Friday, October 22, 2004
Pentagon tried to spin the CIA on Iraq/Al-Qaida
Feith apperently lied to congress to push their Neo-Con agenda
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Feith apperently lied to congress to push their Neo-Con agenda
As recently as January 2004, a top Defense Department official misrepresented to Congress the view of American intelligence agencies about the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, according to a new report by a Senate Democrat.
The report said a classified document prepared by Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, not only asserted that there were ties between the Baghdad government and the terrorist network, but also did not reflect accurately the intelligence agencies' assessment - even while claiming that it did.
In issuing the report, the senator, Carl M. Levin, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he would ask the panel to take "appropriate action'' against Mr. Feith. Senator Levin said Mr. Feith had repeatedly described the ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda as far more significant and extensive than the intelligence agencies had.
The broad outlines of Mr. Feith's efforts to promote the idea of such close links have been previously disclosed.
The view, a staple of the Bush administration's public statements before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, has since been discredited by the Sept. 11 commission, which concluded that Iraq and Al Qaeda had "no close collaborative relationship.''
The 46-page report by Senator Levin and the Democratic staff of the Armed Services Committee is the first to focus narrowly on the role played by Mr. Feith's office. Democrats had sought to include that line of inquiry in a report completed in June by the Senate Intelligence Committee, but Republicans on the panel postponed that phase of the study until after the presidential election.
In an interview, Mr. Levin said he had concluded that Mr. Feith had practiced "continuing deception of Congress.'' But he said he had no evidence that Mr. Feith's conduct had been illegal.
Mr. Levin began the inquiry in June 2003, after Republicans on the panel, led by Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, declined to take part. He said his findings were endorsed by other Democrats on the committee, but complained that the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency had declined to provide crucial documents.
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