We need to read the report carefully when it comes out today. The AP put out a "news" article yesterday that said the Office of Special Plans and Douglas Feith did not do anything "illegal". It was actually the obstructionist Senator Roberts who wanted and asked for the report to be phrased in those terms. What the report finds is "damning" according to Sen. Carl Levin. It may have been legal, but was also "inappropriate". I have listed several articles here with an alternative headline to the AP, which seems to be towing the Bushco line alot lately.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-feith9feb09,1,5687052.story?track=rssWASHINGTON — A Pentagon official who was a prime architect of Bush administration policies that led to the Iraq war presented policymakers with allegations of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that did not accurately reflect the views of U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a Defense Department investigation disclosed Thursday by a senior Senate Democrat.
The report concluded that the official's actions were inappropriate, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said.
The report by the Pentagon's inspector general examined the activities of Douglas J. Feith, an influential undersecretary to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. An unclassified summary of the report will be released today.
Its findings lend credence to charges by White House critics that Feith, who has since left the department, was out of line when he sought to discredit analyses by CIA intelligence officials that discounted alleged ties between Al Qaeda and then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Feith, in responding to the investigation, defended his actions and said he was pleased that the report found he had done nothing illegal.
Feith 'predisposed' to link Iraq, terror
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/20070209-122418-3082r/ WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Douglas Feith, an architect of President George W. Bush's Iraq war policy, was "predisposed" to find links between Iraq and al-Qaida, a Pentagon report says.
The report was to be released Friday by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services committee, the Washington Post reported.
Feith was undersecretary of defense and one of the Pentagon's policy chiefs until he left the Bush administration in 2005.
The Pentagon inspector general said Feith relied on "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" in 2002 as the administration prepared to invade Iraq. His office was "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaida, the inspector general's reported said.
Pentagon unit developed "dubious" prewar intel: report
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2007-02-09T055451Z_01_N08313529_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-IRAQ-REPORT.xmlWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. defense policy chief Douglas Feith developed and issued "dubious" intelligence that was used to bolster the Bush administration's case for the invasion of Iraq, a Pentagon watchdog agency said in a report to be released on Friday.
The conclusion by Feith's office that there was a "mature symbiotic relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda was inconsistent with the view of the U.S. intelligence community, according to excerpts of the Pentagon inspector general's report released by Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"An alternative intelligence assessment process was established in the office of Under Secretary for Policy Doug Feith ... that was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. His staff then conducted its own review of raw intelligence reports, including reporting of dubious quality and reliability," the report said.
"They arrived at an 'alternative' interpretation of the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC (intelligence community) and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the administration," the report concluded.
Also, please read Raw Story's Larisa from her blog (she is all over this story )
Raw Story: A 'devastating condemnation' of OSP and Feith
by Larisa Alexandrovna
http://www.atlargely.com/2007/02/raw_story_a_dev.html"Contrary to speculation and some earlier reports, the Department of Defense Inspector General's office did not exonerate the controversial Office of Special Plans, which has been accused of cooking pre-war intelligence on Iraq, nor was its then chief overseer, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, vindicated.
According to a statement released by Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) Thursday night to RAW STORY, the IG's report is a "devastating condemnation of the activities of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy."
Citing excerpts from the IG's unclassified executive summary of the classified report, Levin's statement shows that Feith was not alone in sharing the blame in creating a parallel intelligence channel that the IG describes "was inappropriately performing Intelligence Activities of developing, producing, and disseminating that should be performed by the Intelligence Community."
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