Free Republic

Feith Defends U.S. Decision to Take Down Saddam By Gerry J. GilmoreAmerican Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2003 – Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime presented a clear and present danger to the United States and to the world and had to be removed, DoD's top policy official told members of a think tank here Nov. 13. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith defended the actions taken to remove Saddam, which occurred with the fall of Baghdad in early April. Saddam's Iraq, Feith maintained, was a genuine world threat...

Every Tuesday morning during the Iraq war Washington's opinion-makers and journalists knew there was only one place to be: at the "black-coffee briefings" held at the American Enterprise Institute, a fortress-like building on M and 17th streets, opposite the main offices of the National Geographic magazine. Technically, AEI is a thinktank. More than that, though, it is the headquarters of the intellectual movement known as neoconservatism. Its staff includes famous names such as Richard Perle, Irving Kristol and Newt Gingrich. The magazine Weekly Standard, the neocon bible, is published at the same address. Black coffee was not strictly compulsory at...