Memories

[Nbadan]

Remember a few years back when everyone (who won't admit to it today) was calling my accusations of a Office of Special Plans led by Doug Feith, which was manipulating Iraqi war intelligence, a loony, moon-bat conspiracy theory?

Back in 2004, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski spoke out with a firsthand account about how the case for Iraq was designed, fabricated, and sold within the Office of Special Plans...

The New Pentagon Papers

excerpts:

"Doug Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, was a case study in how not to run a large organization. In late 2001, he held the first all-hands policy meeting at which he discussed for over 15 minutes how many bullets and sub-bullets should be in papers for Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A year later, in August of 2002, he held another all-hands meeting in the auditorium where he embarrassed everyone with an emotional performance about what it was like to serve Rumsfeld. He blithely informed us that for months he didn't realize Rumsfeld had a daily stand-up meeting with his four undersecretaries. He shared with us the fact that, after he started to attend these meetings, he knew better what Rumsfeld wanted of him. Most military staffers and professional civilians hearing this were incredulous, as was I, to hear of such organizational ignorance lasting so long and shared so openly. Feith's inattention to most policy detail, except that relating to Israel and Iraq, earned him a reputation most foul throughout Policy, with rampant stories of routine signatures that took months to achieve and lost do ents. His poor reputation as a manager was not helped by his arrogance. One thing I kept hearing from those defending Feith was that he was "just brilliant." It was curiously like the brainwashed refrain in "The Manchurian Candidate" about the programmed sleeper agent Raymond Shaw, as the "kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I've ever known."

I spent time that summer exploring the neoconservative worldview and trying to grasp what was happening inside the Pentagon. I wondered what could explain this rush to war and disregard for real intelligence. Neoconservatives are fairly easy to study, mainly because they are few in number, and they show up at all the same parties. Examining them as individuals, it became clear that almost all have worked together, in and out of government, on national security issues for several decades. The Project for the New American Century and its now famous 1998 manifesto to President Clinton on Iraq is a recent example. But this statement was preceded by one written for Benyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party campaign in Israel in 1996 by neoconservatives Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Douglas Feith led "A Clean Break: Strategy for Securing the Realm.""

...

"I discovered that Luti and possibly others within OSP were dissatisfied with Hardcastle's briefings, in particular with the aspects relating to WMD and terrorism. I was not clear exactly what those concerns were, but I came to understand that the DIA briefing did not match what OSP was claiming about Iraq's WMD capabilities and terrorist activities. I learned that shortly before I arrived there had been an incident in NESA where Hardcastle's presence and briefing at a bilateral meeting had been nixed abruptly by Luti. The story circulating among the desk officers was "a last-minute cancellation" of the DIO presentation. Hardcastle's intelligence briefing was replaced with one prepared by another Policy office that worked nonproliferation issues. While this alternative briefing relied on intelligence produced by DIO and elsewhere, it was not a product of the DIA or CIA community, but instead was an OSD Policy "branded" product -- and so were its conclusions. The message sent by Policy appointees and well understood by staff officers and the defense intelligence community was that senior appointed civilians were willing to exclude or marginalize intelligence products that did not fit the agenda."

Salon

J U S T I F I E D ! !

[Tap Dat Ass!]

Wasn't it just a year ago everyone said you was full of crap when you posted this kind of news? Funny how much difference a year makes.

[boutons_]

I expect there will be more stories like this, so numerous that even kool-aid drinkers like Yoni, Clanny, less Aggie, Whott, and all the other dubya/ head suckers, etc, will be ovewhelmed to find that, yes, the insane, vicious PNAC/neo- s/Repugs really did piss in the kool-aid they so enthusiastically downed.

The really depressing angle is that 100s, even 1000s, of chicken- career-padders lke "Lt. Col. Karen" did not stand up and call out the insanity in 2002/03, with the result that Iraq is de-stabilized for years to the benefit of the radical Muslims and jihadi, enemies are emboldened, and 10's of 1000s of US miltary are dead, or maimed in body and mind, to satisfy the ideology of the PNAC neo- s in a total waste.

[I am Tom]

I also thought Nbadan was full of but now I regret it.

[xrayzebra]

I also thought Nbadan was full of but now I regret it.

He is full of horse hockey. The information was pulled from
bonafide intel reports. And has not been proven faulty except
in your small minds. Saddam did have WMD and
used it, remember, dumb butts. What he did with it is
what we don't know.


Rush to war, two damn years, that's a rush! Congress
was consulted not once but twice and voted for the war
on the same intel, that they were furnished, that the
admin had.

So shut your face and learn a little. Your same old crap
gets old and is on the surface nothing more than
ammo for the enemy.

And tell me one more time how you support the troops
but not their country. You bunch of sniveling idiots.

[Nbadan]

He is full of horse hockey. The information was pulled from
bonafide intel reports. And has not been proven faulty except
in your small minds. Saddam did have WMD and
used it, remember, dumb butts. What he did with it is
what we don't know.

Ok then...

Ex-Pentagon official defends Iraq stance
By Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer | February 11, 2007

WASHINGTON

--A former Pentagon official on Sunday defended his prewar assessment of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida, calling it a much-needed critique of the CIA's intelligence on the subject.

"It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence," said former Pentagon policy chief Douglas Feith. "What the people in the Pentagon were doing was right. It was good government."

Feith was responding to a report by the Defense Department inspector general that Feith's office "did not provide the most accurate analysis of intelligence to senior decision makers."

The IG's report found that there was no support for the Pentagon's claim of a "mature symbiotic relationship" in all areas between Iraq and al-Qaida.

"No one in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship," Feith said on "Fox News Sunday." "There was a relationship."

Boston

If all the OSP did was raise a couple of questions about the CIA methods and assumptions in reaching its conclusions, that would have been fine and well, however, the OSP went further than that by citing reports, no matter how unreliably sourced, of contacts between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaida operatves. This includes the now notorious alleged meeting between an Iraqi intelligence agent and Mohammed Atta in Prague in April 2001, a claim that was easily refuted.

Cheney called the OSP's material, the "best" intelligence he had.

How did that happen?

[boutons_]

"It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence,"

Oh really? Then why isn't healthy to criticize the WH's murderous lies? Doing so got you labelled and bullied as a traitor, un-American (whatever the "American" is), get the out of America if you don't suck dubya, "love it or leave it", you're loving and aiding the terrorists, etc, etc.

But the PNAC s like Feith, Wolfowitz, etc, can criticize what the CIA's intel because criticism is "healthy".

[gtownspur]

I also thought Nbadan was full of but now I regret it.