The Office of Special Plans was one of those unique absurdities that only the Bush gang could come up with. The idea was fairly straightforward: administration officials wanted to start a war with Iraq, but didn’t have damning evidence to justify an invasion. Desperate, Dick Cheney and other top administration officials created the OSP to give the White House the information it was looking for, but couldn’t find, from the CIA.
It was a parallel intelligence operation, dedicated to churning out the “proof” the neocons wanted to see, with a special emphasis on connecting Iraq and al Qaeda. And, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general, it was pulling a massive scam.
Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general.
Feith’s office “was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda,” according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith’s activities as “an alternative intelligence assessment process.”
An unclassified summary of the full document is scheduled for release today in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs. In that summary, a copy of which was obtained from another source by The Washington Post, the inspector general concluded that Feith’s assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a “mature symbiotic relationship” was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers.
In his defense, Feith told the WaPo yesterday, “This was not ‘alternative intelligence assessment.’ It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance.”
That may be the funniest spin I’ve heard in a while. Feith was manipulating intelligence, spreading lies, and making a bogus case for a disastrous war — but he wasn’t “endorsing” the lies, he was just offering them to others.
When Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, called Feith “the fu**ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth,” this is probably the kind of thing he was referring to.
The next question is whether Feith and the OSP broke any laws while they were orchestrating their con. The Pentagon’s inspector general believes Feith was lying, but wasn’t a criminal, a characterization Feith is happy to embrace.
Others aren’t so sure. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued an angry statement yesterday about the revelations.
“The IG has concluded that this office was engaged in intelligence activities. The Senate Intelligence Committee was never informed of these activities. Whether these actions were authorized or not, it appears that they were not in compliance with the law.
“In the coming days, I will carefully review all aspects of the report and will consult with Vice Chairman Bond to determine whether any additional action by the Senate Intelligence Committee is warranted.”
Of course, even if Feith and the OSP managed to avoid criminal conduct, the disgrace is shameful enough.
“The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration’s decision to invade Iraq,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said yesterday. “The inspector general’s report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war.”