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February 9th,
2007 - Prewar Intelligence Unit at Pentagon Is Criticized News article by the New York Times Review of Pre-War Activities of
the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy |
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Prewar Intelligence Unit at
Pentagon Is Criticized By David S. Cloud and Mark Mazzetti New York Times February 9, 2007 Washington, Feb. 8 - A
Pentagon investigation into the handling of prewar intelligence has
criticized civilian Pentagon officials for conducting their own intelligence
analysis to find links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but said the
officials did not violate any laws or mislead Congress, according to
Congressional officials who have read the report. The long-awaited report by
the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, was sent to
Congress on Thursday. It is the first major review to rebuke senior officials
working for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the way intelligence was
used before the invasion of Iraq early in 2003. Working under Douglas J.
Feith, who at the time was under secretary of defense for policy, the group
“developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence
assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some
conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence
Community, to senior decision-makers,” the report concluded. Excerpts were
quoted by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who has long been critical
of Mr. Feith and other Pentagon officials. The report, and the dueling
over its conclusions, shows that bitter divisions over the handling of prewar
intelligence remain even after many of the substantive questions have been
laid to rest and the principal actors have left the government. In a rebuttal to an earlier
draft of Mr. Gimble’s report, Eric S. Edelman, the under secretary of
defense, said the group’s activities were authorized by Mr. Rumsfeld and his
deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz. They did not produce formal intelligence
assessments, and they were properly shared, the rebuttal said. In a statement issued
Thursday, Mr. Feith, who left the Pentagon in 2005, made similar points. Mr.
Rumsfeld did not respond to telephone messages seeking comment. According to Congressional
officials, Mr. Feith’s statement and the policy office’s rebuttal, the report
concluded that none of the Pentagon’s activities were illegal and that they
did not violate Defense Department directives. But the chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, said in a
statement that because the inspector general considered the work of Mr.
Feith’s group to be “intelligence activities,” the committee would
investigate whether the Pentagon violated the National Security Act of 1947
by failing to notify Congress about the group’s work. Senator Levin, who is
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the report a “very
strong condemnation” of the Pentagon’s activities. “I think they sought this
kind of intelligence. They made it clear they wanted any kind of possible
connections, no matter how skimpy, and they got it,” he said. Mr. Feith and other
officials in his Pentagon office have been accused by critics of the
administration of distorting intelligence data to justify the invasion of
Iraq. When Democrats were in the minority in Congress, Mr. Levin conducted an
inquiry and issued a report excoriating Mr. Feith and others at the Pentagon
for their conduct. The conclusions the Pentagon
team reached in the year or so before the invasion of Iraq have been
generally known for some time and were largely discredited by the Sept. 11
commission, which found “no evidence” that contacts between the Iraqi
government and Al Qaeda “ever developed into a collaborative operational
relationship.” According to Mr. Levin, the
inspector general’s report did not make any specific recommendations, and he
said that interagency coordination “will significantly reduce the opportunity
for the inappropriate conduct of intelligence activities outside of
intelligence channels.” The Senate Intelligence
Committee, meanwhile, is completing work on its own investigation into the
use of intelligence by policy makers in the months before the Iraq war. Under
Republican leadership, it had delayed an examination of Mr. Feith’s
activities pending the outcome of the inspector general’s report. The Pentagon’s rebuttal
vehemently rejected the report’s contention that there was “inappropriate”
use of intelligence by Pentagon civilians and said the effort to identify
links between Saddam Hussein’s government and Al Qaeda was done at the
direction of Mr. Wolfowitz, who was deputy defense secretary at the time. Describing the work as a
“fresh, critical look” at intelligence agency conclusions about Al Qaeda and
Iraq, the Pentagon rebuttal said, “It is somewhat difficult to understand how
activities that admittedly were lawful and authorized (in this case by either
the secretary of defense or the deputy secretary of defense) could
nevertheless be characterized as ‘inappropriate.’” The Feith operation dates to
shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when the Pentagon established a
small team of civilians to sift through existing intelligence with the aim of
finding possible links between terror networks and governments. Bush
administration officials contended that intelligence agencies were ignoring
reports of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. By the summer of 2002, the
group, whose membership evolved over time, was aimed at identifying links
between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. The inspector general’s
report criticizes a July 25, 2002, memo, written by an intelligence analyst
detailed to Mr. Feith’s office, titled, “Iraq and al-Qaida: Making the Case.” The memo said that, while
“some analysts have argued” that Osama bin Laden would not cooperate with
secular Arab entities like Iraq, “reporting indicates otherwise.” The inspector general
concluded that the memo constituted an “alternative intelligence assessment”
from that given by the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence
agencies and that it led to a briefing on links between Al Qaeda and Iraq
that was given to senior Bush administration officials in August 2002,
according to excerpts of the draft inspector general report quoted by Mr.
Edelman. It is not clear whether the
inspector general revised his report after receiving the rebuttal. The draft inspector general
report said Mr. Feith’s office should have followed intelligence agency
guidelines for registering differing views, “in those rare instances where
consensus could not be reached.” In his statement Thursday,
Mr. Feith said he was pleased that the inspector general had cleared him of
violating laws or Defense Department policies, but he called it “wrong” and
“bizarre” for the report to criticize civilian officials for scrutinizing
intelligence agency conclusions and passing along their findings to senior
officials. Mr. Feith also said that the
inspector general’s findings reflected “confusion about the way policy and
intelligence officials relate to one another in the real world.” Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/washington/09feith.html |