Democrats again charge Pentagon officials misused intelligence on Iraq's l

[seemslikeadream]

By Katherine Pfleger Shrader, Associated Press, 10/21/2004 18:50

ADVERTISEMENT

WASHINGTON (AP) A top Senate Democrat is alleging that a Pentagon policy office ignored corrections requested by the CIA on information linking Iraq to al-Qaida, renewing complaints about the Bush administration's handling of intelligence before the Iraq invasion.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued in a report released Thursday that high-level Pentagon officials exaggerated the intelligence on the Iraq-al-Qaida connection to support the Bush administration's goal of removing then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The White House, which declined to comment on the report, has denied in the past that intelligence was misused or manipulated. Republican senators noted the report was issued just before the Nov. 2 elections.

Levin and the committee's Democratic staff examined the intelligence role of a Pentagon policy-making operation, focusing on its involvement in the administration's case about the purported links between Hussein and al-Qaida. The office is run by Defense Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith.

Levin's report says Feith's work was not related to strategy or policy recommendations, as would be expected, but rather ''selective reinterpretations of intelligence'' on Saddam's ties to al-Qaida.

more
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/295/wash/Democrats_again_charge_Pentago:.shtml

Democrats Again Say Iraq Intel Misused

The Pentagon has maintained that Feith's operation was not an intelligence outfit, but a policy shop, and that its work was appropriate.

....

In his report, Levin said the CIA requested a number of corrections to a memo written by Feith and provided to some senators in 2003, before the memo could be distributed widely to the Senate armed services panel.

But, Levin's report says, crucial changes requested by CIA were not made, including adequate alterations to information about the credibility of a source who provided raw intelligence on the Iraq-al-Qaida link. Levin suggests the changes would have weakened evidence of a link.

The CIA declined to comment.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called Levin's report "a partisan effort to influence the election." Levin said he issued the report now because congressional leaders are in final negotiations on legislation to overhaul the intelligence community.

...

The report renews criticisms of how Cheney, in particular, repeated information about a possible meeting in 2001 between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague. In the spring of 2002, Levin said, the CIA cast doubt on whether the meeting occurred and, to this day, is skeptical about it.

more
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041021/APW/410211124&cachetime=3&template=dateline

[Nicholas_J]

1. There's tons of evidence that the CIA

pointed out that the evidence was extremely suspect, but high level officials knew that regardless of the intelligence, the administration was bent on war, so they simply gave up the intelligence and didnt comment on it, knowing that the Bush Administrations was killing the careers of anyone who suggested that the evidence was basically crap.

[goforit]

2. Way to go Carl Levin!!!............EXPOSE THEM!!!!

[seemslikeadream]

3. Feith had practiced a "continuing deception of Congress."

Pentagon official distorted intelligence, report says
By Douglas Jehl The New York Times
Friday, October 22, 2004


...

In an interview, Levin said that he had concluded that Feith had practiced a "continuing deception of Congress." But he said he had no evidence that Feith's conduct had been illegal in any way.

...

Among the findings in the report were that the CIA had concluded by June 2002, earlier than has been previously known, that it was skeptical that a meeting had taken place in April 2001 between the Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence official. But Feith and other senior Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, continued at least through the end of 2002 to describe the alleged meeting as evidence of a possible link between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Levin's report drew particular attention to statements made by Feith in a series of communications with Congress beginning in July 2003 about the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A classified annex sent by Feith to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 27, 2003, disclosed two weeks later by the Weekly Standard, asserted in part that "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003," and concluded that "there can be no longer any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to plot against Americans."

In a Nov. 15 press release, the Defense Department said the "provision of the classified annex to the intelligence committee was cleared by other agencies, and done with the permission of the intelligence community." But Levin's report said that statement was incorrect, because the Central Intelligence Agency had not cleared the release of Feith's annex. It also disclosed for the first time that the CIA, in December 2003, had sent Feith a letter pointing out corrections he should make to the document before providing it to Levin, who had requested the document as part of the investigation.

An unclassified Jan. 15, 2003, letter sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Daniel Stanley, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, said that an attached, classified addendum had been prepared by Feith's staff "containing the CIA's proposed changes." But in his report, Levin said that Feith had in fact used the addendum to reiterate assertions challenged by the CIA.

...


Perhaps most critically, the report says, Feith repeated a questionable assertion related to the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Al Qaeda ally whose presence in Iraq was cited by the Bush administration before the war as crucial evidence of Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism.

In his Oct. 27 letter, Feith had told Congress that the Iraqi intelligence service knew of Zarqawi's entry to Iraq. In recommending a correction, the CIA said that claim had not been supported by the intelligence report that Feith had cited, the Levin report says. Nevertheless, the Levin report says, Feith reiterated the assertion in his addendum, attributing it to a different intelligence report, but one that also did not state that Iraq knew Zarqawi was in the country.
more
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/10/21/news/intel.html

[LynnTheDem]

4. OF COURSE bushCartel LIED about their "intell"

*I* knew the October 2002 NIE had dissenting opinions on drones (US Air Force) and nukes (IAEA, DoE, CIA) and aluminum tubes (DoE, IAEA, CIA) and "ties to al Qaeda" (CIA, FBI, and every intell agency in the entire world, including Israel's Mossad). . .

*I* knew there was NO WMD in Iraq, NO ties to 911, NO ties to al Qaeda, and I have posts on various boards saying so back in September 2002.

Yet the Senate NEVER SAW the dissenting opinions because BUSHCARTEL never gave the Senate the full NIE...and then RICE said she "HADN'T READ" the dissenting opinions attached to the NIE.

HOW COME *I* KNEW...and the "president" and the "VP" and the "national security advisor" et al all say they DIDN'T KNOW??? How come Rice DIDN'T BOTHER TO READ the dissenting opinions???

How come RUMSFAILED ADMITTED they had "NO NEW INTELLIGENCE" since 1998, yet suddenly Iraq was an IMMINENT THREAT???

How come RICE and POWELL both said in summer of 2002 that Iraq was NO THREAT and had NO WMD , yet 4 months later, with NO NEW EVIDENCE, they suddenly decide Iraq was an IMMINENT THREAT???

We all know why. We all know the truth. Even the freeping rightwingnuts know, but like bushCartel they'll never admit it aloud; the bushCartel stove-piped and OSP'd and cherry-picked and intimidated and

BUSH LIED.

[seemslikeadream]

5. Feith accused of deceiving Congress

Washington, DC, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report accusing Douglas J. Feith of exaggerating intelligence linking al-Qaida and Iraq.

Sen. Carl M. Levin, D-Mich., said he would ask his committee to take "appropriate action" against Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, for asserting a relationship between the regime of Saddam Hussein and the terrorist network responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and falsely ascribing that claim to U.S. intelligence agencies, the New York Times reported.

Levin said his 46-page report was intended to expose the "continuing deception of Congress," practiced by Feith.

The Pentagon responded with a statement saying Levin's report "appears to depart from the bipartisan, consultative relationship" between the Defense Department and the Armed Services Committee, adding, "The unanimous, bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report of July 2004 found no evidence that administration officials tried to coerce, influence or pressure intelligence analysts to change their judgments."

more
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20041022-073754...


napi21

What bipartisan, consultative relationship"?


I haven't seen much bipartisan ANYTHING in Wash. in a very long time!


seemslikeadream

Feith (and Ledeen) 's other congressional investigation is on hold

Thanks party_line

Feith (and Ledeen) 's other congressional investigation is on hold


It concern's DoD involvement in the recent and UNDERblown spy-in-the-Pentagon episode, involving intelligence about Iran. Maybe Feith's a one trick pony?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.mar...
snip>
Over the last year, the Senate Intelligence Committee has conducted limited inquiry into the meetings, including interviews with Feith and Ledeen. But under terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full investigation into the matter was put off until after the November election. Republicans on the committee, many of whom sympathize with the "regime change" agenda at DoD, have been resistant to such investigations, calling them an election-year fishing expedition. Democrats, by contrast, see such investigations as vital to understanding the central role Feith's office may have played in a range of a dubious intelligence enterprises, from pushing claims about a supposed Saddam-al Qaeda partnership and overblown estimates of alleged Iraqi stocks of WMD to what the committee's ranking minority member Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D-WV) calls "the Chalabi factor" (Rhode and others in Feith's office have been major sponsors of the Iraqi exile leader, who is now under investigation for passing U.S. intelligence to Iran). With the FBI adding potential espionage charges to the mix the long-simmering questions about the activities of Feith's operation now seem certain to come under renewed scrutiny.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


leftchick

Feith is a start....

but he was working for dick...



He who is silent is assumed to consent.


lunabush

Great graphic!

hadn't seen that. Tufte would be proud.


You've got some "Star-Spangled"
Nails In your coffin, kid.
That's what They've done for you, Son
Richard Brautigan 1935 -- 1984


leftchick

Here is a link to the excellent article from MOJO....


that includes the graphic....

http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html

The Lie Factory

This special Mother Jones investigation late last year detailed how, only weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. Here is the inside story of how they pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war.

By Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest



He who is silent is assumed to consent.


knowbody0

i am impressed, thanx


seemslikeadream

The Lie Factory

....

Both Wolfowitz and Feith have deep roots in the neoconservative movement. One of the most influential Washington neo- conservatives in the foreign-policy establishment during the Republicans' wilderness years of the 1990s, Wolfowitz has long held that not taking Baghdad in 1991 was a grievous mistake. He and others now prominent in the administration said so repeatedly over the past decade in a slew of letters and policy papers from neoconservative groups like the Project for the New American Century and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Feith, a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the 1980s and an activist in far-right Zionist circles, held the view that there was no difference between U.S. and Israeli security policy and that the best way to secure both countries' future was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem not by serving as a broker, but with the United States as a force for "regime change" in the region.

Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no "bartering in the bazaar anymore. You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so."

Rhode refused to be interviewed for this story, saying cryptically, "Those who speak, pay."

According to insiders, Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren't sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be "pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with," says a former analyst. "They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of there."

The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert Wohlstetter, an influential RAND analyst and University of Chicago mathematician. Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle, Wohlstetter's prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the Pentagon's influential Defense Policy Board. Rhode, along with Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to panelists and AEI officials. Just after September 11, 2001, Feith and Rhode recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for AEI, to serve as a Pentagon consultant.

more
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405....





underpants
D'uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuH!


Good work by Levin though.


tom_paine
Of course, during the Imperial Reign of Poppy Augustus


(roughly 1982-1992) we learned that Imperials lying to Congress is perfectly legal.

Perfectly Legal, for THE PARTY. Notof course, for those who aren;t member of THE PARTY.

Whether we are speaking of the Communist Party or the Imperial Bushevik Party, the results are the


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x924445

[goforit]

6. Wow .....thanks for this info.....A new investigation should be a mandate

The CIA(good agents only) must be pissed!!!!!!!!!

[Eloriel]

7. I sure as hell hope so

:kick:

They've been leaking like sieves for months and months...but so little actually sticks. In a sane world Bush&Co. would have been tried for treason (or whatever) a long time ago.

[Moderator]

8. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=922360