Top War Profiteer Doug Feith Retires Wealthy

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By Evelyn Pringle (about the author) Page 4 of 6 page(s)

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Relying on selective reporting, irrespective of credibility and reliability, Feith's briefing concluded the following:

Iraq had more than a decade of numerous contacts with al Qaeda;

there were multiple areas of cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda;

Iraq and al Qaeda had a shared interest and pursuit of WMD; and

there was [o]ne indication of Iraq coordination with al Qaeda specifically related to 9/11, presumably a reference to the alleged (but doubted by the IC) Atta meeting in Prague.

The report states that there are no known intelligence reports, other than those provided by Feith's office, that could explain where this view originated. "A pattern emerges of senior administration officials exaggerating the extent of the relationship in public statements which more closely reflect the Feith analysis" than those of the intelligence community, it said.

As an obvious example, the report said Feith's office repeatedly asserted in the months leading up to the war that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in the spring before the September 11 attacks, an account that the CIA dismissed because evidence existed that Atta was elsewhere at the time.

And in at least one case, according to the report, the Pentagon office included the purported meeting in a report sent to the White House, but omitted it from the version of the same report sent to the CIA.

The meeting was then constantly referred to by senior administration officials, and especially Cheney, as evidence of a possible Saddam link to 9/11. In fact, Cheney said the Feith analysis was the best source of information, according to the report.

However, not only had the alleged meeting never been known, at the time of the briefing to the White House, the Intelligence Community was skeptical in late spring 2002 that such a meeting ever took place. Yet in September of 2002, Feith called the meeting a "known contact" in a crucial misstatement about the intelligence, since it indicated a link which did not exist.

"The professional objectivity and independence required in the assessment of the Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship, a major reason given for going to war, were compromised to support a predetermined policy -- to present the government of Saddam Hussein as a serious threat to the security of the United States" the report wrote.

Finally, relative to the attacks, the final 911 Commission Report itself said that the Intelligence Community has no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike.

Inventing bogus intelligence was bad enough but during the pre-war planning, the military experts were systematically excluded from participating in that process as well. In the end, Feith and the OSP had so grossly underestimated the Iraqi resistance that it caused General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion in Iraq, to call Feith the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth, according Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack.

Feith and the Defense Policy Board

The DPB is a group of 30 people, who for the most part were chosen by Rumsfeld and Feith, that advises officials on whether to go to war or not. Many of its members are literally making a fortune off a war which they had been promoting for years. At least 9 members have ties to companies that won more than $76 billion in defense contracts during 2001 and 2002.

Feith excluded many top Middle East experts from the State Department from playing any meaningful role in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Feith's office and the CPA were tasked with awarding reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

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