Iraq WMD, Case for War
What was the case for war? How was it justified?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
report criticizes an intelligence assessment by the office of Douglas Feith, then a Pentagon official, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq ...
Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted | Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited | By R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington Post Staff Writer | Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A01
A report criticizes an intelligence assessment by the office of Douglas Feith, then a Pentagon official, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted | Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited | By R. Jeffrey Smith | Washington Post Staff Writer | Friday, April 6, 2007; Page A01
A report criticizes an intelligence assessment by the office of Douglas Feith, then a Pentagon official, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
Fixing the facts: Doug Feith ... + Herald Rhode, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Michael Rubin, Eleana Benador, Abram Shulsky, Ahmed Chalabi, ?...
Fixing the facts... April 05, 2007
According to the DOD IG's quietly released second version of Feith (Office of Special Plans) and the gang, we "re-learn" things we had already known, and yet there is still no legal action on the part of the DOD against Feith? Interesting... from Bloomberg, who buried their lead (emphasis mine):
"Analysts reporting to former Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith told then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, that there were ``fundamental problems with how the intelligence community is assessing information,'' the report shows.
The report concludes the Pentagon provided ``inappropriate'' analysis for its finding of a strong link between Hussein and al- Qaeda -- a finding that Vice President Dick Cheney cited as a rationale for invading Iraq along with the need to disarm the nation of weapons of mass destruction.
The criticism of the intelligence community is one of several on a slide used in the Sept. 16, 2002, White House briefing.
``The slide undercuts'' the CIA and other intelligence agencies, Acting Inspector General Thomas Gimble said in a letter to Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who released the report today.
Inclusion of the slide -- that was omitted from an earlier briefing with then-CIA Director George Tenet -- ``clearly did not bolster support for the intelligence community,'' Gimble wrote." ...
...
Fixing the facts... April 05, 2007
According to the DOD IG's quietly released second version of Feith (Office of Special Plans) and the gang, we "re-learn" things we had already known, and yet there is still no legal action on the part of the DOD against Feith? Interesting... from Bloomberg, who buried their lead (emphasis mine):
"Analysts reporting to former Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith told then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, that there were ``fundamental problems with how the intelligence community is assessing information,'' the report shows.
The report concludes the Pentagon provided ``inappropriate'' analysis for its finding of a strong link between Hussein and al- Qaeda -- a finding that Vice President Dick Cheney cited as a rationale for invading Iraq along with the need to disarm the nation of weapons of mass destruction.
The criticism of the intelligence community is one of several on a slide used in the Sept. 16, 2002, White House briefing.
``The slide undercuts'' the CIA and other intelligence agencies, Acting Inspector General Thomas Gimble said in a letter to Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who released the report today.
Inclusion of the slide -- that was omitted from an earlier briefing with then-CIA Director George Tenet -- ``clearly did not bolster support for the intelligence community,'' Gimble wrote." ...
...
The Fabricators (the fixers of fact):
The list of candidates of the likely pre-war intelligence fabricators, for me anyway, is short:
From a go-between angle: people who likely served as a go-between to either Italian intelligence and OVP, or between the OVP and the DIA, on the project:
Herald Rhode, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Michael Rubin, Eleana Benador, Abram Shulsky, Ahmed Chalabi, and a few others, including some more than willing journalists.
From a lower-level managerial angle: people who likely oversaw each smaller element of the project:
John Bolton, Doug Feith, Dov Zakheim, Peter Rodman, William Luti and a few others
From a high-level managerial angle: people who likely oversaw large parts or most if not all of the project:
Elliot Abrams, Scooter Libby, Stephen Hadley, and a few others
The Policy Cabal:
Beyond the above listed - the "decision" - crowd is hard to trace just how close to the Oval Office the fabrication scandal goes. At the very least, the following people from the OVP and DOD are likely implicated: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle.
It is nice, however, to see the IG pointing directly at Feith, as though those below and above him in rank/position, could not have known of what the OSP was doing. ...
secret plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel
The rape of Iraq's oil | March 22, 2007 1:30 PM | Printable version
The Baghdad government has caved in to a damaging plan that will enrich western companies.
The recent cabinet agreement in Baghdad on the new draft oil law was hailed as a landmark deal bringing together the warring factions in the allocation of the country's oil wealth. What was concealed was that this is being forced through by relentless pressure from the US and will sow the seeds of intense future conflict, with serious knock-on impacts on the world economy.
The draft law, now before the Iraqi parliament, sets up "production sharing partnerships" to allow the US and British oil majors to extract Iraqi oil for up to 30 years. While Iraq would retain legal ownership of its oil, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP that invest in the infrastructure and refineries would get a large share of the profits.
No other Middle Eastern oil producer has ever offered such a hugely lucrative concession to the big oil companies, since Opec has always run its oil business through tightly-controlled state companies. Only Iraq in its present dire condition, dependent on US troops for the survival of the government, lacks the bargaining capacity to resist.
This is not a new plan. According to documents obtained from the US State Department by BBC Newsnight under the US Freedom of Information Act, the US oil industry plan drafted early in 2001 for takeover of the Iraqi oilfields (after the removal of Saddam) was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, calling for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oilfields.
This secret plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas. However, Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA, who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme. As Ariel Cohen of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation later told Newsnight, an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's oilfields. ...
The rape of Iraq's oil | March 22, 2007 1:30 PM | Printable version
The Baghdad government has caved in to a damaging plan that will enrich western companies.
The recent cabinet agreement in Baghdad on the new draft oil law was hailed as a landmark deal bringing together the warring factions in the allocation of the country's oil wealth. What was concealed was that this is being forced through by relentless pressure from the US and will sow the seeds of intense future conflict, with serious knock-on impacts on the world economy.
The draft law, now before the Iraqi parliament, sets up "production sharing partnerships" to allow the US and British oil majors to extract Iraqi oil for up to 30 years. While Iraq would retain legal ownership of its oil, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP that invest in the infrastructure and refineries would get a large share of the profits.
No other Middle Eastern oil producer has ever offered such a hugely lucrative concession to the big oil companies, since Opec has always run its oil business through tightly-controlled state companies. Only Iraq in its present dire condition, dependent on US troops for the survival of the government, lacks the bargaining capacity to resist.
This is not a new plan. According to documents obtained from the US State Department by BBC Newsnight under the US Freedom of Information Act, the US oil industry plan drafted early in 2001 for takeover of the Iraqi oilfields (after the removal of Saddam) was pushed aside by a secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, calling for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oilfields.
This secret plan was crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas. However, Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA, who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme. As Ariel Cohen of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation later told Newsnight, an opportunity had been missed to privatise Iraq's oilfields. ...
Saturday, April 07, 2007
[Doug Feith / OSP] knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda ... [4 years after The Guardian found out !]
Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link | By Matt Renner | t r u t h o u t | Report | Friday 06 April 2007
Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.
A report prepared by the Defense Department's Inspector General for Carl Levin, the Democratic Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, explicitly shows how former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith used his Defense Department position to cook intelligence claiming a connection between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Inspector General's report, "Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy," focuses specifically on Feith's intelligence gathering operations in the months prior to the March 2003 invasion. An executive summary of the report was declassified in February. The full report was declassified and released Thursday at Levin's request.
"It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's inspector general concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community,' and why the Inspector General concluded that these actions were 'inappropriate,'" Levin said. "Until today, those details were classified and outside the public's view." ...
Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link | By Matt Renner | t r u t h o u t | Report | Friday 06 April 2007
Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.
A report prepared by the Defense Department's Inspector General for Carl Levin, the Democratic Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, explicitly shows how former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith used his Defense Department position to cook intelligence claiming a connection between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Inspector General's report, "Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy," focuses specifically on Feith's intelligence gathering operations in the months prior to the March 2003 invasion. An executive summary of the report was declassified in February. The full report was declassified and released Thursday at Levin's request.
"It is important for the public to see why the Pentagon's inspector general concluded that Secretary Feith's office 'developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship,' which included 'conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community,' and why the Inspector General concluded that these actions were 'inappropriate,'" Levin said. "Until today, those details were classified and outside the public's view." ...
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
George Bush’s Land Mine: If the Iraqi People Get Revenue Sharing, They Lose Their Oil to Exxon
Friday, March 30, 2007 by CommonDreams.org | George Bush’s Land Mine: If the Iraqi People Get Revenue Sharing, They Lose Their Oil to Exxon | by Richard Behan
George Bush has a land mine planted in the supplemental appropriation legislation working its way through Congress.
The Iraq Accountability Act passed by the House and the companion bill passed in the Senate contain deadlines for withdrawing our troops from Iraq, in open defiance of the President’s repeated objections.
He threatens a veto, but he might well be bluffing. Buried deep in the legislation and intentionally obscured is a near-guarantee of success for the Bush Administration’s true objective of the war-capturing Iraq’s oil-and George Bush will not casually forego that.
This bizarre circumstance is the end-game of the brilliant, ever-deceitful maneuvering by the Bush Administration in conducting the entire scenario of the “global war on terror.”
The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet a series of “benchmarks” President Bush established in his speech to the nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the “surge”). Most of Mr. Bush’s benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis to solve the problems George Bush himself created.
One of the President’s benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the President described it: “To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That’s all Mr. Bush said about that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be intentional.
The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only “benchmark” that truly matters to his Administration.
Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.
If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it. ...
Friday, March 30, 2007 by CommonDreams.org | George Bush’s Land Mine: If the Iraqi People Get Revenue Sharing, They Lose Their Oil to Exxon | by Richard Behan
George Bush has a land mine planted in the supplemental appropriation legislation working its way through Congress.
The Iraq Accountability Act passed by the House and the companion bill passed in the Senate contain deadlines for withdrawing our troops from Iraq, in open defiance of the President’s repeated objections.
He threatens a veto, but he might well be bluffing. Buried deep in the legislation and intentionally obscured is a near-guarantee of success for the Bush Administration’s true objective of the war-capturing Iraq’s oil-and George Bush will not casually forego that.
This bizarre circumstance is the end-game of the brilliant, ever-deceitful maneuvering by the Bush Administration in conducting the entire scenario of the “global war on terror.”
The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet a series of “benchmarks” President Bush established in his speech to the nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the “surge”). Most of Mr. Bush’s benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis to solve the problems George Bush himself created.
One of the President’s benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the President described it: “To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That’s all Mr. Bush said about that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be intentional.
The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only “benchmark” that truly matters to his Administration.
Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.
If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it. ...
