Feb 14, 2007
Bad Feith?
Douglas Feith, former underling-bitch of Donald Rumsfeld, is vehemently defending the work of his Office of Special Plans, a Defense Department policy wonk agency that is widely known to have contradicted CIA intelligence assessments with it’s own, uh, special reality. The recent Pentagon Inspector General’s report is damning, but little more than a hand-slap for Feith, concluding that his actions were inappropriate but not illegal. According to the report:
The office of the under-secretary of defence for policy developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community, to senior decision-makers.
Note that this report is not part of phase two of the Senate Select Committee’s investigation, part of which was released in September, concluding that the intelligence community was strongly disputing alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, even while Bush administration officials were asserting those links.
Does it strike anyone as odd that none of these folks are in jail yet?
Frontline last night aired the 1st of a 3 part series on the relationship between the media and the current adminstration, the changing role of media and ‘sources’, how most media outlets were snowed by the WMD claim, and how they quoted NYTimes and other sources who printed their press releases without enough questioning. It goes like this (simplified): I tell you I can fly, you blog ‘Chilly can fly’, then I go on a quasi-political talk show using you and everyone else I got to print my bullshit as sources saying “See, even these bloggers suspect my avain ability”. It helps when everyone is frightened and licking their wounds. Viva Chicken Little-
This is only one element of the scope of the program. The outing of the journalist dude’s CIA wife as punishment for his doubt is another, the investigation that followed that outing, Supreme Court interpretation of ‘free press’, the changed nature of a confidencial wistleblower since the Nixon era of ‘Deep Throat’ etc. Complicated but interesting stuff.
It is complicated. And it’s been going on forever now. It just drives me nuts that this isn’t resolved, that these bureaucrat fucks haven’t completed this investigation (well, with the repubes stalling and trying to brush it away it makes a little more sense.) Clearly one would think the answer would be for an independent commission to take over, but that is fraught with it’s own expense and bias issues (remember Kenneth Starr). Already it has been ruled that the Iraq-Al qaeda crap was pushed when the intelligence didn’t support it. That in itself means that quite a few Bush administration peeps should be behind bars, including Bush and Cheney.
Yeah, Joe Wilson is a badass for going after those in power, when I’m sure they wanted him to keep his mouth shut. It is mindboggling that the people in this country don’t call these guys out and get to the bottom of what really went on and make them accountable. So much for the new Democratic Senate.