Comments (31)

Bill wrote on February 9, 2007 9:32 AM:

You meant to use "What" not "Why" as the very first word of your story.

Heraldblog wrote on February 9, 2007 9:46 AM:

"It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."

What is Feith talking about? We was not endorsing the criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community? Which means he agrees with the consensus? Which means he was just doing what he was told to do, but didn't believe any of his own conclusions?

Franks's language doesn't begin to capture the depths of Feith's nature.

Therap! wrote on February 9, 2007 9:52 AM:

But, never forget, the Dark Lord still BELIEVES in that Prague meeting!

It is the Dark Lord who must be exposed. This report is just a first step. (or perhaps that part of the report is yet to be disclosed)

JRosen wrote on February 9, 2007 9:53 AM:

I wrote this three years ago, but it still applies:

September Song

Iraq was sold by plying us with many different reasons
To go to war and all the time they seemed to shift and slide;
It was kaleidoscopic, like the fair New England seasons
Icosahedron-like , each day revealed another side.

At times it was Iraqis we would save from Baathist scum
And never mind that once Saddam had been our go-to guy;
At other times he’d nuke Dubuque from here to Kingdom Come
Or maybe spread vile anthrax spores in drones wound up to fly.

He’d stiffed the IAEA and he had to pay the price;
He’d diddled their inspection teams and played a nasty game.
He’d mooned the UN many times, and wasn’t very nice
(Yet somehow it was different when we sort of did the same.)

And then he’d clubbed together with bin Laden on the sly,
Even if the two of them did float a different boat.
That secret meet in Prague was just a fantasy (or lie);
In truth each one of them would gladly slit the other’s throat.

And on and on and on, today the value is democracy;
Tomorrow it’s some other thing (and never mention crude)
Do I detect in this a whiff of neocon hypocrisy?
Or is it just that I’m too churlish, partisan, and rude?

It’s really very simple for a father or a mother
Who’s shepherded a treasure through the wilds of teenage-hood:
Should the story morph between one version and another
It’s a lock those sneaky kids are up to no damn good.

DallasNE wrote on February 9, 2007 9:57 AM:

Tommy Franks has problems of his own for being such a yes man but he got it right in describing Douglas Feith as "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet".

Had someone looked beyond the haircut and eyeglasses this loon would never have been put in charge of anything. He is a moral snake at best.

Rich wrote on February 9, 2007 9:58 AM:

Yet over 3100 of our bravest young men and women have been needlessly sacrificed in Iraq at least partially as a result of this "intelligence," even though Feith is unwilling to vouch for it's "substance."

Yet so called wise men of Washington like David Broder still fatuously opine that it is the Democrats who don't respect the military.

psyopswatcher wrote on February 9, 2007 10:14 AM:

Yesterday the spin was that the report exonerated Feith. Someone was ready for this and the waters have been muddies:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Pentagon_Prewar_intelligence_was_legit_0208.html

Phylo Se Fiser wrote on February 9, 2007 10:20 AM:

I've been arguing with people over at Townhall.com about whether or not the White House lied us into this war. What's amazing is how thoroughly the Republican talking points have been planted into their heads.

But it's been worth the effort because I think I've arrived at a clearer understanding of the Niger/Wilson situation.

The right's contention is that the White House didn't lie because the 16 words were factually correct. Which is actually true. But it's only half of the truth.

The 16 words accurately claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. As Wilson himself reported, a delegation from Iraq DID go to Niger and inquire about "expanding trade relations". However, Wilson ALSO reported that the inquiry went no where, and that, given the security situation, it was highly doubtful that a transaction ever could've occured.

So the whole truth is that, while Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa, it was highly unlikely that they could've gotten any.

So the White House lied by leaving out the last half of the truth.

Still, after pointing this out, I've had people try to argue that it is irrelevent that they COULDN"T get uranium; all that matters is that they TRIED to get uranium.

Which is a clever attempt at rationalization but to see how ridiculous this argument is all you have to do is imagine Bush saying this, in the SOTUS:

"We've recently learned from British Intelligence that Iraq was seeking large quantities of uranium from Africa. However, our own intelligence is saying that it is highly doubtful that they could actually obtain any."

One would think that the sheer idiocy of saying this would reveal how relevent the last half of the statement is. But, alas, I still find right wingers who will shout and scream that IT"S NOT RELEVENT WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS HIGHLY DOUBTFUL THAT THEY COULD"VE GOTTEN THE URANIUM!

This is why I want Josh to offer a very public challenge to a prominent right wing talk show host (ideally Hannity or Prager because they've called those of us who think the WH lied, liars) to an on-line debate over the issue of wether or not the White House lied us into this war.

The Republican noise machine is very skilled at manipulating this debate, but the facts are simply not on their side.

I doubt they would except the challenge. But hey, that just reveals them to be the cowards and the frauds that they are.

If you like this suggestion e-mail Josh and let him know.

Phylo out.

Mike Arauz wrote on February 9, 2007 10:20 AM:

I believe the comment about how stupid Doug Feith is, was actually Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who said during the Q&A session after his speech to the New America Foundation on Oct 19, 2005, that Feith was one of the dumbest people he's ever met in his life. But, it would be too hard to believe if Franks shared that opinion.

I'm so glad that this is coming back into the light. There's a lot more to this story.

TheraP wrote on February 9, 2007 10:25 AM:

Since we're into poetry, I wrote this 4 years ago!

Emperor's Nakedness Exposed

Swaggering and Arrogant,
Self-proclaimed
World Emperor,
Master by far
Of Destructive Weaponry,
Marching to the drum of War
Wearing Delusional Garments
Of Liberty and Justice
For All -- to see

Bystanders we,
Poets and lovers of truth
Everywhere,
Viewing the propaganda procession,
Crying out against this nude aggression.

On the Clock wrote on February 9, 2007 10:25 AM:

Two people I remember flogging that Atta story: Vice President Cheney, and William Safire.

With Atta as his valedictory, it's no wonder Safire resigned.

David Corn takes us down Memory Lane from a Nation Blog post in February, 2004. In it, he notes the date of September 24, 2001, as the first time Safire concocted an AQ-Hussein link.

"What did Safire base his case-closed pronouncement upon? A New York Times story that had appeared a day earlier. Written by reporter Dexter Filkins (in Baghdad) and also based on reporting done by Douglas Jehl (in Washington), the front-pager revealed that the Kurds had intercepted a courier for Ansar al-Islam, a fundamentalist terrorist group that had been based in northern Iraq. The messenger, Hassan Ghul, had on him a CD-ROM that contained a seventeen-page document that appeared to be a letter from the head of Ansar al-Islam, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to Al Qaeda requesting assistance. Ansar al-Islam wanted to start an Iraqi civil war by attacking Shi'ite Muslims, and Zarqawi was hoping Al Qaeda would help him.

A-ha, exclaimed Safire, here was the proof that Safire himself was correct when he wrote on September 24, 2001--"not two weeks after 9/11"--that Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda through Ansar al-Islam."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=1280

Redshift wrote on February 9, 2007 10:39 AM:

Doug Feith and Weird Al Yankovic -- separated at birth?

Hapi wrote on February 9, 2007 11:27 AM:

But, WHY would Saddam Hussein have been trying to buy uranium from Niger when he already had 500 tons of uranium in Iraq? He had yellowcake uranium; his problem was the need to process it.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040522/news_1n22uranium.html

Hapi wrote on February 9, 2007 11:30 AM:

Sorry, this excerpt was omitted:

**The repository was a target of widespread looting by villagers after the U.S.-led invasion last year. The villagers were for the most part apparently interested in using the barrels that hold the uranium for activities like cooking and storing water. They simply dumped out the uranium sludge and took the barrels.

Although most of the barrels and all but a small amount of the uranium were recovered, the episode was an embarrassment to the United States and left traces of radioactive contamination throughout the village.
...

Of the uranium, 500 tons is naturally occurring ore or yellowcake, a slightly processed concentrate that cannot be directly used in a bomb. Some 1.8 tons is classified as low-enriched uranium, a more potent form but still not sufficient for a weapon. **

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040522/news_1n22uranium.html

DallasNE wrote on February 9, 2007 11:31 AM:

Posted by: Phylo Se Fiser
Date: February 9, 2007 10:20 AM

You may be jumping to conclusions to say that Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake from Niger. While there is documentation showing a delegation from Iraq did go to Niger at one point that delegation was headed up by "Baghdad Bob". While I will concede that the only export Niger has that would be of much interest to Iraq is yellowcake, the makeup of the delegation strongly suggests that this trip was a feeling out process at best and even that proved to not be fruitful. Accordingly, I take exception to calling this even "an attempt" at buying yellowcake.

Anonymous wrote on February 9, 2007 11:35 AM:

Tommy Franks' potty-mouthed anti-Man bigotry disqualifies him from having an opinion about Feith, assuming Feith is in fact a man.

As Leader of the Catholic Far Right Whacko Party Of One I demand that somebody condemn them both.

The Conservative Deflator wrote on February 9, 2007 11:37 AM:

Many of the same people on Bush's team, that cooked intelligence on Iraq were on Team B, that cooked intelligence on the Soviet Union in the 1980's and prolonged the Cold War - Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney, et al. They are liars and criminals of the highest order and have cost this great country literally billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

Why no one is being made to account for these lies and these crimes against humanity is astonishing. Not one person. I pray that God has a just punishment awaiting these evil men.

LindaR wrote on February 9, 2007 12:08 PM:

Since we're into poetry, Bob Dylan wrote this 44 years ago:

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Tentakles wrote on February 9, 2007 12:25 PM:

It warms my heart to see Feith running scared. Obviously the Plame trial is having a salutary effect. They know Cheney can't protect them anymore.

Tentakles

slb wrote on February 9, 2007 12:55 PM:

>>But, it would be too hard to believe if Franks shared that opinion.<<

I think there may be a typo in what you wrote that is making your sentence read the opposite of what you meant, but Bob Woodward quoted Franks as saying just that in Plan of Attack (p. 281). Franks later hedged, saying he was only reporting what he had heard from other people. (Shades of Scooter Libby.) And then last April 14, he did a complete backflip and called Feith "brilliant." (See the Wikipedia article on "Douglas J. Feith" in the secton on Gen. Franks. URL too long to include here.)

I heard Franks speak at a public forum here a couple of years ago. He's not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer himself, and he is certainly no Norman Schwarzkopf or Wesley Clark.

ray robison wrote on February 9, 2007 8:31 PM:

Check the WAPO article, they corrected this article because the findings attributed to the report were from a Democrat report, not the IG.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

zk0sm0 wrote on February 9, 2007 9:21 PM:

Mike Arauz:

You are half-right. Lawrence Wilkerson's actual remarks:

"Most of you probably know (Gen.) Tommy Frank said (that Feith) was (the) stupidest (expletive deleted) man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man."

I think Wilkerson may have actually said "blankety blank" in his remarks instead of "fucking".

The Oracle wrote on February 9, 2007 9:44 PM:

(Shorter Douglas Feith) Well, sometimes one has to go with the "fixed" intelligence one wants to have, instead of the intelligence analyses one actually has from career intelligence community experts whose findings contradict the "fixed" intelligence one wants to have to start a totally unnecessary, criminal preemptive war.

Anonymous wrote on February 9, 2007 11:44 PM:

From the Guardian, July 17, 2003:

****The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.
....
The president's most trusted adviser, Mr Cheney, was at the shadow network's sharp end. He made several trips to the CIA in Langley, Virginia, to demand a more "forward-leaning" interpretation of the threat posed by Saddam. When he was not there to make his influence felt, his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was. Such hands-on involvement in the processing of intelligence data was unprecedented for a vice-president in recent times, and it put pressure on CIA officials to come up with the appropriate results.
....
The OSP had access to a huge amount of raw intelligence. It came in part from "report officers" in the CIA's directorate of operations whose job is to sift through reports from agents around the world, filtering out the unsubstantiated and the incredible. Under pressure from the hawks such as Mr Cheney and Mr Gingrich, those officers became reluctant to discard anything, no matter how far-fetched. The OSP also sucked in countless tips from the Iraqi National Congress and other opposition groups, which were viewed with far more scepticism by the CIA and the state department.
....
the OSP's activities were a com plete mystery to the DIA and the Pentagon.

"The iceberg analogy is a good one," said a senior officer who left the Pentagon during the planning of the Iraq war. "No one from the military staff heard, saw or discussed anything with them."
....
The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.

"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.
....

The Israeli influence was revealed most clearly by a story floated by unnamed senior US officials in the American press, suggesting the reason that no banned weapons had been found in Iraq was that they had been smuggled into Syria. Intelligence sources say that the story came from the office of the Israeli prime minister.

The OSP absorbed this heady brew of raw intelligence, rumour and plain disinformation and made it a "product", a prodigious stream of reports with a guaranteed readership in the White House. The primary customers were Mr Cheney, Mr Libby and their closest ideological ally on the national security council, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's deputy.

In turn, they leaked some of the claims to the press, and used others as a stick with which to beat the CIA and the state department analysts, demanding they investigate the OSP leads.****

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

I bet this is the backstory behind the Plame scandal. Cheney wanted to smack down what he saw as a possible CIA uprising. That's why he was so interested in Plame sending Wilson on a "junket."

Plame worked in WMD Non-Proliferation, right?

From an interview with author James Bamford:

*****One CIA analyst from the Iraq Non-Proliferation section told me that his boss once called his office together (about fifty people) and said, "You know what - if Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a reason to do so." The former analyst added, "And I said, ‘All right, it's time, it's time to go . . . And I just remember saying, ‘This is something that the American public, if they ever knew, they would be outraged."*****

http://democracyrising.us/content/view/226/164/

GabrielOak wrote on February 10, 2007 2:38 AM:

Phylo Se Fiser, the Sixteen Words were based not on the 1999 Iraq trade delegation visit to Niger but the so-called "contract" and other documents purporting to conclude an actual sale of uranium to Iraq. After the 2003 SOTU speech, the IAEA (and the CIA, when the Bush administration eventually allowed the CIA to see the documents)determined the contract to be a forgery. So the Sixteen Words were not even half true. Besides, Bush's speechwriter couched the Sixteen Words in terms of hearsay ("the British government has learned that...") for the purpose of preserving both technical "accuracy" and subsequent deniability. Any lawyer knows that most hearsay is inherently unreliable. That's why it is generally prohibited as evidence in court.

Mike wrote on February 10, 2007 10:03 PM:

"As you know, you have to go to bed with the Penis you have, not the Penis you want, Rumsfeld said.

Mike wrote on February 10, 2007 10:03 PM:

"As you know, you have to go to bed with the Penis you have, not the Penis you want, Rumsfeld said.

isbister wrote on February 11, 2007 5:09 AM:

THE SIXTEEN WORDS

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”

RECENTLY

1. of late occurrence, appearance, or origin; lately happening, done, made, etc.
2. not long past.
3. of or belonging to a time not long past.

The Brits issued a report in September of 2002 about alleged Iraqi actions in 1999. The sixteen words in Bush’s State of the Union Address of January 28, 2003 were a lie. There's always so much focus on the Iraq/Uranium/Niger lie Bush's dishonest use of the word "recently" is almost always overlooked. (Think back four years, it'd be kind of like us saying Bush "recently" lied about an Iraq/Uranium/Niger connection in his State of the Union Address)

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