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The Saddam interview is a television interview that occurred between President of Iraq Saddam Hussein and American news anchor Dan Rather on February 24, 2003, very shortly before the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The interview was aired both in the United States and on all three Iraqi television networks. British politician Tony Benn had also interviewed Saddam earlier that month.
Rather and CBS Evening News executive producer Jim Murphy were driven around Baghdad for 45 minutes and switched cars on two separate occasions to keep Saddam's position secret. The interview was held at the Republican Palace. Neither Rather nor Murphy were allowed to bring their own tape recorders. Saddam supplied his own translator, and CBS approved the translation of the recording. Rather and Murphy were treated well in the course of the interview, with Saddam offering Rather coffee at one point.
In the 1980s, Rather had an on-air confrontation with then-vice president George H. W. Bush over the Iran-Contra Affair. His son, George W. Bush, responded similarly, and declined to give Rather an interview during his presidency. After the Saddam interview, the White House was interested in a rebuttal interview. CBS News would accept President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney or Secretary of State Colin Powell for the interview, but the White House only offered other officials for the interview, such as Ari Fleischer and Dan Bartlett. The CBS network deemed these individuals inappropriate for the broadcast, and an American interview was never done.
When asked if he was "afraid of being killed or captured" early in the interview:
Saddam invited President Bush to a live TV debate, to which Bush declined:
On one occasion Saddam interrupted his translator and corrected his use of the term "Bush", instead of "Mr. Bush", which Saddam explained was out of respect.
The Iraqi National Congress is an Iraqi political party that was led by Ahmed Chalabi who died in 2015. It was formed as an umbrella opposition group with the aid and direction of the United States' government following the Persian Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of longtime Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Daniel Irvin Rather Jr. is an American journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. He began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurricane Carla in September 1961. Rather spontaneously created the first radar weather report by overlaying a transparent map over a radar image of Hurricane Carla. In his first national broadcast, he helped initiate the successful evacuation of 350,000 people. He reported on some of the most significant events of the modern age, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, 9/11, the Iraq War, and the war on terror.
Lawrence Ari Fleischer is an American media consultant and political aide who served as the 23rd White House Press Secretary, for President George W. Bush, from January 2001 to July 2003.
April Catherine Glaspie is an American former diplomat and senior member of the Foreign Service, best known for her role in the events leading up to the Gulf War.
The 2003 State of the Union Address was given by the 43rd president of the United States, George W. Bush, on January 28, 2003, at 9:00 p.m. EST, in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives to the 108th United States Congress. It was Bush's second State of the Union Address and his third speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. Presiding over this joint session was the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, accompanied by Dick Cheney, the vice president, in his capacity as the president of the Senate.
Live from Baghdad is a 2002 American television war drama film directed by Mick Jackson and co-written by Robert Wiener, based on Wiener's book of the same title. The film premiered on HBO on December 7, 2002, during the prelude stage of the Iraq War.
Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar is an Iraqi politician. He was the vice president under the Iraqi Transitional Government in 2006, and was interim president of Iraq under the Iraqi Interim Government from 2004 to 2005. He also served as the president of the Governing Council of Iraq in 2004 following the US-led coalition invasion.
Plan of Attack is a 2004 book by the American author and investigative reporter Bob Woodward. It was promoted as "a behind-the-scenes account of how and why President [George W.] Bush decided to go to war against Iraq".
Joseph Charles Wilson IV was an American diplomat who was best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Africa"; and the subsequent leaking by the Bush/Cheney administration of information pertaining to the identity of his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA officer. He also served as the CEO of a consulting firm he founded, JC Wilson International Ventures, and as the vice chairman of Jarch Capital, LLC.
"The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy" is General Omar Bradley's famous rebuke in his May 15, 1951 Congressional testimony as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the idea of extending the Korean War into China, as proposed by General Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the U.N. forces in Korea before being relieved of command by President Harry Truman on April 11, 1951.
The following lists events in the year 2003 in Iraq.
Events in the year 2002 in Iraq.
There are various rationales for the Iraq War, both the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent hostilities. The George W. Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the United States Congress known as the Iraq Resolution. The US claimed the intent was to "disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free Iraqi people".
A dispute exists over the legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The debate centers around the question whether the invasion was an unprovoked assault on an independent country that may have breached international law, or if the United Nations Security Council authorized the invasion. Those arguing for its legitimacy often point to Congressional Joint Resolution 114 and UN Security Council resolutions, such as Resolution 1441 and Resolution 678. Those arguing against its legitimacy also cite some of the same sources, stating they do not actually permit war but instead lay out conditions that must be met before war can be declared. Furthermore, the Security Council may only authorise the use of force against an "aggressor" in the interests of preserving peace, whereas the 2003 invasion of Iraq was not provoked by any aggressive military action.
Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003 documents are some 48,000 boxes of documents, audiotapes and videotapes that were discovered by the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The documents date from the 1980s through the post-Saddam period. In March 2006, the U.S. government, at the urging of members of Congress, made them available online at its Foreign Military Studies Office website, requesting Arabic translators around the world to help in the translation.
The 2003 United States–British–Spanish Draft Resolution on Iraq was, according to Ambassador John Negroponte, "a resolution to have the Council decide that Iraq is not complying, is out of compliance, with Resolution 1441". Initially introduced on February 24, 2003, and amended on March 7, 2003, the draft set a March 17 deadline for Iraq to demonstrate "full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation in accordance with its disarmament obligations." The draft was based on information from the Iraqi defector "Curveball," who claimed Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, which Curveball later admitted was untrue. The widely discussed UN resolution was not brought up for formal vote after it became clear that it would not have passed due to opposition from France, Russia, and China. The United States invaded Iraq without UN support on March 20, 2003, initiating the Iraq War.
The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism is a 2008 non-fiction book by Ron Suskind, reporting on various actions and policies of the George W. Bush administration. Most notably, it alleges that the Bush administration ordered the forgery of the Habbush letter to implicate Iraq as having ties to al Qaeda and the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. All these claims have been strenuously denied by the White House and all parties involved. The book, published on August 5, 2008, by Harper, met mixed reviews but received considerable media attention and created controversy.
The Habbush letter, or Habbush memo, is a handwritten message dated July 1, 2001, which appears to show a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq's government. It purports to be a direct communication between the head of Iraqi Intelligence, General Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti, to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, outlining mission training which Mohamed Atta, one of the organizers of the September 11 attacks, supposedly received in Iraq. The letter also claims that Hussein accepted a shipment from Niger, an apparent reference to an alleged uranium acquisition attempt that U.S. President George W. Bush cited in his January 2003 State of the Union address.
The interrogation of Saddam Hussein began shortly after his capture by U.S. forces in December 2003, while the deposed president of Iraq was held at the Camp Cropper detention facility at Baghdad International Airport. Beginning in February 2004, the interrogation program, codenamed Operation Desert Spider, was controlled by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. Standard FBI FD-302 forms filed at the time were declassified and released in 2009 under a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request filed by the National Security Archive. Saddam, identified as "High Value Detainee #1" in the documents, was the subject of 20 "formal interviews" followed by five "casual conversations." Questioning covered the span of Saddam's political career, from 2003 when he was found hiding in a "spider hole" on a farm near his home town of Tikrit, back to his role in a failed 1959 coup attempt in Iraq, after which he had taken refuge in the very same place, one report noted.
Debates and forums took place between candidates in the campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination for the president of the United States in the 2004 presidential election. The Democratic National Committee sanctioned 6 debates out of 16 total.
