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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:23 PM
Original message
Google news experiment: Office of Special Projects.
Edited on Tue Feb-03-04 01:34 PM by salin
It seemed to me, that in the last several days of 'Kay coverage' with blame being placed on poor intelligence, that I had seen very little mention of the Office of Special Projects.

It seems to me, that this little group - while well known here - is not familiar to the public, and will not prick the public psyche unless it gets mentioned as fact, again and again in these stories.

It also seems to me - that any bush appointed 'investigation' - would be seen as a joke by the public if it did not include a discussion/mention of OSP.... IF (and only if) it has pricked the public psyche.

So.

I tried an experiment. Google News: Office of Special Projects.

Here is what I found.

1. (an hour ago) - Working for Change (read by liberals - but not quite the general public)... Item by Molly Ivins

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16007

Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
02.03.04

The 'everybody was wrong' excuse
Let's get to the bottom of the intelligence failure, not hide behind it

LONDON -- In a way, it was heartbreaking to watch the Mother of Parliaments deal with half of a particularly nasty problem in an impressive way. It was sad and depressing for an American because the United States seems so unable even to begin to address the first half of the same problem -- how and why were we so badly misled about the reasons for going to war with Iraq. Did our leaders lie to us, knowingly distort or exaggerate? Or was their own intelligence that bad, and if so, why? And why isn't something being done about it

--snip--

If I were British, I'd like to know why the intelligence people fouled up, especially whether the phony 45-minute claim came from either the Iraqi National Congress or the Pentagon's Office of Special Projects, both of which should have been notorious by then.

--snip--

Whereas, in the United States, we know there was an Office of Special Projects set up in the Pentagon before the war precisely to embellish intelligence reports, if not with known falsities -- always a bad practice -- at least by "sexing up" what was known and blowing up some very dubious claims. Anyone for a commission of inquiry?

More...


THAT WAS IT - in five pages of searches...


So I tried again with "Pentagon Office of Special Projects"

1. Editorial (good) Minneapolis Star Tribune

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4354176.html

Editorial: WMD inquiry/But on the president's terms


Published February 3, 2004 ED0203A

President Bush will appoint an independent, bipartisan commission to evaluate America's intelligence operations. He says it will be forward-looking; it will take 18 months to do its work, and it will be comprehensive in its scope. Questions about the administration's case for war with Iraq will be examined, but in a "broader context."

We've been among those who've called for an outside investigation into the administration's case for war, so we're glad an intelligence inquiry will be conducted. The way this commission will be set up, however, is far from ideal. What really is needed is an acknowledgement that something went wrong -- and a timely, specific look not only at the intelligence that led the United States to war but also how it was interpreted and used to sell the war.

--snip--

Be clear about something else, too: The neoconservatives who designed this war had spent years criticizing the U.S. intelligence community for underplaying the threat from Iraq. The neocons were being fed a line of baloney by the Iraqi National Congress and its defectors, and the CIA wasn't buying it. When the Bush administration came into office, it thought so little of what the CIA and other agencies were presenting on Iraq that it set up a special, new unit at the Pentagon to go over the raw data and make its own judgments. For the neocons to suggest that the White House got sold bogus intelligence by the CIA is ludicrous.

more...


Good in that it mentions the special office - but doesn't give it the name... so this does not contribute to making this office (OSP) something that sticks in the public's mind.


2. January 21, 2003; Editorial - Aljazeera (not only not read in the US; but probably discounted by many... thus not likely to get the message out). But wait - this is Sen. Ted Kennedy's speech - so maybe it was picked up and printed somewhere in the US...

Aljazeerah editorial

America, Iraq and Presidential Leadership

Remarks of Edward M. Kennedy

Jan 21, 2004
Back to American Progress

United States Senate (D-MA) Washington, D.C., January 14, 2004

Thank you General Nash for that generous introduction.

General Nash had an impressive career in the U.S. Army. His experience and expertise in conflict prevention and post-war reconstruction from his leadership in the Balkans has greatly assisted the debate on post-war Iraq.

--snip--

The advocates of war in Iraq desperately sought to make the case that Saddam was linked to 9/11 and Al Qaeda, and that he was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability. They created an Office of Special Projects in the Pentagon to analyze the intelligence for war. They bypassed the traditional screening process and put pressure on intelligence officers to produce the desired intelligence and analysis.


more...


3. Article - Atlantic Monthly, January 14, 2003. (Select readership - again, not the public, but still... getting the word out there) But look at the author... Ken Pollack - isn't this the guy who has been pretty supportive of the bushco agenda? (I could be wrong...)

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/pollack.htm
Spies, Lies, and Weapons:
What Went Wrong

How could we have been so far off in our estimates of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs? A leading Iraq expert and intelligence analyst in the Clinton Administration—whose book The Threatening Storm proved deeply influential in the run-up to the war—gives a detailed account of how and why we erred

by Kenneth M. Pollack

.....


et's start with one truth: last March, when the United States and its coalition partners invaded Iraq, the American public and much of the rest of the world believed that after Saddam Hussein's regime sank, a vast flotsam of weapons of mass destruction would bob to the surface. That, of course, has not been the case. In the words of David Kay, the principal adviser to the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), an organization created late last spring to search for prohibited weaponry, "I think all of us who entered Iraq expected the job of actually discovering deployed weapons to be easier than it has turned out to be." Many people are now asking very reasonable questions about why they were misled.

Democrats have typically accused the Bush Administration of exaggerating the threat posed by Iraq in order to justify an unnecessary war. Republicans have typically claimed that the fault lay with the CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, which they say overestimated the threat from Iraq—a claim that carries the unlikely implication that Bush's team might not have opted for war if it had understood that Saddam was not as dangerous as he seemed.

Both sides appear to be at least partly right. The intelligence community did overestimate the scope and progress of Iraq's WMD programs, although not to the extent that many people believe. The Administration stretched those estimates to make a case not only for going to war but for doing so at once, rather than taking the time to build regional and international support for military action.

--snip--

As Seymour Hersh, among others, has reported, Bush Administration officials also took some actions that arguably crossed the line between rigorous oversight of the intelligence community and an attempt to manipulate intelligence. They set up their own shop in the Pentagon, called the Office of Special Plans, in order to sift through the information on Iraq themselves. To a great extent OSP personnel "cherry-picked" the intelligence they passed on, selecting reports that supported the Administration's pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest.

Most problematic of all, the OSP often chose to believe reports that trained intelligence officers considered unreliable or downright false. In particular it gave great credence to reports from the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader was the Administration-backed Ahmed Chalabi. It is true that the intelligence community believed some of the material that came from the INC—but not most of it. (In retrospect, of course, it seems that even the intelligence professionals gave INC reporting more credence than it deserved.) One of the reasons the OSP generally believed Chalabi and the INC was that they were telling it what it wanted to hear—giving the OSP, in a kind of vicious circle, further incentive to trust these sources over differing, and ultimately more reliable, ones. Thus intelligence analysts spent huge amounts of time fighting bad information and trying to persuade Administration officials not to make policy decisions based on it. From my own experience I know that it is hard enough to figure out what the reliable evidence indicates—and vast battles are fought over that. To have to also fight over what is clearly bad information is a Sisyphean task.

more (and he goes on and on about OSP)


Note to self - Pollack refers to it as "Office of Special Plans".

Since these were all that came up on this google news search... I decided to do one last search: "Pentagon Office Special Plans".


BINGO BINGO BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Detroit Free Press (ten hours ago)
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/intel3_20040203.htm

Bush plan for Iraq panel hits criticism

Dems suggest panel won't be impartial
February 3, 2004

BY DEB RIECHMANN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush announced Monday he would form an independent panel to help uncover "all the facts" about U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons, even as Democratic critics questioned whether the panel would be impartial.

Democrats also complained its findings wouldn't be out until after the presidential election.

--snip--

Current and former U.S officials told the Free Press Washington Bureau on Monday that they fear that Bush will try to limit the inquiry's scope to the CIA and other agencies and ignore the key role the Bush administration's own internal intelligence efforts played.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, didn't dispute that the CIA failed to accurately assess the state of Iraq's weapons programs. But they said that intelligence efforts led by Vice President Dick Cheney magnified the errors through exaggeration, oversights and mistaken deductions.

Those efforts bypassed normal channels, used Iraqi exiles and defectors of questionable reliability, and produced findings on Hussein's links to Al Qaeda and his illicit arms programs that were disputed by analysts at the CIA, the State Department and other agencies, the officials said.

"There were more agencies than the CIA providing intelligence that are worth scrutiny," including a now-disbanded Pentagon Office of Special Plans "and the Office of the Vice President," said a former senior military official, who helped plan the Iraq invasion and requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

more...



2. Miami Herald - ten hours ago

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/7861302.htm
Cheney may face scrutiny on Iraq
Current and former officials want the Iraq intelligence inquiry to study the role of Vice President Cheney and Pentagon hawks.
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY, WARREN P. STROBEL AND JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
jlanday@krwashington.com

WASHINGTON - What went wrong with intelligence on Iraq will never be known unless the inquiry proposed by President Bush examines secret intelligence efforts led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon hawks, current and former U.S officials said Monday.

The officials said they feared that Bush, gearing up his fight for reelection, would try to limit the inquiry's scope to the CIA and other agencies and ignore the key role the administration's own internal intelligence efforts played in making the case for war.

--snip--

'There were more agencies than CIA providing intelligence . . . that are worth scrutiny, including the Office of Special Plans and the office of the vice president,'' said a former senior military official who was involved in planning the Iraq invasion.

more...



3. knight ridder (does this mean it goes to all of their papers?)
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/7859047.htm

Same story as the Miami Herald.


4. 3 hours ago - Tompaine.com
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9884
The CIA Ate My Homework

Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Virginia, who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is currently working on a book about America's policy toward political Islam over the past 30 years.


Can President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Pentagon neoconservatives get away with blaming the Central Intelligence Agency for the mess in Iraq?

They’re trying.

In the year and half before the war began in March, Cheney and the neocons constantly disparaged the CIA for underestimating the threat posed by Iraq. In public and in private, they lambasted the agency for overcautiousness. Behind the scenes, they pressured analysts—not to mention George Tenet, the CIA director, whose spine seems made of soft clay—to find more, more, more evidence of Iraq’s WMD and of Iraq’s (nonexistent) connections to Al Qaeda. They created a mini-intelligence unit inside the Pentagon, staffed by neoconservative ideologues such as Abram Shulsky and David Wurmser, to scour mounds of intelligence tidbits and extract incriminating evidence to prove what wasn’t provable. They treated Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress as a virtual Oracle of Delphi, giving credence to the lying defectors and bogus intelligence he produced, even as the CIA warned that Chalabi was a fraud. They gave credence to the cockeyed theories of Laurie Mylroie, who believed not only that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 but that he was the mastermind behind Tim McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing, too. And, disregarding CIA warnings, they convinced Bush to say that Iraq was secretly trying to buy uranium for A-bombs in West Africa, even though the documents they cited were forged.

--snip--

So, aided by the malleable Kay, the White House decided to punt, calling for one of those Kissingeresque blue-ribbon commissions that will report back in, oh, say, 2005. And though its scope is supposedly undecided as yet, you can count on it picking apart years of CIA reports on Iraq while avoiding an inquiry into Cheney’s office and the Pentagon’s Shulsky-Wurmser Office of Special Plans. Same in Congress: the GOP-led intelligence committees have no intention of investigating the politically explosive Cheney-OSP nexus, and they’re resisting Democratic demands for a wider inquiry.

more...


More - so just listing where this shows up

National Review
Niagara Falls Reporter
New Yorker (Feb 1)

These are the most recent.

Print these up - pass them around. Get the word out. It is important.
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truthspeaker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:24 PM
Response to Original message
1. Good idea, but I'm pretty sure it was called Office of Special Plans
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:25 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Found that out - still editing
hit return to soon...
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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:51 PM
Response to Original message
3. kick - thanks for investigating and reporting to us
nt
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GoBlue Donating Member (930 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:53 PM
Response to Original message
4. Anyone know how to 'setup' Google
To have the first link in a 'Iraq investigation' search point to the Detroit Free Press article?
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:55 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. try using google news ... then add "detroit free press" to your
search terms - it may not be the first - but it should be one of the first.
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rocktivity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:54 PM
Response to Original message
5. I wonder how much of that "poor" intelligence
came from people who were tortured.


rocknation



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WherestheOutrage Donating Member (32 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:54 PM
Response to Original message
6. Outstanding Research
And we will no doubt see in the coming weeks, if at all confusion between the "Special Projects" office and the erstwhile "Office of Special Plans." Undoubtedly, what ever commission is charted (rigged) to look at the evidence will find a black hole where the "Special Plans" office, its occupants, and documentation used to be.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:58 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. This is why it is so important for this Office (OSP) (yes plans... mea
culpa aside)... to be refered to again and again in the general press.

Then any investigation with NO mention of it - will not believed by anyone who is not a die-hard rightwingechochamber media consumer (which is MOST of the US). Heck - if that becomes the theme (a report comes out but no mention....) then even the echochamber will have to start repeating the term over and over and over as they try to refutue it.

All about finally being able to successfully play the "framing the issue" in the public.
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Cooley Hurd Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:55 PM
Response to Original message
8. We need to write our senators and congresspersons (and MEDIA)...
Edited on Tue Feb-03-04 02:00 PM by alg0912
We cannot allow the Bush administration to frame the inquiry! This is WAY too important. Men and women are still being killed daily because of the Chimp's screw-ups! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!

(edited to include media outlets)

You can find out who your congressperson is by clicking here

Here's the text of my email to my senators and congressman (please feel free to use my email as your own):

(Your senator or congresspersons here);

I'm sure you must be as troubled as I am by President Bush's insistence that he is allowed to choose the members of the yet-to-be-formed bipartisan panel that will be investigating the intelligence failures leading to the war in Iraq. This is absolutely not acceptable. Over 500 brave men and women of our Armed Forces are dead. Thousands more are injured and wounded.

The Bush administration needs to be held accountable for the decision to go to war with Iraq. Blaming the CIA is not an acceptable answer. When will President Bush accept responsibility for his actions? The answer is never, based on his track record. That's why it's time that members of congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, stand up to the Bush administration. Ask them about the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans." Ask them why they feel it's necessary to stonewall the commission investigating the 9-11 attacks. Ask them why they feel compelled to withhold Vice President Cheney's documents regarding his meetings on energy policy. Those documents alone might hold the key to their real motives for invading Iraq. As per former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (a man of impeccable integrity), the intent to invade Iraq came long before 9-11, which, according to the Bush Administration, was the event that made the case for launching a pre-emptive war against nations which posed a threat to the United States.

I implore you, (Your senator or congresspersons here), to spearhead opposition to the Bush administration's attempt to cover up yet another major mistake made by them. This has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with the United States' credibility at home and abroad. If we don't, the United States will not be trusted for many years to come. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Regards,
(Your name and address here)
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:59 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. great letter
and if folks were to start getting 100 or more letters that mention OSP... they would have to start asking that question...
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maggrwaggr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 03:01 PM
Response to Reply #11
20. Great. I just wrote this to Carl Levin
Greetings --

I am not from Michigan, however, I am an angry American citizen and I watched you during the hearings where you were questioning David Kay.

I feel you are one of the few who "get it" and can actually do something about this outrageous administration.

I have never been so angry in my 42 years at my own government. I am appalled that these people took power of the White House of our great country and then abused it to start a WAR. Their reasons for this war have now been PROVEN to be 100% fabrications.

I still don't see anyone asking questions about the Office of Special Plans, Cheney and Rumsfeld's very own group of "intelligence" specialists who hand-picked the info which was used to justify the invasion.

Also, I am appalled that everyone seems to be letting Bush get away with his "independent" commission malarkey.

This is an insult to the American people.

Do they really think we're that stupid?

I'm asking you because I like the way you were questioning Kay, and I also saw you on (ugh) Fox News, and still no one seems to be mentioning the Office of Special Plans.

I also am imploring you to start a congressional inquiry into how we all got lied to.

520 soldiers dead, and we're getting stuck with the bill.

I am embarrassed to be an American these days. Please help me and others like me regain some pride in our country.

thank you for listening.
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leftchick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 04:31 PM
Response to Reply #8
25. Excellent Letter... Thanks!
I just sent out 5 to my reps and a couple other Senators I thought might actually DOP something.
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Oilwellian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 01:58 PM
Response to Original message
10. This site has a good chronology
With great sources....I just posted it as a new thread:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24889
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:01 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. Must read - more imp. must pass on to ANY fence sitter
the folks who are uncomfortable with this new news... but are having a hard time accepting that the pres and his buds would do this... they are ripe to get that last irrefutable nudge that finally shakes the denial and allows the eyes to open.
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maggrwaggr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
12. It's appalling most Americans don't even know about PNAC
much less this.

Even the "journalists" I've seen trying to do some sort of "hard hitting" piece on this subject of iraqi intelligence FAIL to mention the office of special plans.

It's fucked up.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:05 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. thats why I decided to look to see if in this week's big story
this most important link to "wtf was up with the intel?" was even mentioned. And it appears to start being mentioned.

PNAC - is becoming more common as well. Though some folks hear about it and react... "sounds good to me?!" - which I find scary - as if there is no concept of action/reaction and the realities of geopolitical reactions to such an insane approach to foreign policy. Can they say... when do China, Russia and Europe begin to work together economically and/or militarily to try to counter balance the single "superpower" that has suddenly become capricious and is suddenly perceived as a potential threat to their security?
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linazelle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:00 PM
Response to Original message
13. I don't understand how the major media overlooks this...
but when you consider the AWOL story is just making news, you can't bee too surprised.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:08 PM
Response to Reply #13
16. note - it had to get pushed into the news... and only got picked up
as an attempt to play "Gotcha" on a major democratic candidate. But then it was repeated... first by the right to try to play the ridicule/marginalize card (ala "bushaters...")... then by the left pointing out the documentation that suggests there is something there... then finally by the press itself.

The press is very... passive these days.

Maybe if some big liberals were to push this story - esp tied to the "dignified Cheney and Rummy"... the initial RNC/Rove offenses would be to ridicule... and force the whole repeat dynamic where suddenly OSP becomes a oft reported story...
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Old and In the Way Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 03:01 PM
Response to Reply #16
21. Like maybe MoveOn could organize a campaign?
This is where we can orchestrate legitimate exposure on OSP, particularly asking why the "Office" is disbanded....Mission Accomplished?
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 03:15 PM
Response to Reply #21
23. (was it really disbanded?)

I would love to see a MOVEON push for the inclusion of the operations of OSP into any administration or congressional investigation into pre iraq war intelligence.
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ElsewheresDaughter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:16 PM
Response to Original message
17. Office of Special Plans! Office of Special Plans! NOT "Projects"
although 'Projects" is just as questionable it is still NOT the agency that provided "Bad Intelligence for WMD's and reasons for the Iraq war!
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:17 PM
Response to Reply #17
18. read the post
I find it - and correct it - and find more interesting items.
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ElsewheresDaughter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 02:51 PM
Response to Reply #18
19. otay
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 03:01 PM
Response to Reply #19
22. but thanks
i wrote it as I did my experiment - so I left my little mistake (projects for plans) in... but it was a worthwhile exercise. The little devious office seems to be getting more and more mention... that is good.
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Mayberry Machiavelli Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 04:06 PM
Response to Original message
24. Also Google Douglas Feith

One of the head bumboys of this operation...

"douglas feith office of special plans"
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 05:16 PM
Response to Reply #24
28. does he garner mention
in recent stories? I used google news to get recent time frames and read the news.... I think putting the Feith into the equation (to see if HE is mentioned in the current news) is useful too. I'll try it and report back.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 05:28 PM
Response to Reply #28
32. recent news items Fieth shows up
(ala "googlenews")

1. in the KnightRidder piece (By Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers) this showed up at least in the Miami and Philadelphia papers - this is linked in the original post)

2. shows up in a Salon piece from January 26

Cheney's favorite leak
The vice president hails an "inaccurate" leak and provokes a new battle in the White House war with the intelligence community.

By Eric Boehlert
Jan. 27, 2004 | Vice President Dick Cheney's claim that a magazine article, based on leaked and unevaluated intelligence, definitively proved links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden has triggered a new round in the Bush administration's conflict with the intelligence community.

"It's disgusting," said Vincent Cannistraro, the former CIA chief of counterterrorism. "It's bullshit," said Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who served in the agency's Near East division.

--snip--

The Weekly Standard article was drawn from a "top secret U.S. government memorandum" that the magazine depicted as proving bin Laden and Saddam had an "operational relationship" that dated back nearly a decade. The memo was written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, who also oversaw the unique Office of Special Plans within the Pentagon. This small office of handpicked operatives was created under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to act as a counter to the CIA and other intelligence agencies that were seen as insufficiently loyal in providing material to help make the administration's case about Saddam's imminent threat. Since its inception, the OSP has worked outside established intelligence channels, rarely sharing its intelligence information for peer review, and has been a direct source of information, often faulty, for the White House.

Following Feith's testimony about alleged ties between Saddam and external terrorist groups before Congress last July 10, he was pressed in a follow-up letter from Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., respectively the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to provide the evidence that backed up his assertions. In response, Feith's office cited 50 instances of raw intelligence that suggested ties between the Iraqi dictator and the al-Qaida leader. Meanwhile, Feith's report also found its way to the Weekly Standard.

more: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/01/27/cheney/ (not sure if this is a "premium" article or not)

3. Capitol Hill Blue (influential libertarian Cap. Hill news source)
Cheney Cites Discredited Source as Proof of Iraq-al Qaeda Link
By M.E. SPRENGELMEYER
Jan 24, 2004, 09:33

Critics are blasting Vice President Dick Cheney for his recent interview with the Rocky Mountain News of Denver, in which he said the "best source of information" about alleged connections between Iraq and al Qaeda was a magazine article that the Pentagon already had called "inaccurate" and based on "deplorable" intelligence leaks.

In an interview before his recent fundraising trip to Denver, Cheney was asked about past statements alleging a connection between the former Iraqi regime and the terrorist group behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

---snip--

Much of the controversial article, titled "Case Closed," was based on materials sent from Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, to members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Attached to the letter were classified reports the committee requested about the alleged relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

After the magazine article was published, the Department of Defense issued a press release saying "news reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate."

The release said that the reports attached to Feith's letter were based on raw intelligence from the CIA, National Security Agency or Defense Intelligence Agency, and were "not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."

more: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_3946.shtml



In short - he shows up - but only in one of the recent stories re: intelligence failures. He is not yet becoming a mainstay name in these discussions.
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buddhamama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 04:35 PM
Response to Original message
26. were there cross overs
from the Defense Policy Board to the OSP?

i didn't read all your info yet salin, but i am curious who exactly was in the "Office" and where else they could be found.
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Zan_of_Texas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 04:44 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. also check Common Dreams
www.commondreams.org has 4 pages of hits if you put in "Office of Special Plans" into their site search box.

Veteran international writer Jim Lobe has written quite a bit about OSP also.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 05:19 PM
Response to Reply #27
30. He is great
and has done a good job as well.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 05:19 PM
Response to Reply #26
29. Have you read Seymour Hersh's article "Stovepipe"?
He gives a great outline of how this office worked - it is in the October NewYorker. If you go to NewYorker.com and look in archives (or past issues) - just look under Hirsh (Hersh?) - and this article will show up.

I believe that Feith was the pentagon person (liaison?) to work with the DPB - but as a pentagon employee not as a board member.
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HootieMcBoob Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 05:21 PM
Response to Original message
31. tons of stuff here
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #31
33. with a broader audience
kansas city
springfield news leader
washington post

all within the last couple of days.

This is the beginning of what it takes to get that little office - its name, its function and its players - into the public conscience.
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salin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Feb-03-04 11:25 PM
Response to Original message
34. single.vanity.kick.
eom
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donsu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-04-04 01:49 PM
Response to Original message
35. kick
nt
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