Why Our Feith-Based Iraqi Policy Failed

Here we go again. Another architect of the Iraq war's disastrous aftermath has written a spine-tingling tell-all that basically reads as a had-you-listened-to-me-none-of-this-would've-happened fairy tale. Douglas Feith, a neo-con from the Henry "Scoop" Jackson School for War Mongering Idealists and former No. 3 man at the Pentagon, insists had we followed his plan, Iraq would be a thriving, oil-rich and IED-free democracy with Baghdad its shining city upon a hill. His plan? Install Ahmed Chalabi as leader and more or less get out of Dodge. The discredited former Iraqi exile would have calmed sectarian nerves and kept a civil war from erupting. Right on, Doug.

That someone with so warped a view of the Middle East could have held so high a post in the U.S. government is chilling. Here is a man who ran a clandestine office in the Defense Department with the Orwellian title "Office of Special Plans." Its mission was to stovepipe intelligence stemming from the CIA (which was supposed to be run by one Paul Wolfowitz but he kept on getting caught having extramarital affairs with staffers). Feith was especially keen on proving a link existed between Saddam and al-Qaeda while over-hyping Iraqi links with Niger on the sale of yellowcake uranium and a supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammad Atta and an Iraqi spook.

Feith also insists he did not sign off on the order to disband the Iraqi army on May 24 2003. That does not seem to square with what others, including Paul Bremer, have written. Bremer says the day before the decision was made, he "reviewed every word of the order" with Feith. But Feith told 60 Minutes last night that he "was not in on those conversations." Whoa, that seems implausible. The man tasked with building a postwar Iraq was kept out of the loop about disbanding the Iraqi army? That's like the Vatican adding another commandment without informing the pope.

It gets worse. Army Colonel Paul Hughes, who was part of a Pentagon "expeditionary" outfit called the ORHA, was tasked to draft a political-military plan for postwar Iraq. As George Packer wrote in The Assassins' Gate, "Feith stopped the idea cold." Probably because it smelled too similar to the State Department's prewar Future of Iraq Project. In his own ass-saving memoir, CIA head George Tenet calls Feith "a man eager to manipulate intelligence to push the country to war." What's incredible is that only in the field of foreign policy can someone have so disastrous a record and be showered with medals, endowed chairs at prestigious think tanks, and even a professorship at Georgetown University's esteemed Walsh School of Foreign Service. It boggles the mind.

Comments

[sillyseason]

Douglas Feith, another chicken hawk, old enough to have served in Viet Nam (Born 1953), but like his chicken hawk bosses, he chose not to... Yet, he has the gall to create military policy that is responsible for the abuse of Iraqis, and the deaths of American soldiers...

Now he's out peddling his novel of "experience." My God, is this what America has come to?

I sure hope enough Americans have learned our lesson trusting our country's defense to cowards who were too afraid to personally defend their country in Vietnam, but had no problem sending your children and grand children to die and be maimed (physically and mentally) in a pathetic hijacking of Iraq.

[sdrawkcab]

Breaker for the Boinkerboy-Goerge-Unholy-Bush, you got your ears on, come back.
10-4 good buddy.
Mercy sakes alive, we got us a convoy of stupidshits, haulin' ass down an endless backalley.
If they're gonna start pointing fingers, there aint but one direction, and they been ridin 7-years bumper to bumper behind that flatbed with the half-load and a busted antenna.
Now, they're fixin' to get behind ole-straight-hawk-guzzle-hummer with the confederate flag mudflaps. Not one of 'em could answer a 10-20, yet some stalled out bulldozer-thinks-hes-a-jaguar wants to key-in with a bunch of moaning from the rumbleseat?
Damnit, who said "that's a Roger" ?

[gruengast]

Notably, paragraph 2, while broaching the subject via mention of Plamegate, fails to make any mention of Sibel Edmonds, or Feith's apparent central role in this controversy - his other failures pale in comparison. Stop playing the gatekeeper Mer. Beehner!

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

*

Iraq Nam: A Feith-Based Initiative.

*

[Durango]

Is that the I WASN'T GIVING ORDERS defense against War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity?

[PauCK]

Usually history is written ( re-written ) by the victors. Perhaps all this "he-said, she-said" is the Bush boy's attempt at preemptive history re-writing?

Even as a kid I knew it was easier to tell the truth than to try to remember your last lie and keep it straight. It is catching up with everyone from Bush, through his chain of command on down...trying to remember the last lie.

[cobraxus]

what really boggles the mind is that the MSM continues to play(hard)ball with these morons.I guess their mentality is "Well,he's one of us."

[Decipherer]

Well, I'm not so sure about the MSM in this instance. Fact is, Feith may be the dumbest sumbitch on the planet, or worse, but he's newsworthy and his self-effacing book is bankable.

Electronic media is all about ratings, and the more eyes on the box, the better for their ad revenues. Feith, being a controversial person to say the least, will put butts in the couch looking and listening to his excuses, rationales, and revisionist history (or histrionics).

That "60 Minutes" interview was tough and as another has said hereabouts, Dougie came off looking bewildered and foolish. Then, he appears on "Morning Joe" today, and Scarborough was so excited and entralled it looked like he was ready to do the horizontal mambo with him right then and there! With Mika & Willie-boy looking on!

Disgusting.

Of course, Joe had to wrap up the love-fest by saying that piece of NeoCon garbage to the effect that because we instigated the war ON Iraq, and there have been no terrorist attacks on the U.S. in the last six years, that VOILA! The invasion and occupation was worth it!

I just about put my foot through the television set.

He's supposed to be so smart -- a lawyer, former congressman and all. I guess he never heard that coincidence is not causation, a fairly basic concept.

[Plowboy]

The Neoconservative political philosophy, as presented by Leo Strauss, is strongly Zionist and globalist, is heavily influenced by the philosophy of Carl Schmitt and other Nazis. The Platonic "Noble Lie" to fool the people into stuuporting an "elite" is a major part of how they operate.
In the PNAC document "Rebuiding America's Defenses" the invaasion of Iraq is projected and there is states clearly what thge purposes are: hegemony and oil. And it even says that Saddaam Hussein could be used as a PRETEXT. Note that those who led us into the war (Wolfowitz, etc.) started moving to other positions as soon as that object had been achieved and before the outcome was obvious to the nation.
No push is made to expose these Elite liars, beccause who likes to admit that they were made SUCKERS of?

[BarryLeonardini]

You got it right. There is one hopeful sign. There are only about 6-7 million Zionist left in the world. It looks like they are going extinct. They wont be missed.

[Decipherer]

What exactly are you saying here? I hope it isn't what I think it is, as crudely worded as your screed reads.

Specifically, how are they "going extinct," and why won't you miss them?

Are you equating NeoCONS and Zionists somehow because it would appear to some that that former are mostly Jewish and the latter are probably all Jewish?

I think you are treading on dangerous ground here, "Lennie," and frankly I am surprised that Adrianna didn't yank you off the site.

Form reading this, you sound like an ignorant, possibly anti-Semitic, imbecile (Oops! A triple redundancy!). If not, you've grossly generalized the undeniable and egregious faults of a few onto the many.

I suggest you either withdraw your comments and apologize, or "revise and extend" your remarks at the pleasure of the chair.

Now.

[realpolitic]

Feith is one of many in this administration who should be facing charges. All the information he came up with in the Office of Special Plans linking Saddam and al-Qaida was lies. He was, I believe, almost prosecuted the first time he was in government, as well. His present claim to fame is that he was charged with no wrongdoing, only incompetence. Only a man like Feith could be proud of that assessment.

[Cedman]

Half these people from the Bush admin. should be in orange jump suits and leg irons...

[SeriousBlack]

EVERYthing about this administration boggles the mind.

[toucan]

Another example of the Bush administrations staffing our most important positions with people who could not find their ass with with either hand, or if they could they would swear it was someone else's.

[Rog49Thomas]

A lot of what happened in Iraq might be explained here.

http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm

And why some still keep the faith with Brother Feith.

Note who signed this document and match them to key players in the Pan Administration's ME policy.

[BethStuart]

I was surprised that this aspect of Feith's activities hasn't come up in the 60 Minutes interview or in his NPR interview I heard broadcast this morning. It seems to be the elephant in the room. Everybody knows it's there but nobody wants to mention it.

[Rog49Thomas]

I wasn't.

[LightningJoe]

I caught Feith on Sixty Minutes, and he didn't come off well at all.

He's just another deserting rat, trying to rewrite history. These bozos seem to think that their offenses were "just between the boys," and that everyone's memory is as convenient as theirs is.

I bet Feith is another one of those busy policy wonks that "don't use email," too.

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Kill lies. Kill tv.

[charlesrfd2003]

There are two kinds of people who object to the war in Iraq.
The first is the person who sees this as immoral and counter productive. This person wants real peace and realizes that the American culture has a major evil flaw in it that corrupts everything. Father Roy Bourgeois is an example.

The second is a person who likes the idea of war but sees this effort as incompetent. This person sees the USA as an international good guy. Unfortunately, most Americans are in this group and they are looking a leader who will do war right.

There is a third type. This person wants an American Empire and will do anything to achieve it. Chaney is this type.

Until average Americans in the second group confront their history, we will continue to repeat it. Here are some websites that list the wars. Remember if troops come into your country, that is a war even if the invader never declares war. We have a long history of making war to get our way. Today, we are doing it on a much larger scale than before.

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl30172.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events
http://www.english.wisc.edu/ascs/readings/JUH275570.pdf
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/filibusters.htm
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/filibusters/schemers.htm

The number of events startled me. How about you?

[LightningJoe]

The average American will never "confront their history," because the average American doesn't know their history. They are ignorant, and want it that way. But then for some reason I can't fathom, they think they have a right to complain about how the country is run.

Scripted "reality" tv is much more important to Joe Average, than knowing how the decisions are being made, and by whom. Funny, though, that's the way the decision-makers like it. An ignorant public can be guided by the slave media, and will follow predictable patterns. Whereas, when people start paying attention, they get mad and unpredictable. Witness the trouble pollsters are having, trying to get ahead of the Obama phenom.

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(Sssszzt...) This is your brain, on TV.

[Decipherer]

I have to agree with you, "Charles" and "Lightning," to my regret and dismay.

While on the one hand we have people in other parts of the world killing each other with fervent zeal over conflicts that occurred hundreds if not a thousand years ago, we as a country seem to be living in a nightmarish "Groundhog Day" world, where each day is the same damn jingoistic blur.

For example, despite the fact that polls show 81% of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction (much of that because of the war ON Iraq), voters still seem to favor John McCain over either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama by over 15%!

McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years (that is, afer the shooting stops, whenever thaqt might be) and the Democrats want out as soon as practicable. So, how is it that he could be favored by a wide margin on this issue?

Bizarre!

We are an ignorant nation suffering from cognitive dissonance, ADHD, and God knows what other disfunctions. Bad combination when we've got so many challenges in the world and everyone wanting to eat our lunch.