The
Making Of
“Operation Iraqi Freedom”
By Jason Leopold
21 March,
2008
Countercurrents.org
The Iraq war, which was predicated
on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, has resulted in the
deaths of nearly 4,000 US troops and has cost taxpayers roughly half-a-trillion
dollars.
As the war now enters its sixth year it's worth revisiting how prewar
Iraq intelligence was cooked in the months leading up toward the preemptive
strike and how the handful of dissenters who objected to Iraq policy
were sidelined.
The Key Players
For the average person, the names of these behind-the-scenes policy
wonks won't have much meaning. But they are the architects of the
Iraq War.
The White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was formed in August 2002 to publicize
the so-called threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by
Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the vice president's
office. The WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq War,
but it took great pains to discredit anyone who openly disagreed with
the official Iraq War story
The group's members included Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl
Rove, Bush advisor Karen Hughes, Senior Advisor to the Vice President
Mary Matalin, Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant
to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley
and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - Chief of Staff to the vice
president and co-author of the administration's pre-emptive strike
policy.
Rice was later appointed secretary of state; her deputy, Hadley, became
national security advisor. Wilkinson departed to become a spokesman
for the military's central command, and later for the Republican National
Convention. Hughes was appointed under secretary of state.
Another member of WHIG, John Hannah, along with former Defense Policy
Board member Richard Perle, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith
and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, were interviewed by FBI
officials in 2004, according to a report in the Washington Post, to
determine if they were involved in leaking US security secrets to
Israel, former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi,
and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The White House Iraq Group operated virtually unknown until January
2004, when Fitzgerald subpoenaed for notes, email and attendance records.
Bush Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. created the group in August
2002.
"A senior official who participated in its work called it "an
internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make
sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities,"
according to an August 10, 2003, Washington Post investigative report
on the group's inner workings.
Karl Rove, senior Bush adviser, chaired meetings of the group.
"Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. [Karl]
Rove and [Lewis] Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the
war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003
invasion," the Journal reported. "The group likely would
have played a significant role in responding to [former ambassador
Joseph] Wilson's claims" that the Bush administration twisted
intelligence when it said Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium
from Africa.
Rove's "strategic communications" task force, operating
inside the group, was instrumental in writing and coordinating speeches
by senior Bush administration officials, highlighting in September
2002 that Iraq was a nuclear threat, the Journal reported.
During its very first meetings, Card's Iraq group ordered a series
of white papers showing Iraq's arms violations. The first paper, "A
Grave and Gathering Danger: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Nuclear Weapons,"
was never published. However, the paper was drafted with the assistance
of experts from the National Security Council and Cheney's office.
"In its later stages, the draft white paper coincided with production
of a National Intelligence Estimate and its unclassified summary.
But the WHIG, according to three officials who followed the white
paper's progress, wanted gripping images and stories not available
in the hedged and austere language of intelligence," according
to the Washington Post.
Judith Miller, Aluminum Tubes, and the Mushroom Cloud
The group relied heavily on New York Times reporter Judith Miller,
who, after meeting with several of the organization's members in August
2002, wrote an explosive story that many critics of the war believe
laid the groundwork for military action against Iraq. Miller - who
spent 85 days in federal prison for refusing to testify that Libby
had told her Plame worked for the CIA and had recommended Wilson for
the Niger trip, suggesting that his work was the result of nepotism
- is expected to testify on behalf of the prosecution
On Sunday, September 8, 2002, Miller wrote a story for the Times,
quoting anonymous officials who said aluminum tubes found in Iraq
were to be used as centrifuges. Her report said the "diameter,
thickness and other technical specifications" of the tubes -
precisely the grounds for skepticism among nuclear enrichment experts
- showed that they were "intended as components of centrifuges."
She closed her piece by quoting then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, who said the United States would not sit by and wait to find
a smoking gun to prove its case, possibly in the form of a "a
mushroom cloud." After Miller's piece was published, administration
officials pursued their case on Sunday talk shows, using Miller's
piece as evidence that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though
those officials were the ones who supplied Miller with the story and
were quoted anonymously.
Rice's comments on CNN's "Late Edition" reaffirmed Miller's
story Rice said that Saddam Hussein was "actively pursuing a
nuclear weapon" and that the tubes - described repeatedly in
US intelligence reports as "dual-use" items - were "only
really suited for nuclear weapons programs ... centrifuge programs."
Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also mentioned the aluminum
tubes story in the Times and said "increasingly, we believe the
United States will become the target" of an Iraqi atomic bomb.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on CBS's "Face the Nation,"
asked viewers to "imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass
destruction."
The Cincinnati Speech
In October 2002, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati and spoke
about the imminent threat Iraq posed to the U.S. because of the country's
alleged ties with al-Qaeda and its endless supply of chemical and
biological weapons
"Surveillance photos reveal that the (Iraqi) regime is rebuilding
facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons,"
Bush said. "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range
of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel,
Turkey, and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American
civilians and service members live and work. We've also discovered
through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned
aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological
weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring
ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States.
And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for
a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a
small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative
to deliver it.'
None of this intelligence information has ever panned out. Most notably,
according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Bush erred when
he said last year that Iraq was six months away from developing a
nuclear weapon. Furthermore, the president's claims that thousands
of high-strength aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for a
secret nuclear weapons program.
The same month, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered
the military's regional commanders to rewrite all of their war plans
to capitalize on precision weapons, better intelligence, and speedier
deployment in the event the United States decided to invade Iraq.
The goal, Rumsfeld said, was to use fewer ground troops, a move that
caused dismay among some in the military who said concern for the
troops requires overwhelming numerical superiority to assure victory.
Those predictions have been borne out over the past five years.
Rumsfeld refused to listen to his military commanders, saying that
his plan would allow "the military to begin combat operations
on less notice and with far fewer troops than thought possible - or
thought wise - before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,"
the New York Times reported in its October 13, 2002, edition.
"Looking at what was overwhelming force a decade or two decades
ago, today you can have overwhelming force, conceivably, with lesser
numbers because the lethality is equal to or greater than before,"
Rumsfeld told the Times.
Rumsfeld said too many of the military plans on the shelves of the
regional war-fighting commanders were freighted with outdated assumptions
and military requirements, which have changed with the advent of new
weapons and doctrines.
It has been a mistake, he said, to measure the quantity of forces
required for a mission and "fail to look at lethality, where
you end up with precision-guided munitions, which can give you 10
times the lethality that a dumb weapon might, as an example,"
according to the Times report.
Through a combination of pre-deployments, faster cargo ships and a
larger fleet of transport aircraft, the military would be able to
deliver "fewer troops but in a faster time that would allow you
to have concentrated power that would have the same effect as waiting
longer with what a bigger force might have," Rumsfeld said.
Critics in the military said there were several reasons to deploy
a force of overwhelming numbers before starting any offensive with
Iraq. Large numbers illustrate US resolve and can intimidate Iraqi
forces into laying down their arms or even turning against Hussein's
government.
The new approach for how the US might go to war, Rumsfeld said in
a speech in 2002, reflects an assessment of the need after 9/11 to
refresh war plans continuously and to respond faster to threats from
terrorists and nations possessing biological, chemical or nuclear
weapons.
Administration Tries to Silence Experts
One of the most vocal opponent of the administration's prewar Iraq
intelligence was David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector
and the president and founder of the Institute for Science and International
Security (ISIS), a Washington, D.C. based group that gathers information
for the public and the White House on nuclear weapons programs.
In a March 10, 2003 report posted on the ISIS website, Albright accused
the CIA of twisting the intelligence related to the aluminum tubes.
"The CIA has concluded that these tubes were specifically manufactured
for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium," Albright said.
"Many in the expert community both inside and outside government,
however, do not agree with this conclusion. The vast majority of gas
centrifuge experts in this country and abroad who are knowledgeable
about this case reject the CIA's case and do not believe that the
tubes are specifically designed for gas centrifuges. In addition,
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have consistently expressed
skepticism that the tubes are for centrifuges."
"After months of investigation, the administration has failed
to prove its claim that the tubes are intended for use in an Iraqi
gas centrifuge program," Albright added. "Despite being
presented with evidence countering this claim, the administration
persists in making misleading comments about the significance of the
tubes."
Albright said he took his concerns about the intelligence information
to White House officials, but was rebuffed and told to keep quiet.
"I first learned of this case a year and a half ago when I was
asked for information about past Iraqi procurements. My reaction at
the time was that the disagreement reflected the typical in-fighting
between US experts that often afflicts the intelligence community.
I was frankly surprised when the administration latched onto one side
of this debate in September 2002. I was told that this dispute had
not been mediated by a competent, impartial technical committee, as
it should have been, according to accepted practice," Albright
said. "I became dismayed when a knowledgeable government scientist
told me that the administration could say anything it wanted about
the tubes while government scientists who disagreed were expected
to remain quiet."
Albright said the Department of Energy, which analyzed the intelligence
information on the aluminum tubes and rejected the CIA's intelligence
analysis, is the only government agency in the U.S. that can provide
expert opinions on gas centrifuges (what the CIA alleged the tubes
were being used for) and nuclear weapons programs.
"For over a year and a half, an analyst at the CIA has been pushing
the aluminum tube story, despite consistent disagreement by a wide
range of experts in the United States and abroad," Albright said.
"His opinion, however, obtained traction in the summer of 2002
with senior members of the Bush Administration, including the President.
The administration was forced to admit publicly that dissenters exist,
particularly at the Department of Energy and its national laboratories."
But Albright said the White House launched an attack against experts
who spoke critically of the intelligence.
"Administration officials try to minimize the number and significance
of the dissenters or unfairly attack them," Albright said. "For
example, when Secretary Powell mentioned the dissent in his Security
Council speech, he said: "Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves,
argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional
weapon, a multiple rocket launcher." Not surprisingly, an effort
by those at the Energy Department to change Powell's comments before
his appearance was rebuffed by the administration."
Powell Remains Loyal
The lack of evidence and public blunders by other high-ranking officials
in the Bush administration is endless.
Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear in an op-ed piece in
the Wall Street Journal February 3, 2003 a day before his famous meeting
at the U.N. where he presented "evidence" of an Iraqi weapons
program, which turned out to be the empty trailers the U.S. military
found earlier this month, that there was no "smoking gun"
"While there will be no "smoking gun," we will provide
evidence concerning the weapons programs that Iraq is working so hard
to hide," Powell said in his op-ed. "We will, in sum, offer
a straightforward, sober and compelling demonstration that Saddam
is concealing the evidence of his weapons of mass destruction, while
preserving the weapons themselves."
However, Powell did no such thing. Instead, Powell held up a small
vial of anthrax at the U.N. meeting to illustrate how deadly just
a small vial can be and then used that to couch his claims that Iraq's
alleged stockpile of anthrax would be much deadlier.
The same day, February 3, 2003 White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer
dodged a dozen or so questions about the intelligence information
from sources in Iraq and from the CIA that showed, without any doubt,
that Iraq possessed WMD.
"I think the reason that we know Saddam Hussein possesses chemical
and biological weapons is from a wide variety of means. That's how
we know," Fleischer said.
The 16 Words Were False
Eleven days before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the
Union address in which he stated that the United States learned from
British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from
Africa the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the
uranium claims were based upon were forgeries.
The revelation of the warning was contained in a closely guarded State
Department memo. The memo, released in April 2006 under a Freedom
of Information Act request, subsequently became the the first piece
of hard evidence and the strongest to date that shows the Bush administration
knowingly manipulated and ignored intelligence information in their
zeal to win public support for invading Iraq.
On January 12, 2003, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence
and Research (INR) "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents
pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries," the memo dated
July 7, 2003, says.
Moreover, the memo said that the State Department's doubts about the
veracity of the uranium claims may have been expressed to the intelligence
community even earlier.
Those concerns, according to the memo, are the reasons that former
Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to cite the uranium claims
when he appeared before the United Nations in February 5, 2003, -
one week after Bush's State of the Union address - to try and win
support for a possible strike against Iraq.
"After considerable back and forth between the CIA, the (State)
Department, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association), and
the British, Secretary Powell's briefing to the U.N. Security Council
did not mention attempted Iraqi procurement of uranium due to CIA
concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of
the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement," the memo
further states.
Iraq's interest in the yellowcake caught the attention of Mohamed
ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Association.
ElBaradei had read a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate and
had personally contacted the State Department and the National Security
Council in hopes of obtaining evidence so his agency could look into
it.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who made the rounds on the cable news
shows in March 2003, tried to discredit ElBaradei's conclusion that
the documents were forged.
"I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney said. "[The
IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam
Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any
more valid this time than they've been in the past."
As it turns out, ElBaradei was correct, the declassified State Department
showed.
Monday's declassified State Department memo was obtained by The New
York Sun under a Freedom of Information Act request the newspaper
filed in July 2005. The Sun's story, however, did not say anything
about the State Department's warnings more than a week before Bush's
State of the Union address about the bogus Niger documents.
The memo was drafted by Carl Ford Jr., the former head of the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in response to questions
posed in June 2003 by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President
Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, about a February 2002 fact-finding
trip to Niger that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson undertook to investigate
the uranium claims on behalf of the CIA.
The Ambassador Emerges
A day after Bush's January 28, 2003 State of the Union address, former
ambassador Joseph Wilson said he reminded a friend at the State Department
that he had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to investigate whether
Iraq attempted to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger, according
to a July 6, 2003, Op-Ed he published in the New York Times.
In his book, The Politics of Truth, Wilson's said his State Department
friend replied that "perhaps the president was speaking about
one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon,
South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation.
I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address,
the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the
Niger case."
But Wilson was certain that the administration was trying to sell
a war that was based on phony intelligence. In March 2003, Wilson
began to publicly question the administration's use of the Niger claims
without disclosing his role in traveling to Niger in February 2002
to investigate it. Wilson's criticism of the administration's pre-war
Iraq intelligence caught the attention of Cheney, Libby and Hadley.
In an interview that took place two and a half weeks before the start
of the Iraq War, Wilson said the administration was more interested
in redrawing the map of the Middle East to pursue its own foreign
policy objectives than in dealing with the so-called terrorist threat.
"The underlying objective, as I see it - the more I look at this
- is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with
terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer
and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists,"
Wilson said in a March 2, 2003, interview with CNN.
"So you look at what's underpinning this, and you go back and
you take a look at who's been influencing the process. And it's been
those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and
that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East," Wilson
added.
During the same CNN segment in which Wilson was interviewed, former
United Nations weapons inspector David Albright made similar comments
about the rationale for the Iraq War and added that he believed UN
weapons inspectors should be given more time to search the country
for weapons of mass destruction
A week later, Wilson was interviewed on CNN again. This was the first
time Wilson ridiculed the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had
tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. "Well, this
particular case is outrageous. We know a lot about the uranium business
in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by the US
- the US government - is just simply stupid. It would have taken a
couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early
1960s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers
and sellers," Wilson said in the March 8, 2003, CNN interview.
"For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb,
but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the
government is trying to build against Iraq."
Less than two weeks later, on March 19, 2003, the US bombed Iraq.