A Principals Committee meeting is the senior-most interagency forum of the U.S. national-security apparatus, normally chaired by the president. It convenes cabinet-level officials to make or ratify major national-security decisions.
John Kiriakou served as notetaker for a Principals Committee meeting on the eve of the invasion of Iraq — the night of February 19–20, 2003 — in which the sitting vice president revealed to participants that Iran was already a planned next target.[1]
Word of the invasion, a year in advance
Kiriakou has said the planning behind that meeting began a full year earlier, in May 2002, on his very first day as executive assistant to the CIA’s deputy director for operations. After he signed six secrecy agreements, his new boss told him the U.S. would invade Iraq the following year, overthrow Saddam Hussein, and build the world’s largest Air Force base there — allowing the U.S. to move its air assets out of Saudi Arabia and, in the stated rationale, deprive Osama bin Laden of the propaganda claim that America was “polluting the land of the two holy mosques.”[2][3][4][5] When Kiriakou objected that bin Laden had not yet been caught, he was told the decision had already been made and the “battle lines” were already drawn: the pro-invasion faction comprised the Office of the Vice President, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council, while the CIA, State Department, and Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed.[6][7][8][9][10] Iraq War planning began that day in 2002, a full year ahead of the March 2003 invasion.[11]
Setting
The meeting was held in the CIA director’s conference room. George Tenet was the sole participant seated at the table; Kiriakou sat directly behind him to take notes. The other principals appeared on screens: Vice President Dick Cheney, who chaired the meeting in place of President Bush; National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice; Secretary of State Colin Powell; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; several NSC senior directors; and General Tommy Franks, Commander-in-Chief of Central Command.[12][13][14][15] Kiriakou has said the Principals Committee is normally chaired by the president and made up of the secretaries of state and defense, the national security adviser, and the CIA director, with a handful of additional NSC staff — but that, for reasons never explained to him, the president simply did not attend that night.[13][14] At one point earlier in the meeting, Tenet quietly told Kiriakou not to bother writing something down.[16]
The order-of-battle briefing
Cheney opened by asking General Franks to give the order of battle — the disposition of forces for the following morning’s invasion of Iraq. Kiriakou described finding these briefings tedious and incomprehensible to him: unit designations, locations, axes of advance. He took notes dutifully.[17]
”We can be in Tehran by August”
Cheney asked Franks to confirm the invasion was set for a 6:00 a.m. border crossing and whether he was confident. Franks replied: “Mr. Vice President, if all goes as planned, we’ll be in Tehran by August” — or, in some retellings, “we can be in Tehran by August.”[18][19][16][20][21]
George Tenet discreetly reached forward and turned off his microphone. He turned to Kiriakou and said: “Did he say Tehran or did he say Baghdad?” Kiriakou answered: “He said Tehran.” Tenet said: “Have they lost their minds?” He then turned the microphone back on and sat quietly through the remainder of the briefing.[18][22][19][16][20]
”They’re going to throw flowers at us”
As the meeting concluded and participants were logging off, a senior NSC director — in one account, the NSC’s senior director for the Middle East — said excitedly: “When we cross that border tomorrow morning, they’re going to throw flowers at us.”[22][23][24][25] Kiriakou’s reaction: “Do they know nothing about history? They must know nothing about the history of the Middle East.” He has separately said he told the director afterward that Iraqis would see Americans as foreign invaders and occupiers who would “throw bombs, not flowers” — a prediction he says proved correct, embroiling the U.S. in a war lasting more than a decade.[22][23][26][27]
Aftermath
Returning to his office, Kiriakou told his boss: “Did you know we were going to attack Iran?” His boss replied: “Are they still talking about that? We’re not going to attack Iran.” And then Kiriakou: “These guys know nothing about history.” His boss: “Of course they don’t know anything about history. That’s why they think we’re going to go to Iran. We’re not going to go to Iran.”[23][28][24]
The United States attacked Iraq the following day.