March – April 2002.     Wiser heads prevail temporarily, as the general public displays little sign of being eager for war with Iraq. But the top ranks of policy-makers in the administration keep trying, notably with a major fanning-out of top administration figures on the six-month anniversary of 9/11, all hitting the ground running to talk publicly about Iraq, thus linking ‘Iraq’ to ‘9/11.’ Over the longer haul the focus is not explicitly on war; rather than saying, ‘We want to go to war against Iraq,’ they talk about ‘WMD’ and ‘inspections’ and ‘United Nations.’ But in heavily coordinated appearances, top administration officials and allied media figures repeatedly and vociferously link Iraq and Saddam Hussein to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Saying ‘Iraq’ on March 11 says it all, but if that weren’t enough, the administration also relentlessly harps on Iraq as “another front” or “the next front” in fighting terrorism.
March 1-7, 2002:

March 1, 2002 – INR produces a pamphlet, an intelligence assessment titled Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq Is Unlikely. The INR analyst who drafts the report later testifies to the Senate committee that he prepared it in response to interest expressed by the Vice President’s office. (SSCI Report, 42)

The State Department disseminates the assessment through normal government channels including the White House Situation Room, but does not provide it directly to Cheney in a special delivery. Cheney and other top administration officials including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice subsequently deny being aware of U.S. doubts about the bogus uranium story.

March 3, 2002 – Gen. Franks again briefs Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and Rice on the Iraq war plan.

Same day – Syndicated columnist George F. Will, who consistently boosts the war with Iraq, pens a column extolling the oppositional virtues of Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. Misspelling Chalabi’s first name, Will heartily endorses Chalabi as a viable replacement for Saddam Hussein:

“Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the leadership council of the Iraqi National Congress, an umbrella organization of Saddam Hussein's opponents abroad, orders oatmeal for breakfast while others at the table tuck into fried eggs, a cheese omelet, bacon, ham, grits. Saddam has made nine assassination attempts on him, but Chalabi evidently worries about the long-term menace of cholesterol. Like the girl in "South Pacific," Chalabi is a cockeyed optimist.      

If you are part of a political movement in exile, optimism is part of your job description. Bear that in mind as he answers the most pressing question confronting American policy-makers: How brittle is Saddam's regime?

So brittle, Chalabi says, that breaking it might require minimal U.S. forces on the ground. Saddam distrusts his military. There are, Chalabi says, no regular army or Republican Guard units in Baghdad - only special guards entrusted with protecting Saddam and presidential facilities.”

As is typical of this kind of media product, the column boosts the putative threat posed by Saddam, as here gently joshing Chalabi for being concerned about something as mundane as cholesterol, while simultaneously arguing the feasibility of ousting Saddam. Like most of the neocons supporting war with Iraq, Will himself opted for educational deferments during the Vietnam War, ongoing when he was of age to join up.

Early March 2002 – The Vice President again asks his morning briefer for intelligence relating to the Niger uranium story.

March 4, 2002 – Wilson returns from the Niger trip.

 
March 5, 2002 – In response, the Directorate of Intelligence in CIA prepares an analytic update on the February meeting in Niger (the ambassador, the commanding officer, Niger’s president), above. The analytic update “also stated that we had requested additional information from the [deleted] service that provided the original reporting on this topic and that the service currently was unable to provide new information.”

 
March 5, 2002 – Vice President Cheney is told that Wilson is going to be debriefed that day; “Later that day, two CIA DO officers debriefed the former ambassador who had returned from Niger the previous day.” (SSCI Report, 43)

Normally, according to Wilson and others, Cheney would be informed of the answers to his questions and requests for information. However, the Senate committee investigating the “16 words” fiasco is later told that no report was generated from Wilson’s trip, since it produced no new information, and Cheney was not briefed about it. Hey, no signs of pressure on the Intelligence Community there.

Same day – CBS News reports that Ahmad Chalabi is actively pressing the administration to support his Iraqi exile group, called the Iraqi National Congress, against Saddam. As Leslie Stahl reports, the Bush administration is divided about Chalabi:

“STAHL: (Voiceover) Chalabi is trying to persuade the Bush administration that merely continuing the daily combat flights over the no-fly zones in Iraq with their periodic bombings is not enough. Chalabi wants the US to join an INC-led insurrection to topple Saddam Hussein.

The fear is that the United States will be dragged into a war in Iraq and the powers that be, at least in this point in time, don't want to do that.

Mr. CHALABI: You have been at war with my country for 10 years.

STAHL: But not at war.

Mr. CHALABI: You bomb us. What is that? You bomb Iraqi facilities. You kill Iraqis from the air every week. You have sanctions on Iraq. That's an act of war. You have--you s...

STAHL: So what are you saying, ju--why do these little baby steps, go in and do it whole hog?

Mr. CHALABI: The--the--this is--this is--this is completely unacceptable. Is it normal that you continue to bomb a country of 22 million people for 10 years because there is a threat from the regime of that country, and the people of Iraq want to get rid of him, and you don't help them to get rid of him, to solve the problem once and for all? This is bizarre. Don't say that you--we want to drag the United States at war with Iraq. Say that we want to stop the United States' war on Iraq by removing Saddam.

(Footage of Chalabi; State of the Union address)

STAHL: (Voiceover) With that argument, he has won the backing of powerful officials in the Bush administration. But his detractors are powerful, too, and so he devotes his days to lobbying, to charming, cajoling, even begging for support.”

Chalabi, like the neocons, tends to represent Saddam as easily overthrown. He also leaves some specifics of what a post-Saddam Iraq would look like unstated, while reportedly meeting with representatives of ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil privately. Ironically, Chalabi has a point here: there would indeed be little justification in a large nation’s bombing Iraq for 10 years if Iraq were not some kind of enemy. The report omits the possibility that the bombing might have been less than justified.

When Saddam later announces his decision to switch purchases of Iraqi oil away from the American dollar, the announcement gets little play in U.S. news outside the business press. To their credit, the large U.S. oil companies oppose sanctions against Iraq, which tend to harm the Iraqi people rather than Saddam directly, but their opposition is never very vocal and never becomes a prominent news story.

 
Early March 2002 – Approximately 1,800 U.S. troops, including Fifth Group Special Forces who had been pursuing Osama bin Laden, are transferred from Afghanistan to Iraq.

 
Early March 2002 – Bush authorizes CIA to provide help to Kurds in northern Iraq and to Shiite in southern Iraq, to boost domestic insurrection against Saddam Hussein.

 
March 5, 2002 (about) -- Philip J. Perry, Vice President Cheney’s son-in-law, moves from the Department of Justice to become Counsel for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB responsibilities will include projecting the costs of the Iraq war and Iraq reconstruction.