Secret Proposals:Fighting Terror by Attacking.. South America?(Feith memo}

[Robbien]

Aug. 9 issue - Days after 9/11, a senior Pentagon official lamented the lack of good targets in Afghanistan and proposed instead U.S. military attacks in South America or Southeast Asia as "a surprise to the terrorists," according to a footnote in the recent 9/11 Commission Report. The unsigned top-secret memo, which the panel's report said appears to have been written by Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, is one of several Pentagon documents uncovered by the commission which advance unorthodox ideas for the war on terror. The memo suggested "hitting targets outside the Middle East in the initial offensive" or a "non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq," the panel's report states. U.S. attacks in Latin America and Southeast Asia were portrayed as a way to catch the terrorists off guard when they were expecting an assault on Afghanistan.

The memo's content, NEWSWEEK has learned, was in part the product of ideas from a two-man secret Pentagon intelligence unit appointed by Feith after 9/11: veteran defense analyst Michael Maloof and Mideast expert David Wurmser, now a top foreign-policy aide to Dick Cheney. Maloof and Wurmser saw links between international terror groups that the CIA and other intelligence agencies dismissed. They argued that an attack on terrorists in South America—for example, a remote region on the border of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil where intelligence reports said Iranian-backed Hizbullah had a presence—would have ripple effects on other terrorist operations. The proposals were floated to top foreign-policy advisers. But White House officials stress they were regarded warily and never adopted.

Unorthodox: Feith had different ideas for answering 9/11
Other proposals got greater traction. The 9/11 Commission says the idea of attacking Iraq also was pushed in a Sept. 17 memo by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz argued that the odds were "far more" than one in 10 that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, citing in part theories by controversial academic Laurie Mylroie that Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was an Iraqi intelligence agent. (The commission's report found "no credible evidence" that Iraq was behind the 1993 attack—and no Iraqi involvement in 9/11. A Wolfowitz aide said the memo "did not talk about theories, but facts.") Still, critics say, the ideas put forward by Wolfowitz, Feith and others in the Pentagon set the stage for the war in Iraq. The 9/11 Commission plans to put more aspects of the government's secret war on terror into the public domain this month, including a report on the role of Saudi-backed charities in financing Al Qaeda.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5570015/site/newsweek/

[lefty_mcduff]

1. They wanted to attack a "non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq,"

That's smoking gun #321

[lottie244]

9. So, let me get this one right, we said Iraq was a "non-Al-qadea target"

So when the Bush regime says they were taking the fight to the perp of 9/11 which was Al-qaeda, they are lying once again? I hope this memo gets wide distribution in the media and the world.

[lefty_mcduff]

12. That's how it reads to me.

Not holding my breath on the "wide distribution" though.

[tlcandie]

2. So, in essence it was let's see.....

We need/want war..make good profits for us and our friends wallets. I know! Let's just spin the globe and play pin the tail on the donkey and see where we attack next!!!!

Total warmongering idiots!

[RC]

3. We have to round these criminals up and

put them in jail where they belong. World peace & survival depends on it.

[msanthrope]

4. I wonder how close to oil fields the South

American strikes would have been?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. We've already been involved, and probably still are, with the...

...attempted overthrow of the legally elected government of Venezuela, a 1960 Founder Member of OPEC.

[msanthrope]

13. That's exactly what I was alluding to. Imagine if we could

secure an oil supply without having to fight 'Arabs' for it.

[ChrisK]

5. If they really wanted to catch Al Qaeda off guard...

They should have bombed Kansas and shouted "TAKE THAT ALL YOU TERRORISTS!!".

Well the good thing is now we have "turned a corner"..right smack into a wall..the wall being the truth in what was going on before,during and after the 9/11 attacks and our government still (I just can't get over this part) STIL wouldn't take the action against the persons in charge when it happened.

I feel a chill in the air....

[Eloriel]

6. OMG. He relly is insane, isn't he? n/t

[Fovea]

8. Granted that the American people

are perhaps the most un-informed citizens of any free nation, but how stupid must they think we are to look at such a statement and not just piss all over the speaker.

Please, Democratic party, let someone like Gephardt, or even Lieberman (who needs to restore a little good karma) who are never going to run for prez again, to go out there and start kicking these corrupt, cynical bastids in the yarbles for saying shit like this.

I say we let Byrd have the job as a possible retirement present.

[bobthedrummer]

10. Traitors, imo, like Douglas Feith should be tried for their crimes

and, if found guilty, shot.

Here are some more articles about Douglas Feith.

Complete timeline of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Douglas Feith's Pentagon offices
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq&iraq_themes=officeOfSpecialPlans

Pentagon's Feith Again At Center Of Disaster
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0520-02.htm

Donald Rumsfeld's al Qaeda
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/070904Stanton-Madsen/070904stanton-madsen.html

Who else calls Feith a traitor?

[MisterP]

11. remember 'em babbling about al Qaeda cells in Venezuela,

as another excuse to whack Chavez?

[mitchtv]

14. an attack on Brazil or Argentina

might bring unexpected consequences, like 2 new nuclear powers. An attack on Venezuela would make Iraq look like sunday schoo. It would attract Farc from Coombia and those in Peru for a chance to whack gringo imperialist invaders

[scottxyz]

15. a "non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq" -- Feith

Straight from the horse's mouth.

[scottxyz]

16. Hey, let's attack Antarctica...

...I bet that would REALLY throw the terrorists off!

I think these gentlemen have watched too many TV shows and they need to get out and learn how the world really works.

[johnfunk]

17. a "non Al Qaeda target", like maybe Hugo Chavez...

... these ratcheneying bastards would like nothing better than a rerun of the Contra episode of the Iran-Contra Follies.

[Disturbed]

18. "non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq,"

Obviously, Darth Chainy didn't read that memo.