Douglas Feith Gets His Wrist Slapped

The former US undersecretary of defence Douglas Feith has been publicly admonished by the Pentagon's inspector general for his role in attempting to fix selected bits of intel in order to bolster the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda.

Excerpt from the Executive summary (pdf file):

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the Intelligence Community, to senior decision makers. While such activities were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the Intelligence Community.

Clearly a case of, as the Downing Street memo concluded, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

This is yet another victory for the Truth-telling Coalition and for everyone who has suspected or know all of these years that the neocons did everything they could to manipulate the facts that led to their illegal invasion of Iraq playing on 9/11 feelings of revenge towards al Qaeda, resulting in the horrid situation that country now finds itself in.

Who is Douglas Feith?

Feith cannot be described by just one label. He is a longtime militarist, a neoconservative, and a right-wing Zionist. According to Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, Feith was described by the military commander who led the Iraq invasion, Gen. Tommie Franks, as "the f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth," referring to the bad intelligence fed to the military about Iraq and the extent of possible resistance to a U.S. invasion.

There's more:

The OSP worked closely with Ahmed Chalabi and others from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an expatriate group promoted by the neoconservatives to replace the Hussein regime once U.S. troops were in Baghdad. Chalabi assured the Pentagon that a U.S. invasion would be supported by widespread Iraqi resistance, leading to claims by top administration officials and neocon pundits that the invasion would be a "cakewalk." The OSP also relied on intelligence flows about Iraq from a rump unit established in the offices of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – who like Chalabi was a proponent of a U.S. military invasion and had close relations with neocons like Wolfowitz and Feith.

Feith became embroiled in a new intelligence scandal in late August 2004 when it was reported that the FBI had for the past two years been investigating intelligence leaks to Israel from the Pentagon. The Pentagon official named in the media reports is Lawrence Franklin, who was brought into the Office of Special Plans from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Franklin, who had served in the military attaché's office in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, is suspected of passing classified information about Iran to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee and Israel. Fellow neocon and Franklin's friend Michael Ledeen called the allegations against Franklin "nonsensical." The FBI is also investigating whether Franklin and other DOD officials passed classified information to Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. According to one neocon interviewed by the Washington Post, "This is part of a civil war with the administration, a basic dislike between the old CIA and the neoconservatives."

Larry Franklin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than 12 years in jail in January, 2006.

Feith tried to defend himself against the IG's conclusions to Washington Post reporters on Thursday:

In a telephone interview yesterday, Feith emphasized the inspector general's conclusion that his actions, described in the report as "inappropriate," were not unlawful. "This was not 'alternative intelligence assessment,' " he said. "It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."

And you never really thought the Bush administration should invade Iraq too, right?

His supposed criticism of the intelligence community wasn't just an "alternative intelligence assessment". It was yet another attempt by the unapologetic neocons to force the war with Iraq by any means necessary which has resulted in the deaths of ten of thousands of people. But what does Feith care? He and his warmongering buddies got exactly what they wanted.

The summary recommended no action within the Defense Department because, it said, the current collaboration under new leadership at the Pentagon and the intelligence community "will significantly reduce the opportunity for the inappropriate conduct of intelligence activities outside intelligence channels."

So, just hang on to your blind Feith. Trust them. They know what they're doing this time around and you won't be fooled again, right?

Wrong. See: Iran.

Related:
Video: Feith's al Qaeda/Iraq Report was Viewed as "Comic Relief"
Crooks and Liars has the video of Feith trying to defend himself on CNN's Situation Room on Friday.