VF: Retired General Newbold claimes Feith said days after 9/11-"We ought to be going after Iraq."

[sabra]

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/iraqgenerals200704?currentPage=4


The Night of the Generals

The six retired generals who stepped forward last spring to publicly attack Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war had to overcome a culture of reticence based on civilian control of the military. But while each man acted separately, all shared one experience: a growing outrage over the administration's incompetence, leading some of the nation's finest soldiers to risk their reputations and cross a time-honored line.
by David Margolick April 2007

<snip>

From March 2001 to June 2002, Batiste worked alongside Wolfowitz. ("Unflappable," Wolfowitz later called him.) In that position, he saw the Iraq war take shape even before September 11, then saw the plan solidify. He was there that Saturday morning in early 2002, for instance, when Rumsfeld, unhappy with the proposed troop numbers, sent General Tommy Franks, the CentCom commander, packing back to Tampa with orders to come up with a way to do the war on the cheap. Batiste says he had doubts from the outset, but though he had Wolfowitz's ear daily, he didn't bend it; someone else, he thought, surely would. "I didn't always agree with his thinking," he says, "but you have a certain amount of trust that your government and its apparatus will look at all sides of something before they go to war."

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/04/iraqgenerals200704?currentPage=8

<snip>

Of far greater concern to him was the headlong rush to war in Iraq. It was apparent early on—from two or three days after 9/11, when, with the smoke from the smoldering Pentagon still in the air, Newbold told Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, of plans to go into Afghanistan. "Why are you going into Afghanistan?" he says Feith replied. "We ought to be going after Iraq." (Feith has previously denied saying this; Newbold says he'd take a polygraph on the point. Feith declined to talk to Vanity Fair.) It simply isn't possible now, says Newbold, to fathom how "extraordinarily inappropriate" Feith's comments sounded at the time. Then, at a meeting a few months later, as the Americans chased the leadership of al-Qaeda, he says, he heard Wolfowitz say essentially the same thing. In each instance, Newbold's reaction was the same: "Who cares about Iraq? We have this three-penny dictator, this bantam rooster of no consequence. Besides, they're quiet now anyway—who cares?" (Wolfowitz says he never disputed the need to go after al-Qaeda; the issue for him was whether a war against Saddam Hussein could proceed simultaneously.)

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. Feith the *uckup

This will probably need to get a kick come morning. Great info.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Feith the F**k-up

Libby the Scapegoat
Armitage the big mouth
Delay the rubber hammer (bounce-back hit him between the eyes)
Rove the unethical strategist
Cheney the evil mastermind
Bush the spoiled frat boy
Baker the fixer

[TomInTib]

2. "The dumbest fucking guy on the planet"

Tommy Franks on Douglas Feith

[ninkasi]

3. K&R

:kick:

[Lasher]

4. Feith wasn't acting alone

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Richard Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking."

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

[KeepItReal]

5. "Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan."

How much better does one have to spell it out?

Going after the guys who masterminded 9/11 was *never* a priority for these clowns.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

6. great info also

early morning bump :kick:

[MethuenProgressive]

7. "Who cares about Iraq?" was the opinion that was ignored...

and 3000+ fine Americans have paid for it with their lives.

[talksabout]

8. Somebody remind me.. .. ..

why isin't Rumsfeld in jail?