Richard Myers:Timeline

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August 14, 1998: Richard Myers Becomes New NORAD Commander
General Richard B. Myers takes over as commander in chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), commander in chief of the US Space Command, and commander of the Air Force Space Command. He replaces General Howell M. Estes III. [NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 6/3/1998; AIR FORCE NEWS, 8/19/1998] Myers will serve in these positions until February 22, 2000, when he will be replaced by General Ralph E. Eberhart. [AIR FORCE NEWS, 2/22/2000] On 9/11, Myers will serve as the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [MYERS, 2009, PP. 10] Entity Tags: North American Aerospace Defense Command, Richard B. Myers, Air Force Space Command, US Space Command Timeline Tags: US Military, Complete 911 Timeline

Between August 15, 1998 and February 22, 2000: NORAD Radar System and Control Software Inadequate, Commander Finds At some point during his tenure as commander in chief of NORAD (see August 14, 1998), General Richard Myers expresses concerns about the adequacy of the radar system over the US, which NORAD shares with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in what is called the Joint Surveillance System. Myers will later tell the 9/11 Commission that NORAD is unable to “correlate” over 50 percent of the unknown radar tracks it picks up, either because it cannot launch an interceptor aircraft in time or because it cannot deal with the tracks appropriately. Some of them disappear from radar before NORAD can correlate them with the FAA. Myers makes Pentagon officials aware of the problem, telling them, “don’t think we’re providing 100 percent air sovereignty here… we’re looking outward, and a number of those tracks are never correlated.” He will recall that in connection with the internal radar issue, “I saw a letter I put out talking about a potential terrorist issue… that’s why you would want these radars up… it’s kind of a future issue.” According to Myers, there is talk about the future potential of a terrorist threat as a rationale for “trying to get people to address the FAA/[Air Force] radar funding issue in a more robust way.” Myers also finds NORAD’s command and control software inadequate. He will tell the 9/11 Commission that the “system was very old and was contracted to be replaced, but the contractor did not perform. The issue was how many tracks the system could handle at once; NORAD kept modifying the equipment to allow more inputs but it needed a new system.” However, Myers will also confirm to the 9/11 Commission that “from a technical radar standpoint, NORAD had pretty good coastal range, and that the activity on 9/11 was within the radar area that was accessible to NORAD.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/9/2004] Entity Tags: Joint Surveillance System, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

2000: Space Command Head Says US Needs ‘Space Superiority’ General Richard Myers, chief of Space Command, states: “The American military is built to dominate all phases and mediums of combat. We must acknowledge that our way of war requires superiority in all mediums of conflict, including space. Thus, we must plan for, and execute to win, space superiority.” [BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, 1/2001; YES MAGAZINE, 2001; FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL, 4/2001] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: US Military

January 30, 2001: First National Security Council Meeting Focuses on Iraq and Israel, Not Terrorism The Bush White House holds its first National Security Council meeting. The focus is on Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 261] This meeting sets the tone for how President Bush intends to handle foreign affairs. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke wants to focus on the threat from al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism, especially in light of the recent attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000). But Bush isn’t interested in terrorism. [UNGER, 2007, PP. 201] Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to be 'Tilted Back Towards Israel' - Instead, Bush channels his neoconservative advisers, particularly incoming Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (see February 18, 1992 and April-May 1999), in taking a new approach to Middle East affairs, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Referring to President Clinton’s efforts to make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Bush declares: “Clinton overreached, and it all fell apart. That’s why we’re in trouble. If the two sides don’t want peace, there’s no way we can force them. I don’t see much we can do over there at this point. I think it’s time to pull out of the situation.… We’re going to correct the imbalance of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We’re going to tilt it back towards Israel.” His view is that the Israeli government, currently headed by Ariel Sharon, should be left alone to deal as it sees fit with the Palestinians. “I’m not going to go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon. I’m going to take him at face value. We’ll work on a relationship based on how things go.” Justifying his position, he recalls a recent trip he took to Israel with the Republican Jewish Coalition. “We flew over the Palestinian camps. Looked real bad down there.… I don’t see much we can do over there at this point.” Secretary of State Colin Powell, surprised by Bush’s intended policy towards the 50-year old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, objects. According to Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil, Powell “stresse[s] that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army.” When Powell warns the president that the “consequences of that [policy] could be dire, especially for the Palestinians,” Bush shrugs. “Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things,” he suggests. [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 265-266; MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL, 6/2004] In this and subsequent meetings, Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, “parrot[s]… the neocon line,” in author Craig Unger’s words, by discussing Iraq. “Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region,” she says, clearly alluding to regime change and overthrow in that nation (see March 8, 1992, Autumn 1992, July 8, 1996, Late Summer 1996, Late Summer 1996, 1997-1998, January 26, 1998, February 19, 1998, September 2000, Late December 2000 and Early January 2001, and Shortly after January 20, 2001). [UNGER, 2007, PP. 201] Possible WMD Sites in Iraq Spark Bush to Order Plans for Ground Assaults - The meeting then moves on to the subject of Iraq. Rice begins noting “that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region.” She turns the meeting over to CIA Director George Tenet who summarizes current intelligence on Iraq. He mentions a factory that “might” be producing “either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture.” The evidence he provides is a picture of the factory with some truck activity, a water tower, and railroad tracks going into a building. He admits that there is “no confirming intelligence” on just what is going on at these sites. Bush orders Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Hugh Shelton to begin preparing options for the use of US ground forces in Iraq’s northern and southern no-fly zones in support of a native-based insurgency against the Hussein regime. [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 267; MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL, 6/2004] Author Ron Suskind later sums up the discussion: “Meeting adjourned. Ten days in, and it was about Iraq. Rumsfeld had said little, Cheney nothing at all, though both men clearly had long entertained the idea of overthrowing Saddam.” Defense Intelligence Agency official Patrick Lang later writes: “If this was a decision meeting, it was strange. It ended in a presidential order to prepare contingency plans for war in Iraq.” [MIDDLE EAST POLICY COUNCIL, 6/2004] Regime Change Intended from the Outset - US Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, later recalls: “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.… From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime. Day one, these things were laid and sealed.” O’Neill will say officials never questioned the logic behind this policy. No one ever asked, “Why Saddam?” and “Why now?” Instead, the issue that needed to be resolved was how this could be accomplished. “It was all about finding a way to do it,” O’Neill will explain. “That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this.’” [CBS NEWS, 1/10/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004; GUARDIAN, 1/12/2004; VANITY FAIR, 5/2004, PP. 234] Another official who attends the meeting will later say that the tone of the meeting implied a policy much more aggressive than that of the previous administration. “The president told his Pentagon officials to explore the military options, including use of ground forces,” the official will tell ABC News. “That went beyond the Clinton administration’s halfhearted attempts to overthrow Hussein without force.” [ABC NEWS, 1/13/2004] Unger later writes, “These were the policies that even the Israeli right had not dared to implement.” One senior administration official says after the meeting, “The Likudniks are really in charge now.” [UNGER, 2007, PP. 201] Funding the Iraqi National Congress - The council does more than just discuss Iraq. It makes a decision to allow the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an Iraqi opposition group, to use $4 million to fund efforts inside Iraq to compile information relating to Baghdad’s war crimes, military operations, and other internal developments. The money had been authorized by Congress in late 2004. The US has not directly funded Iraqi opposition activities inside Iraq itself since 1996. [GUARDIAN, 2/3/2005] White House Downplays Significance - After Paul O’Neill first provides his account of this meeting in 2004, the White House will attempt to downplay its significance. “The stated policy of my administration toward Saddam Hussein was very clear,” Bush will tell reporters during a visit to Mexico In January 2004. “Like the previous administration, we were for regime change.… And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with desert badger or fly-overs and fly-betweens and looks, and so we were fashioning policy along those lines.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Hugh Shelton, Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Craig Unger, Iraqi National Congress Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

February 1, 2001: Rumsfeld Wants to Get Rid of Hussein in Iraq; Envisions Iraq After Hussein Is Gone The Bush White House holds its second National Security Council meeting. Like the first meeting (see January 30, 2001), the issue of regime change in Iraq is a central topic. [CBS NEWS, 1/10/2004; NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004] Officials discuss a memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,” which talks about troop requirements, establishing war crimes tribunals, and divvying up Iraq’s oil wealth. [ [SOURCES: PAUL O’NEILL] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld interrupts Colin Powell’s discussion of UN-based sanctions against Iraq, saying, “Sanctions are fine. But what we really want to discuss is going after Saddam.” He continues, “Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that’s aligned with US interests. It would change everything in the region and beyond it. It would demonstrate what US policy is all about.” [SUSKIND, 2004, PP. 85-86 SOURCES: PAUL O’NEILL] According to Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Rumsfeld talks at the meeting “in general terms about post-Saddam Iraq, dealing with the Kurds in the north, the oil fields, the reconstruction of the country’s economy, and the ‘freeing of the Iraqi people.’” [NEW YORK TIMES, 1/12/2004 SOURCES: PAUL O’NEILL] Other people, in addition to O’Neill, Bush, and Rumsfeld, who are likely in attendance include Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers. [US PRESIDENT, 2/13/2001] Entity Tags: Paul O’Neill, George W. Bush, George J. Tenet, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

July 3, 2001: Rare Discussion Takes Place Between National Security Advisers on Terrorism This is one of only two dates that Bush’s national security leadership discusses terrorism. (The other discussion occurs on September 4.) Apparently, the topic is only mentioned in passing and is not the focus of the meeting. This group, made up of the national security adviser, CIA director, defense secretary, secretary of state, Joint Chiefs of staff chairman and others, met around 100 times before 9/11 to discuss a variety of topics, but apparently rarely terrorism. The White House “aggressively defended the level of attention [to terrorism], given only scattered hints of al-Qaeda activity.” This lack of discussion stands in sharp contrast to the Clinton administration and public comments by the Bush administration. [TIME, 8/4/2002] Bush said in February 2001, “I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil.” A few months earlier, Tenet told Congress, “The threat from terrorism is real, it is immediate, and it is evolving” (see February 7, 2001). [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/28/2002] Entity Tags: US Congress, Al-Qaeda, Richard B. Myers, George J. Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld, Clinton administration, Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

August 24, 2001: Former Head of Space Command Appointed as Chairman of Joint Chiefs President George W. Bush appoints Gen. Richard Myers, an expert in hi-tech computer and space warfare, as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Observers say that Bush’s nomination of Myers, a former head of the US Space Command, reflects the Bush administration intent to develop a missile defense system and weaponize space. [WASHINGTON FILE, 8/24/2001; PBS, 8/24/2001; REUTERS, 8/30/2001] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: US Military

Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Learns of First Crash from Television
Air Force General Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and acting chairman on 9/11. [Source: NORAD] According to his own account, Air Force General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sees reports of the first WTC crash on television. Myers is acting chairman of the US military during the 9/11 crisis because Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Henry Shelton is flying across the Atlantic for a NATO meeting in Europe. [ABC NEWS, 9/11/2002; AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 9/8/2006] Myers has a 9 o’clock appointment with Senator Max Cleland (D) in one of the Senate office buildings. He is heading into this meeting and sees a television in Cleland’s outer office showing the burning North Tower, with the commentator suggesting it has been hit by an airplane. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] Myers later recalls, “They thought it was a small plane or something like that.” [ARMED FORCES RADIO AND TELEVISION SERVICE, 10/17/2001; AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 10/23/2001] He says, “And we’re standing around saying, ‘What in the world happened?’ I remember the day being beautiful. I said, ‘How could a pilot be that stupid, to hit a tower? I mean, what’—but then you think, ‘Well, whatever.’” So he goes ahead and walks into the meeting, and is with Cleland at the time the second tower is hit (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 6/29/2006] On several occasions, Cleland will confirm that Myers had this meeting with him. [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001; CNN, 11/20/2001; ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/16/2003] But counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke seems to contradict this account. He claims that, when he joins a video teleconference shortly after arriving at the White House, he sees Myers on screen, indicating that Myers is at the Pentagon rather than with Cleland (see (9:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 1-3] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Henry Hugh Shelton, Max Cleland, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Learns of Second Attack but Does Not Head Back to Pentagon; Reports Are Contradictory
Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers learns of the second attack on the World Trade Center. According to some reports, Myers entered a meeting on Capitol Hill with Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) just minutes before the second plane hit the WTC (see Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). There are confused accounts of when he learns of this second attack and what he does in response. Myers later tells NBC News, “[S]omewhere in the middle of that meeting, they came in and said the second tower has been hit… and I think that’s when we figured out something—that America or at least the World Trade Center is under attack.” He adds, “And then I left the office,” and, he says, NORAD Commander Ralph Eberhart then calls him. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] Similarly, in his 2009 memoirs, Myers will write that Cleland “had started preparing a pot of tea, but we hadn’t taken a sip when a staff person came in from the outer office and informed us that the second tower had been hit. We both knew the interview was over and started out to the TV to see the South Tower erupting with smoke and flame.” [MYERS, 2009, PP. 8] In testimony on September 13, 2001, Myers will state, “[A]fter the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart.” [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001] In a speech in 2006, Myers says that after the second attack occurs, “The meeting was over very quickly.” [COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 6/29/2006] He will tell CNN, “[W]hen the second target was hit, we knew something was up, so we rushed back to the Pentagon.” [CNN, 4/15/2003] Yet in an interview five weeks after 9/11, Myers claims, “Nobody informed us” when the second tower was hit, “But when we came out [of our meeting], that was obvious.” [ARMED FORCES RADIO AND TELEVISION SERVICE, 10/17/2001; AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 10/23/2001] And, according to several accounts, he does not leave Capitol Hill until around the time the Pentagon is hit, which is more than 30 minutes after the second attack happens (see (Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). In a speech in 2003, Cleland will recall: “Gen. Myers bolted from his seat. We rushed into an adjoining office as we saw on TV the second plane slam into the second tower. Gen. Myers rushed out of my office, headed for the Pentagon. At that moment, the Pentagon was hit.” [ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/16/2003] But on a couple of other occasions, Cleland says he is still meeting with Myers in his office at the time the Pentagon is hit. [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001; CNN, 11/20/2001] Contradicting both Cleland and Myers, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will claim that when he joins a video teleconference shortly after the time of the second attack, he can see Myers on screen, meaning Myers is at the Pentagon at that time rather than on Capitol Hill (see (9:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 1-3] Entity Tags: Max Cleland, Ralph Eberhart, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

9:21 a.m. September 11, 2001: Boston Air Traffic Control Center Mistakenly Tells NEADS Flight 11 Is Still Airborne
According to the 9/11 Commission, NEADS is contacted by the FAA’s Boston Center. Colin Scoggins, Boston Center’s military liaison, tells it: “I just had a report that American 11 is still in the air, and it’s on its way towards—heading towards Washington.… That was another—it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That’s the latest report we have.… I’m going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he’s somewhere over, uh, either New Jersey or somewhere further south.” The NEADS official asks: “He—American 11 is a hijack?… And he’s heading into Washington?” Scoggins answers yes both times and adds, “This could be a third aircraft.” Somehow Boston Center has been told by FAA headquarters that Flight 11 is still airborne, but the 9/11 Commission will say it hasn’t been able to find where this mistaken information came from. Scoggins Makes Error - Vanity Fair magazine will later add, “In Boston, it is Colin Scoggins who has made the mistaken call.” Scoggins will explain why he believes he made this error: “With American Airlines, we could never confirm if [Flight 11] was down or not, so that left doubt in our minds.” He says he was monitoring a conference call between FAA centers (see 8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), “when the word came across—from whom or where isn’t clear—that American 11 was thought to be headed for Washington.” However, Boston Center was never tracking Flight 11 on radar after losing sight of it near Manhattan: “The plane’s course, had it continued south past New York in the direction it was flying before it dipped below radar coverage, would have had it headed on a straight course toward DC. This was all controllers were going on.” Scoggins says, “After talking to a supervisor, I made the call and said [American 11] is still in the air.” [NORTHEAST AIR DEFENSE SECTOR, 9/11/2001; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006] Myers Refers to Mistaken Report - In the hours following the attacks, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers will apparently refer to this erroneous report that Flight 11 is still airborne and heading toward Washington, telling the Associated Press that “prior to the crash into the Pentagon, military officials had been notified that another hijacked plane had been heading from the New York area to Washington.” Myers will say “he assumed that hijacked plane was the one that hit the Pentagon, though he couldn’t be sure.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/11/2001] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Federal Aviation Administration, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Colin Scoggins Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001: NORAD Possibly Holding ‘Live-Fly’ Training Exercise
According to former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, around this time the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers speaks to him via video link (see 9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). During their conversation, Myers mentions, “We are in the middle of Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD exercise.” [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 5] However, no other references have been found to this exercise, “Vigilant Warrior.” Considering that exercise terms are “normally an unclassified nickname,” [CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, 4/23/1998 ] this is perhaps a little odd. Could Richard Clarke have mistakenly been referring to the Vigilant Guardian exercise (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), which is taking place on 9/11? According to a later news report though, NORAD confirms that “it was running two mock drills on Sept. 11 at various radar sites and Command Centers in the United States and Canada,” one of these being Vigilant Guardian. [NEW JERSEY STAR-LEDGER, 12/5/2003] If this is correct then there must be another NORAD exercise on 9/11. If not “Vigilant Warrior,” a possibility is that the exercise referred to by Richard Clarke is in fact “Amalgam Warrior,” which is a NORAD-sponsored, large-scale, live-fly air defense and air intercept field training exercise. Amalgam Warrior usually involves two or more NORAD regions and is held twice yearly, in the spring for the West Coast and in the autumn for the East Coast. [US CONGRESS, N.D.; AIRMAN, 1996; ARKIN, 2005, PP. 254; GLOBALSECURITY (.ORG), 4/27/2005] Is it possible that in 2001 the East Coast Amalgam Warrior is being held earlier than usual (like Global Guardian (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001)) and is taking place on 9/11? In support of this possibility is a 1997 Defense Department report that describes the Stratcom exercise Global Guardian, saying it “links with other exercise activities sponsored by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Unified Commands.” The exercises it links with are Crown Vigilance (an Air Combat Command exercise), Apollo Guardian (a US Space Command exercise), and—significantly—the NORAD exercises Vigilant Guardian and Amalgam Warrior. [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 5/1997; GLOBALSECURITY (.ORG), 4/27/2005] Since in 2001, Vigilant Guardian (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001) is occurring the same time as Global Guardian, might Amalgam Warrior be as well? In his book Code Names, William Arkin says that Amalgam Warrior is “sometimes combined with Global Guardian.” [ARKIN, 2005, PP. 254] Amalgam Warrior tests such activities as tracking, surveillance, air interception, employing rules of engagement, attack assessment, electronic warfare, and counter-cruise-missile operations. A previous Amalgam Warrior in 1996 involved such situations as tracking unknown aircraft that had incorrectly filed their flight plans or wandered off course, in-flight emergencies, terrorist aircraft attacks, and large-scale bomber strike missions. Amalgam Warrior 98-1 was NORAD’s largest ever exercise and involved six B-1B bombers being deployed to Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, to act as an enemy threat by infiltrating the aerial borders of North America. [AIRMAN, 1996; ARKIN, 2005, PP. 254; GLOBALSECURITY (.ORG), 4/27/2005] Another Amalgam Warrior in fall 2000 similarly involved four B-1 bombers acting as enemy forces trying to invade Alaska, with NORAD going from tracking the unknown aircraft to sending up “alert” F-15s in response. [EIELSON NEWS SERVICE, 10/27/2000; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/29/2000] If either one (or both) of these exercises ending with the name “Warrior” is taking place on 9/11, this could be very significant, because the word “Warrior” indicates that the exercise is a Joint Chiefs of Staff-approved, Commander in Chief, NORAD-sponsored field training exercise. [NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 8/25/1989] Real planes would be pretending to be threats to the US and real fighters would be deployed to defend against them. Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Vigilant Warrior, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Ellington Air National Guard Base, Amalgam Warrior, Richard A. Clarke, Richard B. Myers, Vigilant Guardian Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(9:36 a.m.-10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Military Claims It Is Tracking Flight 93 and Ready to Shoot It Down; 9/11 Commission Says Otherwise
According to the later claims of several senior officials, the US military is tracking Flight 93 as it heads east and is ready to shoot it down if necessary. According to Brigadier General Montague Winfield, the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC) has “received the report from the FAA that Flight 93 had turned off its transponder, had turned, and was now heading towards Washington, DC.” Winfield will add, “The decision was made to try to go intercept Flight 93.” [ABC NEWS, 9/11/2002] General Richard Myers, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will write that in the NMCC, “We learned that there was apparently a fourth hijacked aircraft, United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark, bound nonstop for San Francisco. Like the other planes, it had switched off its transponder, making it much harder if not impossible to track on ground radar.” [MYERS, 2009, PP. 152]

Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region, will say, “I was personally anxious to see what 93 was going to do, and our intent was to intercept it.” Three fighters have taken off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia (see (9:25 a.m.-9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). According to Arnold, “we launched the aircraft out of Langley to put them over top of Washington, DC, not in response to American Airline 77, but really to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that way.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 5/23/2003] He says, “as we discussed it in the conference call, we decided not to move fighters toward 93 until it was closer because there could have been other aircraft coming in,” but adds, “I had every intention of shooting down United 93 if it continued to progress toward Washington, DC… whether we had authority or not.” [FILSON, 2003, PP. 73] Colonel Robert Marr, the battle commander at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), is reportedly “focused on United Flight 93, headed straight toward Washington.” He will concur with Arnold, saying: “United Airlines Flight 93 would not have hit Washington, DC. He would have been engaged and shot down before he got there.” [FILSON, 2003, PP. 73] Marr and Arnold will both say they were tracking Flight 93 even earlier on, while it was still heading west (see Before 9:36 a.m. September 11, 2001).

Yet, contradicting these claims, the 9/11 Commission will conclude that the military only learns about Flight 93 around the time it crashes. It says the NMCC learns of the hijacking at 10:03 a.m. (see 10:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). Based upon official records, including recordings of the NEADS operations floor, it says NEADS never follows Flight 93 on radar and is first alerted to it at 10:07 a.m. (see 10:05 a.m.-10:08 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 30-31, 34 AND 42; WASHINGTON POST, 4/30/2006; VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006] Entity Tags: National Military Command Center, Montague Winfield, Richard B. Myers, Robert Marr, Larry Arnold Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Speaks to NORAD Commander
At some time after the second attack in New York, Richard Myers, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, receives a call from NORAD Commander Ralph Eberhart. According to his own account, Myers is on Capitol Hill, where he has been meeting with Senator Max Cleland (D-GA). Apparently soon after he leaves this meeting, his military aide, Army Captain Chris Donahue, hands him a cell phone on which Eberhart is calling. Myers will later comment, “In this emergency, I had to forgo the luxury of a secure encrypted red switch phone and use Donahue’s cell.” Myers will recall that Eberhart “said, you know, we’ve got several hijack codes, meaning that the transponders in the aircraft are talking to the ground, and they’re saying we’re under, we’re being hijacked, several hijack codes in the system, and we’re responding with, with fighter aircraft.” [AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 10/23/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; MYERS, 2009, PP. 8-9] (However, none of the pilots of the four hijacked flights this morning keyed the emergency four-digit code that would indicate a hijacking into their plane’s transponder (see (8:13 a.m.-9:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [CNN, 9/11/2001] It is therefore unclear what “hijack codes” Eberhart is referring to.) Eberhart also tells Myers, “The decision I’m going to make is, we’re going to land everybody, and we’ll sort it out when we get them on the ground.” [COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 6/29/2006] He is presumably referring to a plan called SCATANA, which clears the skies and gives the military control over US airspace. However, Eberhart does not implement this until around 11:00 a.m. (see (11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004] It is unclear exactly when this call takes place, but it appears to be just before the time the Pentagon is hit, or just before Myers is informed of the Pentagon attack. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004 ; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004; COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 6/29/2006; AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 9/8/2006] In his 2009 memoirs, Myers will place it after he is informed of the second attack on the World Trade Center (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001), but not give a specific time. [MYERS, 2009, PP. 8-9] Cleland will confirm that Myers meets with him on this morning, and is with him up to the time of the Pentagon attack, or shortly before. [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001; CNN, 11/20/2001; ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/16/2003] However, according to counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, Myers is back at the Pentagon speaking over a video conference around 10 minutes before the Pentagon is struck (see 9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 5] Entity Tags: Ralph Eberhart, Max Cleland, Richard B. Myers, Chris Donahue Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Learns of Pentagon Attack; Heads Back to Pentagon
According to his own account, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers was in a meeting on Capitol Hill with Senator Max Cleland (D) since just before 9:00 a.m. (see Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] It is unclear exactly when this meeting ended. But Myers says he first learns of the Pentagon attack (which occurs at 9:37) around the time he is leaving the building for the drive back to the Pentagon. In an early interview, he says he hears somebody say the Pentagon has been hit just after he comes out of his meeting with Cleland. [ARMED FORCES RADIO AND TELEVISION SERVICE, 10/17/2001] In some accounts, he says he hears that the Pentagon has been hit just as he is leaving Capitol Hill. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004 ] In a meeting in 2006, he says, “my security guy got the call the Pentagon had been hit,” as he is making his way out of the building. [COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 6/29/2006] Myers says that, as his car crosses the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River, he can see all the black smoke rising up out of the Pentagon. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 463; AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 9/8/2006] Max Cleland later confirms that Myers meets with him on this morning, and is with him until the time of the Pentagon attack, or slightly before. [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001; CNN, 11/20/2001; ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/16/2003] However, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke gives a contradictory account. He claims that Myers is back at the Pentagon, speaking to him over a video conference, around ten minutes before the Pentagon is struck (see 9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 5] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

9:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: NMCC Teleconference Still Looking to Include Rumsfeld and Myers
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s office, and acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Myers’ office, report to the NMCC teleconference that they are still trying to track down Rumsfeld and Myers, respectively, and bring them into the conference. [9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004] Rumsfeld is apparently outside the Pentagon looking at the Flight 77 crash site (see Between 9:38 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. September 11, 2001), though counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke suggests Rumsfeld is elsewhere in the Pentagon for much of the time (see (Between 9:38 a.m. and 9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Myers’ whereabouts in the period after the Pentagon crash have not been fully explained (see (Between 9:55 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Rumsfeld and Myers do not enter the NMCC until about 10:30 a.m. (see (10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Entity Tags: National Military Command Center, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(Between 9:50 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Wants Clarification of Rules of Engagement for Fighter Pilots; Clarke Wants This Issued Promptly
Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers wants clear rules of engagement for military fighter pilots, according to counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke. In his book Against All Enemies, Clarke will describe hearing that the president has authorized the military to shoot down hostile aircraft some time between about 9:45 and 9:56 (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). From the White House Situation Room, where he is located, he then gets the attention of those on the video conference screen for the Pentagon, and informs them of this decision. Myers asks, “Okay, shoot down aircraft, but what are the ROE [rules of engagement]?” As Clarke will comment, “It was one thing to say it’s okay to shoot down a hijacked aircraft threatening to kill people on the ground, but we needed to give pilots more specific guidelines than that.” Clarke asks his colleague Franklin Miller and Marine Colonel Tom Greenwood—a member of Miller’s staff—to ensure that the Defense Department has “an answer to that question quickly.” He tells them, “I don’t want them delaying while they lawyer that to death.” Clarke recalls that he is then informed: “CNN says car bomb at the State Department. Fire on the Mall near the Capitol.” [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 8-9] It is therefore unclear exactly what time he is describing, as CNN first makes the incorrect report of the State Department car bomb at 10:33, but it reports the fire on the Mall at 9:45. [CNN, 9/11/2001; CNN, 9/11/2001; BROADCASTING AND CABLE, 8/26/2002] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will tell the 9/11 Commission that he works on fashioning the rules of engagement for fighter pilots, in collaboration with Myers, after he enters the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC) at around 10:30 (see (10:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/23/2004] Yet he does not complete and issue these rules until 1:00 p.m. [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 465; COCKBURN, 2007, PP. 7; MYERS, 2009, PP. 157-158] Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, Richard B. Myers, Franklin Miller, Tom Greenwood Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(Between 9:55 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Myers Finally Enters NMCC; Prior Whereabouts Disputed
Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers enters the National Military Command Center (NMCC) within the Pentagon, though exactly when this happens remains unclear. According to his own statements, he was on Capitol Hill, in the offices of Senator Max Cleland (D), from just before 9:00 a.m. until around the time the Pentagon was hit. He’d then headed back to the Pentagon (see Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [ARMED FORCES RADIO AND TELEVISION SERVICE, 10/17/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 6/29/2006] According to the 9/11 Commission, Myers joins the air threat conference call from the NMCC at “shortly before 10:00.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 38] But the American Forces Press Service reports that he arrives at the NMCC “about 15 minutes” before Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (who arrives around 10:30), meaning at about 10:15 a.m. [AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 9/8/2006] Rumsfeld claims that, as he enters the NMCC, Myers has “just returned from Capitol Hill.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/23/2004] Max Cleland concurs that Myers was with him on Capitol Hill until around the time of the Pentagon attack. [CNN, 11/20/2001; ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 6/16/2003] But counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke claims that Myers has been taking part in a video conference since shortly after the second attack on the WTC, and has been visible on the Pentagon screen (see (9:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and 9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), thereby implying Myers has been at the Pentagon all along. [CLARKE, 2004, PP. 3 AND 5] Myers tells the 9/11 Commission, “After I reached the National Military Command Center (NMCC), I asked questions to determine where Secretary Rumsfeld was, how the FAA was handling airborne flights, and the status of fighters prepared to intercept any hijacked aircraft inbound to Washington.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004 ] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, National Military Command Center Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(After 10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Richard Clarke Updated on Fighter Situation, Told Flight 93 Still Headed toward Washington
Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke is told by White House Situation Room Deputy Director Ralph Seigler, “Secret Service reports a hostile aircraft ten minutes out.” Two minutes later, he is given an update: “Hostile aircraft eight minutes out.” In actual fact, when Flight 93 crashed at 10:06 a.m., it was still about 15 minutes away from Washington. Clarke is also told that there are 3,900 aircraft still in the air over the continental US (which is roughly accurate); four of those aircraft are believed to be piloted by terrorists (which is inaccurate by this time). Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Richard Myers then reports: “We have three F-16s from Langley over the Pentagon. Andrews is launching fighters from the DC Air National Guard. We have fighters aloft from the Michigan Air National Guard, moving east toward a potential hostile over Pennsylvania. Six fighters from Tyndall and Ellington are en route to rendezvous with Air Force One over Florida. They will escort it to Barksdale.” [NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 9/18/2001; CLARKE, 2004, PP. 8-9] However, fighters do not meet up with Air Force One until about an hour later (see (11:29 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Franklin Miller, a senior national security official who is working alongside Clarke on 9/11, and another official who is also in the Situation Room, will later fail to recall hearing any warning that a plane could be only minutes away. [NEW YORK TIMES, 3/30/2004] The time of this incident is unstated, but the Michigan fighters are not diverted until after 10:06 a.m. (see (After 10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). If it takes place after 10:06 a.m., this would parallel similar warnings about Flight 93 after it has already crashed provided to Vice President Dick Cheney elsewhere in the White House (see (Between 10:10 a.m. and 10:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Entity Tags: Secret Service, Richard B. Myers, Franklin Miller, Ralph Seigler, Richard A. Clarke Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Military Put on High Alert
All US military forces are ordered to Defcon Three (or Defcon Delta), “The highest alert for the nuclear arsenal in 30 years.” [DAILY TELEGRAPH, 12/16/2001; CNN, 9/4/2002; ABC NEWS, 9/11/2002; CLARKE, 2004, PP. 15] Rumsfeld claims that he makes the recommendation, but it is hard to see how he can do this, at least at this time. He later asserts that he discusses the issue with acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers in the NMCC first. However, they do not arrive at the PEOC until about 10:30 a.m. [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/23/2004] At 10:15 a.m., the massive blast doors to US Strategic Command, headquarters for NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, are closed for the first time in response to the high alert. [AVIATION WEEK AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY, 6/3/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002] In another account, acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers gives the Defcon order by himself. President Bush later contradicts both accounts, asserting that he gives the order. [WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/22/2004 ] According to the 9/11 Commission’s final report, though, the decision to go to Defcon Three takes place about 35 minutes later (see (10:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Entity Tags: George W. Bush, National Military Command Center, Richard B. Myers, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Donald Rumsfeld, 9/11 Commission, US Strategic Command Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

10:17 a.m. September 11, 2001: FAA out of the Loop; Finally Joins NMCC Teleconference
The FAA finally joins an emergency teleconference being conducted by the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon. The NMCC has been holding this teleconference since 9:29 a.m. It began as a “significant event” conference, but after eight minutes continued as an air threat conference call (see (9:29 a.m.-9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Yet, according to the 9/11 Commission, the FAA has not been included in it until this time, because operators have had “equipment problems and difficulty finding secure phone numbers.” NORAD asked three times before 10:03 a.m., when the last hijacked plane crashed, to confirm the presence of FAA on the teleconference, to provide an update on hijackings, but without success. Furthermore, the FAA representative who now joins the teleconference has “no familiarity with or responsibility for hijackings, no access to decisionmakers, and none of the information available to senior FAA officials.” The highest level Defense Department officials rely on this teleconference to coordinate with their counterparts at the FAA. As a result of the FAA’s absence from it, the leaders of NORAD and the FAA have effectively been out of contact with each other. [9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 37-38] General Richard Myers, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will later write that the lack of communication with the FAA has contributed to confusion at the NMCC over the flight numbers of the aircraft that were hijacked. However, according to Myers, the NMCC could not contact the FAA over ordinary phone lines because “[t]errorists who could hijack aircraft so readily could probably also eavesdrop on unsecured phone lines.” [MYERS, 2009, PP. 153] Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Richard B. Myers, Federal Aviation Administration, National Military Command Center Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

(10:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Works on Rules of Engagement for Fighter Pilots, Too Late to Be of Any Use
After he finally arrives at the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon (see (10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Donald Rumsfeld’s primary concern, according to the 9/11 Commission, is “ensuring that the [military fighter] pilots [have] a clear understanding of their rules of engagement.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 44] Rumsfeld later recalls, “It was clear they needed rules of engagement telling them what they should and should not do. They needed clarity. And there were no rules of engagement on the books for this first-time situation where civilian aircraft were seized and were being used as missiles.” By this time, the president has supposedly already given authorization for the military to shoot down hijacked aircraft (see (Between 10:00 a.m. and 10:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and Dick Cheney informs Rumsfeld of this over the air threat conference at 10:39 (see 10:39 a.m. September 11, 2001). Rumsfeld says that, “Throughout the course of the day,” along with acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers, he “returned to further refine those rules.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 3/23/2004] As journalist Andrew Cockburn will later remark though, Rumsfeld’s work on the rules of engagement “was an irrelevant exercise for he did not complete and issue them until 1:00 p.m., hours after the last hijacker had died.” [9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 465; COCKBURN, 2007, PP. 7] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

12:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: Defense Intelligence Agency Director Says Al-Qaeda Responsible for Attacks
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency informs military leaders in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon that al-Qaeda is responsible for the morning’s attacks. General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will later describe: “At noon, Vice Admiral Tom Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed what everybody at the conference table had already surmised: The attacks had undoubtedly come from al-Qaeda.” [MYERS, 2009, PP. 156] Later in the day, Wilson will recall a relevant piece of intelligence “chatter” that was picked up a few months previously. When General Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrives in the NMCC at 5:40 p.m. after returning from his aborted flight to Europe, he will ask Wilson, “Have we had any intel ‘squeaks’ on an attack like this—anything at all?” Wilson will reply: “The only possible hint of this coming was several months ago when we got a single intercept requesting jumbo jet training. Since then, there’s been nothing.” According to Myers, Wilson is “referring to the vast electronic signals data-mining operations of our intelligence community that targeted known terrorist networks, such as al-Qaeda and their allies.” [MYERS, 2009, PP. 159] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Hugh Shelton, Thomas Wilson, Al-Qaeda Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

September 13, 2001: Air Force General Gives Inaccurate Account of Fighter Response during Attacks
Air Force General Richard Myers appears before the Senate Armed Forces Committee for a hearing to confirm him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and makes false statements about the launching of fighters in response to the 9/11 attacks. Myers claims that no fighters were launched before the Pentagon was hit at 9:37 a.m. However, the 9/11 Commission will later conclude that the first fighters were airborne before 9:00 a.m. (see 8:53 a.m. September 11, 2001). It is unclear why Myers, a former pilot who had flown hundreds of missions, gives such an inaccurate account. Author Philip Shenon will comment, “It seemed obvious that Myers, of all people at the Pentagon, would want to know—would demand to know—how jet fighters under NORAD’s control had responded on the morning of September 11 to the threat in the skies.” [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001; SHENON, 2008, PP. 118-119] A different version of the air defense response will be put forward the next day (see September 14, 2001). Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Philip Shenon, Senate Armed Forces Committee Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

September 14, 2001: Officials Deny Flight 93 Shot Down Officials deny that Flight 93 was shot down, but propose the theory that the hijackers had a bomb on board and blew up the plane. [PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 9/14/2001] Later in the month, it is reported that the “FBI has determined from the on site investigation that no explosive was involved.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/25/2001] Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, North American Aerospace Defense Command, National Transportation Safety Board, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

September 14, 2001: Account of Fighter Response Times Changes Significantly CBS News announces that “contrary to early reports, US Air Force jets did get into the air on Tuesday while the attacks were under way.” According to this new account, the first fighters got airborne toward New York City at 8:52 a.m. [CBS NEWS, 9/14/2001] The day before this announcement, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers in Congressional testimony stated that the first fighters got airborne only after the Pentagon was hit at 9:37 a.m. (see September 13, 2001). [US CONGRESS, 9/13/2001] NORAD spokesman Marine Corps Major Mike Snyder also claimed no fighters launched anywhere until after the Pentagon was hit. [BOSTON GLOBE, 9/15/2001] Four days later, the official NORAD timeline is changed to include this new account. [NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, 9/18/2001] New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani later testifies before the 9/11 Commission that he found out from the White House at about 9:58 a.m. that the first fighters were not launched toward New York City until twelve minutes earlier—9:46 a.m. [9/11 COMMISSION, 5/19/2004] This would correspond to Myers’ and Snyder’s accounts that no fighters are scrambled until after the Pentagon is hit. But the 9/11 Commission later agrees with this CBS report and by their account the first fighters launch around 8:52. [9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Snyder, 9/11 Commission, Rudolph (“Rudy”) Giuliani, US Department of Defense, Richard B. Myers, North American Aerospace Defense Command Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

September 15, 2001-April 6, 2002: Bush Shifts Public Focus from Bin Laden to Iraq On September 15, 2001, President Bush says of bin Laden: “If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.” [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 9/16/2001] Two days later, he says, “I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West, I recall, that says, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’” [ABC NEWS, 9/17/2001] On December 28, 2001, even as the US was declaring victory in Afghanistan, Bush says, “Our objective is more than bin Laden.” [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8/21/2002] Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union speech describes Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” and fails to mention bin Laden at all. On March 8, 2002, Bush still vows: “We’re going to find him.” [WASHINGTON POST, 10/1/2002] Yet, only a few days later on March 13, Bush says, “He’s a person who’s now been marginalized.… I just don’t spend that much time on him.… I truly am not that concerned about him.” Instead, Bush is “deeply concerned about Iraq.” [US PRESIDENT, 3/18/2002] The rhetoric shift is complete when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers states on April 6, “The goal has never been to get bin Laden.” [EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS, 4/6/2002] In October 2002, the Washington Post notes that since March 2002, Bush has avoided mentioning bin Laden’s name, even when asked about him directly. Bush sometimes uses questions about bin Laden to talk about Saddam Hussein instead. In late 2001, nearly two-thirds of Americans say the war on terrorism could not be called a success without bin Laden’s death or capture. That number falls to 44 percent in a March 2002 poll, and the question has since been dropped. [WASHINGTON POST, 10/1/2002] Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies, later points out: “There appears to be a real disconnect” between the US military’s conquest of Afghanistan and “the earlier rhetoric of President Bush, which had focused on getting bin Laden.” [CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 3/4/2002] Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Richard B. Myers, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Early October 2001: General Franks Disregards Advice to Open Second Front in Afghanistan The Washington Post reports in late 2004 that, shortly after Richard Myers officially becomes Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman on October 1, 2001, he raises doubts about the military plan to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. General Tommy Franks, the chief of US Central Command, plans a single thrust towards the capital, Kabul, from the north. Myers urges Franks to open a southern front. A brigade of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in Uzbekistan and two Marine Expeditionary Forces in the Arabian Sea are prepared and in position for the role. However, Franks does not position a blocking force to meet any retreating forces. The Washington Post reports, “Some Bush administration officials now acknowledge privately they consider that a costly mistake.” Franks later claims that it would have taken too much time to put a force into position and would have antagonized the country’s Pashtun majority. Most of al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s leaders are eventually able to escape the country. “A high-ranking war planner [later] likened the result to throwing a rock at a nest of bees, then trying to chase them down, one by one, with a net.” [WASHINGTON POST, 10/22/2004] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Thomas Franks Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

October 17, 2001: JCS Chairman Myers Says He Hadn’t Thought of 9/11-Type Scenario Gen. Richard Myers, acting Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman on 9/11, says of 9/11, “You hate to admit it, but we hadn’t thought about this.” He was promoted from Vice-Chairman to Chairman three days after 9/11. [AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE, 10/23/2001] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline

Late 2001-Early 2002: Rumsfeld Creates Ultra-Secret Program to Kill, Capture, and/or Interrogate ‘High Value’ Terrorists Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorizes the creation of a “special-access program,” or SAP, with “blanket advance approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate ‘high value’ targets in the Bush administration’s war on terror.” The operation, known as “Copper Green,” is approved by Condoleezza Rice and known to President Bush. A SAP is an ultra secret project, the contents of which are known by very few officials. “We’re not going to read more people than necessary into our heart of darkness,” a former senior intelligence official tells investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. The SAP is brought up occasionally within the National Security Council (NSC), chaired by the president and members of which are Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Powell. The former intelligence official tells Hersh, “There was a periodic briefing to the National Security Council giving updates on results, but not on the methods.” He also says he believes NSC members know about the process by which these results are acquired. This official claims that fewer than two hundred operatives and officials, including Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers were “completely read into the program.” Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone is generally in charge of running such operations. Motive for the SAP comes from an initial freeze in the results obtained by US agents from their hunt for al-Qaeda. Friendly foreign intelligence services on the other hand, from countries in the Middle East and South-East Asia, which employ more aggressive tactics on prisoners, are giving up much better information by the end of 2001. By authorizing the SAP, Rumsfeld, according to Hersh, desires to adopt these tactics and thus increase intelligence results. “Rumsfeld’s goal was to get a capability in place to take on a high-value target—a stand-up group to hit quickly,” the former intelligence official tells Hersh. The program’s operatives were recruited from among Delta Force, Navy Seals, and CIA’s paramilitary experts. They are permitted to carry out “instant interrogations—using force if necessary—at secret CIA detention centers scattered around the world.” Information obtained through the program is sent to the Pentagon in real-time. The former intelligence official tells Hersh: “The rules are ‘Grab whom you must. Do what you want.’” The operation, according to Seymour Hersh, “encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation.” [NEW YORKER, 5/24/2004; GUARDIAN, 9/13/2004] Both the Defense Department and CIA deny the existence of Copper Green. One Pentagon spokesman says of Hersh’s article about it, “This is the most hysterical piece of journalist malpractice I have ever observed.” [CNN, 5/17/2004] Entity Tags: Stephen A. Cambone, Richard B. Myers, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Operation Copper Green Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline

December 27, 2001: Rumsfeld Announces ‘War on Terror’ Suspects to be Housed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes a public announcement that he is planning to move Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station. The number of people in US custody and destined for Guantanamo is allegedly small. According to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, they number eight individuals aboard the USS Peleliu and 37 at a US base near Kandahar airport. [DAWN (KARACHI), 12/28/2001] Troops, earlier stationed at nearby Camp Rhino, where John Walker Lindh was detained, are being transferred to Guantanamo. [GLOBALSECURITY (.ORG), 1/15/2005] The reason for choosing Guantanamo for detaining suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban members is unclear. Rumsfeld says: “I would characterize Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the least worst place we could have selected. Its disadvantages seem to be modest relative to the alternatives.” [DAWN (KARACHI), 12/28/2001] Rumsfeld does not inform reporters of the legal opinion about to be released by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that he feels makes Guantanamo uniquely qualified to serve as a prisoner for terror suspects (see December 28, 2001). According to the OLC opinion, Guantanamo is outside the US itself, so US courts have no jurisdiction to oversee conditions or activities there. It is also not on soil controlled by any other court system. And, unlike other facilities considered for housing terror suspects (see January 11, 2002), Guantanamo is not on the soil of a friendly government with which the US has lease and status of force agreements, but rather on the soil of a hostile Communist government whose predecessor had signed a perpetual lease with the US. The base, therefore, is, according to the OLC, under the sole jurisdiction of the US military and its commander in chief, and not subject to any judicial or legislative review. In 2007, author and reporter Charlie Savage will write, “Guantanamo was chosen because it was the best place to set up a law-free zone.” [SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 145] Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, US Department of Defense, Charlie Savage, Richard B. Myers, Taliban, Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, War in Afghanistan

January 11, 2002: First Prisoners Transferred to Guantanamo Bay

An aerial shot of Camp X-Ray. [Source: Public domain] The US prison camp at Guantanamo receives its first 20 prisoners from the Afghan battlefield. [REUTERS, 1/11/2002] The prisoners are flown on a C-141 Starlifter cargo plane, escorted during the final leg of the journey by a Navy assault helicopter and a naval patrol boat. The prisoners, hooded, shackled, wearing blackout goggles and orange jumpsuits, and possibly drugged, are escorted one by one off the plane by scores of Marines in full battle gear. They are interred in what reporter Charlie Savage will later call “kennel-like outdoor cages” in the makeshift containment facility dubbed Camp X-Ray. [GUARDIAN, 1/11/2002; SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 142-143] Leaked Photos of Transfer Cause International Outcry - Pictures of prisoners being transferred in conditions clearly in violation of international law are later leaked, prompting an outcry. But rather than investigating the inhumane transfer, the Pentagon will begin investigating how the pictures were leaked. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11/9/2002] Guantanamo Chosen to Keep Prisoners out of US Jurisdiction - The prisoners are sent to this base—leased by Cuba to the US—because it is on foreign territory and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of US law (see December 28, 2001). [GLOBE AND MAIL, 9/5/2002] It was once a coaling station used by the US Navy, and in recent years had been used by Coast Guard helicopters searching for drug runners and refugees trying to make it across the Florida Straits to US soil. In 1998, the Clinton administration had briefly considered and then rejected a plan to bring some prisoners from Kosovo to Guantanamo. Guantanamo was chosen as an interim prison for Afghanis who survived the uprising at Mazar-e Sharif prison (see 11:25 a.m. November 25, 2001) by an interagency working group (see Shortly Before September 23, 2001), who considered and rejected facilities in Germany and other European countries. Group leader Pierre-Richard Prosper will later recall: “We looked at our military bases in Europe and ruled that out because (a), we’d have to get approval from a European government, and (b), we’d have to deal with the European Court of Human Rights and we didn’t know how they’d react. We didn’t want to lose control over it and have it become a European process because it was on European soil. And so we kept looking around and around, and basically someone said, ‘What about Guantanamo?’” The base may well have not been the final choice of Prosper’s group; it was still researching a Clinton-era attempt to house Haitian and Cuban refugees there that had been challenged in court when Rumsfeld unilaterally made the decision to begin transferring prisoners to the naval base. [SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 143-144] No Geneva Convention Strictures Apply to 'Unlawful Combatants' - Rumsfeld, acting on the advice of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, publicly declares the detainees “unlawful combatants” and thereby not entitled to the rights of the Geneva Conventions. “Unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention,” Rumsfeld says. Though, according to Rumsfeld, the government will “for the most part treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva Conventions, to the extent they are appropriate.” [REUTERS, 1/11/2002] There is no reason to feel sorry for these detainees, says Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He states, “These are people who would gnaw through hydraulic lines at the back of a C-17 to bring it down.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 6/21/2004] British Officials: 'Scandalous' - Senior British officials privately call the treatment of prisoners “scandalous,” and one calls the refusal to follow the Geneva Convention “not benchmarks of a civilized society.” [GUARDIAN, 6/13/2002] Entity Tags: US Department of the Navy, United States, US Department of Defense, Pierre-Richard Prosper, Richard B. Myers, Clinton administration, Donald Rumsfeld, Charlie Savage, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Office of Legal Counsel, Geneva Conventions Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Complete 911 Timeline, Civil Liberties

January 18-25, 2002: President Bush Ignores Advice from Senior Cabinet and Military Officials, Decides Geneva Conventions Do Not Apply to Taliban
Siding with the Pentagon and Justice Department against the State Department, President Bush declares the Geneva Conventions invalid with regard to conflicts with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Secretary of State Colin Powell urges Bush to reconsider, saying that while Geneva does not apply to al-Qaeda terrorists, making such a decision for the Taliban—the putative government of Afghanistan—is a different matter. Such a decision could put US troops at risk. Both Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs chairman General Richard B. Myers support Powell’s position. Yet another voice carries more weight with Bush: John Yoo, a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC—see October 23, 2001). Yoo says that Afghanistan is a “failed state” without a functional government, and Taliban fighters are not members of an army as such, but members of a “militant, terrorist-like group” (see January 9, 2002). White House counsel Alberto Gonzales agrees with Yoo in a January 25 memo, calling Yoo’s opinion “definitive.” The Gonzales memo concludes that the “new kind of war” Bush wants to fight should not be equated with Geneva’s “quaint” privileges granted to prisoners of war, or the “strict limitations” they impose on interrogations (see January 25, 2002). Military lawyers dispute the idea that Geneva limits interrogations to recitals of name, rank, and serial number, but their objections are ignored. For an OLC lawyer to override the judgment of senior Cabinet officials is unprecedented. OLC lawyers usually render opinions on questions that have already been deliberated by the legal staffs of the agencies involved. But, perhaps because OLC lawyers like Yoo give Bush the legal opinions he wants, Bush grants that agency the first and last say in matters such as these. “OLC was definitely running the show legally, and John Yoo in particular,” a former Pentagon lawyer will recall. “Even though he was quite young, he exercised disproportionate authority because of his personality and his strong opinions.” Yoo is also very close to senior officials in the office of the vice president and in the Pentagon’s legal office. [LEDGER (LAKELAND FL), 10/24/2004] Undermining, Cutting out Top Advisers - Cheney deliberately cuts out the president’s national security counsel, John Bellinger, because, as the Washington Post will later report, Cheney’s top adviser, David Addington, holds Bellinger in “open contempt” and does not trust him to adequately push for expanded presidential authority (see January 18-25, 2002). Cheney and his office will also move to exclude Secretary of State Colin Powell from the decision-making process, and, when the media learns of the decision, will manage to shift some of the blame onto Powell (see January 25, 2002). [WASHINGTON POST, 6/24/2007] Final Decision - Bush will make his formal final declaration three weeks later (see February 7, 2002). Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, US Department of Justice, Richard B. Myers, US Department of State, Taliban, Office of Legal Counsel, John C. Yoo, Alberto R. Gonzales, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Colin Powell, Al-Qaeda, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bellinger, George W. Bush, Geneva Conventions, David S. Addington Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties

January 19, 2002: Rumsfeld Tells Military Head Myers Geneva Conventions Do Not Apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban Defense Secretary Rumsfeld sends a memo to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers informing him that Bush has declared the Geneva Conventions invalid with regard to conflicts with al-Qaeda and the Taliban (see January 18-25, 2002). In this “Memorandum for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Rumsfeld states: “The United States has determined that al-Qaeda and Taliban individuals under the control of the Department of Defense are not entitled to prisoner of war status for purposes of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.” Nevertheless, “[t]he Combatant Commanders shall, in detaining al-Qaeda and Taliban individuals under the control of the Department of Defense, treat them humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.” [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 1/19/2002 ] The same day, the memorandum is disseminated as an order by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, 1/19/2002 ] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

January 25, 2002: Gonzales Recommends Retaining Decision to Declare War on Terror Exempt from Geneva Conventions White House lawyer Alberto Gonzales completes a draft memorandum to the president advising him not to reconsider his decision (see January 18-25, 2002) declaring Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters ineligible for prisoner of war status as Colin Powell has apparently recommended. [US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, 1/25/2004 ; NEWSWEEK, 5/24/2004] The memo recommends that President Bush accept a recent Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo saying that the president has the authority to set aside the Geneva Conventions as the basis of his policy (see January 9, 2002). [SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 146] Geneva No Longer Applies, Says Gonzales - Gonzales writes to Bush that Powell “has asked that you conclude that GPW [Third Geneva Convention] does apply to both al-Qaeda and the Taliban. I understand, however, that he would agree that al-Qaeda and the Taliban fighters could be determined not to be prisoners of war (POWs) but only on a case-by-case basis following individual hearings before a military board.” Powell believes that US troops will be put at risk if the US renounces the Geneva Conventions in relation to the Taliban. Rumsfeld and his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, allegedly agree with Powell’s argument. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/24/2004] But Gonzales says that he agrees with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which has determined that the president had the authority to make this declaration on the premise that “the war against terrorism is a new kind of war” and “not the traditional clash between nations adhering to the laws of war that formed the backdrop for GPW [Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war].” Gonzales thus states, “In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.” [NEWSWEEK, 5/24/2004] Gonzales also says that by declaring the war in Afghanistan exempt from the Geneva Conventions, the president would “[s]ubstantially [reduce] the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act [of 1996]” (see August 21, 1996). The president and other officials in the administration would then be protected from any future “prosecutors and independent counsels who may in the future decide to pursue unwarranted charges.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/21/2004; NEWSWEEK, 5/24/2004] Memo Actually Written by Cheney's Lawyer - Though the memo is released under Gonzales’s signature, many inside the White House do not believe the memo was written by him; it has an unorthodox format and a subtly mocking tone that does not go with Gonzales’s usual style. A White House lawyer with direct knowledge of the memo later says it was written by Cheney’s chief lawyer, David Addington. Deputy White House counsel Timothy Flanigan passed it to Gonzales, who signed it as “my judgment” and sent it to Bush. Addington’s memo quotes Bush’s own words: “the war against terrorism is a new kind of war.” [WASHINGTON POST, 6/24/2007] Powell 'Hits the Roof' over Memo - When Powell reads the memo (see January 26, 2002), he reportedly “hit[s] the roof” and immediately arranges for a meeting with the president (see January 25, 2002). [NEWSWEEK, 5/24/2004] Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Office of Legal Counsel, Geneva Conventions, Alberto R. Gonzales, Colin Powell, David S. Addington, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties

February 24, 2002: US General Visits Niger; Finds No Evidence that Uranium Could be Diverted to Iraq

Carlton W. Fulford Jr. [Source: US Marine Corps] Marine General Carlton W. Fulford Jr., deputy commander of the US European Command, arrives in Niger on a scheduled refueling stop. At the request of US Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, Fulford joins the ambassador at a meeting with Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja and Foreign Minister Aichatou Mindaoudou. He explains the importance of keeping Niger’s ore deposits secure. At the meeting, President Tandja assures the ambassador and General Fulford that Niger is determined to keep its uranium “in safe hands.” [WASHINGTON POST, 7/15/2003; VOICE OF AMERICA, 7/15/2003; VANITY FAIR, 5/2004, PP. 282; US CONGRESS, 7/7/2004] After the meeting, Fulford concludes that Niger’s uranium is securely under the control of a French consortium and that there is little risk that the material will end up in the wrong hands. These findings are passed on to General Joseph Ralston who provides them to General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [WASHINGTON POST, 7/15/2003; VOICE OF AMERICA, 7/15/2003; VANITY FAIR, 5/2004, PP. 282] The Pentagon will later say that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was not informed about the trip or its conclusions. [VOICE OF AMERICA, 7/15/2003] Entity Tags: Mamadou Tandja, Joseph Ralston, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, Richard B. Myers, Aichatou Mindaoudou, Carlton W. Fulford, US Department of Defense Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing

March 10, 2002: Joint Chiefs Chairman Downplays Meaning of Secret ‘Nuclear Posture Review’ After the existence of the Defense Department’s new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) (see December 31, 2001) is leaked to the media, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, goes on CNN to claim that the document has little real meaning in an operational sense, but instead is just a policy document that outlines the general US deterrence strategies towards nations with weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear weapons are just one part of that strategy, Myers says. Myers says that the document merely preserves the president’s options “in case this country or our friends and allies were attacked with weapons of mass destruction, be they nuclear, biological, chemical, or for that matter high explosives.” He adds: “It’s been the policy of this country for a long time that the president would always reserve the right up to and including the use of nuclear weapons if that was appropriate. So that continues to be the policy.” [CNN, 3/10/2002] Myers’ attempts to downplay the NPR are inaccurate, as it is a new operational policy that plans for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against countries attempting to create weapons of mass destruction, if the White House deems such strikes necessary. [FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS, 11/5/2007] Entity Tags: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: US International Relations

April 4, 2002: Head of US Military States ‘The Goal Has Never Been to Get bin Laden’

Myers making his comments at a press conference. [Source: Banded Artists Productions] Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers states, “The goal has never been to get bin Laden.” He adds, “Obviously, that’s desirable,” but then he hints it won’t be desirable to do so soon, saying, “I just read a piece by some analysts that said you may not want to go after the top people in these organizations. You may have more effect by going after the middlemen, because they’re harder to replace. I don’t know if that’s true, or not, and clearly we would like to eventually get bin Laden.” [EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS, 4/6/2002] In early 2005, the recently retired Executive Director of the CIA will explicitly state that it is better to let bin Laden remain free (see January 9, 2005). Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

August 15, 2002: US General Believes Troops Will Remain in Afghanistan for Long Time General Tommy Franks, commander of US troops in Central Asia, says, “It does not surprise me that someone would say, ‘Oh gosh, the military is going to be in Afghanistan for a long, long time.’ Sure we will be.” He likens the situation to South Korea, where the US has stationed troops for over 50 years. A few days earlier, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers said the war on terrorism “could last years and years.” [CBS NEWS, 8/16/2002] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Thomas Franks Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, War in Afghanistan

October-November 2002: US Leaders Reassess Afghanistan War

Map of Afghanistan, showing areas of control by various warlords and factions. [Source: ABC News] In May 2002, the commander of British forces in Afghanistan declared that the war in Afghanistan would be over within weeks (see May 8, 2002). The perception amongst many in the US is that the war is over. However, it appears that US leaders begin to believe the war is going to last longer and be more difficult than previously believed. On October 8, the US ambassador says, “The war is certainly not over. Military operations are continuing, especially in the eastern part of the country and they will continue until we win.” Most of the country is controlled by warlords who are now being supplied with weapons and money by the US government. [DAILY TELEGRAPH, 10/8/2002] On November 8, 2002, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard B. Myers says of Afghanistan, “I think in a sense we’ve lost a little momentum there, to be frank. They’ve made lots of adaptations to our tactics, and we’ve got to continue to think and try to out-think them and to be faster at it.” [WASHINGTON POST, 11/8/2002] A few days after Myers’ remarks, Time magazine reports, “The fear of failure in Afghanistan has lately prompted some hard new thinking in both Washington and Kabul. General Myers’ candid remarks to the Brookings Institution suggests the Pentagon is trying to be more creative in its pursuit of stability in Afghanistan.” One strategy is to put more resources into reconstruction. [TIME, 11/11/2002] Entity Tags: United States, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan

October 25, 2002: Pentagon General Counsel ‘Short-Circuits’ Approval Process of Harsh Interrogation Request Shortly after the October 11, 2002, request by Guantanamo commander Major General Michael Dunlavey for approval of new, harsh interrogation techniques (see Torture of US Captives), and after Guantanamo legal counsel Diane Beaver submitted her analysis justifying the use of those techniques (see October 11, 2002), General James T. “Tom” Hill forwards everything to General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hill includes a letter that contains the sentence, “Our respective staffs, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Joint Task Force 170 [the Army unit in charge of interrogating Guantanamo detainees] have been trying to identify counter-resistant techniques that we can lawfully employ.” In the letter, Hill is clearly ambivalent about the use of severe interrogation methods. He wants the opinion of senior Pentagon lawyers, and requests that “Department of Justice lawyers review the third category [the most severe] of techniques.” But none of this happens. The Joint Chiefs should have subjected the request to a detailed legal review, including scrutiny by Myers’s own counsel, Jane Dalton, but instead, Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes short-circuits the approval process. Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora recalls Dalton telling him: “Jim pulled this away. We never had a chance to complete the assessment.” Myers later recalls being troubled that the normal procedures had been circumvented. Looking at the “Haynes Memo,” Myers will point out, “You don’t see my initials on this.” He notes that he “discussed it,” but never signed off on it. “This was not the way this should have come about.” Myers will come to believe that there was “intrigue” going on “that I wasn’t aware of, and Jane wasn’t aware of, that was probably occurring between [William J.] Haynes, White House general counsel [Alberto Gonzales], and Justice.” Instead of going through the proper channels, the memo goes straight to Haynes, who merely signs off with a note that says, “Good to go.” [VANITY FAIR, 5/2008] Entity Tags: US Department of Justice, Alberto R. Gonzales, Alberto Mora, Diane E. Beaver, Michael E. Dunlavey, James T. Hill, Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Haynes, Richard B. Myers, Jane Dalton Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties

October 25, 2002: General Sends Memo to Joint Chiefs’ Chairman Saying New Interrogation Methods Are Needed Gen. James T. Hill, commander of the Southern Command, sends a memo to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers providing him information on the new interrogation techniques that have been requested for use at Guantanamo (see October 11, 2002). He says that new methods are needed because, “despite our best efforts, some detainees have tenaciously resisted our current interrogation methods.” He says he thinks Categories I and II techniques are “legal and humane.” He only questions the legality of category three techniques, recommending additional legal advice from lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department. Hill writes: “I am particularly troubled by the use of implied or expressed threats of death of the detainee or his family. However, I desire to have as many options as possible at my disposal….” [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 10/25/2002 ] Hill later says, “We weren’t sure in the beginning what we had; we’re not sure today what we have. There are still people who do not talk to us. We could have the keys to the kingdom and not know it.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 6/21/2004] Entity Tags: James T. Hill, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

November 27, 2002: Pentagon General Counsel Recommends Harsh Interrogation Tactics for Use at Guantanamo

James T. Hill. [Source: Defense Department] Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes sends Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld an “action memo” to approve a set of interrogation tactics for use. The techniques are to be used at the discretion of General James T. Hill, commander of the US Southern Command, and are those previously classified in Categories I and II, and the “mild, non-injurious contact” techniques from Category III that were suggested by the Guantanamo legal staff (see October 25, 2002). The mildest techniques, Category I, can be used by interrogators at will and include yelling and mild forms of deception. Category II techniques are to be approved by an “interrogator group director,” and include the use of stress positions for up to four hours; use of falsified documents; isolation of a detainee for up to thirty days; sensory deprivation and hooding; twenty-hour interrogations; removal of hygiene and religious items; enforced removal of clothing (stripping); forced grooming, including the shaving of beards; and playing on detainees’ phobias, such as a fear of dogs, to induce stress and break resistance. With regard to the remaining harsh techniques in Category III—physical contact, death threats, and use of wet towels (waterboarding)—Haynes writes that they “may be legally available [but] as a matter of policy, a blanket approval… is not warranted at this time.” Haynes mentions having discussed the matter with “the deputy, Doug Feith and General Myers,” who, he believes, join him in the recommendation. He adds, “Our armed forces are trained to a standard of interrogation that reflects a tradition of restraint.” [HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, 8/19/2004] Rumsfeld will sign the so-called “Haynes Memo” (see December 2, 2002), and add the following handwritten comment: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” [VANITY FAIR, 5/2008] Entity Tags: James T. Hill, Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Richard B. Myers, William J. Haynes Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

January 10, 2003: Bush Orders Nuclear Weapons as Part of Planned Preemptive Military Strikes
Global Strike logo. [Source: Federation of American Scientists] President Bush signs a classified presidential directive that defines the “Global Strike” program, formalized as Contingency Plan 8022, or CONPLAN-8022, as US policy. Global Strike implements nuclear weapons as part of a possible US preemptive strike against envisioned enemies. In the order, Bush defines Global Strike as “a capability to deliver rapid, extended range, precision kinetic (nuclear and conventional) and non-kinetic (elements of space and information operations) effects in support of theater and national objectives.” He orders that Global Strike be turned over to the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), the entity in charge of deploying and using the nation’s nuclear arsenal, telling it to “be ready to strike at any moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world.” A month later, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will tell the House Armed Services Committee, “With its Global Strike responsibilities, the Command will provide a core cadre to plan and execute nuclear, conventional, and information operations anywhere in the world.” [SCOBLIC, 2008, PP. 179-180] The plan is not revealed until May 2005, when defense analyst William Arkin writes of the program for the Washington Post. [WASHINGTON POST, 5/15/2005] In 2008, author J. Peter Scoblic will write: “Global Strike represented the next—some might say the ultimate—manifestation of this principle [domination and isolationism], allowing for the possibility of purely unilateral military action. There was no need for allies and no need for nation building. Just as missile defense could protect us from having to engage the world, so Global Strike could allow the United States to dominate the world while standing utterly apart from it.” [SCOBLIC, 2008, PP. 183] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, George W. Bush, ’Global Strike’, William Arkin, J. Peter Scoblic Timeline Tags: US International Relations

February 5, 2003: Rumsfeld and Myers Intend to Use ‘Non-Lethal’ Chemical Agents against Iraqi Civilians US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, inform the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee that they intend to seek permission from George Bush to use calmative agents (see February 12, 2001-March 30, 2001) against Iraqi civilians, in cave systems or to take prisoners. [NEWSMAX, 2/6/2003; INDEPENDENT, 2/16/2003] Rumsfeld calls the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) a “straightjacket” [BALTIMORE SUN, 3/27/2003; GUARDIAN, 4/8/2003] and insists that “there are times when the use of non-lethal riot agents is perfectly appropriate.” [NEWSMAX, 2/6/2003; CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 2/14/2003; GUARDIAN, 3/12/2003; GUARDIAN, 4/8/2003] Under the provisions of the CWC, military use of chemicals—including non-lethal gases like tear gas—is prohibited. The treaty only permits the use of non-lethal agents for law enforcement purposes. [NEWSMAX, 2/6/2003; CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 2/14/2003] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: US Military, Iraq under US Occupation

March 31, 2003: US Forces Overrun Supposed Militant ‘Poison Factory’ in Iraq, but Its Poison Capabilities Appear Overblown

A Kurdish soldier allied with US forces stands on the site where the Sargat training camp used to be. He holds a piece of a US cruise missile that hit the camp. [Source: Scott Peterson / Getty Images] US Special Forces working with local Kurdish forces overrun the small border region of Iraq controlled by the militant group Ansar al-Islam. This is where Secretary of State Colin Powell alleged militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had a ‘poison factory’ near the town of Khurmal where chemical weapons of mass destruction capable of killing thousands were made. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers says, “We think that’s probably where the ricin that was found in London probably came; at least the operatives and maybe some of the formulas came from this site.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comments, “We’re not certain what we’ll find but we should know more in the next three days - three or four days.” [NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, 3/31/2003] In a 2007 book, CIA Director George Tenet will claim, “Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, al-Zarqawi’s camp in Khurmal was bombed by the US military. We obtained reliable human intelligence reporting and forensic samples confirming that poisons and toxins had been produced at the camp.” [TENET, 2007, PP. 277-278] He will further claim that the camp “engaged in production and training in the use of low-level poisons such as cyanide. We had intelligence telling us that al-Zarqawi’s men had tested these poisons on animals and, in at least one case, on one of their own associates. They laughed about how well it worked.” [TENET, 2007, PP. 350] But Tenet’s claims seem wildly overblown compared to other subsequent news reports about what was found at the camp. In late April 2003, the Los Angeles Times will report that, “Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, along with interviews with US and Kurdish intelligence operatives, indicate [Ansar al-Islam] was partly funded and armed from abroad; was experimenting with chemicals, including toxic agents and a cyanide-based body lotion; and had international aspirations. But the documents, statements by imprisoned Ansar guerrillas, and visits to the group’s strongholds before and after the war produced no strong evidence of connections to Baghdad and indicated that Ansar was not a sophisticated terrorist organization. The group was a dedicated, but fledgling, al-Qaeda surrogate lacking the capability to muster a serious threat beyond its mountain borders.” A crude chemical laboratory is found in the village of Sargat, but no evidence of any sophisticated equipment is found. “Tests have revealed the presence of hydrogen cyanide and potassium cyanide, poisons normally used to kill rodents and other pests. The group, according to Kurdish officials, had been experimenting on animals with a cyanide-laced cream. Several jars of peach body lotion lay at the site beside chemicals and a few empty wooden birdcages.” While a lot of documentation is found showing intention to create chemical weapons, the actual capability appears to have been quite low. [LOS ANGELES TIMES, 4/27/2003] As the Christian Science Monitor will later conclude, the “‘poison factory’ proved primitive; nothing but substances commonly used to kill rodents were found there.” [CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 10/16/2003] Journalist Jason Burke will also later comment, “As one of the first journalists to enter the [al-Qaeda] research facilities at the Darunta camp in eastern Afghanistan in 2001, I was struck by how crude they were. The Ansar al-Islam terrorist group’s alleged chemical weapons factory in northern Iraq, which I inspected the day after its capture in 2003, was even more rudimentary.” [FOREIGN POLICY, 5/2004] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, George J. Tenet, Colin Powell, Ansar al-Islam, Donald Rumsfeld, Jason Burke, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Iraq under US Occupation

April 11, 2003: Rumsfeld on Looting, Vandalism: ‘Stuff Happens’

The priceless Warka Vase, looted from the National Museum and later returned. [Source: Art Daily (.com)] In a press briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismisses the wave of looting and vandalism throughout much of Iraq (see April 9, 2003 and After April 9, 2003) with the comment, “Stuff happens.” The looting is “part of the price” for freedom and democracy, he says, and blames “pent-up feelings” from years of oppression under the rule of Saddam Hussein. He goes on to note that the looting is not as bad as some television and newspaper reports are trying to make it out to be (see Late April-Early May, 2003 and May 20, 2003). “Freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things,” he tells reporters. “They’re also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that’s what’s going to happen here.” General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is with Rumsfeld at the press briefing, agrees. “This is a transition period between war and what we hope will be a much more peaceful time,” he says. CNN describes Rumsfeld as “irritated by questions about the looting.” Rumsfeld says that the images of Iraqi citizens ransacking buildings gives “a fundamental misunderstanding” of what is happening in Iraq. “Very often the pictures are pictures of people going into the symbols of the regime, into the palaces, into the boats and into the Ba’ath Party headquarters and into the places that have been part of that repression,” he explains. “And while no one condones looting, on the other hand one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression and people who’ve had members of their family killed by that regime, for them to be taking their feelings out on that regime.” [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 4/11/2003; CNN, 4/12/2003] Accuses the Media of Exaggeration - Rumsfeld accuses the media of exaggerating the violence and unrest throughout the country: “I picked up a newspaper today and I couldn’t believe it. I read eight headlines that talked about chaos, violence, unrest. And it just was Henny Penny—‘The sky is falling.’ I’ve never seen anything like it! And here is a country that’s being liberated, here are people who are going from being repressed and held under the thumb of a vicious dictator, and they’re free. It’s just unbelievable how people can take that away from what is happening in that country! Do I think those words are unrepresentative? Yes.” [US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 4/11/2003] “Let me say one other thing,” he adds. “The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times, and you think: ‘My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?’” [HUFFINGTON POST, 4/11/2009] 'Looting, Lawlessness, and Chaos on the Streets of Iraq' - The next day, Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbiasias reports: “All day long, all over the dial, the visuals revealed looting, lawlessness, and chaos on the streets of Iraq. Nothing was off-limits, not stores, not homes, not embassies, certainly not Saddam Hussein’s palaces nor government buildings and, most disgustingly, not even hospitals.” She is “astonished” at Rumsfeld’s words, and observes that “the only free anything the Iraqis are going to get in the next little while is going to be whatever they can ‘liberate’ from electronics shops. Maybe Rumsfeld’s marketing people can come up with a slogan for that.” [TORONTO STAR, 4/12/2003] Archaelogists Outraged at Rumsfeld's Remarks - Historians and archaeologists around the world are outraged at Rumsfeld’s remarks. Jane Waldbaum, the president of the Archaeological Institute of America, says her agency warned the US government about possible looting as far back as January 2003. She says she is as horrified by Rumsfeld’s cavalier attitude towards the looting as she is with the looting itself. “Donald Rumsfeld in his speech basically shrugged and said: ‘Boys will be boys. What’s a little looting?’” she says. “Freedom is messy, but freedom doesn’t mean you have the freedom to commit crimes. This loss is almost immeasurable.” [SALON, 4/17/2003] Failure to Protect Hospitals, Museums - Four days after Rumsfeld makes his remarks, progressive columnist John Nichols notes that had a Democratic or liberal government official made such remarks, Republicans and conservatives would be “call[ing] for the head” of that official. Nichols notes what Rumsfeld failed to: that looters stripped hospitals, government buildings, and museums to the bare walls. He also asks why US soldiers did not stop the looting, quoting the deputy director of the Iraqi National Museum, Nabhal Amin, as saying: “The Americans were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one tank and two soldiers nothing like this would have happened.” Nichols notes the irony in the selection of the Oil Ministry as the only government building afforded US protection. He concludes: “When US and allied troops took charge of the great cities of Europe during World War II, they proudly defended museums and other cultural institutions. They could have done the same in Baghdad. And they would have, had a signal come from the Pentagon. But the boss at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, who had promised to teach the Iraqi people how to live in freedom, was too busy explaining that rioting and looting are what free people are free to do.” [NATION, 4/15/2003] Fired for Confronting Rumsfeld over Remark - Kenneth Adelman, a neoconservative member of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) who before the war said that the invasion of Iraq would be a “cakewalk” (see February 13, 2002), later confronts Rumsfeld over the “stuff happens” remark. In return, according to Adelman’s later recollection, Rumsfeld will ask him to resign from the DPB, calling him “negative.” Adelman will retort: “I am negative, Don. You’re absolutely right. I’m not negative about our friendship. But I think your decisions have been abysmal when it really counted. Start out with, you know, when you stood up there and said things—‘Stuff happens.‘… That’s your entry in Bartlett’s [Famous Quotations]. The only thing people will remember about you is ‘Stuff happens.’ I mean, how could you say that? ‘This is what free people do.’ This is not what free people do. This is what barbarians do.… Do you realize what the looting did to us? It legitimized the idea that liberation comes with chaos rather than with freedom and a better life. And it demystified the potency of American forces. Plus, destroying, what, 30 percent of the infrastructure.” Adelman will recall: “I said, ‘You have 140,000 troops there, and they didn’t do jack sh_t.’ I said, ‘There was no order to stop the looting.’ And he says, ‘There was an order.’ I said, ‘Well, did you give the order?’ He says, ‘I didn’t give the order, but someone around here gave the order.’ I said, ‘Who gave the order?’ So he takes out his yellow pad of paper and he writes down—he says, ‘I’m going to tell you. I’ll get back to you and tell you.’ And I said, ‘I’d like to know who gave the order, and write down the second question on your yellow pad there. Tell me why 140,000 US troops in Iraq disobeyed the order. Write that down, too.’ And so that was not a successful conversation.” [VANITY FAIR, 2/2009] Entity Tags: John Nichols, US Department of Defense, Jane Waldbaum, Richard B. Myers, Kenneth Adelman, Iraqi Oil Ministry, Nabhal Amin, Donald Rumsfeld, Antonia Zerbiasias, Iraqi National Museum Timeline Tags: Iraq under US Occupation

April 16, 2003: Rumsfeld Approves New ‘Harsh’ Interrogation Methods Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signs a memo on interrogation methods approving 24 of the 35 techniques recommended by the Pentagon working group (see April 4, 2003) earlier in the month. The new set of guidelines, to be applied to prisoners at Guantanamo and Afghanistan, is a somewhat softer version of the initial interrogation policy that Rumsfeld approved in December 2002 (see December 2, 2002). [ROTH AND MALINOWSKI, 5/3/2004; WASHINGTON POST, 5/11/2004; AGE (MELBOURNE), 5/13/2004; WASHINGTON POST, 5/13/2004; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 5/22/2004; NEWSWEEK, 5/24/2004; WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/7/2004; MSNBC, 6/23/2004; TRUTHOUT (.ORG), 6/28/2004] Several of the techniques listed are ones that the US military trains Special Forces to prepare for in the event that they are captured by enemy forces (see December 2001 and July 2002). [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/13/2004] Two Classes of Methods - The list is divided into two classes: tactics that are authorized for use on all prisoners and special “enhanced measures” that require the approval of Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. The latter category of methods includes tactics that “could cause temporary physical or mental pain,” like “sensory deprivation,” “stress positions,” “dietary manipulation,” forced changes in sleep patterns, and isolated confinement. [WASHINGTON POST, 5/11/2004; WASHINGTON POST, 5/13/2004] Other techniques include “change of scenery down,” “dietary manipulation,” “environmental manipulation,” and “false flag.” The first 18 tactics listed all appear in the 1992 US Army Field Manual (FM) 34-52, with the exception of the so-called “Mutt-and-Jeff” approach, which is taken from an obsolete 1987 military field manual (1987 FM 34-52). [USA TODAY, 6/22/2004] The approved tactics can be used in conjunction with one another, essentially allowing interrogators to “pile on” one harsh technique after another. Categories such as “Fear Up Harsh” and “Pride and Ego Down” remain undefined, allowing interrogators to interpret them as they see fit. And Rumsfeld writes that any other tactic not already approved can be used if he gives permission. Author and reporter Charlie Savage will later write, “In other words, there were no binding laws and treaties anymore—the only limit was the judgment and goodwill of executive branch officials. ” [SAVAGE, 2007, PP. 181] The use of forced nudity as a tactic is not included in the list. The working group rejected it because its members felt it might be considered inhumane treatment under international law. [ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/23/2004] Result of Discussions among Pentagon Officials - The memo, marked for declassification in 2013 [TRUTHOUT (.ORG), 6/28/2004], is the outcome, according to Deputy General Counsel Daniel Dell’Orto, of discussions between Rumsfeld, William J. Haynes, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and General Richard Myers. [WASHINGTON FILE, 6/23/2004] One US official explains: “There are very specific guidelines that are thoroughly vetted. Everyone is on board. It’s legal.” However in May 2004, it will be learned that there was in fact opposition to the new guidelines. Pentagon lawyers from the Army Judge Advocate General’s office had objected (see May 2003 and October 2003) and many officials quietly expressed concerns that they might have to answer for the policy at a later date (see (April 2003)). [WASHINGTON POST, 5/11/2004; WASHINGTON POST, 5/13/2004] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard B. Myers, William J. Haynes, Ricardo S. Sanchez, Daniel J. Dell’Orto, Charlie Savage Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties

August 2003: US, North Korea Engage in Second Round of Profitless Negotiations The US takes part in another round of multilateral negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program (see April 2003). The US has failed to destabilize the North Korean government, and the North Koreans have been unsuccessful in luring the US into bilateral talks. Instead, both sides agree to “six-way” talks that include Japan, China, Russia, and South Korea. Heavy Restrictions on US Negotiators - US chief negotiator Jim Kelly is finally permitted to meet one-on-one with his North Korean counterpart Li Gun—for only 20 minutes, and only in the presence of the other delegates. This time, Kelly is allowed to chat briefly with Li in a corner. Kelly is also forbidden from making any offers or even suggesting the possibility of direct negotiations. Kelly’s fellow negotiator, Charles Pritchard, will later recall that Kelly was told to start the chat with Li by saying: “This is not a negotiating session. This is not an official meeting.” Foreign affairs journalist Fred Kaplan will later write: “For the previous year-and-a-half, the State Department had favored a diplomatic solution to the Korea crisis while the Pentagon and key players in the [National Security Council] opposed it. The August meeting in Beijing was Bush’s idea of a compromise—a middle path that constituted no path at all. He let Kelly talk, but didn’t let him say anything meaningful; he went to the table but put nothing on it.” But even this level of negotiation is too much for some administration hawks. During the meetings in Beijing, Undersecretary of State John Bolton gives a speech in Washington where he calls North Korea “a hellish nightmare” and Kim Jong Il “a tyrannical dictator.” Kaplan will observe, “True enough, but not the sort of invective that senior officials generally issue on the eve of a diplomatic session.” An exasperated Pritchard resigns in protest from the administration. He will later say: “My position was the State Department’s envoy for North Korean negotiations, yet we were prohibited from having negotiations. I asked myself, ‘What am I doing in government?’” Pritchard had also learned that White House and Pentagon officials did not want him involved in the talks, dismissing him as “the Clinton guy.” (Pritchard had helped successfully negotiate earlier agreements with the North Koreans during the Clinton administration.) [WASHINGTON MONTHLY, 5/2004] A Chinese diplomat says, “The American policy towards DRPK [North Korea]—this is the main problem we are facing.” [SCOBLIC, 2008, PP. 241] Cheney Source of Restrictions - According to Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, the restrictions on Kelly come directly from Vice President Cheney. “A script would be drafted for Jim, what he could say and what he could not say, with points elucidated in the margins,” Wilkerson will later explain. The process involves President Bush, Cheney, Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers. On at least two occasions, Cheney rewrites the script for Kelly without consulting with the other principals, even Bush. According to Wilkerson, Cheney “put handcuffs on our negotiator, so he could say little more than ‘welcome and good-bye.’” In the words of authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein, Cheney’s “negotiating position was that there would be no negotiations.” [DUBOSE AND BERNSTEIN, 2006, PP. 185-186] Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, US Department of State, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Richard B. Myers, Lou Dubose, Fred Kaplan, George W. Bush, Jake Bernstein, Jim Kelly, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Charles Pritchard, Clinton administration, National Security Council, John R. Bolton, Li Gun, Lawrence Wilkerson, Kim Jong Il Timeline Tags: US International Relations

Late September 2003: Pentagon Sends Media Analysts on ‘Tour’ of Iraq for Propaganda Purposes

Fox analyst Paul Vallely. [Source: The Intelligence Summit] The Pentagon sends a group of retired military generals and other high-ranking officers—part of its team of “independent military analysts” (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond) on a carefully arranged tour of Iraq (see Summer 2003). The idea is to have the analysts counter the negative images being reported from Iraq about the upsurge in violence from the burgeoning insurgency. The Pentagon also wants the analysts to present a positive spin on Iraq in time to bolster President Bush’s request to Congress for $87 billion in emergency war financing. The group includes four analysts from Fox News, the Pentagon’s go-to media outlet for promulgating its propaganda and spin, one analyst from CNN and ABC, and several prominent members of research groups whose opinion articles appear regularly in the editorial pages of the largest US newspapers. The Pentagon promises that the analysts will be given a look at “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.” Two Very Different Views of Reality - While the situation is rapidly deteriorating for the US—the American administrator, L. Paul Bremer, later writes that the US only has “about half the number of soldiers we needed here,” and has told Bush, “We’re up against a growing and sophisticated threat” at a dinner party that takes place on September 24, while the analysts are in Iraq (see September 24, 2003)—the story promoted by the analysts is starkly different. Their official presentation as constructed on a minute-by-minute basis by Pentagon officials includes a tour of a model school, visits to a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women’s rights, a mass grave from the early 1990s, and a tour of Babylon’s gardens. Mostly the analysts attend briefings, where one Pentagon official after another provide them with a very different picture of Iraq. In the briefings, Iraq is portrayed as crackling with political and economic energy. Iraqi security forces are improving by the day. No more US troops are needed to combat the small number of isolated, desperate groups of thugs and petty criminals that are spearheading the ineffective insurgency, which is perpetually on the verge of being eliminated. “We’re winning,” a briefing document proclaims. ABC analyst William Nash, a retired general, later calls the briefings “artificial,” and calls the tour “the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,” a reference to former Republican governor George Romney’s famous claim that US officials had “brainwashed” him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965. Yet Nash, like the other analysts, will provide the talking points the Pentagon desires to his network’s viewers. Pentagon officials worry, for a time, about whether the analysts will reveal the troubling information they learn even on such a well-groomed and micromanaged junket, including the Army’s use of packing poorly armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets, and the almost laughably poor performance of the Iraqi security forces. One Fox analyst, retired Army general Paul Vallely, later says, “I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south.” But the Pentagon has no need to worry about Vallely or any of the other analysts. “You can’t believe the progress,” Vallely tells Fox News host Alan Colmes upon his return. Vallely predicts that the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months. William Cowan, a retired Marine colonel, tells Fox host Greta Van Susteren, “We could not be more excited, more pleased.” Few speak about armor shortages or poor performances by Iraqi security forces. And all agree with retired general Carlton Shepperd’s conclusion on CNN: “I am so much against adding more troops.” 'Home Run' - The Iraq tour is viewed as what reporter David Barstow will call “a masterpiece in the management of perceptions.” Not only does it successfully promote the administration’s views on Iraq, but it helps fuel complaints that “mainstream” journalists are ignoring what administration officials and war supporters call “the good news” in Iraq. “We’re hitting a home run on this trip,” a senior Pentagon official says in an e-mail to the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers and Peter Pace. The Pentagon quickly begins planning for future trips, not just to Iraq but to Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay (see June 24-25, 2005) as well. These trips, and the orchestrated blitz of public relations events that follow, are strongly supported by the White House. Countering 'Increasingly Negative View' of Occupation - Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita will later explain that a “conscious decision” was made to use the analysts to counteract what Di Rita calls “the increasingly negative view of the war” coming from journalists in Iraq. The analysts generally have “a more supportive view” of the administration and the war; and the combination of their military expertise and their tremendous visibility make them ideal for battling what Di Rita and other Pentagon and administration see as unfairly negative coverage. On issues such as troop morale, detainee interrogations, inadequate equipment, and poorly trained Iraqi forces, Di Rita will say the analysts “were more likely to be seen as credible spokesmen.” Business Opportunities - Many of the analysts are not only in Iraq to take part in the Pentagon’s propaganda efforts, but to find out about business opportunities for the firms they represent. They meet with civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many who will make decisions about how the $87 billion will be spent. The analysts gather inside information about the most pressing needs of the US military, including the acute shortage of “up-armored” Humvees, the billions needed to build new military bases, the dire shortage of translators, and the sprawling and expensive plans to train Iraqi security forces. Analysts Cowan and Sherwood are two of the analysts who have much to gain from this aspect of their tour. Cowan is the CEO of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Sherwood is the executive vice president of the firm. The company is seeking contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. The company has a written agreement to use its influence and connections to help Iraqi tribal leaders in Al-Anbar province win reconstruction contracts from the Americans. “Those sheiks wanted access to the CPA,” Cowen later recalls, referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority. And he is determined to provide that access. “I tried to push hard with some of Bremer’s people to engage these people of Al-Anbar,” he recalls. Fox military analyst Charles Nash, a retired Navy captain, works as a consultant for small companies who want to land fat defense contracts. As a military analyst, he is able to forge ties with senior military leaders, many of whom he had never met before. It is like being “embedded” with the Pentagon leadership, he will recall. He will say, “You start to recognize what’s most important to them…. There’s nothing like seeing stuff firsthand.” An aide to the Pentagon’s chief of public relations, Brent Krueger, will recall that he and other Pentagon officials are well aware of their analysts’ use of their access as a business advantage. Krueger will say, “Of course we realized that. We weren’t naïve about that…. They have taken lobbying and the search for contracts to a far higher level. This has been highly honed.” (Di Rita will deny ever thinking that analysts might use their access to their business advantage, and will say that it is the analysts’ responsibility to comply with ethical standards. “We assume they know where the lines are,” he will say.) [NEW YORK TIMES, 4/20/2008] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, William Nash, wvc3 Group, Peter Pace, Wiliam Cowan, US Department of Defense, Paul Vallely, Lawrence Di Rita, Carlton Shepperd, L. Paul Bremer, David Barstow, CNN, Brent T. Krueger, Alan Colmes, ABC News, Greta Van Susteren, Coalition Provisional Authority, George W. Bush, Fox News, George Romney, Charles Nash Timeline Tags: US Military, Iraq under US Occupation, Domestic Propaganda

November 2003: Rumsfeld Orders High-Value Detainee to Be Kept Off Records in Iraq Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at the request of CIA Director George Tenet, orders military officials in Iraq to keep an unnamed high-value detainee being held at Camp Cropper off the records. The order is passed down to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then to Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, and finally to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq. “At each stage, lawyers reviewed the request and their bosses approved it,” the New York Times will report. “This prisoner and other ‘ghost detainees’ were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy,” the newspaper will report, citing top officials. The prisoner—in custody since July 2003—is suspected of being a senior officer of Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic group with ties to al-Qaeda. Shortly after being captured by US forces, he was deemed an “enemy combatant” and thus denied protection under the Geneva conventions. Up until this point, the prisoner has only been interrogated once. As a result of being kept off the books, the prison system looses track of the detainee who will spend the next seven months in custody. “Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him,” a senior intelligence official will tell the New York Times. “The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn’t.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 6/17/2004; REUTERS, 6/17/2004; FOX NEWS, 6/17/2004] Entity Tags: Ricardo S. Sanchez, Richard B. Myers, George J. Tenet, John P. Abizaid, Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

January 15-20, 2004: Rumsfeld and Other Top US Military Officials Told of Abu Ghraib Abuse Photographs

Bantz Craddock. [Source: US European Command] On January 15, 2004, Lieutenant General Bantz Craddock, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant, and Vice-Admiral Timothy Keating, director of the Joint Staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are e-mailed a summary of the Abu Ghraib abuses depicted on a CD-ROM recently given to an army investigative unit two days before (see January 13, 2004). The summary says that about ten soldiers are shown in the pictures and are involved in acts including: “Having male detainees pose nude while female guards pointed at their genitals; having female detainees exposing themselves to the guards; having detainees perform indecent acts with each other; and guards physically assaulting detainees by beating and dragging them with choker chains.” On January 20, Central Command sends another e-mail to Keating, Craddock, and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US Army commander in Iraq. It confirms the detainee abuse took place, is well-documented with photos, and says that “currently [we] have 4 confessions implicating perhaps 10 soldiers.” General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will later acknowledge in testimony that around this time, information about the abuse and the photographs had been given “to me and the Secretary [Rumsfeld] up through the chain of command.… And the general nature of the photos, about nudity, some mock sexual acts and other abuse, was described.” [NEW YORKER, 6/17/2007] Entity Tags: Ricardo S. Sanchez, Richard B. Myers, Bantz J. Craddock, Timothy Keating, Donald Rumsfeld Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

February 10, 2004: Rumsfeld, Myers Claim Not to Remember 45-Minute Claim Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he cannot remember anyone making the claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. British Prime Minister Tony Blair made the claim over six months before the US-British invasion of Iraq (see September 24, 2002). The claim was later revealed to have come from a single, anonymous, unverified source (see August 16, 2003 and December 7, 2003). Some British newspapers ran banner headlines saying that the claim meant British troops in Cyprus could be attacked with Iraqi WMD within 45 minutes. Rumsfeld tells reporters at a Pentagon briefing, “I don’t remember the statement being made, to be perfectly honest.” [DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 2/10/2004; BBC, 2/11/2004] General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who accompanies Rumsfeld in the press conference, adds, “I don’t remember the statement, either.” [DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 2/10/2004] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion

Mid-April 2004: Abu Ghraib Prison Photos Are Leaked to CBS

A deranged Abu Ghraib detainee wanders the halls covered in human feces on December 12, 2003. MP Ivan Frederick stands behind him with a stick. [Source: Public domain] The Abu Ghraib prison photos are leaked to CBS. The network informs the Pentagon that it will broadcast a story on the prison abuses and include the photos. But the network delays broadcasting the story at the request of Gen. Richard Myers. [GUARDIAN, 4/30/2004; CBS NEWS, 5/6/2004; LOS ANGELES TIMES, 5/6/2004; CNS NEWS, 5/7/2004] Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

May 6, 2004: Rumsfeld and Other Top Military Officials Seem to Be Deliberately Ignorant of Abu Ghraib Abuse Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, author of a hard-hitting report on Abu Ghraib prison abuse, is summoned to meet Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the first time. Rumsfeld is scheduled to testify about Abu Ghraib before Congress the next day (see May 7, 2004). Also attending the meeting is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, Army chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant Lt. Gen. Bantz Craddock, and others. According to Taguba, when he walks in, Rumsfeld declares in a mocking voice, “Here… comes… that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Asked if there was torture at Abu Ghraib, Taguba recalls, “I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, ‘That’s not abuse. That’s torture.’ There was quiet.” Rumsfeld asks who leaked Taguba’s report to the public, but Taguba says he doesn’t know. Rumsfeld then complains that he has not seen a copy of his report or the Abu Ghraib abuse photographs and yet he has to testify to Congress tomorrow. Taguba is incredulous, because he sent over a dozen copies of his report to the Pentagon and Central Command headquarters, and had just spent several weeks briefing senior military leaders about it. He also was aware that Rumsfeld, Myers, Craddock, and others were notified about the abuse and the photographs back in January, before Taguba even began his investigation (see January 15-20, 2004). Taguba will later suspect that the military leaders were trying to remain ignorant of the scandal to avoid responsibility and accountability. For instance, when Taguba urged one lieutenant general to look at the photographs, he got the reply, “[I] don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?” Taguba will later complain of the meeting, “I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting.” [NEW YORKER, 6/17/2007] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Antonio M. Taguba, Bantz J. Craddock, Peter J. Schoomaker, Richard B. Myers, Stephen A. Cambone, Paul Wolfowitz Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

May 7, 2004: Rumsfeld Falsely Testifies He Was Unaware of Abu Ghraib Photos and Abuses

Rumsfeld under oath, testifying about Abu Ghraib. [Source: HBO] In public testimony under oath before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims he had no early knowledge of the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse. He says, “It breaks our hearts that in fact someone didn’t say, ‘Wait, look, this is terrible. We need to do something.’ I wish we had known more, sooner, and been able to tell you more sooner, but we didn’t.” He claims that when reports about the hard-hitting Taguba report on Abu Ghraib (see February 26, 2004) first appeared publicly just days before his testimony, “it was not yet in the Pentagon, to my knowledge.” Regarding the shocking Abu Ghraib photos, seen by millions on the television program 60 Minutes on April 28 (see April 28, 2004), Rumsfeld claims, “I say no one in the Pentagon had seen them.” He adds that “I didn’t see them until last night at 7:30.” Asked when he’d first heard of them, he replies, “There were rumors of photographs in a criminal prosecution chain back sometime after January 13th… I don’t remember precisely when, but sometime in that period of January, February, March.… The legal part of it was proceeding along fine. What wasn’t proceeding along fine is the fact that the President didn’t know, and you didn’t know, and I didn’t know. And, as a result, somebody just sent a secret report to the press, and there they are.” But General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will later acknowledge in testimony that just days after the photos were given to US Army investigators on January 13, information had been given “to me and the Secretary [Rumsfeld] up through the chain of command.… And the general nature of the photos, about nudity, some mock sexual acts and other abuse, was described” (see January 15-20, 2004). Major General Antonio M. Taguba, author of the Taguba report, will later claim that he was appalled by Rumfeld’s testimony. “The photographs were available to him—if he wanted to see them.… He’s trying to acquit himself, and a lot of people are lying to protect themselves.” Congressman Kendrick Meek (D) will later comment, “There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything, and what he was giving us was hard to believe.” [NEW YORKER, 6/17/2007] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Kendrick Meek, Antonio M. Taguba, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

June 17, 2004: 9/11 Commissioner Gorelick and General Myers Spar over NORAD Failure During the 9/11 Commission’s twelfth public hearing, Commissioner Jamie Gorelick is sharply critical of NORAD’s failure to protect the US on 9/11. NORAD failed because it “defined out of the job,” she says. “[W]here was our military when it should have been defending us?” she asks General Richard Myers, who was the acting Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman on 9/11. “And the response… is that NORAD was not postured to defend us domestically unless someone was coming at us from abroad.… That’s why I come back to this word posture, we were postured against an external threat.” But, says Gorelick, the military’s own directives clearly state that NORAD has an “air sovereignty” mission that is not limited to watching the borders. “[T]he foundation documents for NORAD, they do not say defend us only against a threat coming in from across the ocean, or across our borders. It has two missions, and one of them is control of the airspace above the domestic United States, and aerospace control is defined as providing surveillance and control of the airspace of Canada and the United States. To me that air sovereignty concept means that you have a role which, if you were postured only externally you defined out of the job.” Posse Comitatus - Gorelick also dismisses the Posse Comitatus Act of 1876, which prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity, as one of the reasons for the military’s failure. When Myers invokes the act, she quickly interrupts him. Myers says, “What we try to do is follow the law, and the law is pretty clear on Posse Comitatus and that is whether or not the military should be involved in domestic law enforcement.” Gorelick replies: “Let me just interrupt, when I was general counsel of the Defense Department, I repeatedly advised, and I believe others have advised that the Posse Comitatus says, you can’t arrest people. It doesn’t mean that the military has no authority, obligation, or ability to defend the United Sates from attacks that happen to happen in the domestic United States.” Unanswered Questions - Gorelick then pointedly asks Myers, a former NORAD commander, how the military came to neglect its air sovereignty mission: “[B]y what process was it decided to only posture us against a foreign threat?… [I]s it your job, and if not whose job is it, to make current assessments of a threat, and decide whether you are positioned correctly to carry out a mission, which at least on paper NORAD had?” She adds that on several occasions, such as the 1996 Olympics (see January 20, 1997) and the G8 summit in Genoa (see July 20-22, 2001), the government had prepared for air attacks. While Myers offers a general assurance that the US military is now better prepared for “non-traditional” attacks, he does not provide specific answers to Gorelick’s questions. [9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004] Entity Tags: North American Aerospace Defense Command, Jamie Gorelick, Richard B. Myers, 9/11 Commission Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline

May 6-9, 2005: Newsweek Reports US Guard Flushed Koran Down Toilet in Guantanamo; Pentagon, White House Blame Newsweek for Lethal Riots in Report’s Aftermath Newsweek prints an item in its “Periscope” section that reports an American guard at Guantanamo Bay flushed a detainee’s Koran down a toilet. According to the report, the US Southern Command intends to mount an investigation into the desecration, which violates US and international laws. The report sparks widespread rioting in Pakistan and Afghanistan that results in the deaths of at least 17 people. The Pentagon and the Bush administration immediately blame Newsweek for the riots and the deaths; Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, the senior commander of US forces in Afghanistan, says the report did not spark the Afghan rioting, as does Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Newsweek says the information came from an American official who remains unidentified. “We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst,” Mark Whitaker, Newsweek’s editor, writes in a subsequent article. Whitaker adds: “We’re not retracting anything. We don’t know what the ultimate facts are.” The Pentagon denies the report; spokesman Bryan Whitman says: “Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources, which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny. Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations.” The report is “demonstrably false” and “irresponsible.” Whitman says the report has “had significant consequences that reverberated throughout Muslim communities around the world.” Senior Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita calls Whitaker’s note “very tepid and qualified.… They owe us all a lot more accountability than they took.” White House press secretary Scott McClellan says, “Our United States military personnel go out of their way to make sure that the Holy Koran is treated with care.” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says Newsweek is wrong to use “facts that have not been substantiated.” And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issues the admonishment, “[P]eople need to be careful what they say… just as people need to be careful what they do.” According to Whitaker, while the magazine tries to avoid using unnamed sources when it can, there are instances where sources will not speak to reporters unless their anonymity is guaranteed. The administration source has been reliable in the past, Whitaker says, and, moreover, the reporters of the story, Michael Isikoff and John Barry, received confirmation from both the source and a senior Pentagon official. Whitaker’s explanation notes that Newsweek has chosen not to publish previous reports of Koran desecration at Guantanamo because the sources are former detainees whom it considers unreliable. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that guards and officials at Guantanamo have looked for documentation of the reported Koran-flushing and cannot find it. [NEW YORK TIMES, 5/16/2005; RICH, 2006, PP. 164] The Pentagon will conclude that the Newsweek report is indeed responsible for the riots; Isikoff and Barry’s source for the story will back off on his original claim (see May 15, 2005). A month later, the Pentagon will confirm that at least five instances of Koran desecration at Guantanamo did indeed occur (see June 3, 2005). Entity Tags: Richard B. Myers, John Barry, Hamid Karzai, Donald Rumsfeld, Bush administration, Bryan Whitman, Karl Eikenberry, Lawrence Di Rita, Mark Whitaker, Michael Isikoff, Scott McClellan, US Department of Defense, US Southern Command, Richard A. Boucher, Newsweek Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives

April 2007: Military PR Officials Claim No Memory of Misleading Reporters in Story of Lynch Ambush, Rescue Rear Admiral Frank Thorp, who falsely told reporters that captured Private Jessica Lynch “fired her weapon” at her captors “until she had no more ammunition” in initial military press briefings (see April 3, 2003), discusses his misleading statements with staffers of the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the possibility that the US military used the Lynch story as propaganda (see April 24, 2007). Thorp, who was later promoted and became the chief public relations officer for then-Joint Chief Chairman Richard Myers, writes: “As I recall, this was a short interview and media desperately wanted me to confirm the story that was running in the States.… I never said that I had seen any intel or even intimated the same.… I may have said I am familiar with ‘the reports’ meaning the press reports, but as you can see I did not confirm them.… We did have reports of a battle and that a firefight had occurred.… That is what I stated.” Thorp says he does not recall ever seeing any classified battlefield intelligence reports concerning Lynch, and says he does not now remember if his remarks were based on such reports. When asked if he knew at the time that Lynch had, in fact, not gotten off a shot at her attackers, Thorp replies, “I would absolutely never, ever, ever, ever say anything that I knew to not be true.” At the time of the Lynch rescue, the chief public affairs official for CENTCOM briefings was Jim Wilkinson, the director of strategic communications for CENTCOM commander, General Tommy Franks. Wilkinson tells the committee that he was not a source for the media reporting concerning Lynch, and that he didn’t know any details of her capture and rescue: “I still, to this day, don’t know if those details are right or wrong. I just don’t know. I don’t remember seeing any operational report.” Thorp and Wilkinson claim not to know who provided such misleading information to reporters. And neither can explain why initial reports were relatively accurate (see March 23, 2003) but subsequent reports were so suddenly, and so luridly, inaccurate. [EDITOR & PUBLISHER, 7/14/2008] Entity Tags: James R. Wilkinson, Frank Thorp, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, US Central Command, Jessica Lynch, Thomas Franks, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda

March 18, 2008: Jessica Lynch, Fellow POWs Coping with Life after Captivity US News and World Report interviews three US soldiers once held captive in the first days of the Iraq invasion: Private Jessica Lynch, Specialist Shoshana Johnson, and Private Patrick Miller. Lynch was captured and held for nine days in an Iraqi hospital before being rescued (see June 17, 2003); her story was quickly inflated by military public relations officials and eager media representatives into a fabricated tale of torture and derring-do (see April 3, 2003). Johnson and Miller received much less press coverage during their 22 days in captivity. Rear Admiral Frank Thorp, then a captain and a senior military spokesman, told reporters when Lynch was rescued that “she fired until she had no more ammunition.” That report was untrue. Thorp now says, “There was never, ever any intentional deception involving Lynch.” But the Pentagon and the news media alike were hungry for a telegenic hero, he notes. “That’s America. We want heroes, in baseball, in politics, in our day-to-day life.” [US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, 3/18/2008] Thorp, now a rear admiral, became the top public affairs official for then-Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers. [EDITOR & PUBLISHER, 7/14/2008] Lynch: Weathering the Controversy - Lynch, who has weathered years of controversy about her unwitting involvement in a Pentagon PR campaign, is not convinced that there was no deception, as Thorp insists. “They wanted to make people think that maybe this war was a good thing,” she says. “Instead, people were getting killed, and it was going downhill fast. They wanted a hero.” All three say that they were no more heroic than any of the soldiers who fight every day. “It’s nice that people remember and stuff, but the way I look at it was I was just doing my job as a soldier,” says Miller, whom Lynch has cited as displaying outstanding bravery the day of their capture. Johnson adds: “I think we tossed around the hero word a little too much. I got shot and caught, and that’s it. [T]here are loads of soldiers out there who deserve all the props, and they don’t get enough.” Lynch, who was discharged from the Army months after her rescue (see August 22, 2003), does not watch television coverage of the war. “Honestly, it’s hard; it’s depressing,” she says. Five years after her capture, she still faces numerous physical disabilities and more surgery in the weeks and months ahead. Miller: Wants to Return to Iraq - Miller, who shot several Iraqi soldiers before being, in his words, “gang-tackled” and captured, is still in the Army, having refused a medical discharge and needing to continue his wife’s medical insurance coverage. He recalls one conversation with an Iraqi during his captivity: “There was one who asked me why I came to Iraq, and I told him that I was told to come. He was like, ‘Why didn’t you just tell them no?’ I told him that if I tell them no, I go to jail. He couldn’t understand that.” Miller, now a staff sergeant, wants to return to Iraq, though Army regulations forbid a soldier once kept as a POW from returning to the country of his capture. Johnson: Permanent Disability - Like Miller, Johnson’s captivity was relatively uneventful. She recalls one doctor in particular, “an old man with two wives and 11 children, who was really nice to me.” He protected her during her stay, even sleeping outside her door. “I don’t know if he thought somebody would come in, or something would happen to me,” she says. “When people start talking to me about Islam, that’s who I think of—a very nice man who took a big chance.” Johnson was going to write a book about her captivity, but her publishers backed out after Johnson did not give them the story they wanted. “They wanted this really religious book,” she says. “I’m a Catholic and my faith is important to me, but as a single mom with tattoos, I can’t be writing a book telling people how to live their life.” Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, she has succeeded in winning permanent disability status from the Army after a long, bitter struggle (see October 24, 2003). She is raising her 7-year old daughter, studying to be a caterer, and says that in general she is coping well. [US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, 3/18/2008] Entity Tags: Shoshana Johnson, Jessica Lynch, Frank Thorp, Patrick Miller, Richard B. Myers Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda

April 2-4, 2008: Military Experts Challenge Former Justice Official’s Defense of 2003 Torture Memo Legal experts and media observers react with shock and anger at former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo’s defense of his March 2003 torture defense (see April 2, 2008). Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale and American University, says: “This is a monument to executive supremacy and the imperial presidency. It’s also a road map for the Pentagon for fending off any prosecutions.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 4/2/2008] Thomas J. Romig, the Army’s judge advocate general at the time the memo was issued, says that Yoo’s memo seems to argue that there are no rules in a time of war, an argument Romig finds “downright offensive.” [WASHINGTON POST, 4/2/2008] Retired Air Force General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the memo was written, says that he never saw the document authorizing harsh military interrogations and that its narrow definition of torture is “absolutely ludicrous.” Myers adds: “I frankly don’t know anyone in the military who bought into that as a good definition of when you cross the line. In the end, you want to do the right thing. I worry most about reciprocity, how other countries will treat us.” [WASHINGTON POST, 4/4/2008] Legal experts (see April 2-6, 2008) and media observers (see April 4, 2008) join in criticizing Yoo’s rationale for the torture memo. Entity Tags: US Department of Defense, Richard B. Myers, John C. Yoo, Eugene R. Fidell, Thomas J. Romig, US Department of Justice Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, Civil Liberties

December 11, 2008: Senate Armed Services Committee Releases Summary of Classified Torture Report The Senate Armed Services Committee releases a classified 261-page report on the use of “harsh” or “enhanced interrogation techniques”—torture—against suspected terrorists by the US. The conclusion of the report will be released in April 2009 (see April 21, 2009). The report will become known as the “Levin Report” after committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI). Though the report itself is classified, the committee releases the executive summary to the public. Top Bush Officials Responsible for Torture - One of the report’s findings is that top Bush administration officials, and not a “few bad apples,” as many of that administration’s officials have claimed, are responsible for the use of torture against detainees in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Began Shortly after 9/11 - The report finds that US officials began preparing to use “enhanced interrogation” techniques just a few months after the 9/11 attacks, and well before Justice Department memos declared such practices legal. The program used techniques practiced in a US military program called Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE—see December 2001), which trains US military personnel to resist questioning by foes who do not follow international bans on torture. As part of SERE training, soldiers are stripped naked, slapped, and waterboarded, among other techniques. These techniques were “reverse-engineered” and used against prisoners in US custody. Other techniques used against prisoners included “religious disgrace” and “invasion of space by a female.” At least one suspected terrorist was forced “to bark and perform dog tricks” while another was “forced to wear a dog collar and perform dog tricks” in a bid to break down their resistance. Tried to 'Prove' Links between Saddam, Al-Qaeda - Some of the torture techniques were used before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq (see March 19, 2003). Much of the torture of prisoners, the report finds, was to elicit information “proving” alleged links between al-Qaeda and the regime of Saddam Hussein. US Army psychiatrist Major Paul Burney says of some Guantanamo Bay interrogations: “Even though they were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. We were not being successful in establishing a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link… there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results.” Others did not mention such pressure, according to the report. [SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, 12/11/2008 ; AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 4/21/2009] (Note: Some press reports identify the quoted psychiatrist as Major Charles Burney.) [MCCLATCHY NEWS, 4/21/2009] A former senior intelligence official later says: “There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used. The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack [after 9/11]. But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq that [former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed] Chalabi (see November 6-8, 2001) and others had told them were there.… There was constant pressure on the intelligence agencies and the interrogators to do whatever it took to get that information out of the detainees, especially the few high-value ones we had, and when people kept coming up empty, they were told by Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people to push harder.” [MCCLATCHY NEWS, 4/21/2009] Warnings of Unreliability from Outset - Almost from the outset of the torture program, military and other experts warned that such techniques were likely to provide “less reliable” intelligence results than traditional, less aggressive approaches. In July 2002, a memo from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JRPA), which oversees the SERE training program, warned that “if an interrogator produces information that resulted from the application of physical and psychological duress, the reliability and accuracy of this information is in doubt. In other words, a subject in extreme pain may provide an answer, any answer, or many answers in order to get the pain to stop” (see July 2002). [SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, 12/11/2008 ; AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, 4/21/2009] Ignoring Military Objections - When Pentagon general counsel William Haynes asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to approve 15 of 18 recommended torture techniques for use at Guantanamo (see December 2, 2002), Haynes indicated that he had discussed the matter with three officials who agreed with him: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and General Richard Myers. Haynes only consulted one legal opinion, which senior military advisers had termed “legally insufficient” and “woefully inadequate.” Rumsfeld agreed to recommend the use of the tactics. [SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, 12/11/2008 ] Entity Tags: William J. Haynes, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Richard B. Myers, Paul Burney, Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, Douglas Feith, Donald Rumsfeld, Ahmed Chalabi, Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, US Department of Justice, Bush administration Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives