November 9, 2005
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
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