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Report says Pentagon manipulated intel
Associated Press ^ | 02/09/07 | ROBERT BURNS

Posted on 02/09/2007 6:17:43 AM PST by presidio9

A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

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"That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. He said the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

The investigation by acting inspector general Thomas F. Gimble found that prewar intelligence work at the Pentagon, including a contention that the CIA had underplayed the likelihood of an al-Qaida connection, was inappropriate but not illegal. The report was to be presented to Levin's panel at a hearing Friday.

The report found that 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.

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.

Levin in September 2005 had asked the inspector general to determine whether Feith's offices' activities were appropriate, and if not, what remedies should be pursued.

The 2004 report from the Sept. 11 commission found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror organization before the U.S. invasion.

Asked to comment on the IG's findings, Feith said in a telephone interview that he had not seen the report but was pleased to hear that it concluded his office's activities were neither illegal nor unauthorized. He took strong issue, however, with the IG's finding that some activities had been "inappropriate."

"The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow 'unlawful' or 'unauthorized' and that some information it gave to congressional committees was deceptive or misleading," Feith said.

Feith called "bizarre" the inspector general's conclusion that some intelligence activities by the Office of Special Plans, which was created while Feith served as the undersecretary of defense for policy — the top policy position under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — were inappropriate but not unauthorized.

"Clearly, the inspector general's office was willing to challenge the policy office and even stretch some points to be able to criticize it," Feith said, adding that he felt this amounted to subjective "quibbling" by the IG.

Feith left his Pentagon post in August 2005 and now teaches at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He has maintained throughout the controversy over the role of the Office of Special Plans, as well as other small groups that were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, that their intelligence activities were prudent, authorized and useful in challenging some of the intelligence analysis of the CIA.

At the center of the prewar intelligence controversy was the work of a small number of Pentagon officials from Feith's office and the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who reviewed CIA intelligence analyses and put together their own report. When they briefed Rumsfeld on their report in August 2002 — a period when Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials were ratcheting up their warnings about the gravity of the Iraq threat — Rumsfeld directed them to also brief CIA Director George Tenet.

Their presentation, which included assertions about links between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government, contained a criticism that the intelligence community was ignoring or underplaying its own raw reports on such potential links.

The controversy has simmered for several years. The Senate Intelligence Committee included the Office of Special Plans in its investigation into the prewar intelligence on Iraq, but the committee did not finish that portion of its work when it released the first part of its findings in July 2004.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: ap; intel; levin; wot
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1 posted on 02/09/2007 6:17:45 AM PST by presidio9
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To: presidio9

Report: Robert Burns manipulates the truth....always.


2 posted on 02/09/2007 6:19:59 AM PST by pissant
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To: presidio9

When the Democrats get control of Congress, the Pentagon is always evil.

What a remarkable coincidence.


3 posted on 02/09/2007 6:20:52 AM PST by RexBeach
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To: pissant

why don't thy just concede and admit they were planning for the upcoming confrontation with Iran that started with Carter?


4 posted on 02/09/2007 6:21:25 AM PST by himno hero
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To: himno hero

LOL. Indeed.


5 posted on 02/09/2007 6:22:33 AM PST by pissant
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To: pissant

Nowhere in this article do we read an example of manipulation.


6 posted on 02/09/2007 6:22:43 AM PST by zook (America going insane - "Do you read Sutter Caine?)
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To: presidio9
This is a BS title by the AP. If it was manipulated then it was illegal which the AG found it was not even though in the AG's word was "inappropriate". Cherry-picked maybe but not manipulated.
7 posted on 02/09/2007 6:22:55 AM PST by tobyhill (The War on Terrorism is not for the weak.)
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To: RexBeach

Shirley you are joking. Did you notice how disrespectfully those frat boys in uniform have been treating the most powerful woman in the world recently?


8 posted on 02/09/2007 6:22:59 AM PST by presidio9 (There is something wonderful about a country that produces a brave and humble man like Wesley Autrey)
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To: jveritas

Ping.

Surely you have a number of translated Iraqi documents that dispute Levin and this report, don't you?


9 posted on 02/09/2007 6:23:23 AM PST by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: pissant

Agreed.

This is the weakest "damning" report I've ever seen, no substabce at all.


10 posted on 02/09/2007 6:24:12 AM PST by jeffers
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To: pissant

was inappropriate but not illegal.

This is the gist of the whole article as far as I can tell. This is why it is "damming" Nothing here to really justify the headline.


11 posted on 02/09/2007 6:25:36 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Seeking the Truth here Folks.)
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To: zook

That's how Burns and co. always work. Headlines claiming dastardly deeds (by GOPers only, of course), a provocative first two or three paragraphs summarizing the supposed deeds with no context, followed, maybe by the actual words of the report buried at the end.


12 posted on 02/09/2007 6:26:33 AM PST by pissant
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To: pissant
Exactly. The title of the article does not relate at all to its content, but this is crAP, what do you expect.
13 posted on 02/09/2007 6:30:15 AM PST by jveritas (Support The Commander in Chief in Times of War)
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To: presidio9

Am I the only one who never heard Bush make a connection between Iraq and al qaeda? I heard liberals claim many times that Bush made such a connection, but going back to the 2003 SOTU speech, for example, no connection was made except that both are part of the WOT and that AQ may have trained in Iraq. Another example of libs conjuring up "facts."


14 posted on 02/09/2007 6:31:33 AM PST by Proudcongal
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To: presidio9
Shirley you are joking.


15 posted on 02/09/2007 6:33:27 AM PST by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Championship U)
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To: savedbygrace
Absolutely. How many regimes do we know that met with Osama Bin Laden? The answer is THREE and NO OTHER. The Taliban, The Sudanese government, and yes Saddam regime. The Iraqi intelligence per the authorization of Saddam met with Bin Lade in in Sudan in 1995.

Saddam Regime Document: Iraqi Intelligence met with Bin Laden in 1995 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600579/posts

16 posted on 02/09/2007 6:35:04 AM PST by jveritas (Support The Commander in Chief in Times of War)
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To: jveritas

It doesn't matter to the Dems and the media what the report actually says - only what they SAY it says. Typical.


17 posted on 02/09/2007 6:35:20 AM PST by whatexit
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To: whatexit; All
What is the % of Americans who are aware of Saddam regime and Bin Laden meeting in Sudan in 1995? I will say very few. Imagine that the American people were aware of such a fact before the war in Iraq, do not you think that they would have been more convinced than ever that we should take Saddam terrorist regime out? I say of course.
18 posted on 02/09/2007 6:39:10 AM PST by jveritas (Support The Commander in Chief in Times of War)
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To: presidio9

Does the Report say it or does Carl Levin say it? Its the latter. Misleading headline alert!


19 posted on 02/09/2007 6:41:51 AM PST by NonValueAdded (Pelosi, the call was for Comity, not Comedy. But thanks for the laughs. StarKisses, NVA.)
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To: presidio9
...said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

You can stop reading right there. For the next two years this is all you will see, muckraking by Democrats, and a compliant liberal press carrying their screeching half-truths and lies. For the record, let's hear it one more time from Libertarians how it was such a great thing to teach Republicans a lesson. Are you listening Neal Boortz?

20 posted on 02/09/2007 6:43:15 AM PST by Obadiah
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