1 Boring Old Man

Official’s Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted
‘Dubious’ Intelligence Fueled Push for War
By Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith

Intelligence provided by the 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.

Pentagon says pre-war intel not illegal
By Robert Burns, AP Military Writer

Some of the Pentagon’s prewar intelligence work, including a contention that the CIA underplayed the likelihood of al-Qaida connections to Saddam Hussein, was inappropriate but not illegal, a Defense Department investigation has concluded.

In a report to be presented to Congress on Friday, the department’s inspector general said former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had not engaged in illegal activities through the creation of special offices to review intelligence. Some Democrats also have contended that Feith misled Congress about the basis of the administration’s assertions on the threat posed by Iraq, but the Pentagon investigation did not support that.

Two people familiar with the findings discussed the main points and some details Thursday on condition they not be identified.

Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a hearing Friday to receive the findings by Thomas F. Gimble, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general. The committee’s chairman, Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., has been a leading critic of Feith’s role in prewar intelligence activities and has accused him of deceiving Congress.

Levin has asserted that President Bush took the country to war in Iraq based in part on intelligence assessments — some shaped by Feith’s office — that were off base and did not fully reflect the views of the intelligence community. In a telephone interview Thursday, Levin said the IG report is "very damning" and shows a Pentagon policy shop trying to shape intelligence to prove a link between al-Qaida and Saddam.

"That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," Levin said. "And the idea that this separate intelligence assessment, which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate for the reasons given here (by the IG) is something which is highly disturbing."

Well, it looks as if we’re going to finally hear about Douglas Feith and his Office of Special Plans. This was one of Bush’s sources for the prewar intelligence [or lack thereof] used to send us off on our misadventure in Iraq. Let’s hope it doesn’t take as long to get this one out in the open as it took to get Libby and the C.I.A. Leak case fleshed out…