"Spikes of activity"

From the Minutes: "The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime."


A look at the (US) bombing campaign from when Bush first took office until he invaded Iraq shows a significant increase beginning in May of 2002. January 2001 until May 2002 (18 months) there were three months with six or more reports and three months had zero reports. From May 2002 until March 2003 (11 months) there were ten months with six or more reports and not one month had zero reports.


The few related article links from the UK and US which are included in this timeline make it clear that Bush decided upon war with Iraq a long time before the weekend preceeding the public invasion, as Bush and the White House have claimed.


A "don't miss" article from this list is the New York Times 7/19/03 Report: U.S. Attacked Iraqi Defenses Starting in 2002. (A General Moseley is quoted often and he goes a long way towards making the case against Bush and the Administration. Not only were the intelligence and facts being fixed around the evidence... worse yet, the war on Iraq had already begun by the time of the Downing Street Meeting.)







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001 - 38 days of reported US bombing under bush
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January - 3 days of US bombing


January 24th
January 28th
January 29th



February - 4 days of US bombing


February 11th
February 12th
February 16th
February 22nd



March - 0 days of US bombing


April - 6 days of US bombing


April 6th
April 11th
April 16th
April 17th
April 28th
April 30th



May - 2 days of US bombing


May 18th
May 23rd



June - 6 days of US bombing


June 5th
June 6th
June 14th
June 19th
June 25th
June 26th



July - 2 days of US bombing


July 7th
July 17th



August - 6 days of US bombing


August 7th
August 10th
August 14th
August 17th
August 27th
August 31st



September - 5 days of US bombing


September 4th
September 10th
September 20th
September 21st
September 27th



October - 3 days of US bombing


October 2nd
October 3rd
October 15th



November - 2 days of US bombing


November 11th
November 27th



December - 0 days of US bombing




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2002 - 66 days of reported US bombing, 44 since DSM
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January - 4 days of US bombing


January 20th
January 21st
January 22nd
January 24th



February - 2 days of US bombing


February 6th
February 28th



March - 0 days of US bombing


April - 2 days of US bombing


April 16th
April 20th



May - 6 days of US bombing


May 1st
May 20th
May 23rd
May 25th
May 28th
May 31st



June - 4 days of US bombing


June 14th
June 20th
June 26th
June 28th



July - 6 days of US bombing


July 4th
July 13th
July 14th
July 19th
July 23rd (Downing Street Minutes - Meeting) July 28th



August - 8 days of US bombing


(Downing Street Minutes - "CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August. The two broad US options were: ...")


August 5th
August 14th
August 17th
August 20th
August 23rd
August 25th
August 27th
August 30th



September - 7 days of US bombing


September 5th
September 9th
(September 12th - Bush speech to U.N.)
September 15th
September 23rd
September 25th
September 29th



October - 7 days of US bombing


October 3rd
October 9th
October 10th
(October 11th - House and Senate approve Iraq War Resolution) October 15th
(October 16th - Bush signs Iraq War Resolution)
October 22nd
October 23rd
October 30th



November - 8 days of US bombing


November 6th
(November 8th - UN Security Council Resolution 1441)
November 15th
November 18th
November 20th
November 21st
November 22nd
November 23rd
November 28th



December - 13 days of US bombing


December 1st
December 2nd



December 4th
U.K. News 12/4 Report: Britain and US step up bombing in Iraq - Ministry of Defence reveals 300% rise in ordnance dropped over southern no-fly zone


December 10th
December 14th
December 15th
December 16th
December 18th



December 20th
U.K. News 12/20 Report: The Secret War: Iraq War already under way - Quote from article: "The American and British attack on Iraq has already begun. While the Blair government continues to claim in Parliament that "no final decision has been taken", Royal Air Force and US fighter bombers have secretly changed tactics and escalated their "patrols" over Iraq to an all-out assault on both military and civilian targets."


Washington Post 12/22 Report: Casualties of an 'Undeclared War': Civilians Killed and Injured as U.S. Airstrikes Escalate in Southern Iraq - Quotes from article: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in August ordered his commanders to widen the target list to include more communications centers, command buildings and fiber-optic links." & "Through the first four months of the year, U.S. and British forces struck Iraqi sites in the northern and southern no-fly zones just six times, while in the past four months they have launched about four dozen air raids." & "Iraqi officials complain that U.S. and British aircraft violated their airspace for patrols 1,141 times between Nov. 9th and Dec. 6th"


December 26th
December 29th
December 30th
December 31st





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2003 - 35 days of reported US bombing, 79 since DSM
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January - 13 days of US bombing


January 1st
January 2nd
January 3rd
January 4th
January 7th
January 8th
January 10th
January 13th
January 17th
January 19th
January 25th
January 26th



January 28th
- Bush State of the Union. Some of the many untrue quotes: "The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people." & "U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence." (The 16 were old, empty with Chemical traces found) & "Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview." &"A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all. If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means -- sparing, in every way we can, the innocent" January 31st


February - 14 days of US bombing


February 5th - Colin Powell speech to UN
February 10th
February 11th
February 12th
February 14th
February 15th
February 16th
February 18th
February 22nd



February 23rd
U.K. News 2/23 Report: US and Britain Pound Iraqi Defenses in Massive Escalation of Airstrikes - Quote from article: "Until last summer, coalition aircraft patrolling the "no-fly" zones over Iraq hit back only at missile or artillery batteries that opened fire on them, or loosed AGM-88 anti-radiation missiles at radar units "locking on" to them. But with an invasion looming, the number and type of targets attacked have increased sharply."


February 25th
February 26th
February 27th
February 28th



March - 8 days of US bombing


March 3rd U.K. News 3/3 Report: 'Undeclared War' Enters New Phase: Allies Bomb Key Iraqi Targets - Quote from article: "Targets hit in recent days include the Ababil-100, a Soviet-designed surface-to-air missile system adapted to hit targets on the ground, and the Astros 2 ground rocket launcher with a range of up to 56 miles. These would be used to defend Iraq in the event of an invasion or to attack allied troops stationed in Kuwait."


March 6th
March 7th
March 8th
March 9th
March 10th
March 11th
March 14th



Next bombing: Day 1 of US/British Invasion of Iraq


New York Times 7/19 Report: U.S. Attacked Iraqi Defenses Starting in 2002 - Quote from article: "The strikes, which were conducted from mid-2002 into the first few months of 2003, were justified publicly at the time as a reaction to Iraqi violations of a no-flight zone that the United States and Britain established in southern Iraq. But Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the chief allied war commander, said the attacks also laid the foundations for the military campaign against the Baghdad government." & "One reason it was possible for the allies to begin the ground campaign to topple Mr. Hussein without preceding it with an extensive array of airstrikes was that 606 bombs had been dropped on 391 carefully selected targets under the plan, General Moseley said." & "Air war commanders were required to obtain the approval of Defense Secretary Donald L. Rumsfeld if any planned airstrike was thought likely to result in deaths of more than 30 civilians. More than 50 such strikes were proposed, and all of them were approved." & "From June 2002 until the beginning of the Iraq war, the allies flew 21,736 sorties over southern Iraq and attacked 349 targets, including the (fiber-optic repeater) cable stations." & "As full-scale war approached, the air war commanders had five goals. They wanted to neutralize the ability of the Iraqi government to command its forces; to establish control of the airspace over Iraq; to provide air support for Special Operations forces, as well as for the Army and Marine forces that would advance toward Baghdad; and to neutralize Iraq's force of surface-to-surface missiles and suspected caches of biological and chemical weapons."


Source: U.S. Bombing Watch. Visit their site, they have links to reports for every day of bombing mentioned here. Many of these reports show things the like number of sorties, number of targets, change in type of targets as the war approached, reports from Iraq about the number of civillians killed, etc.


Submitted by isbister on Sat, 2005-06-11 22:03. @ afterdowningstreet.org



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US/UK tried to provoke Saddam
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Britain, U.S. increased Iraq raids in 2002


29th May, 2005 - U.S. and British aircraft doubled Iraq bombings in 2002, to try to provoke Saddam Hussein into war, newly released evidence indicates.


Britain's Liberal Democrat party obtained Ministry of Defense figures showing Britain and the United States dropped twice as many bombs in the second half of 2002 as in the whole of 2001, the Times of London reported Sunday.


The escalated attacks began in May 2002, six months before the United Nations resolution that Prime Minister Tony Blair cited as the legal basis for war, the Times said.


The release followed The Sunday Times' printing of minutes of a July 2002 meeting that revealed Blair and his war cabinet's discussion of how to make regime change in Iraq legal. The minutes included a comment by then-Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon that the United States had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime.


- Big News Network.com
 http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=98bc80598bf8aca3



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
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A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war "to put pressure on the regime" was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.


The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began "spikes of activity" designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.


The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was "not consistent with" UN law, despite American claims that it was.


[snip]


Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.


Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the "spikes" began in May 2002.


However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam's forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.


The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.


The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to "degrade" Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.


Michael Smith - Times
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1660300,00.html