DOD Intelligence Briefing Cover Sheet (h/t GQ)

Unbelievable. 

Except, of course, that after the last eight years, it’s all too believable.

As the US was preparing for and conducting the war in Iraq, a high ranking general in military intelligence and his staff prepared daily intelligence briefings for the senior DOD officials and the President. Every day, the report needed a cover sheet, and every day, they gave it one:

On this particular morning [April 10, 2003], it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

Unbelievable.  A slideshow of some of the covers is here, and every one of them makes me sick. Every. Damn. One.

But it gets worse.

These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer’s staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable. Several others in the Pentagon disagreed. At least one Muslim analyst in the building had been greatly offended; others privately worried that if these covers were leaked during a war conducted in an Islamic nation, the fallout—as one Pentagon staffer would later say—“would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

But the Pentagon’s top officials were apparently unconcerned about the effect such a disclosure might have on the conduct of the war or on Bush’s public standing. When colleagues complained to Shaffer that including a religious message with an intelligence briefing seemed inappropriate, Shaffer politely informed them that the practice would continue, because “my seniors”—JCS chairman Richard Myers, Rumsfeld, and the commander in chief himself—appreciated the cover pages.

Shaffer is yet another general who would have been better off leaving the preaching to the preachers. But if he’s going to mess around with religion, I suppose that entitles me to poke around in military intelligence for a moment.

The purpose of a military intelligence briefing is to present the best assessment of current threats to and opportunities for the US military as it goes about its business of protecting the nation. Using religion to sell intelligence assessments is an affront to both intelligence professionals and to people of faith — any faith — as well as to people who claim no faith at all. There is no reason at all for any kind of religious language in a briefing like this — none whatsoever.

No legitimate reason, that is.

I can easily imagine Stephen Cambone, David Addington, and Dick Cheney looking at one of these and saying "Here’s how to make the sale with the President on the war: dress up your intelligence briefings in religion. Appeal to his faith, and feed his certainty that God is on his side. Nothing will put him into a receptive mood faster."

Unbelievable. 

But if this is what it took to get Bush’s undivided attention, I wish someone had put a report on Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and the CIA secret detention programs on Bush’s desk with a cover that included this: "Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. –Hebrews 13:3".

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