Feith Says Pentagon Overdid WMD Rationale (Rummies top advisor)

[IChing]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The top policy adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says the Bush administration erred by building its public case for war against Saddam Hussein mainly on the claim that he possessed banned weapons.

The comment by Douglas J. Feith, in an interview with The Associated Press, is a rare admission of error about Iraq by a senior administration official. Feith, who is leaving after four years as the undersecretary of defense for policy, said he remains convinced that President Bush was correct in deciding that war against Iraq was necessary.

"I don't think there is any question that we as an administration, instead of giving proper emphasis to all major elements of the rationale for war, overemphasized the WMD aspect," he said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction.
"Our intelligence community made, apparently, an error, as to the stockpiles" of weapons it assured President Bush existed in 2003, Feith said. Thus that part of the administration's argument for why war was necessary was overdone, he said, adding, "Anything we said at all about stockpiles was overemphasis, given that we didn't find them"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FEITH_INTERVIEW?SITE=MNMAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-07-14-18-56-23

Why is he saying this now?
at this time?
Just a DSM, Plame, Wilson, Rove thing I guess

[liberaliraqvet26]

1. wow hes jumpin ship...

i guess he didnt get a big enough piece of the contracting pie

[IChing]

2. Sounds like a spin to the DSM overstating vs a lie.

This sounds like good news which can be used, even though it is an attempt to play down the rational for war as an overstatement vs a lie. But he is covering his base on the WMD
which right up this Plame investigation.

[Bluebear]

3. KICK!

[IChing]

4. A major Neo-con world strategies says they overstated

A vocal advocate of U.S. intervention in the Middle East and for the hard-line policies of the Likud party in Israel, Feith has been involved in or overseen the activities of two controversial Pentagon operations-the Defense Policy Board, whose former head Richard Perle resigned after concerns arose about conflicts of interest between his board duties and business dealings, and the Office of Special Plans (OSP), which allegedly misrepresented intelligence on Iraq to support administration policies. Feith's office not only housed the Office of Special Plans and other special intelligence operations associated with the Near East and South Asia (NESA) office and the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs but also the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, who directed military policy on interrogations of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and then arranged for the transfer of the base's commanding officer, Maj. General Geoffrey Miller to the Abu Ghraib prison in an effort to extract more information from Iraqi prisoners.

Feith & Israel

Feith cannot be described by just one label. He is a longtime militarist, a neoconservative, and a right-wing Zionist. According to Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, Feith was described by the military commander who led the Iraq invasion, Gen. Tommy Franks, as "the f---ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth," referring to the bad intelligence fed to the military about Iraq and the extent of possible resistance to a U.S. invasion.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/feith/feith.php Good link on him

[IChing]

5. I don't want this new spin on the DSM to die