[Peace-discuss] The Neoconning of a Nation ---- they're on parade today

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains
	By Dana Milbank
	Friday, April 25, 2008; A03

Mistakes were made. But not by him.

Doug Feith, the No. 3 man at the Pentagon before, during and after the invasion 
of Iraq, has come in for his share of blame for the failures there -- in large 
part because he led the Pentagon policy shop that badly misstated the case for 
war and bungled the planning for the aftermath. Gen. Tommy Franks called him 
"the dumbest [bad word] guy on the planet." George Tenet of the CIA called his 
work on Iraq "total crap." And Jay Garner, once the American administrator in 
Iraq, deduced that Feith is "incredibly dangerous" and, "He's a smart guy whose 
electrons aren't connected."

Now Feith, whatever the state of his electrons, is showing just how dangerous he 
can be. He's written a book designed to settle the score with his many opponents 
in the administration, and in a book-launch event last night at the Center for 
Strategic and International Studies, he pointed his finger every which way but 
inward.

He argued that former secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard 
Armitage, were the ones who failed to challenge the logic of going to war -- not 
him. He suggested that Powell, Armitage, Franks, former Iraq viceroy Jerry 
Bremer and even Feith's old boss, Donald Rumsfeld, should be blamed for the 
postwar chaos in Iraq -- not him. He blamed then-National Security Adviser 
Condoleezza Rice for the way she operated ("fundamental differences were 
essentially papered over rather than resolved"). He accused the CIA of 
"improper" and unprofessional behavior. And he implicitly blamed President Bush 
for not cracking down on insubordinate behavior at the State Department.

Yet at the same time, Feith told the CSIS crowd that he disapproved of the 
"snide and shallow self-justification typical in memoirs of former officials," 
or what Feith cleverly called the " 'I-was-surrounded-by-idiots' school of 
memoir writing." Feith pointed out that he supported his account with 140 pages 
of notes and documents. And yet, in his hour-long panel discussion, Feith seemed 
to be of the impression that he had, in fact, been surrounded by idiots.

There was, for example, the question of the campaign waged by Feith and his 
section of the Pentagon against the CIA when the agency argued that there was no 
evidence of al-Qaeda having ties to Saddam Hussein. "The CIA and the 
intelligence community should not be shading intelligence," Feith lectured. But 
the self-justification missed the obvious point: The CIA was correct.

As he has promoted his book this month, Feith has continued to say things that 
suggest an ongoing electron disconnect. On "60 Minutes," he made the 
straight-faced claim that "I don't think we needed to" make weapons of mass 
destruction part of the case for war with Iraq.

And he assigns blame freely. Disbanding of the Iraqi army? He blames that on 
Bremer and Rumsfeld. "The first time I heard the idea, it came from Ambassador 
Bremer when he was on his way to Baghdad. I didn't sign off one way or the other."

His main regret, he told National Public Radio, was that Rumsfeld and Franks did 
not take seriously his wise and prescient memo warning about the need to 
preserve law and order in Iraq. He should have "pushed harder to get it onto 
General Franks's radar screen, to get it onto Secretary Rumsfeld's radar 
screen," he said.

Pointing so many fingers in so many directions, a man is bound to get confused 
-- as happened when Steve Kroft asked him on "60 Minutes" about his claim that 
the lack of troops contributed to looting in Baghdad. "I don't believe I raised 
the troop-level issue in that connection," Feith replied. Then Kroft presented 
him with the passage. "That's a fair point," Feith amended.

The title of Feith's book, "War and Decision," is printed across a blood-red 
cover. At last night's forum, moderator Ray DuBois of the CSIS pointed out that 
Feith, admirably, is donating all proceeds from the book to a foundation he's 
creating to help veterans and their families. Of course, money is not the object 
in this book; the 54-year-old son of a Holocaust survivor is eager to rebuild a 
reputation that continues to suffer for his role in starting the war. After his 
appointment to the Georgetown foreign-service school caused a ruckus among the 
faculty, the school decided not to renew his spot.

CSIS's Fred Ikle, one of the panelists, admired Feith's ability to point out, 
"honestly and delicately," that "this was not Rumsfeld's finest hour," and he 
praised the author's "subtle disclosure of the chronic insubordination in our 
government." But there was nothing subtle about Feith's blame-casting.

"The most serious analysis of the downside and risks of war was produced in the 
Pentagon by Rumsfeld and his top advisers, not by Colin Powell, Rich Armitage, 
George Tenet or other officials who are reputed to have been the voices of 
caution," Feith argued.

Then there was the "plan for political transition in post-Saddam Iraq" -- the 
lack of which caused the American occupation to unravel. "It was a plan that my 
office drafted, Powell and Armitage tried to delay, President Bush approved, Jay 
Garner began to implement and L. Paul Bremer buried."

It must have been very difficult being Doug Feith: correct all the time, and 
surrounded by idiots.

Washingtonpost.com producer Emily Freifeld contributed to this column.


Paul Mueth wrote:
> Wolfie and crew are going to discuss Doug Feith's book
> today,  it's on c-span
> 
> it'll be interesting as to how much will be
> internecine infighting and how much will be
> belligerence against various enemies,. . . iran,
> syria, venezuela ..   take a number
> 
> cheers
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