An Interesting Time Line
Back in June, I posted a time line on the lead-up to the war in Iraq. The events of the last couple of weeks in connection with the "Plame Affair" has prompted me to tweak that time line a little to see if any interesting patterns emerge. Here it is.
1999
Mickey Herskowitz was selected to ghost-write candidate George W. Bush's autobiography during the campaign.
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”
9/2001
Richard Clark told CBS news that within days after 9/11, the Administration wanted to lash out at Iraq:
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.
2/2002
Joseph Wilson goes to Africa to determine whether or not Niger was selling yellow cake uranium to Iraq at the request of the CIA.
5/2002
Bombing by the RAF and USAF is increased significantly, according to a memo leaked by The Times of London:
The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown. The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
7/2002
The Downing Street Memo is prepared summarizing recent talk between the US and UK:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
1/2003
The President delivers the State of the Union Address on 1/28/03:
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
3/2003
President Bush announces the start of the Iraq War on 3/19/03:
Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.
7/2003
Joe Wilson publishes an op-ed piece in The New York Times on 7/6/03. In that column, he indicates that there was no credible evidence of uranium sales by Niger to Iraq. His conclusions are based in part on his 2/2002 visit to Africa.
On 7/14/03, Robert Novak publishes a column about the now debunked claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger and in which he names Wilson's wife as a CIA operative:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
So, there you have it. Remember, the initial reason for going to war against Iraq was to forcibly remove weapons of mass destruction from the arsenal of Saddam Hussein. We learned from the Downing Street Memo that the administration was determined to go to war, so determined that facts would be fixed around the WMD rationale. Wilson not only refused to fix the facts, he also published a column in which he openly stated that the Niger-Iraq story was bogus. Many people (including me) believe that the outing of his wife was retaliation for that column.
Whether any administration official gets convicted of any charge in connection with the outing of Valerie Plame remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that this administration operates arrogantly and corruptly.
1999
Mickey Herskowitz was selected to ghost-write candidate George W. Bush's autobiography during the campaign.
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”
9/2001
Richard Clark told CBS news that within days after 9/11, the Administration wanted to lash out at Iraq:
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.
2/2002
Joseph Wilson goes to Africa to determine whether or not Niger was selling yellow cake uranium to Iraq at the request of the CIA.
5/2002
Bombing by the RAF and USAF is increased significantly, according to a memo leaked by The Times of London:
The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown. The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
7/2002
The Downing Street Memo is prepared summarizing recent talk between the US and UK:
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
1/2003
The President delivers the State of the Union Address on 1/28/03:
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
3/2003
President Bush announces the start of the Iraq War on 3/19/03:
Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.
7/2003
Joe Wilson publishes an op-ed piece in The New York Times on 7/6/03. In that column, he indicates that there was no credible evidence of uranium sales by Niger to Iraq. His conclusions are based in part on his 2/2002 visit to Africa.
On 7/14/03, Robert Novak publishes a column about the now debunked claim that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger and in which he names Wilson's wife as a CIA operative:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
So, there you have it. Remember, the initial reason for going to war against Iraq was to forcibly remove weapons of mass destruction from the arsenal of Saddam Hussein. We learned from the Downing Street Memo that the administration was determined to go to war, so determined that facts would be fixed around the WMD rationale. Wilson not only refused to fix the facts, he also published a column in which he openly stated that the Niger-Iraq story was bogus. Many people (including me) believe that the outing of his wife was retaliation for that column.
Whether any administration official gets convicted of any charge in connection with the outing of Valerie Plame remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that this administration operates arrogantly and corruptly.
posted by Diane at 10:04 AM
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