A statement out from Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) on the Defense Department’s Inspector General’s report on the Office of Special Plans contains more details….
The full statement:
The Department of Defense Inspector General has issued a devastating condemnation of the activities of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, which was led by Douglas Feith, and the Department of Defense. Those activities supported the Bush administration’s misleading case for war against Iraq. According to the Inspector General’s unclassified executive summary of the report:“The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers.”
The Inspector General also stated that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy “was inappropriately performing Intelligence Activities of developing, producing, and disseminating that should be performed by the Intelligence Community.”
The Inspector General concluded that these “inappropriate” activities were authorized by the Secretary of Defense or the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
The conclusions of the Department of Defense Inspector General support the analysis and conclusions of a report I issued on October 21, 2004, entitled “Report of an Inquiry into the Alternative Analysis of the Issue of an Iraq-al Qaeda Relationship.” My report documented a number of actions taken by the office of Under Secretary Feith to produce misleading alternative intelligence analyses of the alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to help make the case to go to war against Iraq.
Senior administration officials, including Vice President Cheney, made numerous public statements that reflected the views of the Feith alternative analysis, which were inconsistent with the analysis and judgments of the Intelligence Community. Indeed, Vice President Cheney said the principal Feith office assessment was the “best source of information” on the alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
I will work to have the entire report declassified, since it contains important information that the public is entitled to have.