"Feith runs a Gestapo organization over there" Powell said that?

[buycitgo]

tweety just quoted that from Woodward.

I missed who he said it was, but Powell sounds right, and apparently, when asked about it, "didn't recall" saying it, meaning it's true.

that's sort of interesting, isn't it?

he and Zakaria were talking about what a mess they'd made, cause of their strict ideological adherence to their preconceptions, thus getting just about EVERYthing wrong

right now, on MSBNC, another antiKerry ad....on defense

is Kerry going to start camPAIGNING one of these weeks?]

this smell more and more like Dukakis every day

where's all that MONEY?

where's SOROS?

where's moveon?

and hasn't Mrs. Ketchup gotten mad enough at the smears to start pulling out her check book?

huh?

[buycitgo]

1. from Justin Raimondo......the quote

"Powell felt Cheney and his allies – his chief aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and what Powell called Feith's 'Gestapo' office – had established what amounted to a separate government."

Raimondo:

In effect, the neocons pulled off a coup d'etat, a palace revolution in which veteran government officials like Richard Clarke, and the CIA and Pentagon "old guard," were pushed aside. (Go here for an up close and detailed description of the purge by former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski.) If the purpose of the U.S. government is to protect American security and interests, then why did there need to be a "separate" and competing government – unless that government was pursuing other, non-American interests?

Not only the Woodward book, but the series of whistleblowers who have come out of the closet and revealed the inner workings of the Bush administration, lead us into territory that, for want of a better word, can only be called a "conspiracy theory." Which, one supposes, is one way of saying that everything is not an accident. There is, however, no way to understand where we are, and how we got here, unless we see the push to get us into Iraq as a successful covert operation. A success, that is, not in terms of American interests, but in the terms of those who carried it out.

The Iraq war, the diversion away from the real authors of 9/11, the costly obsession with Saddam Hussein, the professed intention of "staying the course" of an unsustainable policy – none of it makes any sense when viewed through the prism of American national interests. The entire thrust of our Middle East policy is counter-intuitive and counterproductive. Only two parties benefited from the invasion of Iraq: the Likudniks (and their American branch office) loyal to Sharon and the jihadists associated with Osama Bin Laden.

[buycitgo]

2. I'd say that last paragraph sums it up pretty damned accurately

thanks, PNAC, JINSA, etal

we're just the neo-Hessians, aren't we?

[bigtree]

3. Feith highlighted

Some of Ahmed's Chalabi's (Head of the Iraqi Council) influential friends in the White House include, twenty-year friend Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Director of Iraq reconstruction is one of Chalabi's main shills in the Pentagon.

Feith used Ahmed's Chalabi's web of misinformation about Iraqi WMD's to develop a rationale for war against Saddam; including the ‘intelligence' that Saddam was conspiring with bin Laden.

Feith is known for a 1996 paper he co-authored and presented to President Clinton advocating the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The letter was also signed by Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and others. The letter echoed policy proposals prepared by Perle and Feith two years earlier, for Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu. Khalilzad was among the first Bush administration officials to speak publicly of "regime change" in Iraq. http://www.thedubyareport.com/iraq2.html

In the letter they argued that, "In the present climate in Washington, some may misunderstand and misinterpret strong American action against Iraq as having ulterior political motives. We believe, on the contrary, that strong American action against Saddam is in the national interest, that it must be supported, and that it must succeed."

Co-author Feith was one of about five members of the Bush administration who formed a separate ‘special plans office' in October 2001, whose purpose was to collect information from the CIA and the intelligence community to develop their own strategy for the war on terrorism. The group highlighted "interrelationships among terrorist organizations and state sponsors." They claimed "strategic alliances between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, despite the argument that such an alliance would have to withstand deep ideological and religious differences. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/wot/iraq/office_of_special_plans.html

- Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Director of Iraq Reconstruction is president and managing partner of former law firm, Feith & Zell; clients include Northrop-Grumman and Loral Space Communications. http://www.loral.com/

Feith created International Advisors Incorporated, a lobbying firm whose main client was the government of Turkey. The firm retained Richard Perle as an adviser between 1989 and 1994. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content?030317fa_fact

Feith owns shares of AT&T stock worth $500,00 to $1 million, (AT&T is the DOD's 43d largest contractor), Ford Motor Co. stock worth $250,001 to $500,000 (Ford is lobbying the DOD over appropriations), Verizon Communications stock worth $500,001 to $1 million, and Lucent Technologies stock worth $250,001 to $500,000.

Bechtel awarded a $25 million subcontract in October to shareholder Feith's Lucent Technologies to carry out ‘emergency' repair and rehabilitation of the communications network in Iraq.This was the first major communications infrastructure subcontract Bechtel awarded in Iraq. http://www.lucent.com/press/0803/030825.nsa.html

Feith, head of reconstruction and other postwar activities, heads a lobbying and consulting group whose main client is Turkey. In 1989, Feith registered International Advisors Inc. as a foreign agent representing the Turkish government, according to the CPI. http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=513&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

According to a statement the International Advisors filed with the Justice Department, it would "assist in the efforts for the appropriation of U.S. military and economic assistance to Turkey." Douglas Feith is listed as the Chief Executive Officer of IA and its only stockholder. http://www.aaiusa.org/wwatch/051301.htm

Turkey, is now ‘re-considering' sending 10,000 troops (under strong resistance by the Iraqi Council). They just won $8.5 billion in additional U.S. loan guarantees; no doubt a result of Feith's intervention.

The loan "has no relation to possible developments in Iraq, as claimed by press reports," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener told a gathering of industrialists.

"It was decided on unilaterally by the United States. We did not demand it."

Sener's comments follow press reports here quoting US Treasury under-secretary John Taylor saying the proposed loan, designed to cushion the impact of the war on the Turkish economy, was tied to Ankara's military cooperation in Iraq.

No Turkish troops have, of yet, been deployed to Iraq.

According to Middle East Reference.org., the senior members of the Iraqi Development and Reconstruction Council hold positions at each of 23 Iraqi ministries, where they work closely with US and British officials under Paul Bremer, the head of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

Members of the IRDC are officially employed by SAIC, whose vice-president until 2002 was David Kay, the WMD hunter. Kay was coordinator of SAIC's homeland security and the company’s counterterrorism initiatives.

The Center for Public Integrity reported that the contracts all appear to last for one year and call for all of the work to be directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.

Feith's top deputy at the Pentagon is Christopher "Ryan" Henry. Henry was a corporate vice president for strategic assessment and development at SAIC until October 2002.


These are excerpts from my book, Power Of Mischief: http://www.returningsoldiers.us/pompage.htm

Download the book for free!
http://www.returningsoldiers.us/Power%20Of%20Mischief4.pdf

Here's my list of numbered, linked references for the book (253 links):
http://returningsoldiers.us/biblio.htm

[knight_of_the_star]

4. He's waiting to launch his counter-attack

Kerry knows that Bush has enough cash to win in a drawn-out brawl, so he's just doing damage control now and letting Bush blow his wad, then hit back for a brutal counter that will crush Bush.

[bobbieinok]

5. 7 months - aren't the TV people cutting away from Kerry speeches