The award for most inadvertantly humorous headline goes to the NYTimes for this gem: "Inquiry on Intelligence Gaps May Reach to White House." Well, you don't say?
While Douglas Feith may have spent his time toiling away in the bowels of the Pentagon, ginning up whatever bits and pieces of handpicked intelligence he and his minions could find to support whatever crackpot theory Rummy and Shooter wanted for "show and tell" with President Bush that week, one thing is abundantly clear: you don't get a space in the bowels of the Pentagon to gin up just any old war without someone's express approval, and you sure as hell do not get your hands on a whole host of top secret intelligence documents without a whole lot of approval from a whole lot of very high level somebodies. As in, hello Mr. President and Mr. Vice President.
One wonders if there is an Executive Order out there somewhere to that effect. Shouldn't someone be asking about that? In triplicate, if necessary?
For more on this issue, take a peek at this NPR story from Friday. Be sure to listen carefully to the Feith quotes, wherein he attempts to explain that he was merely asking pointed questions about the intelligence and offering alternate intelligence theories, but not actually doing any analysis. (Because, say, if he were doing so and failed to notify Congress of this analysis, one presumes that there might be some broken laws that might need…um…mending by Mr. Feith and others. Shall we say.)
Also, the WaPo has a follow-up Pincus article on the disputes among Congressional factions about Feith's intel chop shop, and the ramifications thereon to our men and women in uniform currently serving in the mess in Iraq. And from the NYTimes, which provides what may be the zenith of moronic justifications couched in government phraseology:
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday that he would ask current and former White House aides to testify about a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general that criticizes the Pentagon for compiling “alternative intelligence” that made the case for invading Iraq.
The chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said that among those called to testify could be Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Both received a briefing from the defense secretary’s policy office in 2002 on possible links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s government.
In its report on Thursday, the acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, found that the work done by the Pentagon team, which was assembled by Douglas J. Feith, a former under secretary of defense for policy, was “not fully supported by the available intelligence.”
Shorter Pentagon report: "Feith's people jiggled the intel to fit their already-established conclusions and enabled the Bush Administration to lie the public into war." Well, doesn't that make everyone feel better?
On whose direction was this done? Whose orders? Whose signatures? Which higher ups were directly responsible for setting up this Intel Chop Shop? Wolfowitz? Maybe for recruiting Feith, via Libby and Addington, but who ordered the intel sharing to these clowns? Rummy? Cheney? Bush? A combo pack?
That's the question that keeps me awfully curious about this whole mess. And somewhere there is a document with a signature on it that someone is going to unearth giving a whole lot of meaning to the word "complicit." Aren't you curious as to who will take the fall for that one, when it's found?
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It was surreal yesterday watching Feith spin on CNN claiming the OSP didn’t do intelligence work, they just critiqued the intelligence from the various agencies. Right. And the WH used your interpretations to justify going going to war, even though all you did was pull it out of your ass. Nice going, Dougy.
Who will take the fall for this mess? I don’t know, but it better be someone high up the food chain.
CHRISTY!!!
REDD!
Christy –
Speaking of executive orders, let’s look at something Marcy mentions on page 134 of her book. She says that on March 25, 2003, “Bush issues an executive order giving the vice president the power to declassify information. This act provides the legal justification for later claims that Cheney authorized the leak of the National Intelligence Estimate.”
Is Marcy referring to Executive Order 13292?
These bastards just don’t know when to stop
Christy asks:
On whose direction was this done? Whose orders? Whose signatures? Which higher ups were directly resonsible for setting up this Intel Chop Shop? Wolfowitz? Maybe for recruiting Feith, via Libby and Addington, but who ordered the intel sharing to these clowns? Rummy? Cheney? Bush? A combo pack?
An international combo pack. The answer has been out there for years. In early April, 2004 I was booed and a speech/meeting I was giving shut down by a six-pack of cops after I quoted these lines from LTC Karen Kwiatkowski’s first article:
In early winter, an incident occurred that was seared into my memory. A co-worker and I were suddenly directed to go down to the Mall entrance to pick up some Israeli generals. Post-9/11 rules required one escort for every three visitors, and there were six or seven of them waiting. The Navy lieutenant commander and I hustled down. Before we could apologize for the delay, the leader of the pack surged ahead, his colleagues in close formation, leaving us to double-time behind the group as they sped to Undersecretary Feith’s office on the fourth floor. Two thoughts crossed our minds: are we following close enough to get credit for escorting them, and do they really know where they are going? We did get credit, and they did know. Once in Feith’s waiting room, the leader continued at speed to Feith’s closed door. An alert secretary saw this coming and had leapt from her desk to block the door. “Mr. Feith has a visitor. It will only be a few more minutes.” The leader craned his neck to look around the secretary’s head as he demanded, “Who is in there with him?”
This minor crisis of curiosity past, I noticed the security sign-in roster. Our habit, up until a few weeks before this incident, was not to sign in senior visitors like ambassadors. But about once a year, the security inspectors send out a warning letter that they were coming to inspect records. As a result, sign-in rosters were laid out, visible and used. I knew this because in the previous two weeks I watched this explanation being awkwardly presented to several North African ambassadors as they signed in for the first time and wondered why and why now. Given all this and seeing the sign-in roster, I asked the secretary, “Do you want these guys to sign in?” She raised her hands, both palms toward me, and waved frantically as she shook her head. “No, no, no, it is not necessary, not at all.” Her body language told me I had committed a faux pas for even asking the question. My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the generals knew where they were going (most foreign visitors to the five-sided asylum don’t) and how the generals didn’t have to sign in. I felt a bit dirtied by the whole thing and couldn’t stop comparing that experience to the grace and gentility of the Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian ambassadors with whom I worked.
Larry Johnson is all over this story also.
I wrote this last night but it is apropos here.
From the executive summary of the DOD Inspector General’s report on the Office of Special Plans headed by Doug Feith:
http://levin.senate.gov/newsro…..020907.pdf
The IG’s report seems to be saying that it is OK if low and mid level policymakers create their own intelligence assessment as long as they get authorization and clearly indicate how this assessment differs from the rest of the intelligence community’s thinking when they report it to their bosses. In doing this, the IG has finessed a crucial point and bought into a convenient fiction. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz through Feith created an operation whose purpose was to tell them what they the bosses wanted to hear. (I know, shocking with this Administration)
The IG portrays this as a bottom-up deal, but it really was a top-down one. I mean if the bosses had really wanted an independent analysis of the intelligence would they have chosen a compliant idiot like Feith to do it? Seriously? Or stuffed it with hardline ideologues? This is rather like asking for an independent assessment of quacking and appointing a commission of ducks to run it. Yet curiously the IG acts like the real independence of Feith’s office was never an issue.
Instead it states that circumstances have changed, which is to say that we are in Iraq, Douglas Feith is gone, and his office has been largely dismantled. So no problem, right? No need to make any recommendations. No need to offend a vindictive Vice-President or tell him to leave intelligence to those who have some.
So adding to this comment, the OSP was directly sanctioned by the Deputy SecDef, which would be Wolfowitz, but it was all basically a con and one we continue to see.
Bush picks generals who will do his bidding and then makes a big deal out of “listening” to them.
Cheney and the whole WHIG establishment in the White House set up an intelligence shop in the Pentagon whose sole purpose was to tell them what they wanted to hear.
Of course, these things extend into the White House. It’s where they originate.
Let’s see. So they make their decisions and then create the information necessary to support the decision they’ve already made.
Maybe it’s just me but that seems a backwards. Not that it’s anything unusual for this administration.
When Porter Goss was appointed to head the CIA, he openly said that he believed the purpose of the intelligence community was to produce intelligence that supported the administration’s goals. And that he believed the intelligence process wasn’t politicized enough.
Wait a sec. You mean you CAN’T just walk off the street into the Petagon, set up an office, and start reviewing top secret intelligence data without getting someone’s approval first?
Damn. I’m TOTALLY going to have a rearrange my week now. Thanks for the buzzkill.
God, I love this place. Why there are so few people willing to untangle the webs of deceit, I cannot say. But here there are many of the best, and the world is better for your work.
Be sure to listen carefully to the Feith quotes, wherein he attempts to explain that he was merely asking pointed questions about the intelligence and offering alternate intelligence theories, but not actually doing any analysis.
Didn’t the official Pentagon rebuttal say that it was okay because the OSP was doing political work instead of intelligence work?
So… their defense is that what the OSP was doing was purely political and devoid of analysis? Brilliant!
Alison @ 12
and our sanity.
check this out
this needs to get more attention
“I know,” President Bush answered.
“But does Vice President Cheney know?” asked Soroush.
The president chuckled and walked away.
saroush doesn’t get it, that’s exactly what the president wants, it’s not “does cheney know?”, it’s
“don’t you want to avoid that?”
at every single oportunitty, this administration has done exactly what it takes to exacerbate the problems…from his own track record this information is something the presidetn would use to convince him attacking Iraq is a good idea
The Bush administration has broken every law on the books, as well as all rules of basic fairness and decency. The more we know, the worse it gets.
At some point, if we don’t see accountability -I won’t want to hear anymore. If, as a nation, we fail to hold these criminals and cowards accountable, we will effectively be endorsing their behavior. At that point, we will know that the United States of America is no more.
I hope that point never comes.
Eli @ 13
If Doug Feith had anything to do with it, I think that’s a given. *g*
MindWar:CivilWar
I guess as long as your intelligence activities have nothing to do with actual intelligence (either definition), everything is a-okay.
Eli @ 19
but it is against the law, right Christy?
Every American Should Read This.
And somewhere there is a document with a signature on it that someone is going to unearth giving a whole lot of meaning to the word “complicit.” Aren’t you curious as to who will take the fall for that one, when it’s found?
No-one.
This has been another edition of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.
Hugh’s amazing post.
snip
Of course, these things extend into the White House. It’s where they originate.
No, they originate elsewhere, the White House is where everyone is focused.
Per the Wikipedia, Feith was toiling away with a staff of 1,500 working under him:
One of those 1,500, Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, reports that Israeli generals were coming and going like they owned the place — no need for escorts and too important to be bothered with signing in and out.
Apparently, Mosad was feeding us excellent intelligence on Saddam’s weapons programs and how to deal with Arab civilians. They’re good at that.
did c-span ever broadcast friday’s senate armed service committee hearing, “To receive a briefing on the Department of Defense InspectorGeneral’s report on the activities of the Office of Special Plans prior to the war in Iraq.“, with Gimble?
i recorded the room audio feed of the hearing and i’ve just posted it in case anyone is interested in giving it a listen. you can hear levin being pissed and inhofe lie outrageously (beware – the mp3 is about 50MB). here’s the page link (there are a couple of other recent hearings listed – feingold’s hearing on “Exercising Congress’s Constitutional Power to End a War”, and Scowcroft/Brzezinski at the senate foreign relations committee.
From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq
The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet
http://www.vanityfair.com/poli…..ouse200703
Speaking of the NYT…are we sure Michael Gordon doesn’t have a condo in Aspen? Judy Judy Judy must be involved in this article on today’s front page.
“Deadliest Bomb in Iraq Is Made by Iran, U.S. Says”
Just wild speculation from anonymous sources passed off as truth. It’s deja vu all over again.
Hugh @ 8
levin says he’s going to try to get the whole report declassified… i hope he succeeds.
bonkers @ 27
Yeah, like the supposed “consensus of the intelligence community” has never turned out to be wrong before…
I wonder who will play Colin Powell this time around.
I wonder if this explains SpeakerAir — not enough planes to go around?
I wish Feith would claim to be the father of Anna Nicole’s baby. THEN the press would start paying attention and cover the hell out of this.
It was a typo when it came out years ago that Bush was adding an office at the WH to handle with faith-based issues. I’m sure it was Feith-based.
And I was just about to point out that we were all wasting valuable time that could be better used to talk about Anna Nicole…
Air Force One has really taken beating the few years for Preznit Public Relations.
I’d be really curious to see how much was spent shipping shrub around for purely campaign purposes last year. Millions and millions of our money spent so he could lie about Democrats. Not a peep out of the Conglomerate Media about this.
Tim Russert knows the answers, but in fine
Edward R. Murrow fashion, all of that is off the record.
EPU’d but I thought people would like to give their .02…
POLITICS TV is asking folks to complain to YouTube for canceling their account.
More information at their site.
TeddySanFran,
All those trips to Crawford to clear brush, to fly over natural disasters like Katrina, to go somewhere for
Republican fundraiserspublic engagements, each one costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, can put a lot of wear and tear on a plane.I saw on CNN today that private contractors in Iraq out number the military. The reason given was that we just can’t recuit enough folks into the military — but I would argue that getting private business into Iraq was one of the reasons Feith was charged with drumming up reasons to start a war.
Seems the OSP hired around a hundred civilians to comb thru classified intelligence and try to find jewels they could quote out of context and stovepipe to the OVP as intelligence products. Wouldn’t they have been treading on pretty thin legal ice there too? What kind of background checks did they undergo? What kind of need-to-know basis were they acting on? Who signed off on their permissions to view possibly clandestine information?
I think it was the famous “Stovepipe” Seymour Hersch article in the New Yorker where I read about the civilians, and the dubious qualifications they had for the work.
Mary McCurnin @ 21
OMG Mary.
Not very far into this heart wrenching post is this:
Heartbreaking. It is THIS shit that disturbs me the most when each day I gaze into my beautiful little grandson’s innocent eyes, praying that he and no more children will have to grow up just to be slaughtered. It is THIS shit that makes me vow every waking moment to do whatever it takes to get the true monsters behind this immoral illegal war, this hideous sin against the Universe, to be stopped and brought to justice.
Excuse me, time to go puke.
BTW the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Doug Feith’s position) is one of the top posts in the Pentagon. This is its mission statement:
http://www.dod.mil/policy/index.html
Unintentionally comedic given the circumstances.
Okay, now that I’ve gone back and read Christy’s article…
WILL YOU MARRY ME….PLEASE??!!?!
Gods, Mr. ReddHedd is such an f’ing lucky, lucky man.
Geez – I hope the winds blow the right direction for whoever it is gets the last plane?
I’m curious as to why they are already stealing our bumper stickers. Just saw on a car at Target-
Had Enough?-vote republican. sheesh
ReneND @ 43
Wow. Words fail.
Although, to be fair, the GOP used it first, in 1946, to re-capture Congress from the Democrats.
ReneND @ 43
Target was running a special.
Stephen Parrish, CPA @
4
That’s the order she must be referring to. But I would disagree that it actually does that. It gives Chenee the authority to CLASSIFY information “in his Executive Function”. That means stuff within his ambit of the OVP. And he can “as the originating classification authority” DECLASSIFY materials originating within his office, too.
But declassification authority can only be proxied off by the “originating classification authority” (OCA) or the Agency Head, and others that are superior. By that reading ANYONE could be given that authority provided it was handed off by the “OCA”, not just the VP. And that authority has to be issued by letter.
But there is a procedure of notification, recordkeeping, and appeal whenever documents are declassified. The OCA cannot be kept in the dark, and in terms of items that deal with National Security or Intelligence Sources or Operations the Director of the CIA can even veto the decision of the Appeals Panel (which consists of reps from State, DOD, NSA, CIA, National Archives, etc.). If the panel still disagrees the appeal goes to POTUS.
This is hardly insta-declassification, and Cheney…even if designated a “declassifier” of CIA materials, would still face notification and appeals hurdles…and the POTUS would still have to be the ultimate DECIDERER. He can’t escape responsibility and be shielded by “plausible deniability”.
ReneND @ 43
From time to time, I see a car at the local grocery store that has a bumper sticker that says: “I’d rather be hunting with Rick Santorum.”
It would be a lot funnier if it were on Dick Cheney’s car.
ReneND @ 43
I’ll bet that car is a late 90’s model. Just can’t get the damn thing off the bumper *g*
Hugh @ 40
Reminds me of the mission-statement generator at dilbert.com
http://dilbert.com/comics/dilb…..bin/ms.cgi
Shez @ 39
This is so sobering and sad. How can this cabal sleep at night knowing that they have done this to innocent people. Calling Mr. Fitz
OPU’d…but maybe Christie, EW, or others at the Plame House have thoughts on the “broad case” given Fitz’s line of questioning at the Grand Jury Hearing. We’ve been getting a “narrow case” regarding Libby at the trial in terms of witnesses and exhibits germane to the indictment.
But the tape of Libby’s Grand Jury questioning was essentially a window into Fitz’s “broad case”. And although some questions and responses werev redacted…and the exhibits that he provided from the GJ produced for this trial may be restricted…I think that the transcript might be worth reviewing carefully!
It seemed to me that Fitz was VERY interested in
1) Cheney’s role,
2) the procedure and discourse of the INSTA-Declassification of the NIE and cables and other documents
There was also several sections redacted…for example relating, it seems, to some discussion about IRANIAN Counterproliferation activities. Was this redacted because it might impinge on other, future, prosecutions? Can he do this? Or does the whole transcript of the testimony have to be presented minus materials of National Security importance?
In addition Fitz provided Libby with a lot of individuals that “appear” to have conveyed to him (or had articles) that suggested that Libby (or others) may have told them about Plame (Sanger, Evans, Pincus) but who were not brought forward as witnesses in this case.
Does that mean that Fitz actually didn’t know that Libby wasn’t their source? Or perhaps it was merely a ruse to get Libby to talk further about information that these individuals knew? It seems odd to ask him questions about reporters if, in fact, those journalists hadn’t testified that he was a source?
Perhaps these journalists weren’t necessarily needed in this prosecution on these charges? Maybe Fitz is “holding his powder” for additional charges against Libby? Or maybe Fitz is going to call these in a future trial and doesn’t want to have their testimony revealed to those he’s going to charge?
I also note that Libby’s list of potential witnesses excludes many of these. Could it be that after being queried about them at the Grand Jury that Libby’s team is afraid of putting them on the stand…that they may actually BUILD ON Fitz’s case. Maybe Fitz is playing “chicken” here?
And maybe Team Libby padded their witness list with potential witnesses like Cheney in order to have Fitz’s more limited team to have to spend time preparing for potential examinations of Defense witnesses that they never intended to call?
I’m not a lawyer…so maybe someone with knowledge about this stuff can respond about what has to revealed…and what might be held back?
Sorry just a fly-bye possible now, but thot you might be interested:
Our local newspaper’s headline & sub-header, BELOW the fold today:
“Prewar intelligence possibly exaggerated
“Pentagon officials faulted in presenting analysis linking Iraq to al-Qaida”
They also had a picture of Gen. Thomas Gimble [looking peeved? disgusted? definitely not happy!] on the 1st page beside the beginning of the article (which was carried on to multiple columns deeper within 1st section of the newspaper), with the following caption: “Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble cites ‘inappropriate’ actions by Pentagon officials with prewar intelligence.”
Akron Beacon Journal, previously pretty good newspaper (far more reliably unbiased than Cleveland Plain Dealer), recently bought out by private company so who knows??? But despites cuts in staff, those remaining seem to be trying to get good news out to the public…
I vote for “a combo pack” too [which means Cheney].
They smugly gloated over Feith’s bullshit in a collective group grope. It fit the Neoconservative whine of the previous decade, the writings of darlings Michael Ledeen, Laurie Mulroie, and William Kristol.
“Oh, the joy of the truth at last. What we think is as right as we’ve always known it was. Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead! Let’s get us some OIL!”
On topic related to my 52: CNN’s John Roberts sounded not only clueless, but as if he was reading straight from rover talking points tonight at the time usually covered by Blitzer.
imho, CNN’d better get their act together…
Jacqrat at 41 — Why, that’s the nicest thing that anyone has said to me all day. Thanks. *blushing*
Christy Hardin Smith @ 55
Well, I kind of lost my head. Just consider it a “Thanks so much for being here for us” kinda thing. sorta. (going to turn down the Melissa Etheridge music now…)
PS: don’t tell David Shuster… he’ll be absolutely CRUSHED. ;-)
Yay — the Schuster field is clear!
Deborah Howell is beating up on a WaPoO blog today….
Hugh @ 8:
I’m looking for the link, Hugh, but OSP changed its name because they were attracting too much attention. They haven’t ceased operations.
cinnamonape @ 51
You aren’t alone. It struck me that way too, which means it is fairly obvious he was very interested in those subjects.
If anyone played fast and loose with “insta-declass” – especially Cheney – then I am convinced they are the target of some very, very serious discussions by some very, very serious Justice people.
Either Doug Feith deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom or a life sentence in a federal penitentiary or both.
The claim that they weren’t doing analysis is
B U L L S H I Tbogus. They assessed intel and selectively pushed it to the OVP. At the very least, this guy should be tried for lying to Congress.Oh, I’m curious. And I have a feeling it’ll be George W. Bush who takes the last fall in this administration. Why? Because Dick Cheney’s Unitary Executive, which is above the law, just happens *not* to apply to the Vice Presidency! How convenient. The only way you get away with acting on such a ridiculous theory, is if you have a method of pulling it off. Like an signed order that someone *really* wants to keep secret.
So my question is, what document does Dick Cheney that he can always pulls as a trump card over George Bush? “Sorry George, but if you try to exert authority over me, I’d have to show them this order that you signed.”
Just a hunch. Am I too far out there on this one?
Shez @
39
Why can’t the media make the very simple connection between the Downing Street Memo and this Feith story?
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Epitaphs of the War, Rudyard Kipling, 1914 – 18
A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/m…..38218a.jpg