Doug Feith Responds With ‘Naked Incoherence’ ...

[laststeamtrain]

Doug Feith Responds With ‘Naked Incoherence’ To Evidence That He Manipulated Iraq Intel

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported on a declassified Pentagon Inspector General report which said that captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations have “all confirmed” that Saddam was not directly cooperating with al Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The report provided further evidence of the manipulation of intelligence by the Bush administration and then-Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith.

Feith has responded on his personal website, claiming the Pentagon Inspector General was “poorly informed and illogical.” Feith reacts to the claims that he exaggerated a relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda by hiding behind CIA Director George Tenet. Feith notes that Tenet wrote a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 7, 2002 suggesting such a relationship.

But in his incoherent and rambling response, Feith acknowledges that the CIA largely tended to “deny or downplay” Iraq-al Qaeda connections before the war:

“Tenet’s account was influential in the Bush administration. Officials from every agency - including myself - accepted it. It had special credibility - at least as far as it went - because CIA and DIA analysts tended to deny or downplay information about Iraq-al Qaida connections. They favored a theory that the secular Baathists of the Saddam Hussein regime would not want links of any kind with the religious extremists of al Qaida. They would not acknowledge such links if they could possibly find a way to dismiss the underlying information. So the Tenet letter was seen as a grudging admission by those CIA and DIA analysts.”

The CIA reported in June 2002 that there were “no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations” between Iraq and al Qaeda. Why Tenet deviated from this analysis is not known. Recall, Tenet was awarded a medal of freedom by President Bush months later.

It’s ironic that Feith claims he was duped by Tenet’s letter. After all, Feith has been suggesting that the intelligence stovepipes he set up in the Defense Department were part of an effort to question the CIA’s judgments. It appears Feith only questioned the CIA when they were putting out analyses that didn’t match his imaginary theories of an al Qaeda-Iraq relationship.

<more>

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/07/feith-naked-incoherence/

[Aviation Pro]

1. All that acid that Feith dropped during the 60s....

...is finally catching up to him.

[laststeamtrain]

4. Just say K-N-O-W.

Somehow I just don't see that.

If he did, it must've been the acid with the Strycnine in it.

He seems more like the ROTC boy in the back of the class dreaming of a new & improved military state. More the 'drink 'til you barf' type.

But I don't know.

[Aviation Pro]

5. Douglas Feith led a pampered life.....

...he spent not one day in uniform and is nothing more than a lace curtain warrior. He should have learned a lesson or two from his old man, a holocaust survivor who succeeded massively once he got to these shores.

This little pissant wouldn't last two seconds in the field.

[yurbud]

7. before they go to the Hague, these guys need a trip to a boot camp reform school

I'm not sure if those work, but it would be poetic justice for these arrogant mama's boys.

[MasonJar]

2. I can hardly wait for the Tenet response. These guys are so "pass

the buck;" their lies have been so flagrant that (with the possible exception of the kool-aid crowd) no one now believes a word any of them say. Does this "moran" Feith really think that he will get away with contending that he didn't muster up all this war propaganda with his very "SPECIAL" and very secretive committee? These idiots are all so blatant in their approach as well as so secretive (which should be a paradox, but in their case is just plain arrogance and Pug power) that they obviously feel they can steal elections for time ad finitum and so don't care what they do. "The time has come," the walrus said.

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Main point: BushCo KNEW the info was false, and used it anyway=treason

Impeach the assholes already, and then try them all for treason.


Bush, Cheney, and Powell Repeatedly Pushed False Evidence To Justify War
The New York Times reveals that the Bush administration was warned in February 2002 that its source of knowledge for the claim that Iraq was training al Qaeda in chemical and biological weapons was “was intentionally misleading the debriefers.”

Beginning in February 2002 and continuing into 2004, the Bush administration repeatedly used this false evidence to justify the war against Iraq. Here are some examples:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/05/statements-on-evidence/


NYT: Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Suspicions

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - A high Qaeda official in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

<snip>
The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."

The newly declassified portions of the document were made available by Senator Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Levin said the new evidence of early doubts about Mr. Libi's statements dramatized what he called the Bush administration's misuse of prewar intelligence to try to justify the war in Iraq. That is an issue that Mr. Levin and other Senate Democrats have been seeking to emphasize, in part by calling attention to the fact that the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to deliver a promised report, first sought more than two years ago, on the use of prewar intelligence.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Why isn't this man in jail? nt

[groovedaddy]

8. They needed a "Pearl Harbor type event"

and even 9/11 wasn't good enough for an immediate invasion and occupation of Iraq - so they "fit the evidence with the policy."