"Hard to get a good case": Early Attempts to Link 9/11 and Iraq

Last week, outragedmoderates.org released DoD staffer Stephen Cambone's notes from meetings with Donald Rumsfeld on the afternoon of 9/11. The notes, obtained under FOIA, show that at early as 2:40 PM on September 11th, Rumsfeld was attempting to use the day's attacks as a justification for invading Iraq (although he did concede that it would be "[h]ard to get a good case"). The following is a brief timeline of the Bush administration’s discussions, during the month after the 9/11 attacks, about invading Iraq as a response to the tragedy.

September 11, 2001
During a 2:40 PM meeting, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld instructed members of his staff to find the "[b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden] . . . Tasks Jim Haynes to talk w/ PW [presumably Paul Wolfowitz] for additional support v/v USIS & connection w/ UBL . . . Hard to get a good case . . . Need to move swiftly . . . Near term target needs . . . Go massive - sweep it all up - Things related and not . . . Need to do so to get anything useful." [Flickr photo page]

Retired general Wesley Clark, appearing on Meet the Press on June 15, 2003: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein . . . it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state- sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence." [FAIR.org]

September 12, 2001
Bob Woodward writes in Plan of Attack that on September 12, "in the inner circle of Bush's war cabinet, Rumsfeld asked if the terrorist attacks did not present an 'opportunity' to launch against Iraq." [Slate]

In his book Against All Enemies, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said that on September 12, he "walked into a series of discussions about Iraq . . . Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq." That evening, President Bush told Clarke to "see if Saddam did this." Clarke responded: "Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," and said "we have looked several times for state sponsorship of al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq," but Bush "testily" urged Clarke to "[l]ook into Iraq, Saddam . . . “ [San Francisco Chronicle], and to "[s]ee if he’s linked in any way.” [9/11 Commission Report, p. 334]

September 15, 2001
President Bush met with top advisors at Camp David. According the 9/11 Commission Report: “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz made the case for striking Iraq during ‘this round’ of the war on terrorism . . . Secretary Powell recalled that Wolfowitz--not Rumsfeld--argued that Iraq was ultimately the source of the terrorist problem and should therefore be attacked. Powell said that Wolfowitz was not able to justify his belief that Iraq was behind 9/11. ‘Paul was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with . . . And he saw this as one way of using the event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem.’ Powell said that President Bush did not give Wolfowitz’s argument ‘much weight.’ President Bush told Bob Woodward that the decision not to invade Iraq was made at the morning session on September 15.” [9/11 Commission Report, p. 335]

September 17, 2001
Paul Wolfowitz wrote a memo titled “Preventing More Events,” which argued that “if there were even a 10 percent chance Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum priority should be placed on eliminating that threat.” [9/11 Commission Report, p. 335] (Thad: Wolfowitz’s “10 percent” logic has to be the single most absurd argument that was ever made for invading Iraq. Does that mean that if there is a 90% chance Al Qaeda did it, and a 10 percent chance Iraq did it, we should place “maximum priority” on Iraq?)

September 20, 2001
Undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith prepared a memo which the 9/11 Commission Report would characterize as follows: “[T]he author expressed disappointment at the limited options immediately available in Afghanistan and the lack of ground options. The author suggested instead hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq. Since U.S. attacks were expected in Afghanistan, an American attack in South America or Southeast Asia might be a surprise to the terrorists." [9/11 Commission Report, p. 559]

British PM Tony Blair visited the White House to meet with President Bush, and the two leaders discussed the global conflict ahead. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, “[w]hen Blair asked about Iraq, the President replied that Iraq was not the immediate problem. Some members of his administration, he commented, had expressed a different view, but he was the one responsible for making the decisions.” [9/11 Commission Report, p. 336] Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, later claims that during the meeting, President Bush tried to convince British PM Tony Blair to support an invasion of Iraq. According to an article in Vanity Fair, "Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." Blair would later claim that that “no decisions had been taken” about Iraq until just before the invasion began in March 2003. [The Observer]

In an address to the Amerian people before a Joint Session of Congress the night of the 20th, President Bush blamed Al Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks, and the only mention of Iraq is a comparison to the first Gulf War: “This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion.” [WhiteHouse.gov]

Late September and October, 2001
During the weeks after September 11, Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, created two secret intelligence groups, the Office of Special Plans and the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (also called the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group [Graphic: New York Times]). “The eighteen members of the Special Plans staff prepared strategies on a range of issues that America would face after an invasion: repairing Iraq’s economy and oil industry, the training of a new police force, war-crimes trials, the reorganization of the Iraqi government . . . The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group was devoted to alternative intelligence analysis; it employed a rotating staff of two people who were asked to read intelligence data provided by the C.I.A. in order to find unexamined connections between state sponsors of terrorism and terrorist groups . . . Most of the work of this unit was soon focused on looking for evidence of ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam.” [New Yorker]