September – October 2004   As the fall elections heat up, quiet efforts by the administration and by prominent media outlets and personalities to keep the CIA leak out of the public eye continue. The full falsity of pre-war claims by the White House about purported Iraq WMD, a relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda, or complicity in 9/11 is never adequately clarified in the presidential or vice presidential debates. Related stories such as the fact that the president’s own relatives number among those profiting from the Iraq war and the ‘war on terror’ are, literally, not mentioned in the campaign.
September, 2004:

 
Sept. 9, 2004 – The U.S. District Court in D.C. denies New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s motion to quash subpoena.

Sept. 13, 2004 – The grand jury in the CIA leak case issues subpoenas to reporter Matthew Cooper and Time magazine about the Wilsons.

Sept. 16, 2004 – United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan tells the BBC that the Iraq war was illegal. In an interview, Annan says that any decision to take action against Iraq should not have been made unilaterally but by the U.N. Security Council and says that “painful lessons” have been learned in the war.

Predictably, both the Bush and Blair administrations react angrily to Annan’s valid remarks.

Sept. 18, 2004 – The British press publishes two articles based on leaked government documents showing that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned of chaos in Iraq before the war began. The articles, “Secret Papers Show Blair Was Warned of Iraq Chaos” and “Failure Is Not an Option, but It Doesn’t Mean They Will Avoid It,” reveal that Blair already knew six months after 9/11 that the Bush administration was bent on invading Iraq.

Six months after 9/11, memos from closed meetings show, Blair met with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Rice discussed plans for war with Iraq. The notes, by British Foreign Office Peter Ricketts, indicate that Rice did not want to discuss al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. Even at that time, her interest was in ‘regime change’ in Iraq. Ricketts wrote that the focus on Iraq sounded like a ‘grudge match’ between the administration and Saddam.

Ricketts’ memos also show the claims about Iraqi WMD to be knowingly bogus:

“But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW (chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programmes are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up. U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing. To get public and Parliamentary support for military action, we have to be convincing that: the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for; it is qualitatively different from the threat posed by other proliferators who are closer to achieving nuclear capability (including Iran).”

Incredibly, even after these articles run in London by the Daily Telegraph, it will take another nine months for the memos to air in the news in the U.S.

Sept. 21, 2004 – President Bush meets with Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi in New York. In a joint photo opportunity, Bush refers to recent violence and talks up White House support for Iraqi prospects:

“First, Mr. Prime Minister, it's been my delight to visit with you. I appreciate your courage. I appreciate your leadership. I am -- I share the same confidence you share that Iraq will be a free nation, and as a nation, our world will be safer and America will be more secure. We look forward to working with you, sir. I'm proud that you have -- you and your administration have stood strong in the face of the terrorists who want to disrupt progress in Iraq.

Today -- yesterday an American citizen was beheaded. We express our heartfelt condolences. We send our prayers to the Armstrong family. We also stand in solidarity with the American that is now being held captive, while we send our prayers to his wife.

These killers want to shake our will --

PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: They want to determine the fate of the Iraqi people. We will not allow these thugs and terrorists to decide your fate, and to decide our fate. As your election draws closer, I'm confident the terrorists will try to stop the progress by acts of violence. And I appreciate your will, and I appreciate your strength. And we'll stand with you, Mr. Prime Minister. Welcome.”

Sept. 26, 2004 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledges in an interview with the BBS that some of the intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was wrong.

Blair is about to face a conference of his Labour Party and has to admit what the British public already knows.

Same day – Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Washington, says publicly that the insurgency in Iraq is getting worse.