The Feith Connection

Flopping Aces ^ | 04-13-08 | Wordsmith

[Starman417]

Douglas Feith has been much maligned by Iraq war opponents. In advance of his book release last Tuesday, 60 Minutes ran an interview with Feith, one of the architects of the Iraq War, last Sunday. I was at a weekend festival and missed it; but thanks to the wonders of the internet as well as CBS 60 Minutes now making their video archives embeddable, here is the interview:

**Video on site**

This is the only time that I can recall 60 Minutes conducting a book-release interview that was not by an anti-Administration author or by someone who appears to be a Bush critic.

I certainly don't believe, however, that 60 Minutes conducted the interview to allow Feith to "set the record straight" and dispel media myths. It's more like, "let's watch the hawkish neocon hang himself as he tries to rationalize away the debacle that is the Iraq invasion and occupation".

I take issue with some of the mainstream media-pushed "conventional wisdom" and faulty premises given in the 60 Minutes narrative:

The most frequent and damaging charge has been that Feith used his Pentagon office to produce alternative intelligence reports that linked Saddam to al-Qaeda and then passed them on to the White House. Some of it, like a report that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, has been widely discredited. An investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general called Feith’s activities “inappropriate,” but not illegal or unauthorized.

When Kroft asks the former Defense official if he agrees the report was a rebuke, Feith answers,”Yes.” He goes on saying, “I think it was an unfounded rebuke. An ill founded rebuke.”

The recent Pentagon Report, despite initial misrepresentation of its findings, confirms that Saddam was more than willing to work with Islamic holy warriors. This includes the al-Qaeda network. So if Feith used "alternative intelligence", hasn't he been vindicated for having done so by this latest study based upon captured documents, when the CIA conventional beliefs made them refuse to look "outside the box"?

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Douglas Feith on February 13, 2007:

HH: ...on Fox News Sunday, when you were being interviewed by Chris Wallace, you said that part of the motivation for the people who undertook this report, including your staff, was a sense on their part, “that the CIA was filtering its own intelligence to suit its own theory that the Baathists would not cooperate with al Qaeda, because they were secularists with the religious extremists of al Qaeda, and that they were not doing proper intelligence work, and that our people were criticizing them, for not putting forward an alternative intelligence analysis.” Do you believe, as opposed to your staff, that the CIA was filtering its own intelligence, Mr. Feith?

DF: Yes, I think that there were people, there were people in the CIA who had a theory that the Baathist secularists would not cooperate with the religious extremists in al Qaeda. And because they had that theory, when they looked at information that was, that showed, or that suggested that there was cooperation, they were inclined not to believe that information. And so what they were doing is they were preparing reports about the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship in the year 2002, that were either excluding altogether, or downplaying older intelligence reports that suggested that there were contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda.

HH: Are those people still in the CIA?

DF: One of the main people who was propounding that theory about…that the Baathists wouldn’t deal with the jihadists is now out in the private sector, and he’s actually been quite vocal, and has written articles, and his name is Paul Pillar. He’s also at Georgetown with me, in fact. But there are other people, I assume, I don’t know all the personnel at the CIA, but I’m sure there are other people who retained that view. Our objection, by the way, was not the fact that CIA people have a theory. There’s nothing wrong…it’s inevitable that people who work in an area develop their own theories of how things work in their areas of expertise. Our point was simply don’t exclude relevant information that is inconsistent with your theory. If you don’t credit the information, if you don’t think it’s very weighty because you theory tells you that it’s probably not the case, present the information, and explain we’re not giving this a lot of weight because, according to our theory, it’s probably not very significant. And that way, people can look at it, they can see the information, if they don’t share your theory, they can say well, we’ll give that information a little more weight than you do, because we don’t share you theory. And that’s fine. I mean, people have to understand that intelligence is not generally about objective truth. Intelligence is very sketchy, it’s speculative, it’s open to interpretation. It’s a very healthy thing when policy people challenge the intelligence people on this point. Intelligence, as we know historically, has often been wrong. The consensus of the intelligence community has often been wrong. And it’s very valuable when policy people challenge that.

And as for the Prague Connection, was it ever "oversold" by Bush Administration officials, based upon what we knew or thought we knew at the time? Accuracy in citing someone, is important. Anything less than that, leads to spin and falsehoods.

[DTA]

They started interview with a wrong question. They should start with Feith’s money laundering on behalf of OBL through Riggs Bank.

When this is understood, everything else clicks.

[firebrand]

Interesting review of Feith's book today in the New York Post by Stephen F. Hayes of the Weekly Standard.

[Toskrin]

Douglas Feith has been much maligned by Iraq war opponents.

Well, and by Gen. Tommy Franks too, who said he was "getting a reputation around here as the dumbest f***ing guy on the planet."

[Stepan12]

The reporting on the Praque meeting was smeared by Liberal organs such as the "New York Times." That doesn't make it false.

Of course, Liberals smear Feith, Laurie Mylorie; etc., on this issue as Saddam is an innocent victim of the Bush Administration /sarc