How Iraqi Defector CURVEBALL Became Basis For US Claims That Iraq Had WMD

During the 1990s the U.S. suspected that Iraq had continued with its biological weapons (BW) programs after the Gulf War. In 2000, an Iraqi defector codenamed CURVEBALL told the German intelligence service that Baghdad was still working on its WMD and had built seven mobile labs to produce them. This became the basis for the Americans’ assertion that Iraq not only restarted its program, but that it was larger than before 1991.  

BBC VIDEO: The Spies Who Fooled The World

VIDEO: Colin Powell And Condoleezza Rice 2001: Iraq Has No WMDs/Is Not A Threat

Iraq And 9/11, How The Bush Administration Immediately Focused Upon Saddam After The September Attacks

When President Bush took office in January 2001, Iraq was one of the first foreign policy topics to come to the fore. The President and cabinet all wanted to do something about Iraq, but were deeply divided over what that should be. That led to deadlock in the first nine months of the new Bush term. When the September 11 attacks happened, Iraq again quickly became the focus of the White House. Many officials from Bush on down believed that Saddam Hussein was somehow connected with the terrorists, but had no evidence to supported their claims. While the administration quickly decided to take on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as the first stage in the war on terror, it also decided that Iraq would be next.

September 11 immediately led to President Bush and the Pentagon to think about Iraq. Right after the attack upon the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the President asked some of his aides whether Iraq was involved since Saddam had supported terrorists. That same idea was prevalent in the Defense Department where Secretary Donald Rumsfeld jotted off a memo saying, “Best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]. … Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” Rumsfeld later asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to look into attacking both Al Qaeda and Iraq, and asked Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz for any information on links between the two. Separately Wolfowitz told his deputies that he thought Iraq was involved. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and William Luti of the Near East and South Asia division of the Pentagon were in Europe at the time, and both pushed for going after state sponsors of terrorism, with Iraq being the main target. That thought was echoed by Richard Perle, a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, who called one of Bush’s top speechwriters David Frum about it that night. These advisers and others were instrumental in Bush’s televised speech to the nation later that day when he said, “We will make no distinction between terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” Iraq was one of the first foreign policy issues discussed by the Bush administration. In those early conversations, the Pentagon became the major proponent of overthrowing Saddam using America’s military. During other meetings on what the United States’ new anti-terrorism policy should be, the Defense Department staff continually derided the threat of Al Qaeda and stressed Iraq instead. When 9/11 happened, those ideas came to the fore again. Iraq was already on the minds of many in the administration, so it was quick to jump on Saddam Hussein as being a participant in the September attacks. It also allowed those that were already supporters of getting rid of Saddam to push their agenda even further because now both the President and American public were more open to using military force in the world. 

Rumsfeld's 9/11 memo (Washington Monthly)

 The next day there was a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to discuss the implications and responses to 9/11. The White House counterterrorism head Richard Clarke and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks. Wolfowitz disagreed saying that the operation was too sophisticated for a terrorist group to do by itself. He said a country must be behind it, and then began arguing that it had to be Iraq. Rumsfeld talked about how the Pentagon had been discussing plans for Iraq, and that it should therefore be included in the war on terror. He pushed for bombing Iraq as well, arguing there were no good targets in Afghanistan where Al Qaeda was based. Clarke and Secretary of State Colin Powell both pushed back saying that Al Qaeda and Afghanistan should be the target. Bush agreed that Saddam needed to be removed, while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton said that could only be achieved through an invasion. After the meeting adjourned Clarke thanked Powell for his support, but Powell warned him that the Pentagon was not done pushing Iraq. They were not the only ones however, as the President would later pull Clarke over and ask him to investigate whether Saddam was behind 9/11. Clarke told him that it was Al Qaeda, but Bush insisted that Iraq be looked at. Also that day, Wolfowitz sent former CIA Director James Woolsey to England to investigate Iraq-Al Qaeda connections. He found none. The Deputy Defense Secretary had never seen Osama bin Laden as being a major threat to the United States in meetings before September even though he knew little about terrorism. That was because he was so set on Iraq he blamed Saddam for almost any act of terror. The President as well seemed to be convinced by earlier arguments within the cabinet that Iraq was the real problem, not some non-state actor, and that led him to push Clarke to look into the country’s possible involvement in 9/11. Faced with the greatest attack upon America since Pearl Harbor in 1941, the President and others were falling back upon what they knew, Iraq, rather than what they didn’t, Al Qaeda.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz was obsessed with Iraq and would bring it up every chance he could (Wikipedia)

 The focus upon states and Iraq continued on September 13. Wolfowitz gave a press conference repeating the President’s earlier theme that the U.S. would not only go after terrorists, but end their state sponsors. Powell, worried that the Wolfowitz was implying Iraq, said that the Deputy Secretary was speaking for himself, not the administration. That day there was another NSC meeting, where Powell asked for support from the Joint Chiefs chairman General Shelton against Wolfowitz and others who were pushing Iraq. Shelton agreed with Powell that the war on terror should not be expanded to Baghdad. During the meeting, the President asked CIA Director George Tenet whether he was looking into Iraq-Al Qaeda ties. Rumsfeld said that attacking Iraq would deter countries that supported terrorism. Bush then asked the Defense Secretary and General Shelton to come up with new plans and costs for invading Iraq. The next day, the President called England’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, and told him that Iraq was probably involved in the attacks, but Blair was skeptical. Two days after September 11, and there was the first mention of an Iraq invasion by the President. During earlier debates before the attack, the administration had been deadlocked over Iraq with the State and Defense having opposing viewpoints. Powell wanted to continue on with the previous policy of containment, while the Pentagon was pushing for overthrowing Saddam, although it didn’t agree upon how. Now, 9/11 had changed that. The United States had been attacked, and Bush and others were looking for revenge. Since the government was so use to dealing with nation-states Iraq seemed to be a much better target than a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda.

Cheney, Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz at Campd David summit to discuss what to do about 9/11 (Flickr)

 From September 15 to 16, the White House staff met at Camp David to finally decide on what the response to September 11 should be. Iraq was included in position papers submitted before the summit. One from the Defense Department for example, listed three targets in the war on terror: Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq. Of those three, Al Qaeda and Iraq were listed as strategic threats. On the first day of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked what the U.S. should do about Saddam. Wolfowitz said that America should strike Iraq because it was the main source of terrorism in the world, and that there was a 10-50% chance that Iraq was behind 9/11. He would later argue that taking on Afghanistan would be too difficult, and that Iraq would be much easier. He then endorsed a plan made by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) that a revolt could be fomented with the Kurds in northern Iraq and the Shiites in the south. Rumsfeld supported Wolfowitz, while he was making these arguments. Vice President Dick Cheney on the other hand, slightly disagreed, saying that Iraq had to be dealt with, but that it would be a distraction now. He said that the United States would lose its standing if it went after Iraq, an idea supported by Powell and General Shelton. Three times, once by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, once by Vice President Cheney, and by the President himself, Wolfowitz was told to drop Iraq. He didn’t, as he continued to push the issue later in the day, and into the next. On September 16, Bush asked for a show of hands about what to do, and the group agreed that Al Qaeda should be targeted. Bush was quoted as saying, “I believe Iraq was involved, but I’m not going to strike them now. I don’t have the evidence at this point.” With that being done, the President did ask the Pentagon to come up with new military plans for Iraq. Later on September 16, Vice President Cheney made public the administration’s decision. He appeared on Meet The Press where he said that the United States was going to take on Al Qaeda. When asked about Iraq, he said that Saddam was “bottled up.” Rice later claimed that the administration was simply worried that Iraq would take advantage of the September attacks. Powell on the other hand, believed that Wolfowitz was taking advantage of the situation to push his own Iraq agenda. Others like General Shelton and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil tended to agree. The Camp David meeting also marked the first time that the President had made a decision about Iraq. It took 9/11 to make him finally make one as before he let his cabinet dilly dally over the issue. He agreed that Afghanistan would be the first stop on the war on terror, but hinted that Iraq would be next when he ordered new war plans be made.

Wolfowitz was still pushing his point the next day. He wrote a memo to Rumsfeld entitled “Prevent More Events,” which stated that even if there was a 10% chance that Iraq was behind 9/11, something that he believed to be true, the United States should attack it. He went on to write that Saddam had praised September 11, was a long time supporter of terrorism, and was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The last was a conspiracy theory that he subscribed too put forth by Laurie Myrolie of the American Enterprise Institute. Wolfowitz was writing to the true believers as Rumsfeld had been pushing an attack upon Iraq since the beginning of the year. Bush had joined their camp as well as at an NSC meeting that day, he officially ordered the military to plan for an invasion of Iraq.

On September 18, counterterrorism adviser Clarke finished his report on Iraq and 9/11 that the President had requested, and sent it to Rice for review. The memo, “Survey of Intelligence Information on Any Iraq Involvement in the September 11 Attacks” claimed that Iraq was not connected because bin Laden did not like Saddam Hussein’s government. It also stated that there were no confirmed reports that Iraq was working with Al Qaeda on weapons of mass destruction (WMD). President Bush never saw it, and Rice sent it back to Clarke saying, “Wrong answer … Do it again.” Rice too, seemed to believe that Iraq was behind 9/11, and did not want to hear otherwise. She was therefore not going to distribute Clarke’s paper, and ended up rejecting it.

The President too was looking for evidence against Iraq when he met with CIA Director Tenet on September 19. Bush asked the CIA to look into Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, and said that Vice President Cheney had some information about the matter. Cheney later consulted with Tenet, and told him about a report that claimed the chief 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met in Prague with Iraqi intelligence. Tenet went back to CIA headquarters and ordered an immediate report on the matter. That same day, Cheney was on Meet The Press and said that Iraq was not involved with 9/11. Publicly, the administration did not want people to know that it was focusing upon Iraq instead of Al Qaeda yet. The President however was pushing the matter hard.

That same day, the Defense Policy Board, a consulting group at the Pentagon, held a two-day meeting on the war on terror. Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University and Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC) attended. Lewis urged the United States to respond to 9/11 with force, otherwise it would be perceived as weak. Lewis said that the attack could have been worse if Al Qaeda had WMD, an argument that would later be taken up by the administration as a reason to strike Iraq. Lewis then introduced Chalabi as a democratic reformer the White House should stand behind. Chalabi said that Iraq had WMD, and that it should be invaded instead of Afghanistan. He pushed his plan to start an uprising within the country that he claimed would only require some air support and Special Forces from the U.S. to be successful. He stated the result would be a modern, pro-Western, capitalistic Iraq. The second day, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz attended. Board member Richard Perle argued that Saddam should be removed even if he didn’t have ties with Al Qaeda. He and other conservatives would express this view to the President in a letter they sent him. Rumsfeld added that attacking Afghanistan alone wasn’t enough. He wanted the U.S. to do more to deter its enemies. That obviously meant expanding the war on terror to Iraq.

Pres. Bush phoned and later met with British PM Blair immediately after 9/11, each time talking about Iraq. Blair tried to warn the president to stay focused upon Al Qaeda (EPA)

 On September 20, President Bush met with Prime Minister Blair, Powell, Rice, and the British Ambassador to the U.S. Christopher Meyer. Bush said that he wanted to get rid of Saddam. Blair told Bush that they should not lose focus upon Al Qaeda. Bush said that Afghanistan would be first, but that Iraq would come later. England would later be America’s strongest supporter for the invasion of Iraq, but at this early date Blair thought that it was a distraction.

Back at the Pentagon, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith sent a memo to Rumsfeld urging expansion of the war on terror. He wrote that there were no good targets in Afghanistan, and that the war should not be a narrow one limited just to that single country. Feith argued that the U.S. should bomb Iraq, South America, and South Asia, as a way to surprise terrorists. Rumsfeld liked Feith because of his original thinking, but his memo was bordering on the ridiculous. What it did show was that the leadership of the Pentagon was firmly set upon attacking Iraq.

In Virginia, the CIA issued its first report on Iraq and September 11, as per the request of the President. It was presented as part of the President’s daily intelligence briefing. It found that Iraq had not cooperated with Al Qaeda, but the two did have sporadic meeting since the mid-1990s. Iraq might have offered a non-aggression pact and training to keep tabs on the organization’s activities as well. Finally, it stated that there was nothing behind the story that Mohammed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence. Overall, the two did not trust each other, and had different goals, which precluded them working together. All the way to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq the Agency proved consistent with this first paper. It never claimed there was an Iraqi connection to 9/11 nor to Al Qaeda, although it did think that some meeting occurred and training might have been offered. The Bush administration made such ties a key piece of its argument for war, but that was only partially based upon the official intelligence it was receiving.

For the rest of September, continuing into the following months, the White House moved closer to war with Iraq. On September 23, Rice said that Iraq would be the second stage in the fight against terror. By October, the war in Afghanistan was going well, and Cheney returned to Iraq. The campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, also convinced Rumsfeld that an invasion of Iraq would be quick and easy. That month, the Third Army was told to revise its Iraq Vigilant Guardian plan that included seizing Iraq’s southern oil fields with just 75,000-100,000 troops. At the beginning of November, Rumsfeld asked Douglas Feith to evaluate ways to get rid of Iraq’s WMD. Feith wrote a memo in response, saying that supporting Ahmed Chalabi and the INC’s plans for an uprising, would be the best way to do that. Later in November, Bush asked Rumsfeld about the Iraq war plans. He responded that he didn’t think the existing ones were good enough. He wanted a lighter and smaller force akin to the war in Afghanistan. On November 21, the Pentagon had gone over those plans, which included a 500,000-man invasion force. Rumsfeld objected to using so many troops. Within a week, the Defense Secretary would fly to Tampa, Florida to meet with General Tommy Franks, the head of the Central Command (CENTCOM), which was in charge of the Middle East to discuss Iraq. Rumsfeld talked about the INC’s revolt idea, but his main point was that he believed a traditional attack upon Iraq was outdated. By December, the Bush administration was getting briefings on the progress of the new plans. That was the same month that the United States believed that most of the fighting in Afghanistan was over. The White House quickly moved to Iraq, making it the number one foreign policy issue going into 2002, until it finally invaded in March 2003.

Iraq was on the minds of all the top Bush administration officials from the day it took office in January 2001. For the first nine months, the Defense and State Departments, along with Richard Clarke, went back and forth on the issue of what to do about Saddam Hussein. The debate went nowhere because the President never made a decision about which policy he wanted to follow. When September 11 happened, it convinced Bush that America’s enemies could attack it, and that therefore the country had to be far more aggressive to protect itself. He, along with many on his staff, also believed that states were what mattered, and that they were ultimately behind terrorism, not organizations like Al Qaeda. Since the President and the Defense Department already believed that Iraq was the greatest security risk in the Middle East and was the prime supporter of terrorism in the world, 9/11 made them immediately think of Saddam. At Camp David, the cabinet decided to deal with Al Qaeda and Afghanistan first, but Iraq was going to be next. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rice were all pushing the matter, and Bush needed little convincing. That’s why within a week of the New York City and Washington D.C. assaults, the President had already ordered the Defense Department to review its invasion plans for Iraq. It was only a matter of time before U.S. was going to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

SOURCES

9/11 Commission, “9/11 Commission Report,” 7/22/04

Battle, Joyce, “The Iraq War – PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001, Timeline,” National Security Archive, 9/22/10

Benjamin, Daniel and Simon, Steven, The Next Attack; The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right, New York: Times Books, 2005

Berry, Jessica, Sherwell, Philip and Wastell, David, “Alert by Saddam points to Iraq,” Telegraph 9/23/01

Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David and Wise, David, “Path To War,” Vanity Fair, May 2004

CBS, “Did Bush Press For Iraq-9/11 Link?” 3/21/04

Clarke, Richard, Against All Enemies, Inside America’s War on Terror, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2004

Coile, Zachary, “Ex-aide’s charges spark blame game on 9/11, Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/23/04

Diamond, John, Keen, Judy, Moniz, Dave, Page, Susan and Slavin, Barbara, “Iraq course set from tight White House circle,” USA Today, 9/11/02

Donnelly, John and Bender, Bryan, “U.S. Looks for an Iraqi Role in Attacks,” Boston Globe, 9/20/01

Elliott, Michael and Carney, James, “First Stop, Iraq,” Time, 3/31/03

Gordin, Philip, “The End of the Bush Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006

Isikioff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, New York: Crown Publishers, 2006

Karon, Tony, “Draining Bin Laden’s Swamp,” Time, 9/20/01

- “Iraq: The GOP War With Itself,” Time, 8/21/02

Packer, George, The Assassins’ Gate, America In Iraq, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

PBS Frontline,"Bush's War - Transcript," Bush's War, 3/24/08
- “In Their Own Words: Who Said What When,” Truth, War and Consequences, 10/9/03

- “Rumsfeld’s War - Transcript,” Rumsfeld's War, 11/10/04

- “The War Behind Closed Doors – Transcript,” War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03

Roberts, Joel, “Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11,” CBS News, 9/4/02

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report On the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,” U.S. Senate, 7/7/04

Siddique, Haroon, “Chilcot inquiry hears Bush began Iraq war drumbeat three days after 9/11,” Guardian, 11/30/09

Strobel, Warren, “Experts say Iraq, Hussein not likely tied to terrorist attacks,” Knight Ridder, 9/21/01

- “Former CIA Director looks for evidence that Iraq had a role in attacks,” Knight Ridder, 10/11/01

Suskind, Ron, The One Percent Doctrine, Deep Inside America’s Pursuit Of Its Enemies Since 9/11, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2006

-The Price of Loyalty, London, Sydney: Free Press, 2004

Uhler, Walter, “Foreign policy and its offenders,” San Francisco Chronicle, 4/25/04

PBS VIDEO: War Behind Closed Doors

PBS The War Behind closed doors by Ali_La_Pointe

Indecision Over Iraq Policy In Pre-9/11 Bush Administration

There are some that believe that President George Bush was set upon invading Iraq from the first day he was in office. While it is true that Iraq was one of the first foreign policy issues discussed within the new administration, the leading officials in the White House were divided on what to do about it. Some wanted to continue with the containment policy of the previous presidents, while others advocated military options to overthrow Saddam. The president never decided on which path to follow, so there was no clear Iraq policy early on in the Bush administration.

Even before George Bush was elected president, future members of his cabinet were discussing Iraq. In the January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs, Condoleezza Rice wrote an article about what Bush’s foreign policy would be like if he won the election. She wrote that Iraq and North Korea could both be deterred, and if they acquired weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they would not dare to use them because they would face total destruction at the hands of the United States. Later in the year, Dick Cheney took a harder line saying that Iraq had been ignored for too long, implying that something needed to be done about it. The differences in opinion between Rice and Cheney would be a harbinger of what the new Bush administration would be like. The White House staff would be deeply divided over Iraq, and that would be shown right from the beginning. Each major official had his or her own opinion about what to do, which was never really resolved.

The new Bush administration pushed Iraq as being at the center of its Middle East policy, but could never decide on what to do. Vice President elect Dick Cheney expressed this early interest when he asked outgoing Defense Secretary William Cohen to brief president elect Bush on Iraq. Then when the National Security Council (NSC) held its first meeting on January 30, 2001 one of the main topics was coming up with a new Iraq policy. Rice said that Saddam Hussein was a destabilizing force in the region, and that if the government was changed it could transform the entire Arab world. CIA Director George Tenet went over the intelligence he had on Iraq. He showed a photo of a factory he claimed was producing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil asked what evidence Tenet had that the facility was doing that. Tenet said that it was constantly receiving shipments, but that he actually couldn’t confirm that it was producing weapons. Tenet pointed out that Saddam was giving money to families of Palestinian suicide bombers as well. Secretary of State Colin Powell then gave his presentation on sanctions. He said they were failing because while Saddam was hoarding billions of dollars, the sanctions were blocking common goods like medicines from entering the country, and causing mass hardships. Iraq was manipulating the latter, and turning international opinion against the embargo. Powell advocated for more targeted sanctions that would block dual use military equipment, and allow other goods to go to Iraq. Tenet noted that Iraq was selling oil to Syria and Jordan at cut-rate prices to undermine the sanctions. At the end of the meeting, the president called for more action on the sanctions and Iraq’s WMD programs. He then told everyone to continue on with their work. Powell and the State Department would explore revising the sanctions regime, the Pentagon would look into rebuilding an international coalition against Iraq, and ways to support the Iraqi opposition, Tenet and the CIA would make a report about how to collect more intelligence on Iraq, and Treasury Secretary O’Neil would look into cutting off Iraq’s international finances. Which of these options the United States would ultimately follower was not decided upon. This initial discussion pointed to all of the problems the administration would have dealing with Iraq. First, the State Department and Pentagon had diametrically opposed visions of what to do about Saddam. Powell wanted to strengthen and maintain the previous containment policy, while Defense was pushing for some type of military option. It had not mentioned an invasion yet, but people like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was pushing for the United States to support a Shiite and Kurdish uprising that would involve American air support and arming the rebels. Treasury Secretary O’Neil also pointed out that the administration was only dealing with what to do about Saddam Hussein, and never asked the big question of why they were doing it. From the very first days of the new White House team it was simply taken for granted that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with. There was absolutely no questioning of this general assumption. It was these ingrained biases that would lead the U.S. government to eventually push for an invasion after the 9/11 attacks. Finally, the Bush team lacked strong leadership and management. National Security Advisor Rice was never able to handle the strong personalities in the cabinet such as Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Powell, so the government often ended up working at cross purposes, and suffered from extreme in-fighting. President Bush was also responsible for this state of affairs because he would often not make a decision about which policy he supported. Rather he often let his top officials do what they wanted. This was seen in the first nine months of the administration when it was supposed to come up with a new Iraq policy. None was every formulated.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did seem to give his own reason for why Iraq was a priority in a January 30 memo. It was entitled, “National Security Policy Issues – Post Cold War Threats,” and outlined what the Pentagon’s future priorities would be. It listed Iraq along with several other countries as being the new developing threats to America’s power. Rumsfeld argued that the spread of technology was allowing smaller countries to become more and more dangerous by acquiring advanced weapons such as WMD. The memo said these were the types of nations that the United States would have to deal with in the post-Cold War world. Iraq would obviously become the poster child for Rumsfeld’s theory.

Divisions between Secretary of State Powell (left) and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld (right) over Iraq  emerged early on in the Bush administration, leading to deadlock over forging a new policy (Open Letters Monthly)

The second National Security Council meeting was held on February 1, and emphasized the deep divisions that were already emerging within the cabinet. The goal of the meeting was to go over the plans for Iraq discussed in the first NSC conference. Powell passed around a paper outlining the State Department’s proposal for strengthening sanctions. It was a comprehensive plan that tried to bring together the disparate ideas bandied about in January. When Powell started his presentation however, Rumsfeld interrupted him. The Defense Secretary said that the goal of the United States should be getting rid of Saddam rather than sanctions. He continued that with Saddam gone, the entire Middle East could be transformed. He claimed that would send a message to the world about America’s aims and power. Tenet then talked about a coup as a possibility to achieve those goals, but said the chances of one succeeding were slim. Powell responded that the U.S. did not want to replace Saddam with another person like him if there was a military takeover. Rumsfeld then brought up supporting the Iraqi opposition, saying that the no-fly zones could be used to aid any opposition groups if they tried to overthrow the government. He finished by saying that his main goal was to get rid of Iraq’s WMD, not replace Saddam. Treasury Secretary O’Neil thought that Rumsfeld wanted to make an example out of Iraq to stop other countries from acquiring chemical and biological weapons. There was no mention of an invasion, but Rumsfeld had put the idea of regime change on the table. Like the first NSC meeting, no decision was made on what America’s stance should be towards Iraq.

The policy debate continued into the rest of February. On February 5 and 7 there were NSC meetings where Iraq was discussed, but the only decision made was to collect more intelligence on Iraq’s WMD programs. On February 16, Bush told one of his chief speechwriters David Frum that he was going to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but he never mentioned how. On February 27, at his Senate Confirmation hearing, Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz said that a U.S. invasion had not been discussed, but that the administration was reviewing its Iraq policy, and was looking into how to support opposition groups like the Iraqi National Congress (INC). In staff meetings, Wolfowitz argued that the U.S. should arm the INC, and back their attempt to overthrow Saddam. That included an option to send in troops to defend them if they were able to start an uprising against the regime. This was an idea that Wolfowitz had been advocating for since the early 1990s. Rumsfeld also mentioned a war for the first time, saying that an incident over the no fly zones might be used as a justification to attack Iraq. In the second month of the administration, the Defense Department was making it clear that it was the strongest supporter of getting rid of Saddam. It hadn’t decided how to achieve that goal like the rest of the government, but it was willing to use the American military.

In April, the Pentagon’s emphasis upon Iraq got caught up with a discussion over what the Bush administration’s stance on terrorism should be. That month the NSC had its first meeting on terrorism, which was marked by an argument between the White House’s counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke and Paul Wolfowitz. Clarke started by arguing for the U.S. to target Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Wolfowitz complained that Clarke was talking about Osama bin Laden too much. Clarke responded that Al Qaeda was a direct threat to the United States. Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq and its support for terrorism was a threat too. Clarke, supported by the Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin, stated that there was no evidence that Iraq was backing any attacks upon the United States. Wolfowitz then said that Clarke was trying to exaggerate bin Laden’s importance, and that he had to be supported by a foreign government. Wolfowitz implied that Iraq must have been that state sponsor, and claimed that Baghdad was behind Al Qaeda’s 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. This was a theory advocated by Laurie Mylroie of the American Enterprise Institute who believed that Iraq was the leading force behind international terrorism. The CIA and FBI had looked into Mylroie's theory and found no support, but Wolfowitz said that didn’t mean there was no connection. Here, Iraq as an obsession of some leading officials such as Wolfowitz came to the fore. He knew little about terrorism, but wanted to blame Iraq for it. His use of the Mylroie argument, which was little more than a conspiracy theory that had been discounted by America’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies, showed that he would believe just about anything that pointed a figure at Saddam. Second, his insistence that states like Iraq, not terrorists like bin Laden were the real problem showed how Wolfowitz had a traditional view of international relations. That stance emphasized the role of the nation state as being the ultimate actor upon the world stage, and there was little thrift given to terrorists or other non-state actors. More importantly, Iraq had derailed the first discussion about Al Qaeda and terrorism, which would prove a much more pressing threat.

In May, the debate over Iraq continued in another NSC meeting. The State Department presented some of its memos it had written about conditions within Iraq. The Defense Department talked about what Iraq would be like if Saddam were overthrown, Treasury said that it was holding talks with banks in Jordan and Syria to cut off doing business with Baghdad, while the CIA presented its latest intelligence on Iraq’s WMD programs, which was mostly speculation. Four months into the Bush administration, and little had progressed past the first NSC meeting in January.

Summer proved to be no different with no concrete Iraq policy emerging. The National Security Council met on June 1, and was simply told to look into new ways to pressure Saddam. In meetings on June 22, July 13, and August 1, Wolfowitz and the Pentagon pushed for providing training to the Iraqi opposition again in the hopes that it could pull off a revolt against Saddam. Wolfowitz discussed the INC’s Liberation Strategy, which involved a Kurdish and Shiite uprising in northern and southern Iraq that would lead to a provisional government being formed. Powell disagreed with that plan, because State did not trust Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the INC. On July 27, Rumsfeld sent a memo to Rice and Cheney saying that the United States needed to come up with a completely new Iraq policy. He sad that the U.S. could end the no fly zones and sanctions, and work with its Arab allies to formulate a new stance. He said that this was necessary because Iraq was working on its chemical, biological, and nuclear programs, which meant that the United States was going to have to deal with Iraq sometime in the future. In early August, the CIA created the Joint Task Force on Iraq as part of its new focus upon the country. The Task Force’s new chief carried out a review of the Agency’s options, which decided that a coup would not work, and only an invasion could get rid of Saddam. Just as in previous months, the Pentagon was pushing for some sort of direct action against Iraq. Wolfowitz was close to Chalabi and the INC, so he advocated for giving them support. The Pentagon’s stance was running into direct opposition from Powell and the State Department, which believed that giving aid to the INC was foolish. That was because Chalabi had failed at leading uprisings in the 1990s, and State had lost faith in him. Eight months into the Bush administration, and there had been lots of talk, and some arguments about what to do about Iraq, but President Bush had made no decision.

As 9/11 approached Iraq policy was still adrift. On April 9, there was a NSC meeting about terrorism. Richard Clarke and George Tenet both pushed for going after Al Qaeda. This time Rumsfeld, parroting Wolfowitz’s argument back in April, claimed there were other sources of terrorism in the world such as Iraq, and that the United States should focus upon them rather than Al Qaeda. The Secretary’s claim was not supported by the State Department, which in its April 2001 report, “Patterns of Global Terrorism,” said that Iraq had not attempted any anti-Western terrorism since 1993, when it attempted to assassinate the first President Bush on a trip to Kuwait. One again, divisions were coming out within the administration. For the second time, the chief counterterrorism officer Clarke, had his argument for targeting Al Qaeda blocked by the Pentagon that wanted to talk about Iraq instead. At this time, the Bush White House had neither an Iraq policy, nor a counterterrorism one. The reasons for that was the top officials were increasing disagreeing over what to do, and there was no leadership from the top about what to do.

What this series of events showed was that while Iraq was a heated topic within the new Bush administration, the debate had deadlocked. All parties were concerned about Iraq’s WMD programs and Saddam Hussein, but no one agreed about what to do about them. The Defense Department wanted to support the Iraqi opposition, and was talking about regime change one way or another. The State Department wanted to continue on with the previous containment policy, just improve it with new sanctions. The CIA was upping its intelligence collection against Iraq, but it was largely working off of assumptions, rather than hard evidence, and found that a coup would not work. Coming up with a terrorism policy was also being delayed because the Pentagon kept on emphasizing Iraq and dismissing Al Qaeda. National Security Advisor Rice was not mediating any of these growing disagreements, and Bush was not leading. They both just let every official follow their own path. The argument then that the president was set upon invading Iraq from the very outset of his term is not founded. That topic had been mentioned, but there was no decision on anything. The attempt to form an Iraq policy, whether it was a military move or not, had completely floundered in the first nine months of the Bush presidency. It would take the aftermath of 9/11 for the government to finally decide upon regime change.  

SOURCES

Battle, Joyce, “The Iraq War – PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001, Timeline,” National Security Archive, 9/22/10

Benjamin, Daniel and Simon, Steven, The Next Attack; The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right, New York: Times Books, 2005

Bergen, Peter, “Armchair Provocateur,” Washington Monthly, December 2003

Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David and Wise, David, “Path To War,” Vanity Fair, May 2004

Clarke, Richard, Against All Enemies, Inside America’s War on Terror, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2004

Coile, Zachary, “Ex-aide’s charges spark blame game on 9/11, Iraq,” San Francisco Chronicle, 3/23/04

Cortright, David, Millar, Alistair, Gerber, Linda, “Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq,” Fourth Freedom Forum, June 2003

Elliott, Michael and Carney, James, “First Stop, Iraq,” Time, 3/31/03

Feith, Douglas, “Why We Went to War in Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, 7/3/08

Gordin, Philip, “The End of the Bush Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006

Hersh, Seymour, “The Iraq Hawks,” New Yorker, 12/24/01

Isikioff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, New York: Crown Publishers, 2006

PBS Frontline, “Rumsfeld’s War,” PBS, 11/10/04

- “The War Behind Closed Doors – Transcript,” War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03

Suskind, Ron, The One Percent Doctrine, Deep Inside America’s Pursuit Of Its Enemies Since 9/11, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Simon & Schuster, 2006

- The Price of Loyalty, London, Sydney: Free Press, 2004

How Dysfunction Within The Bush White House Undermined Planning For Iraq

Then National Security Adviser Rice and Pres. Bush did a poor job managing Iraq policy (Agence France Presse)

One of the major problems within the Bush White House was that it had a dysfunctional foreign policy apparatus. The National Security Council was created after World War II to manage military, intelligence, and foreign policy issues. Under the first Bush administration, the National Security Advisor was Condoleezza Rice. She had a close, personal relationship with the president, but proved incapable of managing the strong personalities within the White House. The president also often failed to make any choices between these differing opinions. That led to a haphazard approach to Iraq, which ultimately undermined planning, and helped lead to the chaos after the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Vice President Cheney, Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld, Pres. Bush, Sec. of State Powell. Bush's top officials were deeply divided on Iraq policy. Rumsfeld and Powell were rivals within the administration as well (Associated Press/Getty)

Both President Bush and Condoleezza Rice lacked strong management skills. That meant many times tough issues were never debated, nor even decided upon. Sometimes agencies were allowed to follow their own independent paths, with little to no coordination from above. After 9/11, the situation became worse. Instead of ideas coming slowly up from the bureaucracy, top officials like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and others made decisions on the fly. That meant there was even less discussion within the administration. On top of that, many individuals within the White House did not like each other. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell for example, had a running battle with each other. The former also did not like Rice, and often denigrated her at meetings or ignored her completely. This belies the tendency to think of an administration as a single, unified entity. That was far from the truth for Bush’s time in office. Because of these internal rivalries and the fractured decision making process, Rice, who was supposed to manage foreign policy, often had to play catch-up on what was going on. Bush meanwhile, did little about these sharp differences.

Undersecretary of Defense Feith refused to coordinate with other agencies on post-war Iraq planning, a sign of the divisions within the Bush White House (Washington Post)

Iraq became a perfect example of this dysfunction. There were deep divisions within the White House over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. These came out on several occasions before the 2003 invasion. For example, the first national security meeting of the Bush administration in January 2001 focused upon creating a new Iraq policy. First, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued for a military confrontation with Saddam Hussein, and more support for the Iraqi opposition, specifically the Iraqi National Congress. Powell on the other hand, pushed for strengthening United Nations sanctions on Iraq, which would more strategically target military related goods heading for the country. Rather than work out these differences or select one approach over the other, no decision was made about Iraq. That left State and Defense to carry on separately with their individual policies. Another case was when initial planning started for post-war Iraq in late-2001. At one time, five different groups were working on the topic including the State Department’s Future of Iraq project, two steering groups within the National Security Council, two officers from the Central Command (CENTCOM), and the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. Because the White House wanted to keep its plans secret, all of this work was compartmentalized meaning that none of these groups worked with each other, most didn’t know about one another, and few consulted with outside agencies that would be critical for any security and rebuilding effort after Saddam was overthrown. Later on, new groups replaced these initial ones, and ignored all their previous work. A specific example of this was a meeting held in January 2002 at the Old Executive Building in Washington to go over the basic war plan and aftermath. General Wayne Downing, the National Security Council’s top counterterrorism official, chaired the session, which was organized by the Vice President’s office. Rice was not informed however, and when she found out about it, she ordered all the papers that resulted from it destroyed. It wasn’t until January 2003, right before the invasion that Bush gave the Defense Department ultimate responsibility for post-war Iraq. Even then, the in fighting continued as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith was put in charge of post-war planning at the Office of Special Plans. He said there was no way that the Pentagon would discuss Iraq with other parts of the government even though they would be needed to help stabilize the country after the invasion. When it came to dealing with Iraq, planning for the war, and its aftermath things were haphazard at best within the White House. No agency wanted to work with another, Rice had no handle on managing these differences, and President Bush either didn’t know about all the machinations within his administration or never took the time to decide on one approach over another.

Years later, many of these divisions became public. In 2006, Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post wrote Soldier, The Life of Colin Powell in which he attacked Rice for not dealing with the differences within the administration. Powell told DeYoung there were plenty of White House meetings over policy, but nothing came of them. That left Powell wondering when or if the president would make a decision on matters. He also thought this lackadaisical atmosphere allowed Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney to do what they wanted. The next year, Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times released Condoleezza Rice, An American Life. She said that Rice’s power came from her relationship with the president. At the same time, she never pushed him on anything, and never managed the strong personalities in the cabinet. For example, Rumsfeld would often try to take over National Security Council meetings, and would never tell Rice what he was doing. She had to send members of her staff to the Pentagon to try to find out what was going on there. Cheney also showed her little respect. That led Bumiller to believe that Rice was a weak national security advisor. In 2008, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith’s book War and Decision came out. He wrote that Rice did a poor job because she didn’t coordinated policy. Feith also took his shots at the State Department and CIA, blaming them for most of the problems that occurred in Iraq. Finally, in February 2011, Donald Rumsfeld’s Known and Unknown came out. He stated that the Bush White House was dysfunctional, and that had a negative affect upon the Iraq war. Like Powell, Rumsfeld said that there were national security meetings, but no clear process on how to make decisions. He blamed Bush for not working out the disagreements amongst his senior staff, and for not always asking for or receiving options before he made a policy choice. He claimed that sometimes the government didn’t always follow through with the choices that he did make, and went on to accuse the other parts of the government for failing in Iraq. All of them shared a few common points. Namely, Bush and Rice failed at running a smooth administration, which was marked by in fighting.

In January 2007, President Bush declared, “I’m the decision-maker” when it came to Iraq policy. His record would contradict that statement. He didn’t pick a clear Iraq policy when he first came into office in 2001, instead allowing the State and Defense department’s to follow their own paths. At the end of that year, planning for the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath officially began, but there was no coordination, cooperation or management of the process. Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor should’ve been in charge of bringing some order to this chaos, but utterly failed in that task. In the second Bush term, she was rewarded by being named Secretary of State. Many of these problems were leaked to the press at the time, but by 2006 they began to come out in the open more as the major figures within the administration either released books or had ones written about them. The common theme of all of them was that the Bush’s foreign policy process was deeply flawed, starting at the top with the president, going down to Rice, and then spreading to the other major figures who continually sniped at each other undermining any unity of effort from the administration. In the end, Iraq was the one that paid the ultimate price as immediately after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein looting broke out, militias tried to seize power in towns and cities, the government collapsed, services stopped, and small groups began attacking the Coalition. The U.S. was caught utterly unprepared to deal with any of these because the only clear decision it had made was to invade, while everything else was left up in the air because of its dysfunction.

SOURCES

Associated Press, “Bush: ‘I’m the decision-maker’ on Iraq troops,” 1/26/07

Benjamin, Daniel and Simon, Steven, The Next Attack; The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right, New York: Times Books, 2005

Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David and Wise, David, “Path To War,” Vanity Fair, May 2004

Duffy, Michael, “Theater of War,” Time, 8/12/02

Elliott, Michael and Calabresi, Massimo, “Is Condi The Problem?” Time, 4/5/04

Hersh, Seymour, “The Debate Within,” New Yorker, 3/11/02

Kakutani, Michiko, “Rumsfeld’s Defense of Known Decisions,” New York Times, 2/3/11

Kessler, Glenn, “Rice’s Management at Issue,” Washington Post, 11/10/07

Milbank, Dana, “Don Rumsfeld, playing a dead-end game in his memoir,” Washington Post, 2/6/11
- “Iraq War Is Everyone Else’s Fault, Feith Explains,” Washington Post, 4/25/08

Packer, George, “War After The War,” New Yorker, 11/24/03

PBS Frontline, “Chronology: The Evolution of the Bush Doctrine,” War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03
- “INTERVIEWS Elisabeth Bumiller,” Bush’s War, 3/24/08
- “INTERVIEWS Karen DeYoung,” Bush’s War, 3/24/08

Reuters, “Donald Rumsfeld memoirs reveal no regrets over Iraq,” 2/3/11

Ricks, Thomas and DeYoung, Karen, “Ex-Defense Official Assails Colleagues Over Run-Up to War,” Washington Post, 4/9/08

Risen, James, State of War; The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2006