"Not only did our leaders fail us, worse, we failed
ourselves by abandoning our core values and following them down
roads to nowhere that have left us embittered and Balkanized."
(Editor’s note: Peter Maguire, is a surfer, war
crimes investigator and author of Thai Stick: Surfers,
Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade (film
rights optioned by Kelly Slater), Law and War – a
book about the Nuremberg Trials, Facing Death in Cambodia,
and Breathe, the new bio on jiujitsu icon Rickson Gracie.
His substack Sour Milk is a
pushback against what Maguire says is “the intolerant and
censorious tides that are sweeping the nation.”)
BeachGrit readers, below is the final instalment of Sour
Milk’s three part 9/11 commemoration (read parts one and two,
here). This series was motivated by the
saccharine, sentimental, yet totally unreflective celebration of
the 20th anniversary of the attacks and recent attempts to revise
the historical reputation of the Bush administration.
I will keep it short and let the dramatis
personae speak for themselves.
After 9/11, American leaders, with overwhelming popular support,
traded freedom for safety. Overnight, the land of the free and
the home of the brave became the land of the surveilled and the
home of the scared.
Not only did our leaders fail us, worse, we failed ourselves by
abandoning our core values and following them down roads to nowhere
that have left us embittered and Balkanized.
If we are to contain and excise the deep and systematic rot of
corruption, cynicism, and opportunism that now infects our
republic, the United States needs some form of reckoning, even if
it is only historical.
Why?
Because the politicians, policy makers, and pundits who acted as
the architects and cheerleaders of America’s imperial experiment
have never been held accountable for the eight-trillion dollar
failure.
If nothing else, we owe it to the 7,057 dead U.S. soldiers, the
30,177 active duty service members and veterans who have committed
suicide since 2001, and the 929,000 subalterns who all died in the
Global War on Terrorism. [1]
Let’s take a trip down memory lane.
Presidential Candidate George W. Bush—2000
“It must be in the national interests, must be in our vital
interests whether we ever send troops. The mission must be clear.
Soldiers must understand why we’re going. The force must be strong
enough so that the mission can be accomplished. And the exit
strategy needs to be well-defined. I’m concerned that we’re over
deployed around the world.” October 17, 2000
President George W. Bush—2001
“A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no
question about it.” July 30, 2001
“Just three days later removed from these events, Americans do not
yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to
history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world
of evil.” September 14, 2001
“This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a
while.” September 16, 2001
“We will rid the world of the evil-doers.” October 16,
2001
“You are either with us or you are against us in the fight against
terror.” November 6, 2001
Vice President Dick Cheney—2001
“We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you
will.” September 16, 2001
“It’s been pretty well confirmed that [Mohammed Atta] did go to
Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi
intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April.” December
9, 2001
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—2001
“Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time.
Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden]…. Go massive. Sweep it all up.
Things related and not.” (Rumsfeld’s personal note) September
11, 2001
Richard Perle (Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy
Board) —2001
“Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves.
They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own
country. And I have no doubt that they will….I would be
surprised if we need anything like the 200,000 figure that is
sometimes discussed in the press. A much smaller force,
principally special operations forces, but backed up by some
regular units, should be sufficient.” March 17, 2001
Judith Miller (The New York Times) —2001
“If verified, Mr. Saeed’s allegations would provide ammunition to
officials within the Bush administration who have been arguing that
Mr. Hussein should be driven from power partly because of his
unwillingness to stop making weapons of mass destruction, despite
his pledges to do so.” December 20, 2001
William Safire (The New York Times) —2001
“The undisputed fact connecting Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to the
September 11 attacks is that Mohammed Atta, who died at the
controls of an airliner-missile, flew from Florida to Prague to
meet on April 8 of this year with Ahmed al-Ani, the Iraqi
consul.” November 12, 2001
Richard Cohen (The New York Times)—2001
“America is now getting a taste of the havoc biological weapons can
wreak…. Such a weapon in the hands of a thug is
untenable…Saddam and his bloody bugs have to go.” October 18,
2001
William Kristol (Project For A New American
Century)—2001
“I think Iraq is, actually, the big unspoken elephant in the room
today. There’s a fair amount of evidence that Iraq had very
close associations with Osama bin Laden in the past.”
September 12, 2001
Max Boot, (LA Times/Council on Foreign Relations)
—2001
“Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of
enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident
Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets. October 15, 2001
President George W. Bush—2002
“I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not
stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States
of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to
threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
January 20, 2002
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis
of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By
seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and
growing danger.” January 29, 2002
“I don’t know where he [Osama bin Laden] is. You know, I just
don’t spend that much time on him…I truly am not that concerned
about him.” March 13, 2002
“I cannot speak strongly enough about how we must collectively get
after those who kill in the name of—in the name of some kind of
false religion.” August 2, 2002
“The danger to our country is grave….According to the British
government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical
attack in as little as 45 minutes after the orders were
given.” September 26, 2002
“We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in
bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that
after September 11 Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the
terrorist attacks on America….America must not ignore the threat
gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we
cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking cloud—that could come
in the form of a mushroom cloud.” October 7, 2002
“I’m the commander—see, I don’t need to explain—I do not need to
explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about
being the president.” November 19, 2002
“Our intelligence sources tell us that [Saddam] has attempted to
purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons
production.” December 31, 2002
Vice President Dick Cheney—2002
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has
weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing
them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against
us….After liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are sure to
erupt in joy.” August 26, 2002
Secretary of State Colin Powell—2002
“They have chemical weapons; they have biological weapons; they’re
trying to acquire nuclear weapons.” October 22, 2002
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—2002
“They have weaponized chemical weapons, we know that.” June
10, 2002
“[Saddam’s] regime has amassed large clandestine stocks of
biological weapons, including anthrax and botulism toxin and
possibly smallpox. His regime has amassed large clandestine
stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX and sarin and mustard
gas.” September 18, 2002
“[Saddam’s] facilities are mobile; they have been widely dispersed
to a number of locations; [he has] vast underground networks and
facilities, and sophisticated denial and deception
techniques. In addition, [weapons and military facilities]
have been placed in close proximity to hospitals, schools, and
mosques.” September 27, 2002
Senator Hillary Clinton—2002
“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports
show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and
biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his
nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and
sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members….It is
clear…that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to
increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and
will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.” October 10,
2002
British Prime Minister Tony Blair—2002
“Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order
to use them.” September 24, 2002
Richard Perle (Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy
Board)—2002
“Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can
finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country.
And I have no doubt that they will.” July 11, 2002
“I don’t believe that anything like a long-term commitment of
150,000 Americans would be necessary.” October 3, 2002
Glenn Hubbard (White House Economic Adviser)
—2002
“The costs of any intervention would be very small.” October
4, 2002
Douglas Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for Policy)
—2002
“Several workers at Prague airport identified Atta following 9/11
and remember him traveling with his brother Farhan Atta.”
September 16, 2002
Lawrence Lindsey (White House Economic
Adviser)
“The likely economic effects [of a war in Iraq] would be relatively
small…. Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be
quite small relative to the economic benefits.” September 16,
2002
Kenneth M. Pollack, (former Director of Persian Gulf
Affairs, National Security Council) —2002
“It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute
hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would
have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars….The only
prudent and realistic course of action left to the United States is
to mount a full-scale invasion of Iraq to smash the Iraqi armed
forces, depose Saddam’s regime, and rid the country with weapons of
mass destruction.” September, 2002
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi—2002
“Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological
weapons. There’s no question about that.” November 12,
2002
Richard Dearlove (Head of British Foreign Intelligence)
—2002
“Military action was now seen as inevitable, Bush wanted to remove
Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of
terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being
fixed around the policy.” Downing Street Memo, July 23,
2002
Judith Miller and Michael Gordon (The New York Times)
—2002
“Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked
on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb.”
September 8, 2002
“In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of
specially designed aluminum tubes…intended as components of
centrifuges to enrich uranium.” September 8, 2002
“The dominant view [is] that the tubes [are] for Iraq’s nuclear
program…only one of several indications that Iraq [is]
reconstituting and expanding its effort to acquire nuclear
weapons.” September 13, 2002
Judith Miller (The New York Times) —2002
“Iraq has ordered large quantities of a drug that can be used to
counter the effects of nerve gas, mainly from suppliers in
Turkey.” November 12, 2002
Thomas Friedman (The New York Times)
“You win the presidency by connecting with the American people’s
gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept. The
concept I’d argue for is ‘neoliberalism.’ More Americans today are
natural neolibs, than neocons. Neoliberals believe in a muscular
foreign policy and a credible defense budget, but also a prudent
fiscal policy that balances taxes, deficit reduction and government
services.” June 11, 2002
Robert Kagan and William Kristol (The Project For A New
American Century) —2002
“We know that Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of September 11th, went
out of his way to meet with an Iraqi intelligence official a few
months before he flew a plane into the WTC.” January 21,
2002
President George W. Bush—2003
“You said we’re headed to war in Iraq—I don’t know why you say
that. I hope we’re not headed to war in Iraq. I’m the
person who gets to decide, not you.” January 28, 2003
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
January 28, 2003
“The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of
Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness
to terrorize himself.” January 29, 2003
“All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft
with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide
areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on
unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted
by the Security Council. A UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] launched
from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles
inland.” February 6, 2003
“Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.” March,
2003
“We will fight terrorism in all its forms. Iraq must
never again be a haven for terrorists of any kind.” March 6,
2003
“Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our
mission is very clear: disarmament.” March 6, 2003
“American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military
operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the
world from grave danger.” March 20, 2003
“Eighteen months ago, this building came under attack. From
that day to this, we have been engaged in a new kind of war—and we
are winning.” March 25, 2003
“Our forces have been given a clear mission: to end a regime that
threatened its neighbors and the world with weapons of mass
destruction and to free a people that had suffered far too
long.” April 14, 2003
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of
Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” May
2, 2003
“We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found
biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell
stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got
laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They’re
illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and
we’ve so far discovered two. And we’ll find more weapons as time
goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned
manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found
them.” May 29, 2003
“God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he
instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am
determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you
can help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I
will have to focus on them.” June 3, 2003, speaking to
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas
“The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of
torture, and we are leading this fight by example.” June 26,
2003
“The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of
torture and we are leading this fight by example…. I call on
all governments to join with the United States and the community of
law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting
all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and
unusual punishment.” June 26, 2003
“Iraqi democracy will succeed, and that success will send forth the
news, from Damascus to Tehran—that freedom can be the future of
every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart
of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global
democratic revolution.” November 6, 2003
“We’ve reached another great turning point—and the resolve we show
will shape the next stage of world development.” December 6,
2003
Vice President Dick Cheney—2003
“We know [Saddam has] been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire
nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted
nuclear weapons….My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as
liberators.” March 16, 2003
“I’m not willing at all at this point to buy the proposition that
somehow Saddam Hussein…had no WMD and some guy out at the CIA,
because I called him, cooked up a report saying he did.
That’s crazy.” September 14, 2003
Secretary of State Colin Powell—2003
“What I want to bring to your attention today is the…sinister nexus
between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that
combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of
murder.”
“We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on
wheel and on rails. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq
today has a stockpile of between one hundred and five hundred tons
of chemical weapons agents.”
[Saddam] remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons….
“Ladies and Gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts,
corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the
intelligence services of other countries….An Iraqi major, who
defected, confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological research
laboratories.”
“We have diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile
facilities.” February 5, 2003
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—2003
“Secretary Powell…presented, not opinions, not conjecture, but
facts demonstrating Iraq’s…ties to terrorist networks, including
al-Qaeda-affiliated cells operating in Baghdad…. The threat
is there to see.” February 8, 2003
“The United States is not interested in the oil in that region from
Iraq. That’s just utter nonsense.” February 25,
2003
“The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces,
I think, is far from the mark.” February 27, 2003
“Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the
global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring
and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the
radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against
us? Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to
stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting
relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting
a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The
cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions
against the terrorists’ cost of millions.” March 3, 2003
“We know he continues to hide biological and chemical weapons,
moving them to different locations as often as every 12 to 24
hours, and placing them in residential neighborhoods.” March
11, 2003
“When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American
taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi
government and the international community.” March 27,
2003
“We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit
and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.” March
30, 2003
“Think what’s happened in our cities when we’ve had riots, and
problems, and looting….Stuff happens….And it’s untidy, Freedom’s
untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes
and do bad things.” April 11, 2003
“Colin Powell, if you may recall, at the UN mentioned the existence
of…mobile biological laboratories and two of those are now in our
custody.” May 27, 2003
“Pockets of dead-enders are trying to reconstitute. General
[Tommy] Franks and his team are rooting them out.” June 18,
2003
Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of
Defense)—2003
“I don’t want to make a prediction…but you’re going to find, and
this is very important, you’re going to find Iraqis out cheering
American troops.” February 23, 2003
“I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and
that will help us keep [troop] requirements down…. We can say
with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands
of American troops is way off the mark…wildly off the mark.”
February 27, 2003
“I think the ethnic differences in Iraq are there but they’re
exaggerated.” March 5, 2003
“There are al-Qaeda terrorists who operate in and out of
Iraq. Secretary Powell was quite explicit about some of them
in his speech to the United Nations. That by itself would be
justification for military action. Not as openly as they did
in Afghanistan, for obvious reasons. Saddam is not quite as
foolish as the Taliban. But the support for terrorism is
clear-cut. The support for al Qaeda is clear-cut.”
March 5, 2003
“There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be
U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi
people. We are talking about a country that can really
finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.” March
27, 2003
“I’m not concerned about weapons of mass destruction…. I
didn’t come [to Iraq] in a search for weapons of mass
destruction.” July 22, 2003
British Prime Minister Tony Blair—2003
“On weapons of mass destruction, we know that the regime has them,
we know that as the regime collapses we will be led to them.”
April 8, 2003
“I’m ready to meet my Maker and answer for those who have died or
been horribly maimed as a result of my decisions.” May 5,
2003
“More than 125,000 American troops occupy Mesopotamia. They
are backed up by the resources of the world’s richest
economy. In a contest for control of Iraq, America can
outspend and outmuscle any competing faction.” May 6,
2003
General Eric Shinseki—2003
“I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point—something on
the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you
know, a figure that would be required.” February 25, 2003
Paul Bremer—2003
“The loss of innocent life is a tragedy for anyone involved in it,
but the numbers are really very low.” August 17, 2003
Richard Perle (Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board)
—2003
“Saddam Hussein…will go quickly but not alone: in a parting irony,
he will take the U.N. down with him…. As we sift the debris,
it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the
intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through
international law administered by international
institutions.” March 21, 2003
“From start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and
its coalition partners to the most important military victory since
World War II…. This was a war worth fighting. It ended
quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to
Iraq’s cities, towns or infrastructure…. It ended…without the
quagmire [the war’s critics] predicted…. Iraqis are freer
today and we are safer. Relax and enjoy it.” May 1,
2003
“And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some
grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.
There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number
of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been
liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated.”
September 22, 2003
Ari Fleischer (White House Press Secretary)
—2003
“Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And
so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to
shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.”
February 18, 2003
L. Paul Bremer III (Director of the Coalition
Provisional Authority) —2003
More people get killed in New York every night than get killed in
Baghdad. The fact of life is that there will never be such a thing
as one hundred percent security–it doesn’t exist. August
2003
Mitchell Daniels (Director of the White House Office of
Management and Budget) —2003
“The United States is very committed to helping Iraq recover from
the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid.” April
21, 2003
Douglas Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for
Policy)—2003
“There are enormous uncertainties….I don’t want to venture into the
prediction business.” 2003
General Tommy Franks (about Douglas
Feith)—2003
“I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the
earth almost every day.” 2003
General Anthony Zinni—2003
“I think—and this is just my opinion—that the neocons didn’t really
give a shit about what happened in Iraq and the aftermath.”
2003
Judith Miller (The New York Times) —2003
“Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment
only days before the war began.” April 21, 2003
Thomas Friedman (The New York Times)—2003
“We needed to go over there, basically, and take out a very big
stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble.… What
they [Muslims] needed to see was American boys and girls
going house to house from Basra to Baghdad and basically saying
‘Which part of this sentence don’t you understand? You don’t think
we care about our open society? You think this bubble fantasy,
we’re just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this!’ That,
Charlie [Rose], is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi
Arabia! It was part of that bubble. We could have hit Pakistan. We
hit Iraq because we could. May 30, 2003
Jim Hoagland (The Washington Post) —2004
“To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its
case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most
serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by
manufactured evidence. I don’t believe that. Today, neither should
you.” February 6, 2003
William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan—2003
“Duly armed, the United States can act to secure its safety and to
advance the cause of liberty—in Baghdad and beyond.” 2003
“Having defeated and then occupied Iraq, democratizing the country
should not be too tall an order for the world’s sole
superpower.” February 24, 2003
“There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America…that the
Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want
to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime.
There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been
very secular.” April 1, 2003
“The United States [has] committed itself…to reshaping the Middle
East, so the region [will] no longer be a hotbed of terrorism,
extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass
destruction…. The first two battles of this new era are now
over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won
decisively and honorably.” April 28, 2003
Tom Friedman (The New York Times) —2003
“As far as I’m concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of
mass destruction to justify this war…. Mr. Bush doesn’t owe the
world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it
turns out that the White House hyped this issue).” April 27,
2003
“The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for
democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S.
foreign policy in a long, long time.” November 30, 2003
Bill Keller (Editor of The New York Times)
—2003
“Kenneth Pollack, the Clinton National Security Council expert
whose argument for invading Iraq is surely the most influential
book of this season, has provided intellectual cover for every
liberal finding himself inclining toward war but uneasy about Mr.
Bush.” February 8, 2003
Leon Wieseltier (The New Republic)—2003
“There are two crimes, there are two heinous categories of acts,
that I believe require, obligate, every civilized individual to
oppose them, into doing something about them. They are
genocide and the use of biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons.” March, 2003
David Frum (White House speechwriter) —2003
“The sooner the fighting begins in Iraq, the nearer we are to its
imminent end. Which means, in other words, that this ‘rush to
war’ should really be seen as the ultimate ‘rush to peace.’
February 24, 2003
Former First Lady Barbara Bush—2003
“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths. Oh, I mean,
it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on
something like that?” March 18, 2003
David Frum and Richard Perle—2003
“We believe they are fighting to min—to end this evil before it
kills again and on a genocidal scale. There is no middle way
for Americans. It is victory or holocaust.”
“Now the pessimists are quivering because the remnants of the Bath
Party have launched a guerilla was against the allied forces in
Iraq….The aftermath of a war is always messy and bloody.”
“We eliminated the Arab world’s cruelest and most tyrannical
ruler. We liberated an entire nation, opening the way to a
humane, decent, civil society in Iraq—and to reform of the
ideological and moral climate of the whole Middle East.”
“Wars are won by leaders who dare to fight, as President Bush has
dared and as his would be successors evidently do not.”
“Just as the communists were once aided by fellow travelers who
endorsed their program and condoned their crimes, so Islamic
extremists may find fellow travelers in the non-Muslim West.”
“The idea that world events are directed by a Jewish conspiracy is
not exactly a novel one. But since 9/11, this ancient
obsession has migrated from the intellectual and moral margins to
form a central theme of much of the American and world media’s
reporting from Washington.”
New Bridge Strategies Website
“New Bridge Strategies is a unique company that was created
specifically with the aim of assisting clients to evaluate and take
advantage of business opportunities in the Middle East following
the conclusion of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Its activities
will seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new
economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the Bush
administration.” Ad for a company founded in May, 2003 by Joe
Allbaugh, head of the 2000 George W. Bush presidential
campaign.
President George W. Bush—2004
“No president has done more for human rights than I have.”
January 20, 2004
“This war is also a conflict of vision. In their worship of
power, their deep hatred, their blindness to innocence, the
terrorists are successors to the murderous ideologies of the 20th
century. And we are the heirs of the tradition of liberty,
defenders of the freedom, the conscience and dignity of every
person. Others before us have shown bravery and moral clarity
in this cause. The same is now asked of us, and we accept the
responsibilities of history.” February 4, 2004
“I believe it is essential that when we see a threat, we deal with
those threats before they become imminent. It’s too late if
they become imminent.” February 8, 2004
“One of the interesting things people ask me, now that we’re asking
questions, is, can you ever win the war on terror? Of course,
you can.” April 13, 2004
“It’s hard work in Iraq. Our efforts are approaching a
crucial moment.” May 18, 2004
“A turning point will come two weeks from today.” June 16,
2004
“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do
this job.” July, 2004
“Had we had to do it over again…we would look at the consequences
of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy
that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to
fight another day.” August 29, 2004
“Make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win.”
August 31, 2004
“Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies
will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience,
who kill at the whim of a hat.” September 17, 2004
“Gosh, I just don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama
Bin Laden. It’s kind of one of those exaggerations. Of
course we’re worried about Osama Bin Laden. We’re on the hunt
after Osama Bin Laden. We’re using every asset at our
disposal to get Osama Bin Laden.” October 13, 2004
“Let me make you understand what I just said about the role of the
United States. I believe the United States is the beacon for
freedom in the world. And I believe we have a responsibility
to promote freedom that is as solemn as the responsibility is to
protect the American people, because the two go hand-in-hand.
No, it’s very important for you to understand that about my
presidency.” 2004 (Bob Woodward book interview)
Vice President Dick Cheney—2004
“We haven’t really had the time yet to pore through all those
records in Baghdad. We’ll find ample evidence confirming the
link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the
Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a
number of occasions.” January 10, 2004
“It’s going to take some additional considerable period of time in
order to look in all the cubbyholes and ammo dumps and all the
places in Iraq where you’d expect to find something like
that.” January 24, 2004
“America has shown we are serious about removing the threat of
weapons of mass destruction….We now know that Saddam Hussein had
the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction….We know he had
the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the
dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and
biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery
systems — ballistic missiles — that had been prohibited by the
United Nations.” February 12, 2004
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—2004
“As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re
not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
December 8, 2004
Judith Miller (The New York Times)—2004
“My job was not to collect information and analyze it
independently, my job was to tell readers of The New York
Times…what people inside the government, … who were not supposed to
talk to me, were saying.” February 3, 2004
Tom Friedman (The New York Times) —2004
“I don’t get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over
in a month, it might be over in six months, but what’s the
rush? Can we let this play out, please?” June 3,
2004
“What we’re gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is
whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war.”
October 3, 2004
“Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be
won or lost in the next few months. But it won’t be won with
high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the
last mile.” November 28, 2004
David Frum and Richard Perle—2004
“Most important, the neoconservative myth offers Europeans and
liberals a useful euphemism for expressing their hostility to
Israel.” 2004
William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan—2004
“There are hopeful signs that Iraqis of differing religious,
ethnic, and political persuasions can work together…. [There
is] a broad Iraqi consensus favoring the idea of pluralism.”
March 22, 2004
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt—2004
“What we would tell the children of Iraq is that the noise they
hear is the sound of freedom. [….] We would recommend that you tell
the same thing to the children of Iraq, that that helicopter noise
above you ensures that they don’t have to worry for the
future.” February 25, 2004
Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski (Pentagon)—2004
“I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive
appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the
traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and
U.S. intelligence agencies. … I witnessed neoconservative agenda
bearers within OSP [Office of Special Plans] usurp measured and
carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and
distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact
falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the
president.” March 10, 2004
David Brooks (The New York Times) —2004
“In truth, the people labeled neocons … travel in widely different
circles and don’t actually have much contact with each other. … Con
is short for ‘conservative’ and neo is short for ‘Jewish.’”
January 6, 2004
President George W. Bush—2005
“The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad will be
recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the
great moments in the history of liberty.” April 11, 2005
“Our mission is clear…and that is to train the Iraqis so they can
do the fighting…[and] make sure they can stand up to defend their
freedoms, which they want to do.” June 2, 2005
“The terrorists in Iraq failed to incite an Iraqi civil war.”
June 28, 2005
“I’m encouraged by the increasing size and capability of the Iraqi
security forces. Today they have more than 100 battalions
operating throughout the country, and our commanders report that
the Iraqi forces are serving with increasing effectiveness.”
October 1, 2005
“Right now there are…over 30 Iraqi battalions in the lead.
And that is substantial progress from the way the world was a year
ago.” October 4, 2005
“At the time of our Fallujah operations 11 months ago, there were
only a few Iraqi army battalions in combat. Today there are
more than 80 Iraqi army battalions fighting the insurgency
alongside our forces.” October 6, 2005
“There’s still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq, but
thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be
recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of
the Middle East, and the history of freedom.” December 12,
2005
“These acts are part of a grand strategy by the terrorists.
Their stated objective is to drive the United States and coalition
forces out of the Middle East so they can gain control of Iraq and
use that country as a base from which to launch attacks against
America, overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East, and
establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that stretches from Spain
to Indonesia.” December 14, 2005
Vice President Dick Cheney—2005
“I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the
insurgency.” June 20, 2005
“And while the level of violence has continued, I do believe that
when we look back on this period of time, 2005 will have been the
turning point when, in fact, we made sufficient progress both on
the political front and the security front so that we’ll see that
as the watershed year.” December 18, 2005
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld—2005
“On January 30th in Iraq, the world witnessed an important moment
in the global struggle against tyranny, a moment that historians
might one day call a major turning point.” February 2,
2005
“I didn’t advocate invasion.” November 20, 2005
Judith Miller (The New York Times) —2005
“I didn’t feel that I had anything to apologize for with my WMD
coverage…. I had done the best I could at the time with the
information that was available to me.” July 13, 2005
William Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan—2005
“The Iraqi election of 2005…will turn out to have been a genuine
turning point…[the] key moment in vindicating the Bush Doctrine as
the right response to 9/11. And now there is the prospect of
further and accelerating progress.” March 7, 2005
Tom Friedman (The New York Times) —2005
“I think we’re in the end game now…. I think we’re in a
six-month window here where it’s going to become very clear.”
September 25, 2005
“Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this
neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become
clearer in the next few months as we see just what kind of a
minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come
around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should
stay to help build it. If they won’t, then we are wasting our
time.” September 28, 2005
“I think the next six months really are going to determine whether
this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or
whether it’s going to come together.” December 18, 2005
“We’re at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six
months in Iraq.” December 20, 2005
“The next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly
hopeful.” December 21, 2005
President George W. Bush—2006
“When our soldiers hear politicians in Washington question the
mission they are risking their lives to accomplish, it hurts their
morale. In a time of war, we have a responsibility to show
that whatever our political differences at home, our nation is
united and determined to prevail. January 10, 2006
“I ask all Americans to hold their elected leaders to account, and
demand a debate that brings credit to our democracy—not comfort to
our adversaries.” January 10, 2006
“I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what’s best
is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense.”
April 18, 2006
“This is a—we believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi
citizens, and it’s a new chapter in our partnership.” May 1,
2006
“There have been setbacks and missteps—like Abu Ghraib—that were
felt immediately and have been difficult to overcome. Yet we
have now reached a turning point in the struggle between freedom
and terror.” May 22, 2006
“I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the
desert, but tides kind of—it’s easy to see a tide turn—did I say
those words?” June 14, 2006
“You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to
the war on terror.” September 6, 2006
“The Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: the terrorists
win and America loses.” October 30, 2006
“The timing is right for new leadership at the Pentagon.”
Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, November 6, 2006
“This man [Rumsfeld] knows how to lead, and he did. And the
country is better off for it.” December 15, 2006
Vice President Dick Cheney—2006
“In the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, there was a concerted
effort to place limits and restrictions on presidential
authority…the decision that were aimed at the time at trying to
avoid a repeat of things like Vietnam or…Watergate….I thought they
were misguided then, and have believed that given the world that we
live in, that the president needs to have unimpaired executive
authority.” January 28, 2006
“The kind of debate that we’ve had in the United States,
suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from
Iraq, simply…validates the strategy of the terrorists.”
September 10, 2006
“The record speaks for itself: Don Rumsfeld is the finest Secretary
of Defense this nation has ever had.” December 15, 2006
Richard Perle (Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy
Board) —2006
“Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They
were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what
happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the
downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I’m getting damn tired of
being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of
bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, ‘Go describe the campaign
to do that.’ I had no responsibility for that.”
November 3, 2006
William Kristol and Robert Kagan—2006
“It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an
unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have
less to fear from its otherwise daunting power.” February 19,
2006
Tom Friedman (The New York Times) —2006
“I think that we’re going to know after six to nine months whether
this project has any chance of succeeding.” January 23,
2006
“I think we’re in the end game there, in the next three to six
months, Bob. We’ve got for the first time an Iraqi government
elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they’re
going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that
we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick
with it, or they’re not, in which case I think the bottom’s going
to fall out.” January 31, 2006
“I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months
are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in
Iraq.” March 2, 2006
“Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think
the American public will continue to want to support the effort
there to try and produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they
don’t, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public
support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or
another, I think we’re in the end game in the sense it’s going to
be decided in the next weeks or months whether there’s an Iraq
there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis
can tell us.” April 23, 2006
“Well, I think that we’re going to find out, Chris, in the next
year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is
possible there, and I think we’re going to have to just let this
play out.” May 11, 2006
Leon Wieseltier (The New Republic) —2006
“The security situation is at bottom the social-cultural
situation. It seems increasingly clear to me that the blame
for the violence in Iraq, and for its frenzied recoil from what
Fouad Ajami hopefully called ‘the foreigner’s gift,’ belongs to the
Iraqis. Gifts must not only be given, they must also be
received … For three and a half years, the Iraqis have been a free
people. What have they done with their freedom? … After we
invaded Iraq, Iraq invaded itself.” November 26, 2006
President George W. Bush—2007
“Some call this civil war; others call it emergency—I call it pure
evil.” March 28, 2007
“If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings,
we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge
victory.” April 24, 2007
William Kristol and Robert Kagan—2007
“Play this out for the next six months.” August 13, 2007
Tom Friedman (The New York Times) —2007
“I’m afraid we’ve run out of six months.” September 24,
2007
Judith Miller (The New York Times) —2007
“It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more
delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”
July 8, 2007
“The United States cannot walk away from the new international
terrorist front it created in Iraq. It will need to keep
sufficient forces and staging points in the region to strike
effectively against terrorist sanctuaries there or al Qaeda bid to
hijack control of a strife-torn Iraq.” August 13, 2007
Endnotes
1. Brown University “Costs of War Project”:
