109th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. Destruction continues to rise in Iraq, along with casualties. Unaccountable financial losses in Iraq also rise, and U.S. officials plead, at an international conference in Madrid, for international assistance for Iraq. Iraqi oil production, however, and exports of crude, somewhat rebound. The first casualties arguably connected to the CIA leak occur in Afghanistan.
October 23-31, 2003:

 

Oct. 23, 2003 – Christian Aid, a charitable organization in Britain, reports that the Coalition Provisional Authority has apparently lost billions of dollars intended for Iraq reconstruction. The report, titled “Iraq: The Missing Billions,” criticizes the CPA for lack of oversight at best:

 

“A staggering US$4 billion in oil revenues and other Iraqi funds earmarked for the reconstruction of the country has disappeared into opaque bank accounts administered by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). By the end of the year, if nothing changes in the way this cash is accounted for, that figure will double.”
http://electroniciraq.net/news/1180shtml

 

Oct. 23, 2003 – At an international Iraq donors conference in Iraq, a U.S. delegation led by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow appeal for assistance for the Iraqis from the world’s wealthy nations.

 

Oct. 24, 2003 – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence completes its report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. The report is highly critical.

 

Oct. 25, 2003 – Two operatives in CIA’s Directorate of Operations, former Special Forces officers William Carlson and Christopher Glenn Mueller, are killed in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan. Carlson and Mueller died while tracking terrorists, the agency announces after conferring with the men’s family members.

 

The ambush occurs during a spate of print and wire news reports in October linking the name of Valerie Plame Wilson with CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where Plame worked in the CounterProliferation Division, tracking weapons of mass destruction. The Afghanistan-Pakistan border region is prime territory for weapons traffic.

 

Oct. 26, 2003 -- A Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) special agent is among those wounded when the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad is attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The Al-Rashid Hotel had been used by journalists, government officials and others–including many Westerners–for decades, gaining fame in the U.S. during the Gulf War, as the rooftop site from which CNN filmed combat. The DCIS had been using the hotel since arriving in Baghdad. Up to eight rockets are fired at the hotel in the attack, which had evidently been in planning for a couple of months.
http://www.dodig.mil/gwot_iraq/citation.htm

 

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who was staying on the 12th floor of the hotel, has a relatively close shave but is unhurt. News reports describe him as “defiant” after the attack. Official sources deny that Wolfowitz was a target.

 

Oct. 28, 2003 – Jeff Gannon/James Guckert runs the Joe Wilson story on his Talon News website, evidently associated with a Republican group named GOP USA. Gannon interviews Joseph Wilson, asking him about an internal government memo saying that Mrs. Wilson had suggested Wilson for the job. The interview suggests that Gannon has been given or shown the memo.

 

Oct. 31, 2003 – A grand jury is sworn in Washington, D.C., to look into the CIA leak matter.