting President to visit Monroe County. (Applause.) I'm especially pleased to see so many military veterans with us today. Those who have risked their lives for our freedom have the respect and gratitude of our nation on Veterans Day and on every day. (Applause.)

Tobyhanna is a fitting place to commemorate Veterans Day. In the better part of a century, this facility has provided critical services for our armed forces. Around the clock and around the world, personnel from here maintain technology that our troops use to take the fight to the enemy. From Afghanistan to Kuwait to Baghdad International Airport, technicians from Tobyhanna are carrying out dangerous missions with bravery and skill. I know you're proud of them, and so is the Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)

Tobyhanna is also home to a thriving community of military families. Your support for those who wear the uniform and your support of each other through difficult times brings great pride to our country. The American people stand with our military families. (Applause.)

I want to thank Colonel Ellis for allowing me to come and give you this speech today. Thank you for your service to our country, Colonel Ellis. (Applause.) I want to thank Senator Specter and Congressman Kanjorski and Congressman Sherwood for joining us today. It was good to have them on Air Force One. (Applause.) I appreciate their service to our country. And I want to thank all the state and local officials, and I want to thank all the veterans. (Applause.)

Today, our nation pays tribute to those veterans, 25 million veterans who have worn the uniform of the United States of America. Each of these men and women took an oath to defend America -- and they upheld that oath with honor and decency. Through the generations, they have humbled dictators and liberated continents and set a standard of courage and idealism for the entire world. This year, 3.5 million veterans celebrate the 60th anniversary of freedom's great victory in World War II. A handful of veterans who live among us in 2005 stood in uniform when World War I ended 87 years ago today. These men are more than a hundred years old, many of their lives have touched three different centuries, and they can all know that America will be proud of their service. (Applause.)

On Veterans Day, we also remember the troops who left America's shores but did not live to be thanked as veterans. On this Veterans Day, we honor the courage of those who were lost in the current struggle. We think of the families who lost a loved one; we pray for their comfort. And we remember the men and women in uniform whose fate is still undetermined -- our prisoners of war and those missing in action. America must never forget their courage. And we will not stop searching until we have accounted for every soldier and sailor and airman and Marines missing in the line of duty. (Applause.)

All of America's veterans have placed the nation's security before their own lives. Their sacrifice creates a debt that America can never fully repay. Yet, there are certain things that government can do; my administration remains firmly committed to serving America's veterans. (Applause.)

Since I took office, my administration has increased spending for veterans by $24 billion -- an increase of 53 percent. (Applause.) In the first four years as President, we increased spending for veterans more than twice as much as the previous administration did in eight years, and I want to thank the members of the Congress and the Senate for joining me in the effort to support our veterans. (Applause.)

We've increased the VA's medical care budget by 51 percent, increased total outpatient visits, increased the number of prescriptions filled, and reduced the backlog of disability claims. We've committed more than $1.5 billion to modernizing and expanding VA facilities so that more veterans can get better care closer to home. We've expanded grants to help homeless veterans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, because we strongly believe no veteran who served in the blazing heat or bitter cold of foreign lands should have to live without shelter in this country. (Applause.)

I've joined with the veterans groups to call on Congress to protect the flag of the United States in the Constitution of the United States. (Applause.) In June, the House of Representatives voted for a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. I urge the United States Senate to pass this important amendment. (Applause.)

At this hour, a new generation of Americans is defending our flag and our freedom in the first war of the 21st century. The war came to our shores on September the 11th, 2001. That morning, we saw the destruction that terrorists intend for our nation. We know that they want to strike again. And our nation has made a clear choice: We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity; we will not tire or rest until the war on terror is won. (Applause.)

In the four years since September the 11th, the evil that reached our shores has reappeared on other days, in other places -- in Mombasa and Casablanca and Riyadh and Jakarta and Istanbul and Madrid and Beslan and Taba and Netanya and Baghdad, and elsewhere. In the past few months, we have seen a new terror offensive with attacks on London and Sharm el-Sheikh, another deadly strike in Bali, and this week, a series of bombings in Amman, Jordan, that killed dozens of innocent Jordanians and their guests.

All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random, isolated acts of madness -- innocent men and women and children who have died simply because they boarded the wrong train, or worked in the wrong building, or checked into the wrong hotel. Yet, while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology -- a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane.

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; and still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism, subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Hindus and Jews -- and against Muslims, themselves, who do not share their radical vision.

Many militants are part of a global, borderless terrorist organization like al Qaeda -- which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like the attacks of September the 11th. Other militants are found in regional groups, often associated with al Qaeda -- paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Chechnya, Kashmir and Algeria. Still others spring up in local cells -- inspired by Islamic radicalism, but not centrally directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for the world.

We know the vision of the radicals because they have openly stated it -- in videos and audiotapes and letters and declarations and on websites.

First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions. Al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, their "resources, their sons and money to driving the infidels out of our lands." The tactics of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists have been consistent for a quarter of a century: They hit us, and expect us to run.

Last month, the world learned of a letter written by al Qaeda's number two leader, a guy named Zawahiri. And he wrote this letter to his chief deputy in Iraq -- the terrorist Zarqawi. In it, Zawahiri points to the Vietnam War as a model for al Qaeda. This is what he said: "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam -- and how they ran and left their agents -- is noteworthy." The terrorists witnessed a similar response after the attacks on American troops in Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu in 1993. They believe that America can be made to run again -- only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences.

Second, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country -- a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments. Over the past few decades, radicals have specifically targeted Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and Jordan for potential takeover. They achieved their goal, for a time, in Afghanistan. And now they've set their sights on Iraq. In his recent letter, Zawahiri writes that al Qaeda views Iraq as, "the place for the greatest battle." The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war against the terrorists. (Applause.)

Third, these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. Zawahiri writes that the terrorists, "must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq." He goes on to say: "[T]he jihad ... requires several incremental goals. ... Expel the Americans from Iraq. ... Establish an Islamic authority over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraqo Extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq."

With the greater economic, military and political power they seek, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction; to destroy Israel; to intimidate Europe; to assault the American people; and to blackmail our government into isolation.

Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals as fanatical or extreme. They are fanatical and extreme -- but they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed, "We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life." (Applause.) And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.

Defeating the militant network is difficult, because it thrives, like a parasite, on the suffering and frustration of others. The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization, in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution. They exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, recruiting them through radical mosques as pawns of terror. And they exploit modern technology to multiply their destructive power. Instead of attending far-away training camps, recruits can now access online training libraries to learn how to build a roadside bomb or fire a rocket-propelled grenade -- and this further spreads the threat of violence, even within peaceful democratic societies.

The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers. They've been sheltered by authoritarian regimes -- allies of convenience like Iran and Syria -- that share the goal of hurting America and modern Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West, on America, and on the Jews. This week the government of Syria took two disturbing steps. First, it arrested Dr. Kamal Labwani for serving as an advocate for democratic reform. Then President Assad delivered a strident speech that attacked both the Lebanese government and the integrity of the Mehlis investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.

The government of Syria must do what the international community has demanded: cooperate fully with the Mehlis investigation and stop trying to intimidate and de-stabilize the Lebanese government. The government of Syria must stop exporting violence and start importing democracy. (Applause.)

The radicals depend on front operations, such as corrupted charities, which direct money to terrorist activity. They are strengthened by those who aggressively fund the spread of radical, intolerant versions of Islam into unstable parts of the world. The militants are aided as well by elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, that feed conspiracy theories, and speak of a so-called American "war on Islam" -- with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims in Afghanistan and Bosnia and Somalia and Kosovo and Kuwait and Iraq; or our generous assistance to Muslims recovering from natural disasters in places like Indonesia and Pakistan. (Applause.)

Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions in Iraq -- claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001. (Applause.) The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom -- and, yet, the militants killed more than 150 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan.

Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence: the Israeli presence on the West Bank, the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of killers -- and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder. On the contrary, they target nations whose behavior they believe they can change through violence. Against such an enemy, there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in, we will never accept anything less than complete victory. (Applause.)

The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses. Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this road -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride. (Applause.)

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life. We have seen it in the murders of Daniel Pearl and Nicholas Berg and Margaret Hassan and many others. In a courtroom in the Netherlands, the killer of Theo Van Gogh turned to the victim's grieving mother and said, "I don't feel your pain ... because I believe you're an infidel." And in spite of this veneer of religious rhetoric, most of the victims claimed by the militants are fellow Muslims.

Recently, in the town of Huwaydar, Iraq, a terrorist detonated a pickup truck parked along a busy street lined with restaurants and shops, just as residents were gathering to break the day-long fast observed during Ramadan. The explosion killed at least 25 people and wounded 34. When unsuspecting Muslims breaking their Ramadan fast are targeted for death, or 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing, or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school, this is murder, pure and simple -- the total rejection of justice and honor and morality and religion. (Applause.)

These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and they are the enemies of humanity. And we have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before -- in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims. Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies. In truth, they have endless ambitions of imperial domination -- and they wish to make everyone powerless, except themselves. Under their rule, they have banned books, and desecrated historical monuments, and brutalized women. They seek to end dissent in every form, to control every aspect of life, to rule the soul itself. While promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing a future of oppression and misery.

Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples -- claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent. Zarqawi has said that Americans are, "the most cowardly of God's creatures." But let us be clear: It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque.

It is courage that liberated more than 50 million people from tyranny. It is courage that keeps an untiring vigil against the enemies of rising democracies. And it is courage in the cause of freedom that will once again destroy the enemies of freedom. (Applause.)

And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom -- by distrusting human creativity and punishing change and limiting the contributions of half a population -- this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible, and human societies successful. The only thing modern about the militants' vision is the weapons they want to use against us. The rest of their grim vision is defined by a warped image of the past -- a declaration of war on the idea of progress itself. And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt. Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation and decline and collapse. Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future. (Applause.)

We didn't ask for this global struggle, but we're answering history's call with confidence, and with a comprehensive strategy. Defeating a broad and adaptive network requires patience, constant pressure, and strong partners in Europe and in the Middle East and North Africa and Asia and beyond. Working with these partners, we're disrupting militant conspiracies, we're destroying their ability to make war, and we're working to give millions in a troubled region a hopeful alternative to resentment and violence.

First, we're determined to prevent attacks of the terrorist networks before they occur. We are reorganizing our government to give this nation a broad and coordinated homeland defense. We're reforming our intelligence agencies for the incredibly difficult task of tracking enemy activity -- based on information that often comes in small fragments from widely scattered sources, both here and abroad. And we're acting, along with governments from other countries, to destroy the terrorist networks and incapacitate their leadership.

Together with our partners, we've disrupted a number of serious al Qaeda terrorist plots since September the 11th -- including several plots to attack inside the United States. Our coalition against terror has killed or captured nearly all those directly responsible for the September the 11th attacks. We've captured or killed several of bin Laden's most serious deputies, al Qaeda managers and operatives in more than 24 countries; the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, who was chief of al Qaeda's operations in the Persian Gulf; the mastermind of the bombings in Jakarta and Bali; a senior Zarqawi terrorist planner, who was planning attacks in Turkey; and many of their senior leaders in Saudi Arabia.

Because of this steady progress, the enemy is wounded -- but the enemy is still capable of global operations. Our commitment is clear: We will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken, and their leaders are held to account for their murder. (Applause.)

Second, we're determined to deny weapons of mass destruction to outlaw regimes, and to their terrorist allies who would use them without hesitation. (Applause.) The United States, working with Great Britain and Pakistan and other nations, has exposed and disrupted a major black-market operation in nuclear technology led by A.Q. Khan. Libya has abandoned its chemical and nuclear weapons programs, as well as its long-range ballistic missiles.

And in the past year, America and our partners in the Proliferation Security Initiative have stopped more than a dozen shipments of suspect weapons technology, including equipment for Iran's ballistic missile program. This progress has reduced the danger to free nations, but it has not removed it. Evil men who want to use horrendous weapons against us are working in deadly earnest to gain them. And we're working urgently to keep the weapons of mass murder out of the hands of the fanatics.

Third, we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror. The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally guilty of murder. (Applause.)

Fourth, we're determined to deny the militants control of any nation, which they would use as a home base and a launching pad for terror. This mission has brought new and urgent responsibilities to our armed forces. American troops are fighting beside Afghan partners and against remnants of the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies. We're working with President Musharraf to oppose and isolate the militants in Pakistan. We're fighting the regime remnants and terrorists in Iraq. The terrorist goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East, and strike America and other free nations with increasing violence. Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power, so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq. (Applause.)

Our coalition, along with our Iraqi allies, is moving forward with a comprehensive plan. Our strategy is to clear, hold, and build. We're working to clear areas from terrorist control, to hold those areas securely, and to build lasting, democratic Iraqi institutions through an increasingly inclusive political process. In recent weeks, American and Iraqi troops have conducted several major assaults to clear out enemy fighters in Baghdad, and parts of Iraq.

Two weeks ago, in Operation Clean Sweep, Iraq and coalition forces raided 350 houses south of Baghdad, capturing more than 40 of the terrorist killers. Acting on tips from local citizens, our forces have recently launched air strikes against terrorist safe houses in and around the towns of Ubaydi and Husaybah. We brought to justice two key senior al Qaeda terrorist leaders. And in Mosul, coalition forces killed an al Qaeda cell leader named Muslet, who was personally involved in at least three videotaped beheadings. We're on the hunt. We're keeping pressure on the enemy. (Applause.)

And thousands of Iraqi forces have been participating in these operations, and even more Iraqis are joining the fight. Last month, nearly 3,000 Iraqi police officers graduated from 10 weeks of basic training. They'll now take their places along other brave Iraqis who are taking the fight to the terrorists across their own country. Iraqi police and security forces are helping to clear terrorists from their strongholds, helping to hold onto areas that we've cleared; they're working to prevent the enemy from returning. Iraqi forces are using their local expertise to maintain security, and to build political and economic institutions that will help improve the lives of their fellow citizens.

At the same time, Iraqis are making inspiring progress toward building a democracy. Last month, millions of Iraqis turned out to vote, and they approved a new constitution that guarantees fundamental freedoms and lays the foundation for lasting democracy. Many more Sunnis participated in this vote than in January's historic elections, and the level of violence was lower.

Now, Iraqis are gearing up for December 15th elections, when they will go to the polls to choose a government under the new constitution. The new government will serve a four-year term, and it will represent all Iraqis. Even those who voted against the constitution are now organizing and preparing for the December elections. Multiple Sunni Arab parties have submitted a list of candidates, and several prominent Sunni politicians are running on other slates. With two successful elections completed, and a third coming up next month, the Iraqi people are proving their determination to build a democracy united against extremism and violence. (Applause.)

The work ahead involves great risk for Iraqis and for American and coalition forces. We've lost some of our nation's finest men and women in this war on terror. Each of these men and women left grieving families and left loved ones at home. Each of these patriots left a legacy that will allow generations of fellow Americans to enjoy the blessings of liberty. Each loss of life is heartbreaking. And the best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and to lay the foundation of peace for generations to come. (Applause.)

The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we've ever faced, unconstrained by any notion of our common humanity or by the rules of warfare. No one should underestimate the difficulties ahead, nor should they overlook the advantages we bring to this fight.

Some observers look at the job ahead and adopt a self-defeating pessimism. It is not justified. With every random bombing, with every funeral of a child, it becomes more clear that the extremists are not patriots or resistance fighters -- they're murderers at war with the Iraqi people themselves.

In contrast, the elected leaders of Iraq are proving to be strong and steadfast. By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress -- from tyranny, to liberation, to national elections, to the ratification of a constitution -- in the space of two-and-a-half years. (Applause.)

I have said, as Iraqis stand up, Americans will stand down. And with our help, the Iraqi military is gaining new capabilities and new confidence with each passing month. At the time of our Fallujah operations a year ago, there were only a few Iraqi army battalions in combat. Today, there are nearly 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists alongside our forces. (Applause.) General David Petraeus says, "Iraqis are in the fight. They're fighting and dying for their country, and they're fighting increasingly well." This progress is not easy, but it is steady. And no fair-minded person should ignore, deny, or dismiss the achievements of the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

And our debate at home must also be fair-minded. One of the hallmarks of a free society and what makes our country strong is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war. When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support. I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I accept the responsibilities, and the criticisms, and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision.

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. (Applause.)

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. (Applause.) Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. (Applause.) And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory. (Applause.)

The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. This is difficult, and it's a long-term project, yet there is no alternative to it. Our future and the future of the region are linked. If the broader Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery while radicals stir the resentment of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger, in our generation and for the next.

If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and participation of free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow and eventually end. By standing for hope and freedom of others, we make our own freedom more secure.

America is making this stand in practical ways. We're encouraging our friends in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to take the path of reform, to strengthen their own societies in the fight against terror by respecting the rights and choices of their own people. We're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow. We're making our case through public diplomacy -- stating clearly and confidently our belief in self-determination, and the rule of law, and religious freedom, and equal rights for women -- beliefs that are right and true in every land and in every culture. (Applause.)

As we do our part to confront radicalism and to protect the United States, we know that a lot of vital work will be done within the Islamic world itself. And the work is beginning. Many Muslim scholars have already publicly condemned terrorism, often citing Chapter 5, Verse 32 of the Koran, which states that killing an innocent human being is like killing all of humanity, and saving the life of one person is like saving all humanity. (Applause.) After the attacks July -- on July 7th in London, an imam in the United Arab Emirates declared, "Whoever does such a thing is not a Muslim, nor a religious person." The time has come for responsible Islamic leaders to join in denouncing an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends, and defiles a noble faith. (Applause.)

Many people of the Muslim faith are proving their commitment at great personal risk. Everywhere we've engaged the fight against extremism, Muslim allies have stood up and joined the fight, becoming partners in this vital cause. Afghan troops are in combat against Taliban remnants. Iraqi soldiers are sacrificing to defeat al Qaeda in their country. These brave citizens know the stakes -- the survival of their own liberty, the future of their own region, the justice and humanity of their own tradition -- and the United States of America is proud to stand beside them. (Applause.)

With the rise of a deadly enemy and the unfolding of a global ideological struggle, our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented dangers. And yet this fight we have joined is also the current expression of an ancient struggle -- between those who put their faith in dictators, and those who put their faith in the people. Throughout history, tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that murder is justified to serve their grand vision -- and they end up alienating decent people across the globe. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that regimented societies are strong and pure -- until those societies collapse in corruption and decay. Tyrants and would-be tyrants have always claimed that free men and women are weak and decadent -- until the day that free men and women defeat them.

We don't know the course of our own struggle will take, or the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice, we do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history, and we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail. (Applause.)

Thank you for coming. May God bless our veterans, may God bless our troops in harm's way, and may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

START 11:45 A.M. EST
END 12:35 P.M. EST

When torture is the only option

DAVID GELERNTER
November 11, 2005
The Los Angeles Times

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-Ariz.) proposed legislation incorporating into U.S. law the Geneva Convention ban on mistreating prisoners. The bill, which bans cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, passed the Senate 90 to 9. To say it's got momentum is putting it mildly.

But President Bush says he will veto the bill unless the CIA is exempted. Vice President Cheney has led the administration's campaign for the exemption. It's a hard sell; pro-torture politicians are scarce around Washington.

But of course you don't have to be "pro-torture" to oppose the McCain amendment. That naive misunderstanding summarizes the threat posed by this good-hearted, wrong-headed legislation. Those who oppose the amendment don't think the CIA should be permitted to use torture or other rough interrogation techniques. What they think is that sometimes the CIA should be required to squeeze the truth out of prisoners. Not because the CIA wants to torture people, but because it may be the only option we've got.

McCain's amendment is a trap for the lazy minded. Whenever a position seems so obvious that you don't even have to stop and think — stop and think.

Americans will never be permitted to use torture as punishment or vengeance. A criminal might deserve to be tortured; we refuse to torture him nonetheless, because to do so degrades us. But if torturing a terrorist (or carrying out some other form of rough interrogation) is the only way to save innocent lives, we have no right to refuse.

Most human beings recoil from committing torture. But sometimes we have an obligation to do hard things for the good of the nation — as no man knows better than McCain, who fought for his country and suffered long years as a brutally mistreated POW.

But his amendment lets the CIA do what he refused to do. It lets the CIA take an easy out.

In 1982, the philosopher Michael Levin published an article challenging the popular view that the U.S. must never engage in torture. "Someday soon," he concluded, "a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them."

Suppose a nuclear bomb is primed to detonate somewhere in Manhattan, Levin wrote, and we've captured a terrorist who knows where the bomb is. But he won't talk. By forbidding torture, you inflict death on many thousands of innocents and endless suffering on the families of those who died at a terrorist's whim — and who might have lived had government done its ugly duty.

Those who defend McCain's amendment and attack Cheney and Bush feel a nice warm glow, as if they're basking in virtue, as in a hot tub, sipping Cabernet. But there is no virtue in joining a crowd, even if the crowd is right — and this one isn't.

McCain is a bona fide hero. But there's nothing courageous in standing firm with virtually the whole cultural leadership of this nation and the Western world, under any circumstances. It's too easy. To take a principled stand that you know will make people loathe and vilify you — that's what integrity, leadership and moral courage are all about. This time Cheney is the hero. McCain is taking the easy out.

Of course, saying "never" instead of "almost never" is a trap that well-meaning, lazy people have been falling into for a long time. In a celebrated passage in "The Brothers Karamazov," Dostoevsky tells a story designed to end that error forever — about a rich, powerful general and an 8-year-old boy serf who "hurt the paw of the general's favorite hound." The next morning, the child is stripped naked. The general looses his pack of wolfhounds on the boy, who is torn to pieces before his mother's eyes.

What should be done to the general? The gentle monk Alyosha, who can't stand the thought of bloodshed, answers, "Shoot him." He has decided that capital punishment should be "almost never," not "never."

In the end, this column is indeed about willful, cheerful torture committed not by the CIA but by terrorists whose bombs leave bewildered innocents maimed, blinded or wracked with pain for the rest of their lives, or ripped to pieces. Why? The torturers (or their friends) only smirk and tell us that "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great").

We do not torture such terrorists to punish them. God forbid we should do as they do. But if torture (used with repugnance) can stop even one such atrocity, our duty is hideously plain.

And why it should never be one

Larry C. Johnson
November 11, 2005
The Los Angeles Times

LARRY C. JOHNSON, a former CIA officer, was a deputy director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993.

I THINK Dick Cheney has been watching too many Hollywood flicks that glorify torture. He needs to get out of his undisclosed location and talk to the people on the ground.

I'm a former CIA officer and a former counterterrorism official. During the last few months, I have spoken with three good friends who are CIA operations officers, all of whom have worked on terrorism at the highest levels. They all agree that torturing detainees will not help us. In fact, they believe that it will hurt us in many ways.

These are the very people the vice president wants to empower to torture — and they don't want to do it.

I have some experience of my own with "duress interrogation." Back when I was undergoing paramilitary training at a CIA facility in 1986, my colleagues and I were interrogated to prepare us in case we were taken hostage.

At one point we were "captured" by faux terrorists. After being stripped naked and given baggy military uniforms, we entered a CIA version of Gitmo. We were deprived of sleep for 36 hours, given limited rice and water and forced to stand in place. Our interrogators — all U.S. military personnel — coaxed and harangued us by turns. Those of us who declined to cooperate were stuffed into punishment boxes — miniature coffins that induced claustrophobia.

After 30 hours, one of my classmates gave me up in exchange for a grape soda and a ham sandwich.

The lesson of this training was that everyone has a breaking point. But our instructors were not recommending breaking detainees through torture. Instead, they emphasized the need to build rapport and trust with people who had information we wanted.

Two of my friends, one a classmate from hostage school, served in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Some Americans believe that the suicide attack on the World Trade Center justifies using all techniques to get information from terrorist suspects. But my friends recognize correctly that their mission is to gather intelligence, not to create new enemies.

If you inflict enough pain on someone, they will give you information, but what they tell you may not be true. You will have to corroborate it, which will take time. And, unless you kill every suspect you brutalize, you will make enemies of them, their families, maybe their entire villages. What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust — even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming — than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights.

And that's the point. We should never use our fear of being attacked as justification for dehumanizing ourselves or others.

Before the CIA gets all the blame for promoting the torture mentality, we ought to note that Hollywood's hands are dirty as well. In last year's "Man on Fire," we saw Denzel Washington give a corrupt Mexican cop a plastic explosive enema. He also taped the hands of another errant cop to the steering wheel and began to snip off digits in an effort to find out the whereabouts of a kidnapped child.

I am not advocating that terrorists be given room service at the Four Seasons. Some sleep deprivation — of the sort mothers of newborns all endure — and spartan living conditions are appropriate. What we must not do is use physical pain or the threat of drowning, as in "waterboarding," to gain information. Tough, relentless questioning is OK. Torture is not.

Thankfully, several Republican senators, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, are defying Cheney's campaign for a torture loophole. Cheney's plea to permit CIA officers unrestricted interrogation methods would be the death of the CIA as a professional intelligence service and another stain on the reputation of the U.S.

BBC and Fallujah: War Crimes and Media Lies

Media coverup of crimes against humanity
by Gabriele Zamparini
November 10, 2005
GlobalResearch.ca

November 9, 2005 on the BBC News website, under the title US 'uses incendiary arms' in Iraq I could still read:

Italian state TV, RAI, has broadcast a documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Rai says this amounts to the illegal use of chemical arms, though the bombs are considered incendiary devices.

Eyewitnesses and ex-US soldiers say the weapon was used in built-up areas in the insurgent-held city.

The US military denies this, but admits using white phosphorus bombs in Iraq to illuminate battlefields.

Yesterday I wrote on why the BBC NEWS is wrong when (in its article: though the bombs are considered incendiary devices and with an email to me: White Phosphorous is not a chemical weapon) it denies that the white phosphorus is a chemical weapon.

According to international law, any chemical used to harm or kill people or animals is considered a chemical weapon. In the words of Peter Kaiser (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons):

Any chemical that is used against humans or against animals that causes harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical, ARE considered chemical weapons and as long as the purpose is to cause harm - that is prohibited behaviour. (You can listen to his words directly by following this link and click the Play under the photo on the right at the bottom of the page)

The BBC NEWS article goes on

The US military denies this, but admits using white phosphorus bombs in Iraq to illuminate battlefields.

The US Government had already denied the claims in the past. In Did the U.S. Use "Illegal" Weapons in Fallujah? Media allegations claim the U.S. used outlawed weapons during combat in Iraq the US Department of State writes:

Finally, some news accounts have claimed that U.S. forces have used "outlawed" phosphorus shells in Fallujah. Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. U.S. forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.

There is a great deal of misinformation feeding on itself about U.S. forces allegedly using "outlawed" weapons in Fallujah. The facts are that U.S. forces are not using any illegal weapons in Fallujah or anywhere else in Iraq. (Created: 09 Dec 2004 Updated: 27 Jan 2005)

Obviously nobody would expect the truth about war crimes and mass murders coming from those accused of committing such crimes against humanity. Nobody but the BBC and most of the media. Obviously everybody would expect independent and honest information to be sceptical towards military and governmental sources and to investigate, investigate, investigate. Everybody but the BBC and most of the media.

They do not believe independent journalism. They do not trust independent sources. They do not see their job as discovering the truth, investigate, questioning the official version. They have sold their souls for a brilliant career and – as Noam Chomsky has recently said - to make sure they are respectable enough to be invited to the right dinner parties.

OK, here it’s the challenge! If the BBC (and most of the media) trust only military sources, then a military source they’ll have. From US Army's "Field Artillery Magazine":
9. Munitions. The munitions we brought to this fight were 155-mm highexplosive (HE) M107 (short-range) and M795 (long-range) rounds, illumination and white phosphorous (WP, M110 and M825), with point-detonating (PD), delay, time and variable-time (VT) fuzes. () White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired shake and bake missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. () We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions. ()

SOURCE:

THE FIGHT FOR FALLUJAH - TF 2-2 IN FSE AAR: Indirect Fires in the Battle of Fallujah By Captain James T. Cobb, First Lieutenant Christopher A. LaCour and Sergeant First Class William H. Hight

More about the SOURCE:

Captain James T. (Tom) Cobb has been assigned to 1st Battalion, 6th Field Artillery (1-6 FA), 1st Infantry Division, and served as the Fire Support Officer (FSO) for Task Force 2d Battalion, 2d Infantry, (TF 2-2 IN) in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) II, including during the Battle of Fallujah. He also deployed with Kosovo Force (KFOR) 4B.

First Lieutenant Christopher A. LaCour, assigned to 1-6 FA, has been the Targeting Officer for TF 2-2 IN in OIF II, including during the Battle of Fallujah. Also in OIF II, he was a Platoon Leader for 2/C/1-6 FA and, previously, a Fire Direction Officer in the same battery.

Sergeant First Class William H. Hight, also assigned to 1-6 FA, has been TF 2-2 IN’s Fire Support NCO since September 2003, deploying in OIF II and fighting in the Battle of Fallujah. He also deployed to Bosnia as part of the Implementation Force (IFOR) and to Kosovo as part of KFOR 4B.

Here it’s what Darrin Mortenson of the North County Times wrote in April 2004

Fighting from a distance

After pounding parts of the city for days, many Marines say the recent combat escalated into more than they had planned for, but not more than they could handle.

"It's a war," said Cpl. Nicholas Bogert, 22, of Morris, N.Y.

Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.

"We had all this SASO (security and stabilization operations) training back home," he said. "And then this turns into a real goddamned war."

Just as his team started to eat a breakfast of packaged rations Saturday, Bogert got a fire mission over the radio.

"Stand by!" he yelled, sending Lance Cpls. Jonathan Alexander and Jonathan Millikin scrambling to their feet.

Shake 'n' bake

Joking and rousting each other like boys just seconds before, the men were instantly all business. With fellow Marines between them and their targets, a lot was at stake.

Bogert received coordinates of the target, plotted them on a map and called out the settings for the gun they call "Sarah Lee."

Millikin, 21, from Reno, Nev., and Alexander, 23, from Wetumpka, Ala., quickly made the adjustments. They are good at what they do.

"Gun up!" Millikin yelled when they finished a few seconds later, grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and holding it over the tube.

"Fire!" Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it.

The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.

They say they have never seen what they've hit, nor did they talk about it as they dusted off their breakfast and continued their hilarious routine of personal insults and name-calling. (from VIOLENCE SUBSIDES FOR MARINES IN FALLUJAH by DARRIN MORTENSON, North County Times, April 10, 2004)

The silence and the lies of the mainstream media have resulted in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Iraq war has started with lies and with lies it’s been continuing since. We shall never forget the words used at the Nazi criminals’ trials:

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." - Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals - Nuremberg, Germany 1946

Now, it’s up to us

Falluja: A Name That Lives in Infamy

by Mike Marqusee
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Guardian/UK

One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him."

The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities.

As the siege tightened, the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were kept out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. US sources claimed between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city - which means that the vast majority of the remaining inhabitants were non-combatants.

On November 8, 10,000 US troops, supported by 2,000 Iraqi recruits, equipped with artillery and tanks, supported from the air by bombers and helicopter gunships, blasted their way into a city the size of Leicester. It took a week to establish control of the main roads; another two before victory was claimed.

The city's main hospital was selected as the first target, the New York Times reported, "because the US military believed it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties". An AP photographer described US helicopters killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans."

The US also deployed incendiary weapons, including white phosphorous. "Usually we keep the gloves on," Captain Erik Krivda said, but "for this operation, we took the gloves off". By the end of operations, the city lay in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines.

The US claims that 2,000 died, most of them fighters. Other sources disagree. When medical teams arrived in January they collected more than 700 bodies in only one third of the city. Iraqi NGOs and medical workers estimate between 4,000 and 6,000 dead, mostly civilians - a proportionately higher death rate than in Coventry and London during the blitz.

The collective punishment inflicted on Falluja - with logistical and political support from Britain - was largely masked by the US and British media, which relied on reporters embedded with US troops. The BBC, in particular, offered a sanitized version of the assault: civilian suffering was minimized and the ethics and strategic logic of the attack largely unscrutinized.

Falluja proved to be yet another of the war's phantom turning points. Violent resistance spread to other cities. In the last two months, Tal-Afar, Haditha, Husaybah - all alleged terrorist havens heavily populated by civilians - have come under the hammer. Falluja is still so heavily patrolled that visitors have described it as "a giant prison". Only a fraction of the promised reconstruction and compensation has materialized.

Like Jallianwallah Bagh, Guernica, My Lai, Halabja and Grozny, Falluja is a place name that has become a symbol of unconscionable brutality. As the war in Iraq claims more lives, we need to ensure that this atrocity - so recent, so easily erased from public memory - is recognized as an example of the barbarism of nations that call themselves civilized.

Mike Marqusee is a co-founder of Iraq Occupation Focus.

The Niger Uranium Deception and the "Plame Affair"

An Incomplete Chronology

By GARY LEUPP
November 9, 2005
CounterPunch

I've been working on this timeline obsessively, the way historians do with chronologies. The more detailed they get, the more they clarify the problem. Imperfect though it is let me post it now, with these observations about its meaning.
(1) Officials in the Bush administration intent upon going to war with Iraq made it clear to their own intelligence services and those of close allies that it would welcome any information linking al-Qaeda and Iraq and indicating the Iraq sought to acquire WMD. They made it clear that any material, however questionable, would be of interest to them.
(2) The administration then used this "intelligence," including that specifically doubted by the sources, to build the case for war, attributing it where necessary to foreign sources and implying that the latter had validated it. (The most notable instance of this was President Bush's attribution of the Niger uranium story to Britain. But there were also the stories about a meeting in Prague between an Iraqi agent and Mohammed Atta, attributed to Czech intelligence, and much else.)
(3) Officials also solicited from Iraqi exiles supporting a U.S. invasion of Iraq (especially Ahmad Chalabi) any information which might help justify an attack, and used it without raising questions about its credibility. The aluminum centrifuge story that "Curveball" supplied, for example.
(4) Officials made use of friendly reporters in the U.S. and elsewhere to publish information justifying war with Iraq, assured that their comments would be attributed to unnamed sources in the administration.
(5) The officials then cited in press interviews the very published stories based on what they, or their colleagues, had planted in the press, as rationales for a war on Iraq. In public statements they referred to such reports, and to "intelligence" from foreign intelligence services, as factual information. That's what the Judith Miller Affair's all about. But she's just one complicit figure.
(6) All of this produced resistance in the administration, the CIA, and international community. This is reflected in Powell's refusal to include much material prepared by Douglas Feith in his UN presentations, and the UN's rejection of many administration claims. Powell reportedly fumed in February 2003 on the eve of his infamous UN speech, "I'm not gonna read this bullshit!" But the fact that he gave a thoroughly bogus presentation to the UN, which he now regrets, indicates who had the upper hand within the government.
(7) Officials in the administration sought to punish any persons challenging their disinformation (Annan, ElBaradei, Wilson).
(8) When their disinformation was exposed, those responsible and their allies in the press sought to attach blame for the revealed falsehoods on others (the CIA, France).
(9) The U.S. Congress, and leadership of both parties, have been extremely deferential to those engaging in campaigns of deception, and along with the mainstream press failed ask many questions. Partly this was due to intimidation campaigns. But this is changing, given the course of events.

The inescapable conclusion we must draw is that the Bush administration policy leading into the Iraq War was dominated by officials, grouped under Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular, principally neocons and including Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, Perle, Abrams, Shulsky, Luti, Bolton, Joseph, Hadley, Wurmser, Franklin, Cambone, Ledeen, Card, Hughes, Rhode, Rove and others who as a matter of policy, and without any moral qualms, deliberately practiced deception to build their case for war. They were not duped by conniving Europeans or badly served by incompetent CIA analysts. They were engaging in "psyops," psychological operations, principally against their own people, whom they needed to delude with the most frightening imagery ("a mushroom cloud") to get their job done.

What was that job? Michael Ledeen, a central figure in the Niger uranium scandal, a sophisticated man who writes elegant prose, sums it up nicely: it requires that "Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia" be destabilized, and that "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."

Now those guilty of deception---of foisting the Straussian "noble lies" upon the American people and the world---are involved in a desperate effort to avoid exposure, alarmed that the conventional workings of the American political system (congressional hearings, special prosecutors' investigations, FBI investigations of espionage, reinvigorated investigative journalism, etc.) might not only jeopardize the project but also land the lot of them in jail. In an effort to make them more nervous, I post this chronology, inviting readers to correct and expand it so that it does the job better.

* * * * *
1999
Sometime in 1999: French come to believe someone working abandoned uranium mines; investigate who may be buying smuggled yellowcake.
February: French intelligence agency DGSE (Directorate-General of External Security) delivers a short report to MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, London, about a visit made by Wissam al-Zahawie, Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, to Niger. According to the DGSE, he was alleged to have asked President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara of Niger (assassinated April 1999) to supply Baghdad with yellowcake. French and British believed that following the withdrawal of UN inspectors Saddam might be striving to reconstitute a nuclear program, but would be unable to do so under sanctions.
Information about al-Zahawie visit not passed on to CIA. To do so British would have required French permission, and French felt the intelligence questionable.
[Al-Zahawie, interviewed by Independent on Sunday in London in August 2003, stated he had been "instructed to visit four West African countries (Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin and Congo-Brazzaville) to extend an invitation on behalf of the Iraqi President to their heads of state to visit Baghdad." Saddam Hussein hoped to persuade them to vote to lift sanctions if their representatives ever served on the UN Security Council. Mainassara accepted invitation but was assassinated before he was able to make the visit.]
French intelligence becomes involved with Rocco Martino, a former police officer who had worked for SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare, the Italian intelligence service) between 1976 and 1985, when he was fired. He consults contacts at the Niger embassy in Rome.
Martino contacts old friend Antonio Nucera, a policemen (carabinieri), Deputy Chief of the SISMI center in viale Pasteur in Rome, and chief of the 1st and the 8th divisions (weapons and technology transfers and WMD counterproliferation, respectively, for Africa and the Middle East). Asks for any information about uranium purchases from Niger. Nucera places him in touch with "La Signora," a 60-year-old Italian woman who works at Niger embassy and for Italian intelligence and having financial problems.
Sometime in 1999: Martino stops working as double agent for SISMI (according to Italian Defense Ministry).

2001
January 2: Break-in into the Niger Embassy in Rome. Letterhead and official seals stolen. (La Repubblica investigation in October 2005 alleges that break-in was organized by Antonio Nucera and included Martino, "La Signora," and Nigerien diplomat Zakaria Yaou Maiga.)
[In interview with Il Giornale November 6, 2005, Nucera blames La Signora for forgery scheme. Says she was eager to make money from SISMI and so he introduced her to Rocco. "I thought that she might be interested in cooperating with Rocco . . . It's like when you introduce a bricklayer to a friend who needs him to refurbish his house. I cannot take the blame if, at the end of it, the bricklayer screws everything up."]
January 31: Burglary at home of Niger Embassy official in Rome.
February 24: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell states: "Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capacity with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
September 11: Twin Tower and Pentagon attacks. Bush administration immediately begins preparations for a "pre-emptive" attack upon Iraq.
[October?]: Martino brings documents to CIA station chief at U.S. embassy in Rome. According to former CIA official interviewed by the Washington Post in October 2005, the station chief "saw they were fakes and threw [Martino] out."
October 15: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his newly appointed SISMI chief make official visit to Washington. Berlusconi signals willingness to support U.S. effort to implicate Saddam Hussein in 9/11. Pollari provides CIA officials with dossier indicating that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger and Niger had agreed to send several tons of it to Iraq. Same intelligence passed simultaneously to Britain's MI6. There is little detail in the report and the State Department dismisses it as "highly suspect."
December 1: Michael Ledeen (former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council, and associate of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith) argues in World Jewish Review that perpetual war is the only useful option to ensure the submission of the Muslim World. Declares: "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."
[Ledeen formerly a secret agent of National Security Advisor Robert C. MacFarlane during the Reagan administration, involved in the Iran-Contra affair; associate of Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar; scholarly authority on Machiavelli; resident scholar in American Enterprise Institute and major figure in Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; author of works on Italian fascism in which he evaluates "universal fascism" positively; and longtime advocate of a U.S. attack on Iran.]
Early December: Ledeen organizes meeting in Rome. Involves Ledeen, Pollari, Larry Franklin (Pentagon specialist on Iran), Harold Rhode (Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon), Ghorbanifar, Antonio Martino (Italian Defense Minister), a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, and others. Meeting deals at least in part with regime change in Iran and is not authorized by the U.S. State Department or CIA. [By one report, approved by Deputy National Security Advisor (chief deputy to Condoleezza Rice) Stephen J. Hadley.]
December 12: U.S. ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler learns of meeting during a dinner with Ledeen and Martino and thereafter reports it to CIA. CIA is concerned about Ledeen's dealings and reports the matter to Hadley.
Late 2001-early 2002: CIA chief George Tenet later says U.S. found "fragmentary evidence" of Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger at this time.

2002
2002-early 2003: Vice President Dick Cheney, sometimes accompanied by his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, visits CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia "approximately 10" times to discuss their work on intelligence pertaining to Iraq. Some analysts later complain visits made them feel pressured to provide the administration with conclusions supporting the case for war.
[February?] Pollari discusses Rome meeting with CIA chief George Tenet.
Early February: Tenet visits Hadley, discusses Ledeen's Rome meeting. Hadley instructs Feith's office to end Ledeen's dealings with Ghorbanifar.
February 12: Cheney receives from Pollari and Berlusconi expanded version of the unconfirmed Italian report. Says Iraq's then-ambassador to the Vatican had led a mission to Niger in 1999 and sealed a deal for the purchase of 500 tons of uranium in July 2000. Cheney's subordinate (including John Hannah and Libby) discusses them, and Cheney either requests a CIA investigation, or is at least believed by the CIA to have done so.
February 12: Defense Intelligence Agency reports Iraq "probably" looking for uranium for a nuclear weapons program.
February 12: Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative working in the Counterproliferation Division, sends a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] [of Niger] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."
February 13: Operations official cables an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson.
February 26: The CIA sends Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate whether Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium. Meets with Niger's former minister of mines, Mai Manga, who declares "there were no sales outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) channels since the mid-1980s," and that he "knew of no contracts signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of uranium." Manga stated 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." (Senate Intelligence Committee Report, July 2004)
March 1: Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) sends memorandum to Secretary of State Colin Powell stating claims about Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger are not credible.
March 5: Returning from Niger, Wilson briefs two CIA agents in his home. Wife present but does not participate. Tells CIA and State Department that there is no basis for claims that Iraqi has tried to purchase uranium from Niger and that documents (which Wilson had never seen) indicating such must have been forged.
March 8-9: CIA circulates a report on Wilson's trip---without identifying him---to the White House and other agencies. CIA ranks information "good" (ranking 3 on a scale of 5).
March 22: Peter Ricketts, the British Foreign Office's political director, writes in memo to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw: "[E]ven the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile, or chemical weapons/biological weapons fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up."
June: second meeting between Ghorbanifar, Rhode and Defense Department officials (in Paris).
Summer 2002: White House Iraq Group assigns Communications Director James R. Wilkinson to prepare a white paper for public release, describing the "grave and gathering danger" of Iraq's "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program. Wilkinson report claims Iraq "sought uranium oxide, an essential ingredient in the enrichment process, from Africa."
July: Ledeen contacts Sembler, tells him he plans to be in Rome in September to continue "his work" with Ghorbanifar. Sembler informs Hadley, who instructs Ledeen not to deal with Iranians.
July 23: "Downing Street memo" authored by Tony Blair's secretary Matthew Rycroft states that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of war with Iraq in Washington.
August: White House Iraq Group founded to coordinate campaign for war with Iraq. Operates out of Cheney's office, chaired by Karl Rove. Includes Libby, Andrew Card, Mary Matalin, James R. Wilkinson, Nicholas E. Calio and Karen Hughes. Meet twice weekly in White House Situation Room. (May have funneled disinformation provided by Ahmad Chalabi to Judith Miller and others in U.S. press.)
August: Pollari contacts Ledeen, who soon establishes himself as the liaison between SISMI and the Office of Special Plans.
August 26: Cheney states, "we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weaponsMany of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon."
September: British intelligence informs CIA it plans to include the uranium allegation in a forthcoming report about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
September: Office of Special Plans established in Department of Defense, out of Northern Gulf Affairs Office, by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Serves as an alternative body to the CIA collecting "intelligence" in support of war with Iraq. Headed by William Luti, former naval officer and Cheney aide, answers to Douglas Feith. Staff of 16, including Abram Shulsky, Larry Franklin, Stephen A. Cambone, and Ledeen.
Contacts in other agencies include: John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International; Bolton's advisor, David Wurmser, a former research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute, who was just recently working in a secret Pentagon planning unit at Feith's office; Elizabeth Cheney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs; Hadley, Elliott Abrams, National Security Council's top Middle East aide; Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, former CIA Director James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Policy Board.
September 4: Ledeen editorializes in Wall Street Journal, "The War on Terror Won't End in Baghdad:" "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."
September 7: Judith Miller and Michael R. Gordan publish NYT article on the interception of metal tubes bound for Iraq, depicting them as centrifuges for a nuclear weapons program. Front page story quotes unnamed "American officials" and "American intelligence experts" who said the tubes were intended to be used to enrich nuclear material. Cites unnamed "Bush administration officials" who claimed that in recent months, Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb." Says "Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war." Rice, Powell and Rumsfeld all cite this information as basis for going to war with Iraq.
Many in intelligence community skeptical of claims.
September 8: Cheney tells NBC's "Meet the Press:" "And what we've seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest ... is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium -- specifically, aluminum tubes." Cites Miller's September 7 piece.
September 8: Rice tells CNN's "Late Edition," "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." [Washington Post later (August 10, 2003) suggests "The escalation of nuclear rhetoric a year ago, including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud' into the debate, coincided with the formation of a White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a task force assigned to 'educate the public' about the threat from Hussein, as a participant put it."] Cites Miller's September 7 piece.
Rice says aluminum tubes Iraq sought to purchase "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."
September 9: According to later (October 2005) Repubblica account, Pollari meets secretly in Washington with Rice, Hadley, and other U.S. and Italian officials, in a meeting which may have been set up by Ledeen. (Rice spokesman Frederick Jones tells New York Times November 28, 2005 that meeting only a "courtesy call" lasting 15 minutes, and no one present can recall Niger uranium being discussed.) Some reports indicate a second meeting between Pollari and Hadley on the same day arranged through backchannels by Gianni Castellaneta, Berlusconi's diplomatic advisor,
September 12: President Bush delivers a speech to the United Nations calling on the organization to enforce its resolutions for disarming Iraq, implies that if the United Nations does not act, the United States will.
September 16: Baghdad announces that it will allow arms inspectors to return "without conditions." U.S. to press Security Council to approve a new UN resolution calling for Iraq to give weapons inspectors unfettered access and authorizing the use of force if Iraq does not comply.
September: Congress authorizes Bush to wage war on Iraq. President had based his case on National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs prepared in August by the Director of Central Intelligence.
September 24: British government report states, "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants, and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium." Also says Iraq has chemical and biological weapons "deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them," and "constructed a new engine test stand for the development of missiles capable of reaching the UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus and NATO members (Greece and Turkey), as well as all Iraq's Gulf neighbours and Israel"
September/October: U.S. intelligence officials tell Senate committees they doubt the British report regarding the Iraq/uranium claim.
October 1: CIA sends 90-plus page dossier on Iraq to the White House. Italian report about a possible Iraqi effort to acquire yellowcake from Niger is not included in "Key Judgments" section, and is mentioned only in footnotes to Annex A and labeled "highly dubious."
Early October: A classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) states: "A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons" of uranium to Iraq and "Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake [lightly processed uranium ore]." Adds, "reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources." Contains State Department INR dissent which characterizes "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa" are "highly dubious." Condoleezza Rice does not read dissent.
October 5: CIA sends memorandum to Hadley and White House speechwriter Michael Gerson, asking them to remove a line in October 7 Bush speech in Cincinnati referring to Iraq's attempted purchase of "500 metric tons of uranium oxide fromAfrica." (Hadley will later claim in July 2003 that he did not brief Rice on the memo.)
October 6: CIA sends memorandum to the White House providing additional detail about the Iraq uranium claim and noting the U.S. Intelligence Community's differences with Britain over the intelligence. The rewritten sentence: "[T]he regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa" removed from speech.
October 7: In Cincinnati, Bush uses final rewrite of sentence and declares, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun---that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
October: Marino presents DGSE with documents which appeared to show that Niger had signed a deal in July 2000 to supply Iraq with yellowcake-similar to the story Italian intelligence had told the CIA. The DGSE rejects the documents as fake.
October: Martino offers the documents for $15,000 to Elisabetta Burba, Italian journalist with Panorama magazine (owned by Berlusconi). Burba receives a cache of letters and other papers supposed to be correspondence between Niger officials and Iraqis seeking to acquire uranium yellowcake from Martino, but questions its authenticity and does not publish it.
October 9: Burba delivers papers to the U.S. embassy in Rome. Embassy sends to Washington, D.C.
Oct. 15: The CIA receives the first of three top-secret reports from SISMI indicating that Niger planned to ship tons of uranium ore, or yellowcake, to Iraq.
Mid-October: (According to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, July 17, 2003) State Department acquires documents about the Iraq-Niger uranium deal and shares them with "all the appropriate agencies." (But "a senior administration official" claimed July 18, 2003 that the CIA did not receive the documents until February 2003.)
November 8: Under U.S. pressure UNSC approves Resolution 1441; UN inspectors return to Iraq.
November 22: French finally tell Americans about their original 1999 intelligence, say they are certain that Iraq had tried and failed to obtain yellowcake.
December 7: Iraq gives UN weapons inspectors extensive declaration of the history of its WMD programs and their destruction.
December 19: Fact sheet not cleared by State Department intelligence bureau but subsequently (April 29, 2003) represented as "developed jointly by the CIA and Defense Department" charges Iraq with omitting its "efforts to procure uranium from Niger" from its December 7 declaration.
December 19: IAEA makes a formal request to U.S. to see any "actionable information" behind the uranium allegation so it can investigate.

2003
Early January 2003: Pollari (according to his account in November 2005) personally warns the CIA that the Niger documents are fake.
January: Hannah and Libby main authors of a 48-page draft speech intended to make the administration's case for war in Iraq before the United Nations. Draft provided to Powell, in advance of his UNSC speech Feb. 5. Powell and Tenet discard most of its contents about Iraq's weapons programs as exaggerated and unwarranted.
January: Debate between CIA and White House officials about whether or not to include the story about Niger uranium in President Bush's State of the Union address. National Security Council staff member and Stephen Hadley subordinate Robert Joseph (Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense) approves inclusion if report is attributed to British intelligence. Alan Foley, director of the DCI's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control, questions intelligence but agrees with final draft of the speech.
January 20: President Bush submits a report to Congress stating Iraq omitted "attempts to acquire uranium" from its December 7 declaration to the UN.
January 23: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice writes in The New York Times that Iraq's declaration "fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad." A White House report issued the same day asserts that Iraq's weapons declaration "ignores efforts to procure uranium from abroad."
January 24: National Security Council staff puts out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs. Robert Walpole, national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, receives request. Later tells investigators "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released in 2002 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
January 26: Powell asks, "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?" during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
January 27: IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei tells the UN Security Council that IAEA inspectors "have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s."
January 28: President Bush asserts that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" during his State of the Union address.
January 29: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld states in a press briefing that Iraq "recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
January 29: IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei tells Washington Post: "Niger denied [the Iraq uranium purchase claim], Iraq denied it, and we haven't seen any contracts." Also discounts the aluminum tubes claim.
February 1-4: Powell rehearses the speech he is to give at the UN
February 5. Cheney staff insists he "link Iraq directly to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington" and include the allegation that Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer in 2001. Powell's staff rejects much of the content of the drafted speech.
At one point, Powell reportedly says, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."
February 4: State Department officials give the IAEA the information the agency requested about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Niger, telling the agency that it "cannot confirm these reports and [has] questions regarding some specific claims."
February 5: Powell presents evidence, based on U.S. intelligence, about Iraq's prohibited weapons programs to the UN Security Council. (Almost all of this subsequently disproved.) He does not mention Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa.
February 14: ElBaradei reports to the Security Council that "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear related activities in Iraq."
February 14: IAEA makes a preliminary finding that the Niger documents are forgeries, based on the identification of several crude errors.
February: Retired Iraqi diplomat Zahawie, now living in Jordan, receives an urgent call from the Iraqi embassy in Amman, calling him to the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad as soon as possible. Arriving in Baghdad, he is interviewed by UN inspectors who inquire about his visit to Niger in 1999 and ask if he had signed a letter on July 6, 2000 to Niger regarding the sale of uranium to Iraq. Replies: "I said absolutely not, and if they had seen such a letter it must surely be a forgery. . . I have never been involved in any secret negotiations. I am willing to co-operate with anyone who wants to see me and find out more."
March: Hounded by accusations of improper business dealings including profiteering over security contracts, Richard Perle resigns as chairman of Defense Policy Board. Writes to Rumsfeld, "As I cannot quickly or easily quell criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my activities, the least I can do under these circumstances is to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the Defense Policy Board." (Later leaves DPB altogether.)
March 7: ElBaradei formally reports to UN that the documents are forgeries.
March 7: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on NBC's "Meet the Press" denies "any falsification activities" by U.S. government and states, "It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine." U.S. maintains there is additional evidence provided by a second foreign government [Italy] aside from Britain. [But in April 29, 2003 letter to Senate Intelligence Panel Democrats assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs Paul V. Kelly says, "Not until March 4 did we learn that in fact the second Western European government had based its assessment on the evidence already available to the U.S. that was subsequently discredited."]
March 14: Sen. Rockefeller (West Va.) sends letter to Director Mueller requesting an investigation into the origin of the Niger documents.
March 19: U.S. invasion of Iraq begins.
April 21: Judith Miller reports in NYT that an unnamed Iraqi scientist unavailable for interview by reporters has told U.S. authorities that on the eve of the U.S. invasion, Saddam's regime "destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment" and that U.S. investigators had visited the site of destruction, and confirmed the scientist's story. Also says "Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's" and states that "more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda. Miller says this may be "the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons" and quotes Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, as saying "it may be the major discovery."
May 6: Nicholas Kristof publishes an article in New York Times mentioning that a claim central to Bush's war rationale had been investigated by a former ambassador to an African country and rejected.
May 23: Senators Roberts and Rockefeller send a letter to the CIA and State Department Inspectors General to review issues related to the Niger documents.
May 29: Libby asks Undersecretary of State John Bolton, and Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, for information about news report about CIA's secret envoy to Africa in 2002. Grossman requests a classified memo from Carl Ford, the director of the State Department's intelligence bureau, and later orally briefs Libby on its contents. Frederick Fleitz, Bolton's chief of staff and concurrently a senior CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control official, supplies Bolton with Plame's identity. Bolton passes this to Wurmser, who supplies it to Hannah. On receiving this information, Libby asks Bolton for a report on Wilson's trip to Niger, which Wilson presented orally to the CIA upon his return.
By June: When no evidence for a nuclear program is found, officials blame "flawed intelligence" and the CIA. CIA reorganization planned.
June: Washington Post publishes list of the people whom Karl Rove regularly consults for advice outside the administration. Foreign policy veterans shocked to find Michael Ledeen the only full-time international affairs analyst. Quotes Ledeen as saying that Rove had told him "any time you have a good idea, tell me." According to Post: "More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric."
June 2: Sen. Rockefeller issues a press release endorsing a statement made of the previous weekend by Senator Warner calling for a joint SSCI/SASC investigation into Niger document forgeries.
June 4: Senator Rockefeller issues a press release saying he would push for an investigation. Senator Roberts issues a press release saying calls for an investigation are premature.
June 9: Classified CIA documents on Wilson's trip are sent to Libby's office.
June 10: Sen. Rockefeller sends a letter to Senator Roberts asking for an investigation.
June 11: All Intelligence Committee Democrats sign a letter to Sen. Roberts asking for a meeting of the Committee to discuss the question of authorizing an inquiry into the intelligence that formed the basis for going to war.
June 11: Sen. Roberts issues a press release saying this is routine committee oversight, and that criticism of the intelligence community is unwarranted. Senator Rockefeller issues a press release calling the ongoing review inadequate.
June 11: Two government officials tell Libby that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and is believed responsible for sending him on the trip.
June 12: Cheney himself tells Libby that Valerie Plame works in the CIA's counter-proliferation division.
June: Discussions involving Libby, Cheney counsel David Addington, Hannah, Cheney press secretary Catherine Martin and other White House officials, about whether Wilson-Plame information could be shared with reporters.
June: Ghorbanifar-Rhode meeting in Paris.
June 8: Rice tells NBC's "Meet the Press," "The president quoted a British paper [about the African uranium story]. We did not know at the time-no one knew at the time, in our circles-maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."
June: Office of Special Plans closed down [?]
June 9: Classified CIA documents on Wilson's trip are sent to Libby's office.
June 11: Two government officials tell Libby that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and is believed responsible for sending him on the trip.
June 12: Cheney himself tells Libby that Valerie Plame works in the CIA's counter-proliferation division.
June 12: Walter Pincus in the Washington Post provides more details about Wilson trip without mentioning his name.
June 14: Libby meets with a CIA briefer and discusses the Wilsons.
Mid-June: Powell and his deputy secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy of the Grossman memo.
June 19: After New Republic reports that Cheney's office had sent Wilson to Niger, Libby and his then-principal deputy, Eric Edelman, discuss whether to leak the details of the trip to the press to rebut the article. Libby tells Edelman "there would be complications at the CIA" from disclosing the information.
June 23: "Scooter" Libby discusses Wilson with Judith Miller of the New York Times, mentions wife "might work at a bureau of the CIA." Miller notes say "...Libby discussed Mr. Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the C.I.A."
July 6: Joseph Wilson's op-ed piece in the New York Times; says, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
July 7: British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee issues a report on British dossier on Iraq, noting that CIA had informed British intelligence that Niger uranium documents were a hoax in 2002.
July 7: Libby tells president's press secretary that it's not widely known that Plame works for CIA.
July 8: Libby meets again with Miller at St. Regis Hotel in Washington, discusses Plame.
July 8: Administration retracts Niger allegation. White House announces, "We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged." CIA Director Tenet and other White House officials say Bush's reference to African uranium should not have been included in his State of the Union address.
July 9: Cheney's office faxed classified information about Wilson trip from CIA.
July: Rove discusses Wilson and wife with Cooper.
July: Rove tells Libby about his conversation with columnist Robert Novak, and says that Novak will publish an article mentioning Plame.
July 12: Rove, Libby, Hadley and Tenet coordinate their responses to Wilson piece. Libby calls Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to discuss Wilson and his wife.
Summer: Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asks CIA about the Ghorbanifar-Ledeen-Department of Defense meetings.
Summer: Newsday breaks the story about the December 2001 Rome meeting involving Ledeen, Rhode, Ghorbanifar, Pollari, etc.
July 14: Novak questions Wilson's motives in going public about his Niger visit, citing two "senior administration officials" names Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative." Suggests that nepotism is "the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA."
July 7: During flight to Africa, Rice agrees to appear on the Sunday shows to "protect Cheney by explaining that he had had nothing to do with sending Wilson to Niger, and dismiss the yellowcake issue."
July 14-16: Daily Telegraph, Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine all accuse France of not allowing MI6 to share intelligence affirming Niger uranium purchase effort more credible than that contained in the forged documents.
July 16: David Corn of the Nation points out that Novak's naming of Plame "would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated her entire career."
July 16: In Rome, Niger's ambassador to Italy says no one from her country's diplomatic corps had created any fabrication, and that Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja had met with Bush the previous week to tell him that.
July: Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) demands an investigation of the Plame Affair.
July 18: News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone claims Wilson "lied" in his NYT op-ed piece.
July 21: Bush and Rice meet with Berlusconi in Crawford, Texas.
July 22: Bush's communications director Dan Bartlett calls an unusual press conference to brief reporters on uranium charge. Hadley takes the blame, saying he had forgotten about CIA objections when including the charge in the state of the union speech. Some speculate he is taking the blame in lieu of Robert Joseph. Rice turns down Hadley's offer to resign.
July 27: Niger's prime minister Hama Hamadou interviewed by The Telegraph, says his government had never had discussions with Iraq about uranium and called on Tony Blair to produce the "evidence" he claims to have to confirm that Iraq sought uranium from Niger in the 1990s.
July 30: CIA reports to Justice Department a possible offense "concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information."
August: CIA completes an 11-question form detailing the potential damage done.
August 3: Sunday Telegraph reports that that Herman Cohen, former assistant secretary of state for Africa, had visited President Mamadou Tandja the previous week and warned him to keep silent on the Iraq uranium purchase story. Quotes a senior Niger government official as saying there was a "clear attempt to stop any more embarrassing stories coming out of Niger." He says Washington's warning would likely to be heeded: "Mr. Cohen did not spell it out but everybody in Niger knows what the consequences of upsetting America or Britain would be. We are the world's second-poorest country and we depend on international trade to survive."
September: Tenet memo raises questions about whether the leakers had violated federal law.
September: The Washington Post reports that at least six journalists had been told of the Plame story before Novak's column appeared.
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says that "[i]f anyone in this administration is involved in [the leak], they would no longer be in this administration."
The Justice Department launches a probe of the leak.
September: UK parliamentary report on prewar intelligence. Claims that "The SIS [Special Intelligence Service] stated that the documents did not affect its judgment of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgment and conclude that it is reasonable." ["Second source" apart from the Italian cache apparently the French report about the 1999 Iraqi visit to Niger.]
September: After press reports quoting Sen. Roberts as saying the Intelligence Committee investigation was almost over, Sen. Rockefeller sends a letter to Roberts urging him not to rush to complete the investigation prematurely. Wants to focus on administration use of "flawed intelligence" in the buildup to war.
September 14: in interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney says he had no knowledge of how Wilson was sent to Niger: "He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back. I don't know Mr. Wilson. I've never met Joe Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him." "I don't know who sent Joe Wilson. I have no idea who hired him." Says he didn't even know Wilson had a wife. Denies any administration effort to discredit him.
September 29: Justice Department lawyers notified then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales at about 8 p.m. that the investigation had begun. Gonzales (now attorney general) later claims he alerted Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. at once.
Early October: Karl Rove calls MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and tells him Valerie Plame is "fair game." White House spokesman Scott McClellan tells reporters it was "totally ridiculous" to suspect Rove had a role in outing Plame.
October 7: Bush says, "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there's [sic] a lot of senior officials."
October 8: Rove interviewed by FBI, denies having leaked Plame's name, says only mentioned it to reporters after Novak's column had appeared. Says administration enlisted conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to leak disparaging information about Plame. [Nearly a year after this Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, contacts Fitzgerald to say that Rove had recalled the conversation he'd had with Cooper about Plame-Wilson and her husband, Joseph. It was only after Cooper had been forced to testify about his conversation with Rove in summer of 2005 that Rove recalled the interview, even though the conversation had taken place in July 2000]
October 10: Asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters, McClellan says he has spoken with Libby, Rove and Elliott Abrams, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."
October 14: Senator Tom Daschle asks CIA director George Tenet to conduct a damage assessment for the leak.
October 15: New York Times reports that senior criminal prosecutors and FBI officials have criticized the Attorney General's failure to recuse himself or appoint a special counsel.
October 17: David S. Cloud from the Wall Street Journal is the first to mention (other than Novak) the existence of the 2002 CIA memo that purports to show that Plame recommended Wilson for the Niger mission.
December 14: British newspaper The Telegraph reports it has "exclusively" obtained copy of memo written to Saddam Hussein by Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, dated July 1, 2001, detailing a three-day "work programme" Atta had undertaken at Abu Nidal's base in Baghdad, and including a section entitled "Niger Shipment," including a report about an unspecified shipment (which Telegraph says is "believed to be uranium") that has been transported to Iraq via Libya and Syria. (Appears to remarkably verify all main Bush administration contentions about the reasons to attack Iraq, but a probable forgery.)
December 30: Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself from case because of close personal relationships with principals; Patrick Fitzgerald is named special prosecutor in the case.

2004
January: Grand jury in Plame case begins hearing testimony.
February 10: Several White House officials asked to sign waivers requesting that "no member of the news media assert any privilege or refuse to answer any questions from federal law enforcement authorities on my behalf or for my benefit." Miller's lawyers receive waiver from Libby.
March 5: Libby testifies before grand jury, says he learned Plame's name from reporters.
March 26: Libby testifies again before grand jury.
March: Senate Intelligence Committee chair Roberts says of any investigation of the Office of Special Plans: "It's basically on the back burner. The bottom line is that [the White House] believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong."
June 10: Bush tells reporter "yes" when asked if he would "stand by your pledge to fire anyone" that leaked Plame's name.
July 9: "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq" released by Senate Intelligence Committee.
Blames CIA for "a series of failures, particularly in analytic tradecraft" that "led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence" on Iraq's WMDs. Includes 48 pages on the Niger uranium story; says Niger's former prime minister Ibrahim Mayaki had met an Iraqi delegation expecting to discuss uranium but had avoided the subject. Says CIA viewed Wilson's report as showing that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, while the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) believed it backed its their assessment that Niger was unwilling and unable to sell uranium to Iraq.
Chair Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) delays Phase II of investigation (examination of administration use of intelligence) until after November election.
July 14: Mayaki denies U.S. Senate report that he met with an Iraqi delegation seeking to buy uranium in 1999. Says "I think this could be easily verified by the Western intelligence services and by the authorities in Niger."
July 14: Butler Report released in the UK. States: "We have been told that it was not until early 2003 that the British Government became aware that the US (and other states) had received from a journalistic source a number of documents alleged to cover the Iraqi procurement of uranium from Niger. Those documents were passed to the IAEA, which in its update report to the United Nations Security Council in March 2003 determined that the papers were forgeries ... The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it."
August 1-2: Sunday Times and Financial Times both report that Rocco Martino says he was the source of the false stories and documents related to Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium from Niger. Says he did so for profit after learning of keen French interest in preventing unauthorized sale of uranium from French-owned uranium mines in Niger.
Also states U.S. and Italian governments were behind disinformation operation. "It's true, I had a hand in the dissemination of those (Niger uranium) documents, but I was duped. Both Americans and Italians were involved behind the scenes. It was a disinformation operation."
August 12 and August 20: grand jury subpoenas issued to Judith Miller and NYT.
August 27: CBS News breaks story of FBI investigation of possible spy for Israel (Larry Franklin) working in Defense Department as Iran specialist under Feith and Wolfowitz. [Franklin a member of the Ledeen team meeting with Italians and Iranians in Rome December 2001, as well as an Office of Special Plans operative.]
September 2: CBS bumps a half-hour segment on Niger document forgeries from its prime-time "60 Minutes" broadcast in favor of one concerning Bush's National Guard service.
October 15: Rove testifies for two hours before grand jury.
November 2: George W. Bush re-elected as U.S. president.
November: Rice made Secretary of State, replacing Powell; Hadley new National Security Advisor.
December: U.S. campaigns against third term for ElBaradei as IAEA chief, ostensibly because UN officials do not normally serve out three terms. (U.S. approach Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as replacement but he and other possible candidates decline to challenge ElBaradei.)
December 12: Washington Post reports that three U.S. government officials have told them that the Bush administration has intercepted dozens of ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and has been scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

2005
March 31: Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction issues its Report to the President of the United States. States pertaining to nuclear weapons program allegations that (1) aluminum tubes assessment was "poor analytical tradecraft;" (2) "other streams" of intelligence relating to nuclear program "very thin;" (3) "other indications of reconstitution" also "did not themselves amount to a persuasive case;" and (4) "the Intelligence Community failed to authenticate in a timely fashion transparently forged documents" relating to the alleged Niger connection.
April 12: Al Jazeera reports, "When the former CIA head of counter-terrorism [Vincent Cannistaro] was asked if a Michael Ledeen had been the one who produced the Iraq documents he said 'You'd be very close.'"
April 29: Wolfowitz, nominated by Bush in January to head World Bank, leaves Defense Department.
May 1: The London Sunday Times publishes the secret "Downing Secret Memo."
May 3: FBI files criminal espionage charges against Franklin.
May 17: White House press secretary Scott McClellan says accusations stemming from the "Downing Street Memo" that intelligence was "being fixed" to support a policy of regime change in Iraq are "flat out wrong."
June: Supreme Court refuses to hear appeals from New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper to avoid testifying before the grand jury.
June: Despite U.S. campaign against him, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei elected to a third term as IAEA Director General.
June 21: Wolfowitz becomes head of the World Bank.
July: Cooper testifies before the grand jury, after his source releases him from a confidentiality pledge.
July 6: Miller jailed for contempt; says she wants to protect the identity of source(s) who leaked Plame's name to her.
[before September 5]: John Bolton among those visiting Miller in prison.
July 7: Bush tells reporters that if anyone in his administration committed a crime in connection with the leak, that person "will no longer work in my administration."
July: Italian parliamentary report on the forged Niger uranium documents. Names four men as the likely forgers of the documents: Michael Ledeen, Dewey Clarridge (CIA operative involved in Iran-Contra Affair), Ahmed Chalabi and Francis Brookes (member of a "public relations" body formed by the Pentagon engaged to promote Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress). Suggests forgeries may have been planned at December 2001 Rome meeting involving Ledeen, Franklin.
Late July: Italian government receives a letter from Robert Mueller, the director of the FBI, expressing the highest appreciation for Italy for its cooperation with the investigation of the Niger document forgeries.
August 1: Bolton appointed temporary U.S. ambassador to UN after Congress refuses to confirm him. Campaigns for UNSC condemnation of Syria and Iran.
August 4: Robert Novak walks off CNN's "Inside Politics" set after uttering expletive. Host Ed Henry had planned to ask him about the Plame leak issue. CNN suspends Novak.
August 8: Douglas Feith steps down, leaves Defense Department.
September 29: Miller is released from jail after 85 days behind bares and testifies before the grand jury. She says her source has "voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality." Recalls and submits notes from June 23, 2003 conversation with Libby.
October: Italian newspaper La Repubblica publishes exposé on forged Niger documents.
October 12: Miller questioned by grand jury. Says "cannot recall" who gave her Plame's name, but says it wasn't Libby.
October 14: Rove testifies before grand jury for the fourth time.
Oct. 17: In a press conference, President Bush declines to say whether he would remove an aide under indictment.
October: ElBaradei and the IAEA jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Widely interpreted as a statement against U.S. efforts to manipulate intelligence to attack Iraq, Iran.
October 18: Neocon publication The Weekly Standard features article by staff writer Stephen F. Hayes claiming the "narrative constructed to date by the mainstream media" surrounding the Plame investigation is "very misleading." Says CIA interpreted Wilson's report as supportive of the charge that Iraq sought yellowcake from Niger, and that administrations had not targeted Wilson and his wife for punishment.
On MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Matthews describes Hayes' article as a "brilliant piece," says Hayes is "a great reporter, and. . .probably right in every regard."
October 19: Powell tells prominent Republican senator that Cheney had become "fixated" on the relationship between Wilson and his wife after he and Bush learned about it directly from Powell.
October 23: UPI editor Martin Walker cites "NATO intelligence sources" as saying, "Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair.... This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated."
October 28: Fitzgerald indicts Libby. Libby resigns and is replaced by John Hannah as Cheney's chief of staff.
October 28: Bush in speech on terrorism in Norfolk, Va. again states that Iraq posed a threat before invasion because it was pursuing nuclear weapons.
October 31: Berlusconi, accused of urging Italian intelligence to help U.S. build case for war on Iraq, tells Italian press that he had in fact argued against war with Iraq. Former Bush advisor and "Axis of Evil" speech writer neocon David Frum declares Bush "no longer trusts" Berlusconi on eve of his visit to Washington.
October 31: After meeting with Bush in Washington, Berlusconi tells Italian reporters, "Bush himself confirmed to me that the U.S.A. did not have any information [about alleged uranium sales from Niger to Iraq] from Italian [intelligence] agencies." No joint press conference following the meeting.
October 31: Writing in National Review Online, Ledeen calls for action against Iran, urges "our dithering leaders" to "resume fighting the war against terror, a war currently limited, to their shame, to a defensive struggle within the boundaries of Iraq, while they move against us on a global scale. Faster, please."
November 1: Rumsfeld tells Pentagon reporters he does not recall talking to Vice President Dick Cheney about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame and is not aware of any involvement in the matter by the Defense Department. But says with a department of hundreds of thousands of people, he couldn't be sure.
November 2: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid declares: "The record will. . .show that in the months and years after 9/11, the Administration engaged in a pattern of manipulation of the facts and retribution against anyone who got in its way as it made the case for attacking Iraq." Criticizes Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Roberts for foot-dragging on Phase II of the investigation into pre-war intelligence, intended to investigate Bush administration use or misuse of intelligence. Calls for closed-door session of the Senate; Senate agrees that each party will named three senators to an informal task force to decide by Nov. 14 how to proceed.
November 5: Senate Intelligence Committee's staff director, Bill Duhnke, says that Roberts' position is that "no way is staff going to pass judgment about members of Congress or the president" pertaining to their use of intelligence. Democrats disagree.
November 6: Sen. Roberts reiterates that his panel had found no evidence of "political manipulation or pressure" in the use of intelligence before the Iraq War.
November 7: Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), former head of Senate Intelligence Committee tells Miami Herald he believes Cheney was a "conspirator" in the effort to discredit Wilson. Says "yes" when asked if he believed Bush administration lied about Iraq intelligence before the war.
November 7: In his National Review Online column, Ledeen implies that France responsible for Niger forgeries, claims French President Jacques Chirac wanted to embarrass the Clinton administration in power at the time they were forged and help Saddam Hussein.
* * * * *
In his Universal Fascism (1995), Ledeen wrote, "In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.' This is the chilling insight that has made Machiavelli so feared, admired and challenging... [W]e [ordinary people] are rotten.... It's true that we can achieve greatness if, and only if, we are properly led."
Properly led, that is, by wise leaders appropriately promoting "noble lies" to get the job done.
Ledeen told the American Enterprise Institute on March 27, 2003, when only about 60 U.S. troops had died in Iraq:
"I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. . . . What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue."
But 20 months and 2000 dead Americans later, Americans know the war hasn't gone well. They tire of Straussian "noble lies" and that "entering into evil" that Ledeen and other fascists find so admirable and challenging. Casualties have indeed become the issue. So may those responsible be well and properly led into top-security penitentiaries like their mid-20th century forebears.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion.