In July, administration war plans proceed behind the scenes. Warnings of terrorist strikes over the July of Fourth holiday abound but are unfulfilled, with the possible exception of the Egyptian-born gunman who opens fire at the El Al Airlines desk at LAX.
July 1-10, 2002:

July 1, 2002 – A U.S. bombing of a wedding party in Afghanistan kills 130 Afghan civilians, according to Afghani authorities, or 40 Afghanis, according to U.S. officials. According to the U.S. officials, a large group of wedding guests was standing near an anti-artillery aircraft site. The wedding party was fired upon by an AC-130 gunship using high accuracy munitions.

 
In the lead-up to the July the Fourth holiday in America, warnings of terrorist attempts on the holiday come thick and fast. Fortunately, the erroneous strike on the wedding party in Afghanistan seems not to instigate revenge strikes.

July 1, 2002 – Stephen Cambone is promoted to become Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation, Office of the Secretary of Defense.

July, 2002 – The White House Iraq Group (WHIG) begins weekly meetings in the White House Situation Room, to develop and implement strategy to boost war with Iraq. The WHIG is co-chaired by White House senior advisors Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. Members include congressional liaison Nicholas E. Calio, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney counselor Mary Matalin, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Bush campaign strategist James R. Wilkinson.

July 4, 2002 – CBS News reports that the FBI has issued a very vague alert, warning that terrorists may be targeting stadiums in the U.S.

July 4, 2002 – A gunman opens fire at the El Al Airlines desk at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), killing two people and wounding four others before being shot fatally by an airport security officer. The shooting by Egyptian-born Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, born on the Fourth of July and in the U.S. on a green card, is promptly pronounced by U.S. authorities not to be terrorism, although some Israeli officials disagree.

 
Apparently the vague terror warnings do not result in heightened security at LAX. They have led, however, to further calls from the insurance industry for protection from terrorism liability. They also cause oil prices to spike over the Fourth, a high-travel holiday for the U.S.

July, 2002 – The White House orders “preparatory tasks” for Iraq costing hundreds of millions of dollars, which must be diverted from the war in Afghanistan, according to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward:

“WALLACE: (Voiceover) Woodward says immediately after that Rumsfeld told General Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam, and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.

Mr. WOODWARD: Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the preparations in Kuwait specifically to make war possible. This repos...

WALLACE: Pre-positioning forces.

Mr. WOODWARD: It gets to a point where in July--the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, certain--a large amount of money for all of these tasks, and the president approves it, but Congress doesn't know, and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan war, which Congress has approved. So this...

WALLACE: So the Congress doesn't know what's going on?

Mr. WOODWARD: That's right.

WALLACE: But, of course, it was a wonderful plan. Superb, successful plan.

Mr. WOODWARD: True, but some people are going to look at the document called the Constitution, which says that no money will be drawn from the treasury unless appropriated by Congress.” (60 Minutes, April 18, 2004)

 

July 8, 2002 – The price of crude oil drops as the world markets react in relief to an absence of terrorist strikes over the Fourth of July long weekend, aside from the shootings at the LAX El Al Airlines desk.

July 10, 2002 – Rand Corporation international security analyst Laurent Murawiec delivers a talk to the Defense Policy Board in Washington, D.C., saying that “The road to the entire Middle East goes through Baghdad. Once you have a democratic regime in Iraq, like the ones we helped establish in Germany and Japan after World War II, there are a lot of possibilities.”

 
The talk is also heavily critical of the Saudis and makes the argument that a pro-western regime in Iraq would help the U.S. hold the Saudis in line. The Defense Policy Board, chaired by neocon hawk Richard N. Perle, advises the Pentagon; members include former vice president Dan Quayle, former House speaker Newt Gringrich of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and several former Cabinet members and retired military officers.

 
The White House and the Pentagon distance themselves from Murawiec’s remarks, but the session provides a window onto the thinking of neoconservative foreign policy thinkers in DC circles.