At the time, it seemed like a regular year. We’d been attacked in the previous September, and had gone to war with the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The war was going well, though we’d missed our chance to capture bin Laden. But there were fantastic movies [Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Spiderman], Enron bit the dust, the Winter Olympics were in Utah, A Beautiful Mind won the Oscar, the Beltway Snipers were finally apprehended. And while there was much ado about Homeland Security and the War on Terror, most of us missed President Bush’s speech to the West Point Graduating Class in June:
For much of the last century America’s defense relied on the cold war doctrines of deterrence and containment. In some cases those strategies still apply. But new threats also require new thinking. Deterrence, the promise of massive retaliation against nations, means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.
We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith in the word of tyrants who solemnly sign nonproliferation treaties and then systematically break them. If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long. Homeland defense and missile defense are part of a stronger security. They’re essential priorities for America.
Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act.
Our security will require the best intelligence to reveal threats hidden in caves and growing in laboratories. Our security will require modernizing domestic agencies, such as the F.B.I., so they are prepared to act and act quickly against danger. Our security will require transforming the military you will lead. A military that must be ready to strike at a moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world. And our security will require all Americans to be forward looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives…
We hadn’t a notion that it was the kick-off for a campaign that would lead us into an unprovoked war with Iraq in less than a year. For those few that even heard it, it just sounded like more of Bush’s standard tough guy rhetoric. But we should have listened more carefully back in January to his State of the Union address:
Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September 11, but we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
I wish we’d paid more attention – but we didn’t. We didn’t know that the our POW’s were being shipped around the world by the C.I.A. to be tortured, probably trying to get confessions that would justify our invasion of Iraq. We knew nothing of a new Intelligence organization in our own Department of Defense that was searching for way to tie al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. We didn’t have a clue that an already discredited forgery in Italy suggesting that Iraq was buying African Uranium would be revived and elevated to the level of fact to be pawned off as a cause for war. We were likewise oblivious to the fact that the N.S.A. was data-mining our cell phones and Internet communications.
2002 was a secret year until the Fall, when the campaign rapidly picked up speed, culminating in the march to war in early 2003. I never saw it then. Most of us that opposed the Invasion of Iraq had no idea of the duplicity and deceit that was behind the campaign. We just thought it was a rash and unwarranted idea. I recall being confused. Had I missed something? I recall watching Colin Powell’s U.N. speech waiting for the punch line [that never came]. And when the U.N. Inspectors said they couldn’t find anything in Iraq, I didn’t get it why we kept to our timetable.
I actually remember Bush saying the sixteen words,
"the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"
… and I wondered why Powell didn’t mention that finding in his U.N. speech a few days later. But it never occurred to me that what we were watching and living was a complete sham, a made up thing, a lie. I guess I thought they had over-reacted or were just plain wrong. I know I felt embarassed. And it wouldn’t really sink in until after the 2004 elections.
These days, I get up in the morning and read the New York Times and the Washington Post. Then I check out the blogs, then I go about my day. Some time in the afternoon, I check them all again, and often have to be called twice to supper because I’ve gotten hooked on running down some document or article [usually from or about 2002] to add just a small piece to what I know about that secret year. I wade through emptywheel‘s "weedy" dissections of the latest document releases, and I keep up with Mary [the left coaster] and Digby [Hullabaloo]. If Josh Marshall has written anything I haven’t read in the last few years, I’d be surprised.
I think I feel so guilty about being oblivious in the secret year that I’m trying to make up for it – like I can pay back for an opportunity missed along the way. I know that’s crazy, but I expect I’ll get up tomorrow and try to find the detainee statements that the C.I.A. said they were releasing today but I haven’t been able to locate. It’ll never be the like it was in 2002 when I trusted what I read. I didn’t know it was a secret year…
THE TORTURE TIMELINE: 2002
January 20, 2002: Bybee to Abu Gonzales memo specifying that common article 3 of the Geneva Convention does not apply to "an armed conflict between a nation-state and a transnational terrorist organization."
January 25, 2002: Gonzales memo for Bush recommends against applying the Geneva Convention to enemy detainees.
January 2002: Supplemental Public Affairs Guidance on Detainees affirms Geneva Convention wrt media photographs.
February 2, 2002: William Taft argues for the application of Geneva Conventions.
February 12, 2002: Jessen sends paper on al Qaeda resistance capabilityies to JPRA commander Randy Moulton.
Before February 22, 2002: After the interrogation team declares al-Libi compliant, Cheney orders him to be waterboarded again.
February 22, 2002: DIA voices doubts about al-Libi’s claims of Iraq-al Qaeda ties.
March 28, 2002: Abu Zubaydah taken into custody.
March 29, 2002: James Mitchell closes consulting company, Knowledge Works, in NC.
March 31, 2002: Abu Zubaydah flown to Thailand.
April 2002: CIA OGC lawyers begin conversations with John Bellinger and John Yoo/Jay Bybee on proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah. Bellinger briefed Condi, Hadley, and Gonzales, as well as Ashcroft and Chertoff.
April 16, 2002: Bruce Jessen circulates draft exploitation plan to JPRA Commander.
May 2, 2002: The US "un-signs" the International Criminal Court treaty.
May 8, 2002: Jose Padilla taken into custody based on material warrant signed by Michael Mukasey and based on testimony from Abu Zubaydah.
Mid-May 2002: CIA OGC lawyers meet with Ashcroft, Condi, Hadley, Bellinger, and Gonzales to discuss alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
Mid to Late May: Ali Soufan leaves interrogation because of "borderline torture" (threat of small box confinement).
May 28, 2002: CIA HQ sends cable to Abu Zubaydah’s interrogators.
July 10, 2002: Date of first interrogation report from Abu Zubaydah cited in 9/11 Report.
July 13, 2002: CIA OGC (Rizzo?) meets with Bellinger, Yoo, Chertoff, Daniel Levin, and Gonzales for overview of interrogation plan.
July 17, 2002: Tenet met with Condi, who advised CIA could proceed with torture, subject to a determination of legality by OLC.
Late July 2002: Bybee discusses SERE with Yoo and Ashcroft.
July 24, 2002: Bybee advised CIA that Ashcroft concluded proposed techniques were legal.
July 26, 2002: Bybee tells CIA waterboarding is legal. CIA begins to waterboard Abu Zubaydah.
July 31, 2002: DIA issues second report doubting al-Libi’s confession of Iraq-al Qaeda ties.
August 1, 2002: "Bybee Memo" (written by John Yoo) describes torture as that which is equivalent to :the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."
September 4, 2002: Porter Goss and Nancy Pelosi briefed on OLC memos, not told Abu Zubaydah had already been tortured.
September 11, 2002: Ramzi bin al-Shibh captured, purportedly as a result of intelligence gained through torturing Abu Zubaydah.
September 16, 2002: JTF 170 Gitmo attend training at JPRA’s SERE school.
September 25, 2002: Jim Haynes, John Rizzo, David Addington, Jack Goldsmith, Patrick Philbin, Alice Fisher visit Gitmo and Charleston (Padilla) and Norfolk (Hamdi) brigs.
September 27, 2002: Bob Graham and Richard Shelby briefed on torture.
October 2002: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri captured. Held and interrogated in Dubai for a month then handed over to US custody.
October 2, 2002: Gitmo lawyers draft list of new techniques; Johnathan Fredman (Chief Counsel to CTC) attends meeting.
October 11, 2002: Date of photograph associated with contents of torture tapes.
October 11, 2002: Dunlavey requests authority to use aggressive techniques.
"Twelve Days into Nashiri’s Interrogation:" Nashiri waterboarded two times.
October 25, 2002: General Hill forwards Dunlavey’s request to Richard Myers.
November 22, 2002: Nashiri’s capture publicly announced.
November 23, 2002: Abuse of Mohammed al-Khatani begins.
November 27, 2002: Haynes recommends Rumsfeld approve most aggressive techniques for use at Gitmo.
December 2, 2002: Rumsfeld approves aggressive techniques for Gitmo.
December 3, 2002: Habibullah dies after being tortured.
December 4, 2002: CIA stops taping Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri’s interrogations.
December 9 or 10, 2002: Dilawar dies after being tortured.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.