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WaPo Misleads on Doug Feith Report
HT Flopping Aces
Scott Malensek has written this response to the recent WaPo article on the findings of the Pentagon's Inspector General's investigation on Doug Feith of the DoDs Office of Special Plans under Secretary Rumsfield. RBT previously posted Scott's rebuttal to the Senate Intel Co's Phase II Report.
RBT
*****
Doug Feith Found INNOCENT-Pentagon Inspector General
Posted by Scott Malensek on April 7, 2007 at 2:55 AM
A few months ago, a long-awaited investigation into former Undersecretary of Defense, Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans was finally concluded.
(Dept of Defense Inspector General Report)
The Department of Defense had been asked by Democrats in Congress to see if Feith and/or his office had done anything illegal in their investigation and reports regarding the depth of ties between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Department of Defense’s interim Inspector General said essentially that Feith and his office had acted inappropriately by giving the impression that they were an intelligence agency, but that they had not acted illegally. He was innocent of the charges made by Congressional Democrats and opponents of the war in Iraq.
Both groups of accusers had claimed that Feith and his office had manipulated, cherry-picked, and otherwise distorted real intelligence reports to form conclusions that were not real, and that those conclusions were then used to mislead the Bush Administration and/or Congress via claims from the Bush Administration. Some of the things reported by Feith and his office were later determined to either not have been based on reliable intelligence, were simply not true after all, or weren’t as bad as expected, but on the other hand, most of the examples of ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda which he and his office had reported did in fact turn out to be true. Still, even today, Congressional Democrats, opponents of the war, and too often traditional media claim that there were no ties whatsoever between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda.
[...]
The depth of ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda take a great deal of detail to describe. In the end, it's not whether there were 16,000 Al Queda fighters in Iraq (claimed in the book, Thunder Run), or 2-3000 (as in most tell alls from the troops who were in the invasion), or if there were just high level visits. It’s not whether Al Queda lost 4000 fighters in Iraq since the invasion as they claim or 7000 as the US military claims. The critical, most often, most deeply, and most deliberately ignored and distorted claim is that the war in Iraq somehow is completely off on its own little world from the war with Al Queda. Bin Laden's 1996 fatwa, and particularly his 2/98 fatwa describe his casus belli for reviving AQ and calling for a holy war of terror against Americans and American civilians. Both these declarations of holy war revolved around American action against Iraq. This isn’t because he had an affinity for Saddam or even for the Iraqi people. He was just a pissed off killer looking for an excuse for his actions, but IRAQ was his excuse; his reason for going to war and killing Americans. To pretend that Bin Laden decided to start killing Americans for any other reason is pure denial of reality and his own words.
FREE DOUG FEITH! Oh wait…he is free, because he didn’t commit a crime as claimed. He’s been found innocent.
For more about Saddam’s Ties to Al Queda and the Congressional effort to hide Congressional failure go here.
Link to whole article
Scott Malensek has written this response to the recent WaPo article on the findings of the Pentagon's Inspector General's investigation on Doug Feith of the DoDs Office of Special Plans under Secretary Rumsfield. RBT previously posted Scott's rebuttal to the Senate Intel Co's Phase II Report.
RBT
*****
Doug Feith Found INNOCENT-Pentagon Inspector General
Posted by Scott Malensek on April 7, 2007 at 2:55 AM
A few months ago, a long-awaited investigation into former Undersecretary of Defense, Doug Feith and his Office of Special Plans was finally concluded.
(Dept of Defense Inspector General Report)
The Department of Defense had been asked by Democrats in Congress to see if Feith and/or his office had done anything illegal in their investigation and reports regarding the depth of ties between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein’s regime. The Department of Defense’s interim Inspector General said essentially that Feith and his office had acted inappropriately by giving the impression that they were an intelligence agency, but that they had not acted illegally. He was innocent of the charges made by Congressional Democrats and opponents of the war in Iraq.
Both groups of accusers had claimed that Feith and his office had manipulated, cherry-picked, and otherwise distorted real intelligence reports to form conclusions that were not real, and that those conclusions were then used to mislead the Bush Administration and/or Congress via claims from the Bush Administration. Some of the things reported by Feith and his office were later determined to either not have been based on reliable intelligence, were simply not true after all, or weren’t as bad as expected, but on the other hand, most of the examples of ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda which he and his office had reported did in fact turn out to be true. Still, even today, Congressional Democrats, opponents of the war, and too often traditional media claim that there were no ties whatsoever between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda.
[...]
The depth of ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Queda take a great deal of detail to describe. In the end, it's not whether there were 16,000 Al Queda fighters in Iraq (claimed in the book, Thunder Run), or 2-3000 (as in most tell alls from the troops who were in the invasion), or if there were just high level visits. It’s not whether Al Queda lost 4000 fighters in Iraq since the invasion as they claim or 7000 as the US military claims. The critical, most often, most deeply, and most deliberately ignored and distorted claim is that the war in Iraq somehow is completely off on its own little world from the war with Al Queda. Bin Laden's 1996 fatwa, and particularly his 2/98 fatwa describe his casus belli for reviving AQ and calling for a holy war of terror against Americans and American civilians. Both these declarations of holy war revolved around American action against Iraq. This isn’t because he had an affinity for Saddam or even for the Iraqi people. He was just a pissed off killer looking for an excuse for his actions, but IRAQ was his excuse; his reason for going to war and killing Americans. To pretend that Bin Laden decided to start killing Americans for any other reason is pure denial of reality and his own words.
FREE DOUG FEITH! Oh wait…he is free, because he didn’t commit a crime as claimed. He’s been found innocent.
For more about Saddam’s Ties to Al Queda and the Congressional effort to hide Congressional failure go here.
Link to whole article
