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Timeline for War
Timeline for WarThe Timeline was written by AMEU executive director John Mahoney, with considerable input and editing from AMEU board members and staff. March, 1992: The Pentagon. Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary of defense for policy for President Bush, drafts an update of America’s overall military strategy called the “Defense Planning Guidance.” In it he argues that the U.S. might be faced with taking preemptive military action to prevent the use or development of WMD. The official ultimately responsible for the document is Bush’s defense secretary Dick Cheney. The draft is actually written by Wolfowitz’s protégé and top assistant Lewis Libby. Sept. 1, 1992: New York. Ramzi Yousef, the nephew of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, arrives at JFK Airport. Born of a Palestinian mother, his goal is to punish the United States for its support of Israel, knowing that the U.S. government every year sends military and financial aid worth billions of dollars to Israel. Ramzi says that he and his uncle, an engineer who had studied higher mathematics and jet propulsion in the U.S., have been planning to bring down the towers of the World Trade Center, the ultimate symbol of America’s worldwide financial muscle. Feb. 26, 1993: New York. Ramzi Yousef, with others, sets off explosives at the World Trade Center. Later in the day he flies out of JFK for Karachi, disappointed that both towers were still standing and determined to bring them down at another time. Feb. 27, 1993: New York. A group calling itself the “Liberation Army” sends a letter to The New York Times saying the World Trade Center bombing was in retaliation for American support for Israel, and warning that if America did not change its Middle East policy, more terrorist missions would be carried out, some by suicide bombers. April 15, 1993: Kuwait. Kuwaiti police say they have prevented an assassination attempt on former President George H. W. Bush, his wife, two sons, and daughter-in-law Laura. Most in the CIA promptly point the finger at Saddam Hussein; others, including investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, doubt the Iraqi president had any involvement in the plot. Jan. 7, 1995: Manila. Ramzi Yousef and a colleague, Abdul Hakim Murad, accidentally set off an explosion in their apartment. Murad is captured and, under torture, tells the Philippine police of a plan to board an American commercial aircraft, hijack it, control the cockpit, and dive the plane into the CIA headquarters. The Chief of Intelligence Command for the Philippine National Police tells the Associated Press that its office shared the information immediately with FBI agents in Manila, along with the message they found on Yousef’s laptop explaining why they were doing it: “If the U.S. government keeps supporting Israel … then we will continue to carry out operations inside and outside the United States.” April 18, 1996: Lebanon. Israel attacks a U.N. refugee camp at Qana, killing women and children. Israel says it was a mistake. The U.N. and Amnesty International say it was intentional. Shortly afterwards, Osama bin Laden moves to the mountains of Afghanistan, where he uses the Qana massacre to recruit fighters in a war against the U.S. and Israel. July 9, 1996: Washington, DC. Douglas Feith, the Washington, DC partner of an Israeli firm soliciting American business for Israel’s right-wing settler movement, joins with other pro-settlement supporters Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Wurmser’s wife, Meryav, to develop a foreign-policy position paper for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” it calls for Israel to overthrow Saddam Hussein and put a pro-Israel regime in his place. Netanyahu rejects it. July 25, 1996: Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. A truck bomb rams a high-rise complex housing U.S. airmen. Nineteen are killed. The bombing is blamed on Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors, although the U.S. commission investigating the 9/11 attacks will later conclude that Osama bin Laden may have had an involvement—but not Saddam Hussein. Aug. 23, 1996: Afghanistan. Bin Laden, with his new mastermind for worldwide operations, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, issues a call to action: “My Muslim Brothers of the world…Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places [Saudi Arabia] are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy — your enemy and their enemy — the Americans and the Israelis…The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory...They [Americans] are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this [their] government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places.” Jan. 26, 1998: Washington, DC. Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Armitage, and 14 others send letter to President Clinton urging regime change in Iraq and a more aggressive Middle East policy. The letter is sponsored by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), founded by William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard.
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