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March 4, 2007 at 11:10:30

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Former Pentagon Staff Speaks Out on Crimes of Doug Feith, Dick Cheney, and Planning of Iran War

by David Swanson     Page 1 of 3 page(s)

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The following is a remarkable interview of Karen Kwiatkowski who retired from the active duty USAF as a Lieutenant Colonel in early 2003.  Her final assignment was in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy Near East South Asia (NESA) Policy directorate.  In her responses below, Kwiatkowski describes the manipulation of intelligence on Iraq and Iran and what it would take to avoid an attack on the latter.

I began the interview by asking about Undersecretary of Defense for policy Douglas Feith, whose actions in the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq War were the subject of a recent report by the Pentagon Inspector General.

SWANSON: Did the operations led by Doug Feith gather intelligence?

KWIATKOWSKI: When I spoke to the DoD IG over a year ago (regarding the investigation that recently produced a report pronouncing the Feith operations as inappropriate), I tried to explain to the IG that what the Feith group and the Office of Special Plans was doing was information manipulation, not the production of what we legitimately call "intelligence."  Intelligence is vetted, contextualized, and conservative.  What Feith's OSP wanted, needed and produced was inflammatory bits of data, cherry-picked statements, and isolated observations by often shady characters, presented as if they were vetted, contextualized and conservative intelligence.   Unlike intelligence, this effort was designed not to inform decision makers, but to shape a national conversation such that decisions already made by the administration (to topple Saddam and get bases in Iraq) could be pursued without political backlash.  That's what Doug Feith and his folks did for Bush and Cheney in the Pentagon.

SWANSON: Did they do so without informing Congress of the fact?

KWIATKOWSKI: I can't verify that Feith's office, and others in the Pentagon did or didn't talk to some Congressmen about their little information operation. It has been shown by the Senate investigation that the CIA itself was not aware that some of the results of the OSP effort had been inserted into their system as if it was intelligence, without full disclosure of sources, etc.  It seems clear that many in the Congress were fed OSP derived and developed information and talking points from the Pentagon -- and that this information was believed by those Congressmen to be "intelligence" instead of propaganda and falsehoods.  Frankly, I believe that many in Congress wanted this invasion of Iraq, and didn't care if what they were seeing from Feith, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld was true or not.   This is why "politicized" intelligence – the focus of the so-called Part II investigation was so critical, and so successfully opposed and blocked by many Senators and Congressmen. 

It seems even more certain that the New York Times and other major papers were fed the same type of material by Pentagon and Office of the Vice President as if it were verified intelligence, and that they believed that it was.  Doug Feith today denies he did anything wrong at all.  Feith and many of the neoconservatives are fundamentally ethically challenged when it comes to American national security.  Given everything we know, it is unlikely any of these war advocates told the truth to Congress about the story they were helping to "sell" to Congress and the rest of the country back in 2002 and early 2003.

SWANSON: Were Feith's actions illegal?

KWIATKOWSKI: Like most people, I believe that public servants are bound by their sworn oath of service 24/7 while they hold a public office. Feith, and political appointees above and below him, presented false or unfounded information to the media, the Congress and to the President's speechwriters, as if it were not only factual, but as intelligence community consensus.  As public servants, on the U.S. public payroll, what they did seems to me to be illegal.  The Central Intelligence Agency is the only legal source of national intelligence to the Congress, and these folks were not associated with the CIA, nor were they intelligence professionals.  However, the DoD IG did not appear to find the OSP culpable in this regard, hence their conclusion of "inappropriate" rather than "illegal."

SWANSON: But is that the right conclusion?

KWIATKOWSKI: My understanding of the oath of office is that we are to abide by the laws of the land, and protect the Constitution.  It is assumed that this means one's conduct must be generally honest.  We also have the old Ten Commandments, and that annoying little rule about bearing false witness.  A good prosecutor could probably make the case that these guys – Feith, Shulsky, Cheney, etc, broke several other laws.  Speaking to the press on issues of national security and top levels of intelligence out of school or without specific authorization from the classifying authority is illegal.  For example, if I as a Lt Col in the Air Force, or any member of the military or civil service had given either the press or any Congressmen or women any information that I described as Top Secret or Secret level intelligence, as did the OSP and OSP connected political appointees in 2002 and early 2003, we would have been charged with a crime, and successfully prosecuted.  In that prosecution, our intent would have come into play, and this is critical as well.  Why exactly were Feith and company lying, and conspiring to mislead Congress? 

The neoconservatives have said "But we believed Chalabi, and we believed all this bad info about Iraq WMD capability." If they truly believed it, their planning for the invasion and the aftermath by the OSD would have been remarkably different, in about a hundred different ways.  They say they believed Saddam was dangerous, yet we went in as if it would be a cakewalk.  The neoconservative claim that they truly believed these dangers existed in Iraq is belied by their reluctance to support more troops initially, and by their decision to casually disregard border security, and to idiotically write off the Ba-ath Party infrastructure as superfluous to Iraq's post war recovery. 

There is no doubt in my mind that what they were impeachable offenses.  In fact, many in the military and civil service, and political appointees are fired for far less malfeasance and incompetence in protecting the nations' interests and security than admittedly has been done by Feith and his cohorts. SecDef Gates just "impeached" the Secretary of the Army Harvey and Major General Weightman over the treatment of wounded Iraq and Afghanistan vets at Walter Reed Hospital. There is no doubt in my mind that Feith, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as Abe Shulsky should have been (or in the case of Abe Shulsky, still in the Pentagon – be) formally impeached for incompetence, neglect of and disregard for national security, and reckless malfeasance in the conduct of their duties.  Impeachment and prosecution for criminal misconduct while holding public office is certainly appropriate in these cases. I also recommend former prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega's new book (The United States vs. George W. Bush et al) that makes a powerful case that Feith and others are guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

SWANSON: What superiors to Feith bear responsibility?

KWIATKOWSKI: Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. And the Congress, particularly those who voted (ignoring serious testimony of Feith's inappropriateness for that position) to confirm Feith as the Defense Under Secretary for Policy back in 2001.

SWANSON: What do you make of Allison Hantschel's thoughts on the blogosphere and the media's role in Iran War propaganda?
http://www.davidswanson.org/?q=node/749

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David Swanson is the author of the upcoming book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union" by Seven Stories Press and of the introduction to "The 35 Articles of Impeachment and the Case for Prosecuting George W. (more...)
 

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5 comments


WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

why isn't this woman going more public with this stuff? one thing that is irratating, is there has to be ALOT of people who were formally close to what went on and is still going on, but for some reason, choose to remain silent. that's a shirk of patriotic responsibility, also,in my opinion. i know there are good reasons for it, but there are ways. how can these people just sit back and watch our country go down the tubes, and not say anything? tell them to send me the info, and I'LL do it, jeez!

by mike wygant (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 287 comments) on Sunday, Mar 4, 2007 at 12:00:41 PM

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Great interveiw

Great interveiw. I agree this needs a wider audience. It needs legs. It would be nice to see such an interveiw on national TV. The legislative branch needs to know that all eyes are on their failure to truly uncover all the cover-ups. Their inaction will result in their removal. Maybe Wesley Clark could bring this out if he truly wants to change our direction. Cheney needs to be impeached first on the evidence availible. It needs to be in the American's dialy diet of revelations and accountability. Our Government needs to become responsive to "WE THE PEOPLE"

by Sleeper (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 312 comments [6 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 4, 2007 at 2:22:21 PM

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Karen Kwiatkowski wrote a piece that was published

in David Ray Griffin's "9/11 and American Empire"; if Swanson respects her enough to interview her, he ought to read that piece. Perhaps then he'll start asking the questions that tens of millions of Americans (and growing) are asking, as they find out the official 9/11 story is made of lies and holes. 115 omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission click here The Top 40 click here

by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1110 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Mar 4, 2007 at 11:20:49 PM

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Crime of the (New American) Century

Privately even the hawks within the US government lobbying for war acknowledged that President Saddam was no threat to America, according to [former NATO commander Wesley Clark] And they had been arguing for the attack long before September 11, he said. "There are some in the administration who have always felt that military power should be used to eliminate Saddam Hussein. "Secondly, those who favour this attack now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. But they are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it against Israel." click here Fmr. Ambassador Joe Wilson - June 14, 2003 "The real agenda in all of this of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum that was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90's which was called, "A Clean Break - A New Strategy for the Realm." And what it is, cut to the quick, is if you take out some of these countries, some of these governments that are antagonistic to Israel then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions upon the Palestinian people, whatever those terms and conditions might be. In other words, the road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad and Damascus. Maybe Tehran. And maybe Cairo and maybe Tripoli if these guys actually have their way. Rather than going through Jerusalem." 19:46: click here "On the other ones, the geopolitical situation, I think there are a number of issues at play; there's a number of competing agendas. One is the remaking of the map of the Middle East for Israeli security, and my fear is that when it becomes increasingly apparent that this was all done to make Sharon's life easier and that American soldiers are dying in order to enable Sharon to impose his terms upon the Palestinians that people will wonder why it is American boys and girls are dying for Israel and that will undercut a strategic relationship and a moral obligation that we've had towards Israel for 55 years. I think it's a terribly flawed strategy." 13:33: click here May '04, Gen. Anthony Zinni on 60 Minutes "I blame the civilian leadership of the Pentagon directly. Because if they were given the responsibility, and if this was their war, and by everything that I understand, they promoted it and pushed it - certain elements in there certainly - even to the point of creating their own intelligence to match their needs, then they should bear the responsibility" Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the administration known as "the neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq. "I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do," says Zinni. "And one article, because I mentioned the neo-conservatives who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested." "I know what strategy they promoted. And openly. And for a number of years. And what they have convinced the president and the secretary to do. And I don't believe there is any serious political leader, military leader, diplomat in Washington that doesn't know where it came from." click here Dec '03, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president. _ In the early winter of 2002, a co-worker U.S. Navy captain and I were discussing the service being rendered by Colin Powell at the time, and we were told by the neoconservative political appointee David Schenker that "the best service Powell could offer would be to quit right now." I was present at a staff meeting when Bill Luti called Marine Gen. and former Chief of Central Command Anthony Zinni a "traitor," because Zinni had publicly expressed reservations about the rush to war. click here Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, [NY Times columnist Tom] Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened. click here The War Party - BBC click here click here click here

by Buddy Olly (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 5 comments) on Monday, Mar 5, 2007 at 2:30:11 PM

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WHAT WE NEED...

is for brittany spears, or anna nicle smith (she can't now)comeout saying this stuff and maybe the media will make a bigger deal out of it.

by mike wygant (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 287 comments) on Tuesday, Mar 6, 2007 at 6:23:33 AM

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