September – October 2002.  The open push for war in Iraq is launched in full force, with top administration figures and their media echoes synchronized on the drive to war. Needless to say, they use the first anniversary of 9/11 to do so. Also, in October 2002, for three weeks the Washington, D.C., area is consumed by apparently random sniper shootings. Ten people are killed and three others receive critical injuries in the incidents, which occur over a broad span of the area from Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland. The DC media continue to be saturated with the sniper attacks 24-7 until two suspects, John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, are arrested on October 24, 2002, and the attacks stop. One byproduct of the attacks, as with the fall 2001 anthrax mailings, is to heighten tension to the point of media hysteria and “sniper” obsession throughout the DC area. The attacks also distract attention from the forwardness of war planning and military movements by the administration, which can proceed relatively freely, well below the radar screen. If the snipers had not perpetrated their distracting attacks, the war might have been successfully opposed.
September 1-7, 2002:

 

Sept. 3, 2002 – White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card begins meetings of the ‘White House Iraq Coordination Meeting,” which later becomes the ‘White House Iraq Group,’ to boost support for war with Iraq. Senior officials meeting this first day in the Situation Room, according to Bob Woodward, include National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Deputy National Security Adviser Steve Hadley, Scooter Libby, and White House aide Dan Bartlett. (Plan of Attack, 168)

Sept. 5, 2002 – Approximately 100 U.S. and U.K. planes, including at least seven types of aircraft, drop precision-guided munitions on Iraq’s major air defense facility, to prepare for the advance of U.S. Special Forces helicopters into Iraqi air space from Jordan.

 
Electronics technician Tim Goodrich, in the U.S. Air Force, is part of the tech support for the operation. Goodrich, angered by administration claims in public that diplomacy rather than war is the aim, later co-founds the organization Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Sept. 6, 2002 – Charles Krauthammer’s column titled “Remembrance and Resolve” again tries to couple war against Iraq with the attacks of September 11, 2001:

“We feel the uncertainty. But our enemies do not. Which is why the challenge of this Sept. 11 is to remember the feeling of last Sept. 11. Not just the pain, but the danger. It endures. And so it will until we have destroyed those who did the deed, those who support them and those who would emulate them.”

Sept. 7, 2002 – White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card is quoted in the New York Times:

“From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.” (“Traces of Terror: The Strategy,” A1)       

 
The phrase “new products” refers to war with Iraq.

Sept. 7, 2002 – Bush holds a joint photo op at Camp David with British Prime Minister Tony Blair:

“It's awfully thoughtful of Tony to come over here. It's an important meeting, because he's an important ally, an important friend.

Welcome.

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Thanks.

I'm looking very much forward, obviously, to discussing the issues that are preoccupying us at the moment with the President. And I thank him for his kind invitation to come here and his welcome.

The point that I would emphasize to you is that the threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability, that threat is real. We only need to look at the report from the International Atomic Agency this morning showing what has been going on at the former nuclear weapons sites to realize that. And the policy of inaction is not a policy we can responsibly subscribe to. So the purpose of our discussion today is to work out the right strategy for dealing with this, because deal with it we must.

 . . . Q Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear -- new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?

THE PRESIDENT: We just heard the Prime Minister talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Absolutely right. And what we -- what we know from what has been going on there for a long period of time is not just the chemical, biological weapons capability, but we know that they were trying to develop nuclear weapons capability. And the importance of this morning's report is it yet again it shows that there is a real issue that has to be tackled here.”

Actually, the report cited by Bush here, purportedly an IAEA report that Iraq is six months away from having nuclear weapons, turns out not to exist. The International Atomic Energy Agency did not at any time claim or estimate that the post-Gulf War Iraqi government was capable of producing nuclear weapons within a short time frame.

September 2002 – The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) publishes an intelligence assessment on Iraq nukes, on board with the administration by this time, titled Iraq’s Reemerging Nuclear Program. The assessment says that “Iraq has been vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake.” However, even this sympathetic assessment says that “DIA cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources.” (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report, 48)