My Timeline

Does anybody else have co-workers that would like to bear the love child of Joe Wilson, Scott Ritter or Al Franken. I do. With daily leftwing accusations I needed to organize data so I created a timeline of recent events. It's not perfect but here it is.

Mid 1990's 16 February 2006 ABC reports of Iraqi tapes from mid 1990's

"One of the most dramatic moments in the 12 hours of recordings comes when Saddam predicts — during a meeting in the mid-1990s — a terrorist attack on the United States. "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before Aug. 2 and told the British as well … that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction." Saddam goes on to say such attacks would be difficult to stop. "In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?" But he adds that Iraq would never do such a thing. "This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq."

The same ABC report cites an Iraqi tape made in April or May 1995

"We did not reveal all that we have," Kamel says in the meeting. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

September, 1998 Scott Ritter testifies to Senate committee

"Iraq today is not disarmed and remains an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace." "Americans who think that something should be done about it have to be deeply disappointed in our leadership."

31 October, 1998 President Bill Clinton signs Iraq Liberation Act making regime change the stated policy of the United States.

13 February, 1999 CNN reports Iraq offers Bin Laden sanctuary.

"Taliban authorities in the militia's southern stronghold of Kandahar refused to either confirm or deny reports that bin Laden had left the country. The Taliban have called bin Laden their honored guest, a friend who helped the Afghan resistance fight invading Soviet soldiers in the 1980s. "
"The Taliban's ambassador in Islamabad, Saeed-ur-Rehman Haqqani, said he had not been told of bin Laden's departure, "but if it has happened, it will be a good thing."
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers.
Despite repeated demands from Washington, the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden after the August 7 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, demanding proof of his involvement in terrorist activities. "

11 September, 2001

15 October, 2001 U.S. intelligence community becomes aware of a possible uranium sale agreement between Niger and Iraq (agreement in negotiation since 1999 and said to be approved in late 2000)

5 February, 2002 Second intelligence report of Iraq-Niger agreement. Report more detailed

12 February, 2002 DIA report detailing Iraq-Niger agreement. After reading report Vice-President Cheney asks for CIA analysis of the DIA report. CIA Counterproliferation Division (CPD) decides to send Joe Wilson to Niger, as recommended by his wife Valorie Plame a CPD worker. Valorie Plame said to her husband “there’s this crazy report” about an Iraq-Niger uranium deal and the CPD has requested he go to Niger.

18 February, 2002 Embassy in Niger sends cable that alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal provides enough detail that another look is required

19 February, 2002 Valorie Plame convenes meeting with CPD personnel and Joe Wilson to discuss Niger trip.

8 Sept, 2002 Scott Ritter speaks to Iraqi National Assembly in violation of U.S. Code TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 45 > § 953
§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply, himself or his agent, to any foreign government or the agents thereof for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.



16 Sept, 2002 Boston Globe article regarding Scott Ritter

“Ritter's statements have stunned other former U.N. weapons inspectors. Richard Spertzel, the chief biological weapons inspector in Iraq from 1994 to 1998, ridiculed Ritter's assertions during a Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday."How does he know what 100% is?" Spertzel asked. "I don't. And how many biological sites did he visit? The answer is none. He has no knowledge of those sites."David Kay, the chief nuclear inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1993, agreed. He said Ritter sharply criticized the ability of U.N. inspection teams to disarm Iraq when he testified before Congress."Either he lied to you then or he's lying to you now," Kay said. "He's gone completely the other way. I cannot explain it on the basis of known facts."

8 October, 2002 Unanimous United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 holding Iraq in “material breach” of previous resolutions

28 January, 2003 President Bush gives state of the union speech which includes the 16 words “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” No mention of Niger is made. British reports made prior to the British ever seeing the “faked” documents.

7 March, 2003 Great Britain submits 17 March deadline for Iraqi compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441

19 March, 2003 President Bush gives the order for the invasion of Iraq

May, 2003 Joe Wilson becomes advisor to Presidential Candidate John Kerry

2 May, 2003 Joe Wilson attends Senate Democratic Policy Conference

3 May, 2003 Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame meet with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof

6 May, 2003 Kristof writes opinion piece in New York Times about Niger uranium without citing the name Wilson or Plame

Early June, 2003 Walter Pincus of The Washington Post inquires of CIA about Joe Wilson

12 June, 2003 Walter Pincus writes article on a retired ambassador’s trip to Niger. Lewis Libby learns of Valorie Plame from Vice President Cheney.

23 June, 2003 Judith Miller of The New York Times discusses Joe Wilson with Lewis Libby

6 July, 2003 Joe Wilson writes opinion piece in New York Times

8 July, 2003 Bob Novak calls Karl Rove after learning of Valorie Plame from a senior Bush administration official. Karl Rove says he has heard of her too. Lewis Libby meets with Judith Miller and discusses Valorie Plame’s work with the CIA.

14 July, 2003 Bob Novak’s column naming Valerie Plame

7 July, 2004 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report

BBC reports on removal of enriched uranium from Iraq

"The US has revealed that it removed more than 1.7 metric tons of radioactive material from Iraq in a secret operation last month.
"This operation was a major achievement," said US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in a statement.
He said it would keep "potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists".
Along with 1.77 tons of enriched uranium, about 1,000 "highly radioactive sources" were also removed.
The material was taken from a former nuclear research facility on 23 June, after being packaged by 20 experts from the US Energy Department's secret laboratories.
It was flown out of the country aboard a military plane in a joint operation with the Department of Defense, and is being stored temporarily at a Department of Energy facility.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog - the International Atomic Energy Agency - and Iraqi officials were informed ahead of the operation, which happened ahead of the 28 June handover of sovereignty. "

2 Oct., 2003 David Kay presents Interim Report of the Iraq Survey Group

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
· A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
· A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
· Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
· New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
· Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
· A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
· Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
· Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
· Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
In addition to the discovery of extensive concealment efforts, we have been faced with a systematic sanitization of documentary and computer evidence in a wide range of offices, laboratories, and companies suspected of WMD work. The pattern of these efforts to erase evidence - hard drives destroyed, specific files burned, equipment cleaned of all traces of use - are ones of deliberate, rather than random, acts. For example,
· On 10 July 2003 an ISG team exploited the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) Headquarters in Baghdad. The basement of the main building contained an archive of documents situated on well-organized rows of metal shelving. The basement suffered no fire damage despite the total destruction of the upper floors from coalition air strikes. Upon arrival the exploitation team encountered small piles of ash where individual documents or binders of documents were intentionally destroyed. Computer hard drives had been deliberately destroyed. Computers would have had financial value to a random looter; their destruction, rather than removal for resale or reuse, indicates a targeted effort to prevent Coalition forces from gaining access to their contents.
· All IIS laboratories visited by IIS exploitation teams have been clearly sanitized, including removal of much equipment, shredding and burning of documents, and even the removal of nameplates from office doors.
· Although much of the deliberate destruction and sanitization of documents and records probably occurred during the height of OIF combat operations, indications of significant continuing destruction efforts have been found after the end of major combat operations, including entry in May 2003 of the locked gated vaults of the Ba'ath party intelligence building in Baghdad and highly selective destruction of computer hard drives and data storage equipment along with the burning of a small number of specific binders that appear to have contained financial and intelligence records, and in July 2003 a site exploitation team at the Abu Ghurayb Prison found one pile of the smoldering ashes from documents that was still warm to the touch.

14 July, 2004 British Butler Report is issued

“It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.”

“By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.”

10 Sept. 2004 USA Today article on Albany terror cell arrests

"Aref is the imam of the mosque and Hossain is one of its founders. Both Albany men are charged with money laundering and attempting to conceal material support for a terror organization.
Aref, a native of Kurdistan, and Hossain, who is from Bangladesh, face up to 70 years in prison if convicted.
Last week, law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity said U.S. soldiers discovered documents at an Ansar al-Islam camp in northern Iraq last summer (ed. that would be summer 2003, when the U.S. invaded) that referred to Aref as "the commander" and included his address and telephone number in Albany.
U.S. officials have said that Ansar al-Islam members are thought to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network is blamed for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq. "