Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq
Encyclopedia
The Rendon Group
, a Washington, DC based public relations firm with close ties to the US government, and which has had a prominent role in promoting the Iraqi National Congress
, was alleged by some journalists to be planning to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq
by a careful public relations
campaign.
Such a campaign would be viewed by many with skepticism, recalling that the PR firm Hill & Knowlton
, damage-controller for the tobacco
industry,http://www.ratical.org/ratville/MoblFownCU.html was hired by the Kuwaiti Royal Family to support the Gulf War in 1991 with a campaign including misinformation such as a false story of Iraqi soldiers' barbaric treatment of incubator babies.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK13Ak01.html (see Nurse Nayirah
)
In late 2001, with the Pentagon's focus on information warfare
as an integral facet of the American war doctrine increasing, the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence
was formed. This office was created with a mandate to propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, with the help of the abovementioned Rendon Group
. In February 2002, amid a backlash of public outcry resulting from a New York Times article, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
claimed he lacked knowledge of the program and the OSI
was closed down. http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2Dop%2Darkin24nov24001455§ion=%2Fnews%2Fopinion%2Fcommentary
In January of 2003, with the Office of Strategic Influence
dismantled, President Bush formally announced "the creation of a White House "Office of Global Communications" to broadcast the United States' message worldwide ahead of possible war on Iraq," http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5874357%255E1702,00.html which had been effectively operating for several months prior. http://media.guardian.co.uk/attack/story/0,1301,765637,00.html According to the White House
, the office will disseminate the policies of the US Government to media sources, domestic and foreign, and send "teams of communicators to international hot spots, areas of media interest." http://www.startribune.com/stories/844/3612289.html Having a similar mission to the now-defunct OSI
, many skeptics have voiced opinions regarding the legitimacy of this new office. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0813-06.htm
The U.S. government has tried to sell the notion that the war against Iraq is critical to the American "War on Terrorism": "In the war on terror, Iraq is now the central front..." President Bush said on December 14, 2005 (Bush, George W. "President Discusses Iraqi Elections, Victory in the War on Terror." White House, Official Press Release). Also, the public was asked to believe that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was connected to 9/11: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001..." (Bush, George W. "President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended" White House, Official Press Release, May 1, 2003]. In the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney suggested during a, "Meet the Press" interview that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attack: Iraq is, "the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9-11." [Davies, Frank. "Study: Misperceptions About Iraq War Contributed to Support For It." Knight-Ridder, October 3, 2003.)
In the 2003 State of the Union address
, President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs". On February 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell
addressed the United Nations General Assembly
, continuing U.S. efforts to gain UN authorization for an invasion.His presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory. However, this information was based on claims of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi codenamed "Curveball"
, an Iraqi emigrant living in Germany
who later admitted that his claims had been false.
According to the study, U.S. news organizations facilitated the government's orchestrated campaign of false statements by their largely quite uncritical and deferential coverage of government statements, thus providing seemingly "independent" validation of the false statements in the minds of the U.S. public. “Some journalists and even entire news organizations have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical."
's book "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism" states that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter made to appear as a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, to Saddam Hussein and backdated to July 1, 2001. The White House also wanted the forged letter to state that Saddam was buying yellowcake
from Niger
with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization."
U.S. intelligence officials stated on the record that President Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. However, eager for "evidence" justifying war against Iraq, the White House ordered the manufacture of a letter stating that 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta
had trained for his mission in Iraq, thus purporting to establish with finally the existence of an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
Searching for a justification for invasion, Vice President Cheney's office had been pressuring the CIA to prove that an operation link existed between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Pursuant to the White House order, the CIA concocted the handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, and then hand-carried it agent to Baghdad for dissemination."
CIA Director George Tenet
returned from the White House with the assignment written on White House stationery, and assigned the task to CIA operatives. CIA officers Robert Richer
and John Maguire
, were in charge of the Iraq Operations Group. They are both on the record in Suskind’s book confirming the existence of the fake Habbush letter.
The forged letter was released and written about by Western newssources, including the London Sunday Telegraph, as evidence of Iraq government links to 9/11. NBC News
reported the letter as “really concrete proof that al-Qaeda was working with Saddam.”
During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. "resettled" Habbush to a safe house
in Jordan
during and then paid him $5 million in what, according to Suskind, could only be considered "hush money
".
However, on August 5, 2008, the White House issued the statement on behalf of George Tenet, Robert Richer and John Maguire, addressing Suskind's allegation. Tenet said:
. On March 7, 2003, intelligence documents submitted as evidence to the IAEA
were dismissed by the agency as forgeries, with the concurrence of outside experts. At the time, a U.S. official claimed that the evidence was submitted to the IAEA without knowledge of its provenance, and characterized any mistakes as "more likely due to incompetence not malice"; this explanation was deemed unsatisfactory by former CIA official and Iraq War critic Ray Close. Those who oppose these critics of the invasion maintain the fraudulent documents were never central—or even relevant—in intelligence assessments regarding Iraq seeking uranium.
, a secret British document summarizing a 2002 meeting among British political, intelligence, and defence leaders also tended to show the US and Britain willing to "fix" intelligence as necessary to support the war against Iraq. According to the memo, Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove
claimed that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein
had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) drones that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack U.S. eastern seaboard cities
. Colin Powell
suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the U.S. In fact, Iraq had no offensive UAV fleet or any capability of putting UAVs on ships. Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of less than a handful of outdated Czech training drones. At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether the CIA's conclusions about Iraq's UAV fleet were accurate. The U.S. Air Force agency most familiar with UAVs denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.
Tony Blair
of Britain and President Bush met at the White House on Jan. 31, 2003, and David Manning
, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, took notes of the meeting later leaked in Britain to the public by a whistleblower
. These notes are known as the "Manning Memo" (different from the "Downing Street Memo," although David Manning was involved with producing both). The Manning Memo states that Bush and Blair had decided that they would invade Iraq even if the UN weapons inspectors found no WMD in Iraq as Bush and Blair alleged. Bush and Blair "penciled in" March 10 as the day they would commence the war. The president and the prime minister acknowledged that no WMD had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of no WMD being found by their desired war date, Bush suggested several ways to provoke a war, including a proposal to paint a United States U2 surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations and flying it in Iraqi air space in the hopes that Iraq would fire on it, and a proposal to assassinate the Iraqi head of state, Mr. Hussein. The Iraqi response could then be used to mobilize public opinion for war. Bush and Blair also agreed to continue to push aggressively for a second UN Security Council resolution, one that would authorize the use of force, however, the UN Security Council failed to pass the second resolution. Bush and Blair agreed that "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," according to the Memo.
Rendon Group
The Rendon Group is a public relations and propaganda firm headed by John Rendon which specializes in providing communications services both nationally and internationally. The Rendon Group website states, “For nearly three decades, The Rendon Group has been providing innovative global strategic...
, a Washington, DC based public relations firm with close ties to the US government, and which has had a prominent role in promoting the Iraqi National Congress
Iraqi National Congress
The Iraqi National Congress is an umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. It was formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.-History:INC was set up following the...
, was alleged by some journalists to be planning to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
by a careful public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
campaign.
Such a campaign would be viewed by many with skepticism, recalling that the PR firm Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton is a global public relations company, headquartered in New York City, United States, with 79 offices in 44 countries. Hill & Knowlton was founded in Cleveland, Ohio in 1927 by John W. Hill and is today led by Chairman & CEO, Paul Taaffe...
, damage-controller for the tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
industry,http://www.ratical.org/ratville/MoblFownCU.html was hired by the Kuwaiti Royal Family to support the Gulf War in 1991 with a campaign including misinformation such as a false story of Iraqi soldiers' barbaric treatment of incubator babies.http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK13Ak01.html (see Nurse Nayirah
Nurse Nayirah
Nayirah refers to the controversial testimony given before the non-governmental Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990, by a female who provided only her first name, Nayirah...
)
In late 2001, with the Pentagon's focus on information warfare
Information warfare
The term Information Warfare is primarily an American concept involving the use and management of information technology in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent...
as an integral facet of the American war doctrine increasing, the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence
Office of Strategic Influence
The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, including the United States...
was formed. This office was created with a mandate to propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, with the help of the abovementioned Rendon Group
Rendon Group
The Rendon Group is a public relations and propaganda firm headed by John Rendon which specializes in providing communications services both nationally and internationally. The Rendon Group website states, “For nearly three decades, The Rendon Group has been providing innovative global strategic...
. In February 2002, amid a backlash of public outcry resulting from a New York Times article, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
claimed he lacked knowledge of the program and the OSI
Office of Strategic Influence
The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, including the United States...
was closed down. http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2Dop%2Darkin24nov24001455§ion=%2Fnews%2Fopinion%2Fcommentary
In January of 2003, with the Office of Strategic Influence
Office of Strategic Influence
The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, including the United States...
dismantled, President Bush formally announced "the creation of a White House "Office of Global Communications" to broadcast the United States' message worldwide ahead of possible war on Iraq," http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5874357%255E1702,00.html which had been effectively operating for several months prior. http://media.guardian.co.uk/attack/story/0,1301,765637,00.html According to the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
, the office will disseminate the policies of the US Government to media sources, domestic and foreign, and send "teams of communicators to international hot spots, areas of media interest." http://www.startribune.com/stories/844/3612289.html Having a similar mission to the now-defunct OSI
Office of Strategic Influence
The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, including the United States...
, many skeptics have voiced opinions regarding the legitimacy of this new office. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0813-06.htm
Government statements that set the stage for war
Orchestrated deception campaign
President Bush and Bush Administration officials made hundreds of false statements in an orchestrated public relations campaign to galvanize public opinion for the war, according to a study by two not-for-profit journalism organizations. For example, on at least 532 occasions top Bush Administration officials stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or was trying to produce or obtain them, or had links to al Qaeda, or both. These statements were demonstrably false. The study concluded that the U.S. government's public relations campaign against the U.S. public thus led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.In the 2003 State of the Union address
2003 State of the Union Address
The 2003 State of the Union Address was a speech delivered by U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday, January 28, 2003. It outlined justifications for the 2003 invasion of Iraq...
, President Bush said "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs". On February 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
addressed the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
, continuing U.S. efforts to gain UN authorization for an invasion.His presentation to the UN Security Council, which contained a computer generated image of a mobile biological weapons laboratory. However, this information was based on claims of Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi codenamed "Curveball"
Curveball (informant)
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi , known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass...
, an Iraqi emigrant living in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
who later admitted that his claims had been false.
According to the study, U.S. news organizations facilitated the government's orchestrated campaign of false statements by their largely quite uncritical and deferential coverage of government statements, thus providing seemingly "independent" validation of the false statements in the minds of the U.S. public. “Some journalists and even entire news organizations have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical."
A letter concocted by the CIA
Based on the statements of several named CIA senior officials who spoke on record, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ron SuskindRon Suskind
Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and best-selling author. He was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000 and has published the books A Hope in the Unseen, The Price of Loyalty, The One Percent Doctrine, The Way of the World and...
's book "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism" states that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter made to appear as a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, to Saddam Hussein and backdated to July 1, 2001. The White House also wanted the forged letter to state that Saddam was buying yellowcake
Yellowcake
Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...
from Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization."
U.S. intelligence officials stated on the record that President Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. However, eager for "evidence" justifying war against Iraq, the White House ordered the manufacture of a letter stating that 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta was one of the masterminds and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks who served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, crashing the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks.Born in 1968...
had trained for his mission in Iraq, thus purporting to establish with finally the existence of an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
Searching for a justification for invasion, Vice President Cheney's office had been pressuring the CIA to prove that an operation link existed between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Pursuant to the White House order, the CIA concocted the handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, and then hand-carried it agent to Baghdad for dissemination."
CIA Director George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
returned from the White House with the assignment written on White House stationery, and assigned the task to CIA operatives. CIA officers Robert Richer
Robert Richer
Robert Richer was the associate deputy director of operations of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the number two in command of the Operations Directorate, the part of the Agency responsible for human operations overseas, where he served under Jose Rodriguez.He took early retirement in...
and John Maguire
John Maguire
John Maguire is the name of:*John Maguire , English Mixed Martial Artist*John Maguire , coadjutor archbishop in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York*John Maguire , Australian cricketer...
, were in charge of the Iraq Operations Group. They are both on the record in Suskind’s book confirming the existence of the fake Habbush letter.
The forged letter was released and written about by Western newssources, including the London Sunday Telegraph, as evidence of Iraq government links to 9/11. NBC News
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
reported the letter as “really concrete proof that al-Qaeda was working with Saddam.”
During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. "resettled" Habbush to a safe house
Safe house
In the jargon of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, a safe house is a secure location, suitable for hiding witnesses, agents or other persons perceived as being in danger...
in Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
during and then paid him $5 million in what, according to Suskind, could only be considered "hush money
Hush money
Hush money is an informal term for financial incentives or rewards offered in exchange for not divulging information.Hush Money may also refer to:* Hush Money , a 1921 silent film directed by Charles Maigne...
".
However, on August 5, 2008, the White House issued the statement on behalf of George Tenet, Robert Richer and John Maguire, addressing Suskind's allegation. Tenet said:
Yellowcake from Niger
Allegedly, the Bush Administration also knowingly fraudulently asserted as evidence that the Hussein government had sought to purchase yellowcake uranium from NigerNiger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
. On March 7, 2003, intelligence documents submitted as evidence to the IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
were dismissed by the agency as forgeries, with the concurrence of outside experts. At the time, a U.S. official claimed that the evidence was submitted to the IAEA without knowledge of its provenance, and characterized any mistakes as "more likely due to incompetence not malice"; this explanation was deemed unsatisfactory by former CIA official and Iraq War critic Ray Close. Those who oppose these critics of the invasion maintain the fraudulent documents were never central—or even relevant—in intelligence assessments regarding Iraq seeking uranium.
The Downing Street memorandum
The 2005 release of the so-called Downing Street MemoDowning Street memo
The "Downing Street memo" , sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the "smoking gun memo", is the note of a secret 23 July 2002, meeting of senior British Labour government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified...
, a secret British document summarizing a 2002 meeting among British political, intelligence, and defence leaders also tended to show the US and Britain willing to "fix" intelligence as necessary to support the war against Iraq. According to the memo, Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove
Richard Dearlove
Sir Richard Billing Dearlove, KCMG, OBE was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 until 6 May 2004.-Career:...
claimed that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Non-existent capabilities of unmanned Iraqi drones
In October, 2002, a few days before the U.S. SenateUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, about 75 senators were told in closed session that Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
had the means of delivering biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by unmanned aerial vehicle
Unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle , also known as a unmanned aircraft system , remotely piloted aircraft or unmanned aircraft, is a machine which functions either by the remote control of a navigator or pilot or autonomously, that is, as a self-directing entity...
(UAV) drones that could be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack U.S. eastern seaboard cities
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
. Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
suggested in his presentation to the United Nations that UAVs were transported out of Iraq and could be launched against the U.S. In fact, Iraq had no offensive UAV fleet or any capability of putting UAVs on ships. Iraq's UAV fleet consisted of less than a handful of outdated Czech training drones. At the time, there was a vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to whether the CIA's conclusions about Iraq's UAV fleet were accurate. The U.S. Air Force agency most familiar with UAVs denied outright that Iraq possessed any offensive UAV capability.
The Manning Memo
Prime MinisterPrime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
of Britain and President Bush met at the White House on Jan. 31, 2003, and David Manning
David Manning
Sir David Geoffrey Manning, GCMG, CVO is a former British diplomat, who was the British Ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2007. He authored the so-called "Manning Memo" summarising the details of a January 2003 meeting between American president George W. Bush and British prime minister...
, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, took notes of the meeting later leaked in Britain to the public by a whistleblower
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
. These notes are known as the "Manning Memo" (different from the "Downing Street Memo," although David Manning was involved with producing both). The Manning Memo states that Bush and Blair had decided that they would invade Iraq even if the UN weapons inspectors found no WMD in Iraq as Bush and Blair alleged. Bush and Blair "penciled in" March 10 as the day they would commence the war. The president and the prime minister acknowledged that no WMD had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of no WMD being found by their desired war date, Bush suggested several ways to provoke a war, including a proposal to paint a United States U2 surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations and flying it in Iraqi air space in the hopes that Iraq would fire on it, and a proposal to assassinate the Iraqi head of state, Mr. Hussein. The Iraqi response could then be used to mobilize public opinion for war. Bush and Blair also agreed to continue to push aggressively for a second UN Security Council resolution, one that would authorize the use of force, however, the UN Security Council failed to pass the second resolution. Bush and Blair agreed that "The US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," according to the Memo.
Success of the public relations campaign
The U.S. government's public relations campaign was largely successful in getting the American public to accept false beliefs to support the war. Approximately 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein had a role in the 9/11 attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32862-2003Sep5?language=printer As late as 2006, 85% of U.S. troops in Iraq said the U.S. mission was mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks." http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075.See also
- At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIAAt the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIAAt the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA is a memoir co-written by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet with Bill Harlow, former CIA Director of Public Affairs...
- U.S. plan to invade Iraq2003 invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
- American popular opinion of war on Iraq
- Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq
- Popular opposition to war on Iraq
- Protests against the 2003 Iraq war
- The UN Security Council and the Iraq warThe UN Security Council and the Iraq warIn March 2003 the United States government announced that "diplomacy has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the US insisted it possessed...
- Karen KwiatkowskiKaren KwiatkowskiKaren U. Kwiatkowski is an American activist and commentator. She is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency. Since retiring, she has become a noted critic of the U.S....
- White House Iraq GroupWhite House Iraq GroupThe White House Iraq Group was the marketing arm of the White House whose purpose was to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the public....
External links
- Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II, by Sam GardinerSam GardinerAlderman Samuel Gardiner MBE JP MLA is a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland for the Ulster Unionist Party who is an MLA for Upper Bann...
, Colonel, USAFUnited States Air ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
(Retired) (beginning of a 56-page report available in six PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
files) - Selection of links and resources on media coverage of the war in Iraq, Provided by The Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.