by Oliver Stone
30 “Excerpts from Iraqi Document on Meeting with U.S. Envoy,” New York Times, September 23, 1990.
31 George F. Will, “Gorbachev, Hussein and Morality,” St. Petersburg Times, January 16, 1991.
32 Elaine Sciolino, “Deskbound in U.S., the Envoy of Iraq Is Called Scapegoat for a Failed Policy,” New York Times, September 12, 1990.
33 Lloyd C. Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present (New York: New Press, 2008), 81.
34 Ned Zeman, “Where Are the Troops?” Newsweek, December 3, 1990, 6; Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud (New York: Scribner, 1994), 139–140.
35 Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 63–64; David Hoffman, “Baker Calls Iraqi Threat to ‘Economic Lifeline,’ ” Washington Post, November 14, 1990.
36 Joel Brinkley, “Israelis Praising Decision by Bush,” New York Times, August 9, 1990.
37 R. W. Apple, Jr., “Bush Draws Line,” New York Times, August 9, 1990.
38 Charles Paul Freund, “In Search of a Post-Postwar Rhetoric,” Washington Post, August 12, 1990.
39 Maureen Dowd, “President Seeks to Clarify Stand,” New York Times, November 2, 1990; Lloyd Gardner, “The Ministry of Fear: Selling the Gulf Wars,” in Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century, ed. Kenneth Osgood and Andrew K. Frank (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010), 232–233.
40 Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad, 77.
41 Ibid., 83–84.
42 Thomas L. Friedman, “How U.S. Won Support to Use Mideast Forces,” New York Times, December 2, 1990.
43 George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), 491.
44 Ruth Marcus, “U.N. Debate to Cap U.S. Lobby Effort,” Washington Post, November 26, 1990.
45 Judith Miller, “Iraqi Pullout? Election in Kuwait? Prospects Worry Hawks,” New York Times, October 8, 1990.
46 Patrick E. Tyler, “U.S. Juggling Iraq Policy,” New York Times, April 13, 1991.
47 Dorrien, Imperial Designs, 35.
48 Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 489.
49 George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 912.
50 Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad, 78.
51 George F. Will, “The Emptiness of Desert Storm,” Washington Post, January 12, 1992.
52 Paul Lewis, “U.N. Survey Calls Iraq’s War Damage Near-Apocalyptic,” New York Times, March 22, 1991.
53 Patrick E. Tyler, “U.S. Officials Believe Iraq Will Take Years to Rebuild,” New York Times, June 3, 1991.
54 “Quotation of the Day,” New York Times, March 2, 1991; Bacevich, American Empire, 62.
55 Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly, 292.
56 Ibid., 296.
57 Patrick E. Tyler, “Pentagon Imagines New Enemies to Fight in Post-Cold-War Era,” New York Times, February 17, 1992; Patrick E. Tyler, “Lone Superpower Plan: Ammunition for Critics,” New York Times, March 10, 1992.
58 Barton Gellman, “Keeping the U.S. First,” New York Times, March 11, 1992; “America’s Not the Only Cop,” New York Times, June 7, 1992.
59 Alan Lichtman, White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008), 410.
60 Jim Vallette, “Larry Summers’ War Against the Earth,” CounterPunch, June 15, 1999, www.counterpunch.org/1999/06/15/larry-summers-war-against-the-earth/; “Furor on Memo at World Bank,” New York Times, February 7, 1992.
61 Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 139.
62 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007), 291.
63 Stephen F. Cohen, Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia, updated ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 4–5.
64 Ibid., 36–37.
65 “Yeltsin Is a Liar, Says Gorbachev,” Times (London), December 26, 2001.
66 Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, “From the U.S., the ABCs of Jihad,” Washington Post, March 23, 2002; Stephen Buttry, “UNO’s Afghan Textbooks Face Criticism,” Omaha World-Herald, March 23, 2002.
67 Kenneth Freed, “Odd Partners in UNO’s Afghan Project,” Omaha World-Herald, October 26, 1997.
68 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 176.
69 Freed, “Odd Partners in UNO’s Afghan Project.”
70 Marjorie Cohn, “The Deadly Pipeline War: U.S. Afghan Policy Driven by Oil Interests,” Jurist, December 8, 2001, www.commondreams.org/views01/1208-04.htm.
71 Project for the New American Century, “Statement of Principles,” www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm.
72 Dorrien, Imperial Designs, 142–143. Of the eighteen people who signed the 1998 PNAC letter to Clinton calling for “removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power,” eleven took positions in the George W. Bush administration. Among the PNACers and prominent neocons who staffed the administration were Dick Cheney (vice president), Donald Rumsfeld (secretary of defense), Paul Wolfowitz (deputy secretary of defense), Richard Armitage (deputy secretary of state), Elliott Abrams (senior director for Near East, Southwest Asian, and North African Affairs on the National Security Council), John Bolton (undersecretary of state for Arms Control and International Security and UN ambassador), Paula Dobriansky (undersecretary of state for Global Affairs), Zalmay Khalilzad (president’s special envoy to Afghanistan and ambassador at large for free Iraqis), Richard Perle (chair of the Pentagon’s semiautonomous Defense Policy Board), Peter Rodman (assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs), William Schneider, Jr. (chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board), Robert B. Zoellick (U.S. trade representative), Stephen Cambone (director of the Pentagon Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation), Eliot Cohen (Defense Policy Board), Devon Gaffney Cross (Defense Policy Board), I. Lewis Libby (Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff), William Luti and Abram Shulsky (directors of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans), James Woolsey (Defense Policy Board), and David Wurmser (special assistant to the undersecretary of state for Arms Control).
73 John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 91–92.
74 “Transcript: Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State February 18,” February 20, 1998, www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02/20/98022006_tpo.html.
75 Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad, 111.
76 Ibid., 112.
77 Colin Powell with Joseph Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 576.
78 “Excerpt from McCain’s Speech on Religious Conservatives,” New York Times, February 29, 2000.
79 Nicholas Kulish and Jim Vandehei, “Politics & Economy: Protest in Miami-Dade Is a Well-Organized GOP Effort,” Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2000; Paul Gigot, “Burgher Rebellion: GOP Turns Up Miami Heat,” Wall Street Journal, November 24, 2000; Wilentz, The Age of Reagan, 423–424.
80 Edward Walsh, “Ruling Marked by the Words of a Dissenter,” Washington Post, December 17, 2006.
81 “Profile: Washington Hawk Donald Rumsfeld,” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2247256.stm.
82 Robert Draper, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (New York: Free Press, 2007), 282.
83 Bob Woodward, “A Course of ‘Confident Action,’ ” Washington Post, November 19, 2002.
84 Elizabeth Becker, “Head of Religion-Based Initiative Resigns,” New York Times, August 18, 2001; Ron Suskind, “Why Are These Men Laughing?,” Esquire, January 2003, 97.
85 “John Dilulio’s Letter,” October 24, 2002, www.esquire.com/features/dilulio.
86 Joel Achenbach, “Nader Puts His Mouth Where the Money Is,” Washington Post, August 4, 2000.<
br />
87 Jane Mayer, “Contract Sport: What Did the Vice-President Do for Halliburton?,” New Yorker, February 16, 2004, www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/02/16/040216fa_fact.
88 “Full Text of Dick Cheney’s Speech at the IP Autumn Lunch,” http://web.archive.org/web/20000414054656/http://www.petroleum.co.uk/speeches.htm.
89 Antonia Juhasz, “Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?,” New York Times, March 13, 2007.
90 Dennis Kucinich, “Obviously Oil,” March 11, 2003, www.alternet.org/story/15359/.
91 Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 940.
92 David Johnston and Jim Dwyer, “Pre-9/11 Files Show Warnings Were More Dire and Persistent,” New York Times, April 18, 2004.
93 “Clarke ‘Would Welcome’ Open Testimony,” www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4619346/ns/us_news-security/t/clarke-would-welcome-open-testimony/#.TpJrlajEMhA.
94 Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 235.
95 Johnston and Dwyer, “Pre-9/11 Files Show Warnings Were More Dire and Persistent.”
96 Thomas Powers, “Secret Intelligence and the ‘War on Terror,’ ” New York Review of Books, December 16, 2004, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2004/dec/16/secret-intelligence-and-the-war-on-terror.
97 Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 2.
98 Wilentz, The Age of Reagan, 440.
99 “Transcript of Bush’s Remarks on Iraq: ‘We Will Finish the Work of the Fallen,’ ” New York Times, April 14, 2004.
100 “Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice,” Washington Post, October 1, 2006.
101 Frank Rich, “The Jack Welch War Plan,” New York Times, September 28, 2002.
102 Johnston and Dwyer, “Pre-9/11 Files Show Warnings Were More Dire and Persistent.”
CHAPTER 13: THE BUSH-CHENEY DEBACLE: “THE GATES OF HELL ARE OPEN IN IRAQ”
1 George W. Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, 2004, Book 2, July 1 to September 30, 2004 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004), 1494.
2 Robert S. McElvaine, “HNN Poll: 61% of Historians Rate the Bush Presidency Worst,” History News Network, March 5, 2009, http://hnn.us/articles/48916.html.
3 Devin Dwyer, “George W. Bush Cans Swiss Trip as Groups Promise Prosecution for War Crimes,” February 7, 2011, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/george-bush-cancels-swiss-trip-rights-activists-vow/story?id=12857195.
4 Ewen MacAskill and Afua Hirsch, “George Bush Calls Off Trip to Switzerland,” Guardian (London), February 6, 2011.
5 “The Kissinger Commission,” New York Times, November 29, 2002.
6 Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (New York: Twelve, 2008), 9–14.
7 Ibid., 39, 107, 324.
8 Glenn Kessler, “Close Adviser to Rice Plans to Resign,” Washington Post, November 28, 2006.
9 “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century,” Project for the New American Century, September 2000, www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf, 51.
10 David Cole, “What Bush Wants to Hear,” New York Review of Books, November 17, 2005, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/nov/17/what-bush-wants-to-hear/; Chitra Ragavan, “Cheney’s Guy,” U.S. News & World Report, May 21, 2006, www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060529/29addington.htm.
11 Joseba Zulaika, Terrorism: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 214.
12 Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 32.
13 Paul Krugman, “Osama, Saddam and the Ports,” New York Times, February 24, 2006.
14 George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), xix.
15 Elisabeth Bumiller and Jane Perlez, “Bush and Top Aides Proclaim Policy of ‘Ending’ States That Back Terror,” New York Times, September 14, 2001.
16 Clarke, Against All Enemies, 30–31.
17 Michael Cooper and Marc Santora, “Mideast Hawks Help to Develop Giuliani Policy,” New York Times, October 25, 2007.
18 Max Boot, “The Case for American Empire,” Weekly Standard, October 15, 2001, 30.
19 Clarke, Against All Enemies, 30.
20 Robert D. McFadden, “A Day of Mourning,” New York Times, September 15, 2001.
21 “Vice President Dick Cheney Discusses the Attack on America and Response to Terrorism,” NBC News Transcript, Meet the Press, September 16, 2001.
22 “Transcript of President Bush’s Address,” Washington Post, September 21, 2001.
23 Bob Woodward, “CIA Told to Do ‘Whatever Necessary’ to Kill Bin Laden,” Washington Post, October 21, 2001.
24 Ruth Rosen, “Could It Happen Again?,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 2003.
25 Robin Toner, “Not So Fast, Senator Says, as Others Smooth Way for Terror Bill,” New York Times, October 10, 2001.
26 In 1975, Senator Frank Church had warned of the dangers posed by much more limited NSA surveillance during that era: “That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. . . . I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency [NSA] and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision.” Marjorie Cohn, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law (Sausalito, CA: PoliPointPress, 2007), 100–101.
27 The warning system would become an easy target for comics. Conan O’Brien joked, “Champagne-fuchsia means we’re being attacked by Martha Stewart.” Jay Leno quipped, “They added a plaid in case we were ever attacked by Scotland.” John Schwartz, “U.S. to Drop Color-Coded Terror Alerts,” New York Times, November 25, 2010.
28 Eric Lipton, “Come One, Come All, Join the Terror Target List,” New York Times, July 12, 2006; Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Terrorized by ‘War on Terror,’ ” Washington Post, March 25, 2007.
29 Katrina vanden Heuvel, “With Osama bin Laden Dead, It’s Time to End the ‘War on Terror,’ ” The Nation Blogs, May 2, 2011, www.thenation.com/blog/160310/osama-bin-laden-dead-its-time-end-war-terror.
30 H. W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (New York: Random House, 2008), 650.
31 George W. Bush, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, George W. Bush, 2001, Book 2, July 1 to December 31, 2001 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 1172.
32 Frank Rich, “Journal: War Is Heck,” New York Times, November 10, 2001.
33 Tamim Ansary, West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story (New York: Picador, 2003), 291.
34 David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens, “Diplomats Met with Taliban on Bin Laden,” Washington Post, October 29, 2001; Gareth Porter, “U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass,” May 3, 2011, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55476; Gareth Porter, “Taliban Regime Pressed bin Laden on Anti-U.S. Terror,” February 11, 2001, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50300.
35 Karen DeYoung, “More Bombing Casualties Alleged,’ ” Washington Post, January 4, 2002.
36 Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2006), 310.
37 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2009, www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi_2009_table.
38 James P. Pfiffner, Power Play: The Bush Presidency and the Constitution (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 146–149.
39 Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 10–11, 25–
50, 101–107, 108–150; Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 159–181.
40 Mayer, The Dark Side, 8.
41 Joby Warrick, Peter Finn, and Julie Tate, “CIA Releases Its Instructions for Breaking a Detainee’s Will,” Washington Post, August 26, 2009.
42 Joby Warrick, Peter Finn, and Julie Tate, “Red Cross Described ‘Torture’ at CIA Jails,” Washington Post, March 16, 2009.
43 Karen J. Greenberg, “Visiting the Torture Museum: Barbarism Then and Now,” February 21, 2008, www.tomdispatch.com/post/174897/karen_greenberg_barbarism_lite.
44 George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown, 2010), 169.
45 Peter Finn and Joby Warrick, “Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots,” Washington Post, March 29, 2009.
46 Scott Shane, “2 Suspects Waterboarded 266 Times,” New York Times, April 20, 2009.
47 McCoy, A Question of Torture, 132–135.
48 Seymour M. Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,” New Yorker, May 10, 2004.
49 “Remarks by the President at the 2003 Republican National Committee Presidential Gala,” October 8, 2003, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031008-9.html.
50 Mayer, The Dark Side, 8.
51 “Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved ‘Enhanced Interrogation,’ ” April 9, 2008, http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4583256&page=3.
52 Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010), 265–266.
53 George Hunsinger, ed. Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and People of Conscience Speak Out (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2008), 71; “Decisions from on Low,” Star-Ledger (Newark), April 15, 2008.
54 Glenn Greenwald, “The Suppressed Fact: Deaths by U.S. Torture,” June 30, 2009, www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/30/accountability; Antonio Taguba, “Preface to ‘Broken Laws, Broken Lives,’ ” June 2008, http://brokenlives.info/?page_id=23.
55 Roger Cohen, “A Command of the Law,” New York Times, November 27, 2008.
56 Mayer, The Dark Side, 187.
