Truthout: DoD Report Appears to Confirm Downing Street Memo

[marmar]

DoD Report Appears to Confirm Downing Street Memo
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Friday 09 February 2007

A long-awaited report on the veracity of pre-war Iraq intelligence has found that a secretive policy shop exaggerated the Iraqi threat, providing the White House with cherry-picked information about links between Iraq and al Qaeda. The shop, operating out of the Pentagon, was set up by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Its goal was to lay the groundwork for a pre-emptive military strike against Iraq.

The report would appear to confirm British intelligence assertions that surfaced in a document widely referred to as the Downing Street Memo that the facts against the threat posed by Iraq were being fixed around the Bush administration's policy leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said the report is a "a devastating condemnation of the activities of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. Those activities supported the Bush administration's misleading case for war against Iraq."

The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General produced the report, which focuses largely on the work of former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Feith's Office of Special Plans sent the Bush administration bogus intelligence on Iraq's weapons program and ties to terrorist organizations that supported the administration's policy.

An executive summary of the report was released late Thursday by Senator Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Levin has spent the past two years battling the former Senate Republican leadership to conclude its so-called Phase II investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence. ......(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020907J.shtml

[BOSSHOG]

1. The ignorant trash which comprise bush's base

doesn't give a fuck about these lies and this manipulation because it was done by their hero, an honest christian man of integrity. This same band of trash could not possibly care less about our kids dying in Iraq today or older Americans losing Medicare benefits. "Conservatives" of the 21st century epitomize ignorance and evil and pride and arrogance and embody what is wrong with America today.

[blm]

2. The Downing Street Memos - I remember those - only TEN Senators wanted investigations of DSM.

What does THAT tell you about our Dem party?


    Kerry's Letter on Downing Street Memos
    t r u t h o u t | Original Document/Letter

    From: U.S. Senators;
    John Kerry
    Tim Johnson
    Jon Corzine
    Jack Reed
    Frank Lautenberg
    Barbara Boxer
    Edward Kennedy
    Tom Harkin
    Jeff Bingaman
    Richard Durbin

    To:
    Ranking Leaders Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

    Subject:
    The Downing Street Memos

------------------------------------------------------------------------



    June 22, 2005

    The Honorable Pat Roberts, Chairman
    The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, IV, Vice Chairman
    United States Senate

    Select Committee on Intelligence
    SH-211
    Washington, DC 20510

    Dear Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller:

    We write concerning your committee's vital examination of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures. In particular, we urge you to accelerate to completion the work of the so-called "Phase II" effort to assess how policy makers used the intelligence they received.

    Last year your committee completed the first phase of a two-phased effort to review the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Phase I-begun in the summer of 2003 and completed in the summer of 2004-examined the performance of the American intelligence community in the collection and analysis of intelligence prior to the war, including an examination of the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence on ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups. At the conclusion of Phase I, your committee issued an unclassified report that made an important contribution to the American public's understanding of the issues involved.

    In February 2004-well over a year ago-the committee agreed to expand the scope of inquiry to include a second phase which would examine the use of intelligence by policy makers, the comparison of pre-war assessments and post-war findings, the activities of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and the use of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

    The committee's efforts have taken on renewed urgency given recent revelations in the United Kingdom regarding the apparent minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security advisors. These minutes-known as the "Downing Street Memo"-raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers-questions that your committee is uniquely situated to address.

    The memo indicates that in the summer of 2002, at a time the White House was promising Congress and the American people that war would be their last resort, that they believed military action against Iraq was "inevitable." The minutes reveal that President "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

    The American people took the warnings that the administration sounded seriously-warnings that were echoed at the United Nations and here in Congress as we voted to give the president the authority to go to war. For the sake of our democracy and our future national security, the public must know whether such warnings were driven by facts and responsible intelligence, or by political calculation.

    These issues need to be addressed with urgency. This remains a dangerous world, with American forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other challenges looming in Iran and North Korea. In this environment, the American public should have the highest confidence that policy makers are using intelligence objectively-never manipulating it to justify war, but always to protect the United States. The contents of the Downing Street Memo undermine this faith and only rigorous Congressional oversight can determine the truth.

    We urge the committee to complete the second phase of its investigation with the maximum speed and transparency possible, producing, as it did at the end of Phase I, a comprehensive, unclassified report from which the American people can benefit directly.

[ellenfl]

3. so, the buck's being passed to feith? looks like another underling

being thrown under the bus. that is probably as high as it will go too. boy these guys sure protect themselves!

ellen fl

[peacetalksforall]

4. Did anyone catch Democracy Now this morning? There was a

section of the hour on the Libby trial. I was shocked that Amy and Juan had Michael Isikoff on the phone. He wasn't defending anyone, but I wasn't able to hear everything. He said he spoke to Douglas Feith last night and he said something about policy and xxxxxx?

Since we're talking about concocting reasons to have a war - I found all these things strange.

. Isikoff on Democracy Now?
. Isikoff reports on talking with Feith?
. Feith comes up with this vague statement?

Can someone fill that in?

It's interesting that someone who pimps as hard for Repbulicans as Isikoff does, reports something that Feith says - and is on Democracy Now.

(I'm not saying Amy and Juan shouldn't have him on.)

I think interesting things are going to come out as these people speak.

p.s. Has their been a Toensing or DeGenova sighting?

[peacetalksforall]

5. The more I think about it - there is probably going to be plenty

of material coming out as these people try to rationalize and weasel - anyone want to keep a list or write a book? Great contrast material.

Showing how they lied and pimped on one side of a page and their rationalizations or denials on the other.

Can include all the guilty - including the media, perhaps especially the media.

[blm]

6. I hear you. I am not comfortable at all with Isikoff being the messenger.

It makes me feel as if they are taking the limited hangout approach, to let some information be heard while they continue to cover up the most damning information.