Even when accurately and correctly reporting the story of current Department of Defense (DoD) and Senate Armed Services Committee INVESTIGATIONS into the Bush White House's use of LIES-to-WAR to build up a drumbeat for WAR, the "Major Media" SOFT-SELLS the inescapable conclusion that pre-war "Intel" was KNOWINGLY EXAGGERATED, DISTORTED, and FABRICATED to justify an invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.
That is, the media/press _headlines_ SOFT-SELL the facts: that the OSP ("Office of Special Plans") run out of the Pentagon by Douglas Feith, EXAGGERATED the LINK between Iraq and Al Qaida, to the point of LYING about them, and FABRICATING such alleged "LINKS" out of thin air.
Similar efforts were underway by the Vice President (Dick Cheney), President (George W. Bush), National Security Advisor (Condoleeza Rice), Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld), Assistant Secretary of Defense (Paul Wolfowitz), and even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a career-tested combat military man famous for the "Powell doctrine" (use force only as a last resort; use it overwhelmingly; and provide for an EXIT STRATEGY) found himself taking dictation from, AND LYING FOR, the above non-military, non-combat, NON-EXPERTS who were LYING about Iraq's alleged WMD programs!
Here is a quick compilation of these SOFT, NO ACCUSATION headlines, which DISTORT the simple conclusion: The Bush White House LIED, and DISTORTED INTEL with premeditation, to justify a war against Iraq, with such FUZZY words as "skewed," "inappropriate," "doubts," and "manipulated," none of which quite say "FALSIFIED" or "lied."
#1. CIA doubts didn't deter Feith's team
Intelligence agencies disagreed with many of its prewar findings.
By Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writers
February 10, 2007
2. Some prewar intelligence inappropriate but legal, report finds
Helena Independent Record - Feb 10 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) - A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfMBHIM9F5g0A7AHQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHZkMjZyBHBvcwMxBHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=12kv8peod/EXP=1171288519/**http%3a//www.helenair.com/articles/2007/02/11/national/001pent.txt
3. Senators Discuss Skewed Pre-Invasion Iraq Report
NPR - Feb 09 2007
A top-level Defense Department official skewed intelligence reports about Iraq in 2001 and 2002 in an attempting to justify an invasion, according to an inspector general's report from the Pentagon. The Senate Armed Services Committee discussed the report today.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfMBHIM9F5g0A7gHQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjdmNoOTVjBHBvcwMyBHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=1321gr8j2/EXP=1171288519/**http%3a//www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php%3fstoryId=7320249%26ft=1%26f=1001
4. Douglas Feith Responds to Criticism
NPR - Feb 09 2007
Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith is under fire again. A new Pentagon report suggests that his office manipulated pre-war intelligence to heighten fears of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida. The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing Friday on the report.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfMBHIM9F5g0A8AHQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjcXBoZjEwBHBvcwMzBHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=132cn0buc/EXP=1171288519/**http%3a//www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php%3fstoryId=7309878%26ft=1%26f=1001
5. Levin: Intel Report 'Very Damning'
Detroit Now - Feb 10 2007
A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfMBHIM9F5g0A8gHQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjb3ZrYjNkBHBvcwM0BHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=136840o0a/EXP=1171288519/**http%3a//www.detnow.com/wxyz/nw_local_news/article/0,2132,WXYZ_15924_5340335,00.html
6. Senate Panel Takes Up Military Budget Issues
NPR - Feb 07 2007
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Peter Pace talk money with the Senate Armed Services Committee. Democrats pressed both with tough questions about funding requests for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfMBHIM9F5g0A9AHQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjZGM1ZGE1BHBvcwM1BHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=132dc2juq/EXP=1171288519/**http%3a//www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php%3fstoryId=7235009%26ft=1%26f=1001
7. Levin: High-ranking DoD officials manipulated Iraq intelligence
The Hill - Feb 09 2007
High-ranking Department of Defense officials "manipulated" intelligence to link al Qaeda and Iraq to bolster the case for an invasion, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) charged Friday, citing a new Pentagon report.
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9htfMBHIM9F5g0A.AHQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTBjZmpxdmw3BHBvcwM3BHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=132kh2
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CIA doubts didn't deter Feith's team
Intelligence agencies disagreed with many of its prewar findings.
By Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writers
February 10, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-feith10feb10,1,7138041,full.story?coll=la-news-a_section
WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration began assembling its case for war, analysts across the U.S. intelligence community were disturbed by the report of a secretive Pentagon team that concluded Iraq had significant ties to Al Qaeda.
Analysts from the CIA and other agencies "disagreed with more than 50%" of 26 findings the Pentagon team laid out in a controversial paper, according to testimony Friday from Thomas F. Gimble, acting inspector general of the Pentagon.
The dueling groups sat down at CIA headquarters in late August 2002 to try to work out their differences. But while the CIA agreed to minor modifications in some of its own reports, Gimble said, the Pentagon unit was utterly unbowed.
"They didn't make the changes that were talked about in that August 20th meeting," Gimble said, and instead went on to present their deeply flawed findings to senior officials at the White House.
The work of that special Pentagon unit — which was run by former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith — is one of the lingering symbols of the intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq.
The Bush administration's primary justification for invading Iraq was always its assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. But Iraq's supposed ties to Al Qaeda — and therefore its connection to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — were an important secondary argument, and one that resonated with many Americans in the lead-up to the war with Iraq.
The CIA and many other intelligence agencies were wrong in their assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. But the agency was always deeply skeptical about the ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Most of the evidence that Feith's Office of Special Plans cited in making its case for significant collaboration between Baghdad and Al Qaeda has crumbled under postwar scrutiny. The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Saddam Hussein was so wary of the terrorist network that he barred anyone in his government from dealing with Al Qaeda.
Although the Pentagon Inspector General's report released Friday did not address the accuracy of such assessments, it documented the unusual efforts by Defense Department policymakers to bypass regular intelligence channels and influence officials at the highest level of government.
Feith's work was of critical importance to Vice President Dick Cheney, who once referred to the Pentagon team's conclusions as the "best source" for understanding the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
The activities of Feith's group weren't illegal, Gimble concluded. But they were, "in our opinion, inappropriate, given that the intelligence assessments were [presented as] intelligence products and did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the intelligence community."
The Pentagon team touted a series of claims that have not survived postwar review. Among them was the allegation that Mohammed Atta, the presumed ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, had met with an Iraqi agent in Prague before the attacks.
A critical question raised by the inspector general's report is whether Feith and his office were just critiquing CIA analysis, or were creating their own intelligence assessment, a role that is supposed to be left to the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) noted Friday that Cheney has referred to Feith's work as an "assessment," suggesting it was a formal intelligence document. But Feith maintained in interviews he was not creating an intelligence "product," but was just checking the work of the CIA.
Laurence H. Silberman, a semiretired U.S. appeals court judge and co-chairman of a presidential commission on Iraq's weapons, said it is appropriate to question intelligence.
"Policymakers, whether they are in Defense, State, the White House or Congress, are absolutely entitled to question the intelligence community, look over the material and come up with their own views," he said.
Feith's work had the blessing of his boss, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The operation was set up at the behest of then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz with approval from Rumsfeld, Gimble noted. By most accounts, those three officials had distrust, if not disdain, for the work of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
But Robert M. Gates, the new secretary of Defense and former CIA director, said that groups outside the CIA and other chartered intelligence agencies should not be involved in freelance analysis.
"Based on my whole career, I believe all intelligence activities need to be carried on by the established institutions, where there is appropriate oversight," he told reporters traveling with him in Europe for meetings on security.
Gimble provided new details on the chain of events leading from the creation of the Feith team, through a series of briefings it made for senior officials and culminating in a presentation before deputies in the National Security Council at the White House.
The initial instruction to search for links between Iraq and Al Qaeda came from Wolfowitz in January 2002, Gimble said.
By that July, Feith had assembled a group of analysts detailed from other agencies to draft a document outlining evidence that the officials thought other agencies had ignored.
The team presented its findings to Rumsfeld on Aug. 8. Rumsfeld found it so compelling that he urged Feith to arrange a briefing for then-CIA Director George J. Tenet at the CIA. In the meantime, the team's paper began to circulate among analysts at other agencies who took issue with more than half of its contents.
"There were like 26 points," in the Feith team's paper, Gimble said. "And essentially [experts at other agencies] disagreed with more than 50% of it, and either agreed or partially agreed with the remainder."
When the team briefed Tenet and other senior CIA officials on Aug. 15, the audience was polite but unimpressed. Tenet described the meeting as "useful," Gimble said, but "in our interviews with him he later said that he only said that it was 'useful' because he didn't agree with it and he was just trying to, you know, nicely end the meeting."
That encounter led to the "roundtable" meeting at the agency five days later where CIA experts urged the Pentagon unit to at least include footnotes acknowledging the long list of disagreements.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon team pressed on.
P.J. Crowley, a retired Air Force colonel and a senior fellow at the Center of American Progress, said that the intelligence peddled by Feith tainted the public dialogue.
"They weren't creating intelligence, but they were assembling the pieces to create a rationale for war," Crowley said. "Their production was discredited, but they had the desired effect. The little pieces ended up infecting the process."
greg.miller@latimes.com
julian.barnes@latimes.com
Times staff writer Peter Spiegel in Seville, Spain, contributed to this report.
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