Doug Feith - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Honus · #1 02-11-2007, 09:50 PM

I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so I'm probably missing something here. Maybe you guys can help be reconcile the following statements. (courtesy of http://washingtonmonthly.com/)

First, here's Feith on today's Fox News Sunday:

Quote:

Nobody in my office ever said there was an operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It's just not correct. I mean, words matter.

And here is part of a Weekly Standard (

) article from November 2003: (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp?pg=1)

Quote:

OSAMA BIN LADEN and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda--perhaps even for Mohamed Atta--according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The memo, dated October 27, 2003, was sent from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

I can't believe we have people of Feith's caliber wielding so much power. And now these clowns want to pick a fight with Iran. If we can hang on until January 20, 2009, we'll probably be OK, but it's a shame that 2008 is a leap year. It gives them one extra day.

t walgamuth · #2 02-11-2007, 10:06 PM

here, here.

tom w

Honus · #3 02-11-2007, 10:10 PM

Strong words from Larry Johnson:

Quote:

Not since the glory days of the Stalinist Soviet Union have we witnessed such a bald, audacious, and mendacious effort to reinvent history. Notwithstanding the concerted effort of the neocons to deny any responsibility for the debacle in Iraq, their propaganda campaign, which conflated the threat of Islamic terrorism with the alleged menace of Saddam, was the foundation for going to war in Iraq. No amount of lies disavowing responsibility for whipping up the public anger to go to war by the likes of Feith, Bill Kristol, George Bush or Dick Cheney, can erase the scarlet stain of the blood of American soldiers killed in Iraq because of their folly. Sorry Doug, I remember what you said and did. Run if you must, coward that you are, but the facts on this are clear and unambiguous.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/feb/11/doug_feith_reinventing_history

kerry · #4 02-11-2007, 10:46 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Feith

Chas H · #5 02-11-2007, 11:52 PM

Well, bush said "we won't be fooled again" -so did "The Who"- but he was wrong-again.

Honus · #6 02-12-2007, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Feith

His wikipedia page is impressive. Among other things it says that he "holds a J.D. (magna cum laude) from the Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. (magna cum laude) from Harvard College." How could someone that smart say something as dumb as what he said on TV yesterday? Or something as ridiculous as the following bit reported on www.washingtonmonthly.com:

Quote:

"I WAS NOT ENDORSING ITS SUBSTANCE"....So, you remember all that, um, stuff created by Doug Feith's private intelligence shop in the Pentagon back in 2002 and 2003? You know, the stuff about how Saddam Hussein had close ties to al-Qaeda and possessed an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons? The stuff that helped justify a catastrophic preventive war that's still raging four years later?

Yeah, that stuff. Today, Feith tells us what it actually was:

This was not "alternative intelligence assessment." It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance.

Got that? He didn't actually believe any of that stuff. He was just passing it along for giggles.

Please make it stop. Please?

That's just ridiculous.

EricSilver · #7 02-12-2007, 03:35 PM

He's blaming the CIA.

I hope he, and his cohorts, spend the rest of their lives in jail.

cmac2012 · #8 02-12-2007, 04:02 PM

Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith "the dumbest (expletive deleted) guy on the planet."

Considering that Franks is far from the sharpest knife in the drawer, IMO, that's some dissing.

I'm wondering if invading Iraq was part of a neo-con (there's that word again!!

) scheme to find a rational to invade/attack Iran.

What the hell did we expect? Go in and create chaos in Iran's next door neighbor, basially act like we're the ones with disposition over the region, and Iran is just going to play the delighted spectator?

Attacking Iran will be disaster. We started the ill feelings with them in the first place in the early 50s and have blamed them with a vengeance for the hostage crisis, utterly ignoring our initiating role in the drama.

EricSilver · #9 02-12-2007, 04:11 PM

I heard him on C-SPAN radio this weekend, and he is obviously scared (of going to jail).

I wonder what dark secrets these people, and/or their overlords, have over the Bush admininistration that has caused such foolish decisions, i.e. Iraq and now, perhaps, Iran.

I think a war with Iran (which is really a war for Israel) would be a war against China and Russia. Surely these fools must realize that.

cscmc1 · #10 02-12-2007, 04:18 PM

Where do you guys get the idea that war with Iran is imminent? I have yet to see the folks at the White House suggest anything but the opposite, but I may just be naive.

What would you, the naysayers, do in the POTUS' shoes assuming you took over tomorrow? It looks like Iran's been supplying explosives and materials. What's the best course of action now?

EDIT: BTW, this Feith guy appears clearly to have been caught with his pants down. I'm not trying to run interference for the guy, just following the trend of the thread toward this topic of war with Iran.

cmac2012 · #11 02-12-2007, 04:22 PM

Looks like. You know this how? The same sort of "evidence" was trotted out in '02 and '03. The majority of roadside bombs are Sunni. Iran is not going to give arms to Sunnis. And insurgents are raising money though oil smuggling, kidnapping, you name it. How do we know they're not buying arms on the black market? It only makes sense that Iranian arms would be on the black market in that area. It's no proof that the Iranian govt. is supplying those arms.

Right now, Iranian allies are in power in Iraq. Wouldn't Iran be happy for things to smooth out, with this crowd still in power?

cmac2012 · #12 02-12-2007, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EricSilver

I heard him on C-SPAN radio this weekend, and he is obviously scared (of going to jail).

I wonder what dark secrets these people, and/or their overlords, have over the Bush admininistration that has caused such foolish decisions, i.e. Iraq and now, perhaps, Iran.

I think a war with Iran (which is really a war for Israel) would be a war against China and Russia. Surely these fools must realize that.

Agreed. Putin has been amping up the rhetoric lately and we'd be fools to expect him not too.

Russia is much stronger than they were in the 90s. Oil money has given them a new lease on life. I've always thought this bland self-assurance that we "won" the cold war is naive and premature.

EricSilver · #13 02-12-2007, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cscmc1

Where do you guys get the idea that war with Iran is imminent? I have yet to see the folks at the White House suggest anything but the opposite, but I may just be naive.

"We have no intention of attacking Iraq" was the line from the White House prior to "Iraq War, the Sequel."

Iran is doing for the Iraqis exactly what the U.S. did for the Afghans when the Russians invaded Afghanistan.

What would you do if some force hostile to America invaded Canada, and you were next on the hit list. Would you supply aid and weapons to Canada, or do nothing, and simply wait to be invaded -- or nuked -- as some of the insane Neocons are suggesting we do to Iran.

Honus · #14 02-12-2007, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cscmc1

Where do you guys get the idea that war with Iran is imminent? I have yet to see the folks at the White House suggest anything but the opposite, but I may just be naive...

For one thing, the Bush people appear to have lost touch with reality. For another, we have this from http://thinkprogress.org:

Quote:

Top Cheney Aide: 2007 Is ‘The Year Of Iran,’ U.S. Attack ‘A Real Possibility’
As the Bush administration ratchets up pressure on Iran, Vice President Cheney’s top national security aide has been quoted by the Washington Post — in the 10th paragraph on page A18 — that war with Iran is “a real possibility” this year:

Some senior administration officials still relish the notion of a direct confrontation. One ambassador in Washington said he was taken aback when John Hannah, Vice President Cheney’s national security adviser, said during a recent meeting that the administration considers 2007 “the year of Iran” and indicated that a U.S. attack was a real possibility. Hannah declined to be interviewed for this article.

Those with knowledge of the build-up to war in Iraq will recognize John Hannah’s name. In Bush’s second term, he replaced Scooter Libby as the head of Cheney’s national security staff. During Bush’s first term, he personally wrote the first draft of the infamous speech that Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered to the United Nations, according to Powell’s former aide Lawrence Wilkerson.

Moreover, Hannah was a top source for false pre-war intelligence from Iraqi exiles that was “stovepiped” past the intelligence agencies and sent directly to the White House:

For months, Cheney’s office has denied that the veep bypassed U.S. intelligence agencies to get intel reports from [Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress]. But a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney’s staff, as one of two “U.S. governmental recipients” for reports generated by an intelligence program being run by the INC and which was then being funded by the State Department. Under the program, “defectors, reports and raw intelligence are cultivated and analyzed”; the info was then reported to, among others, “appropriate governmental, non-governmental and international agencies.” The memo not only describes Cheney aide Hannah as a “principal point of contact” for the program, it even provides his direct White House telephone number.

John Hannah’s comments about Iran should be taken seriously. He knows how to mislead a nation into war.

I'm just holding on for January 20, 2009.

cscmc1 · #15 02-12-2007, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

Looks like. You know this how?

Woah! Just suggesting a premise... yikes! I'll duck out now and leave you guys to your thread. FWIW, I was simply parroting what I've been reading on various news outlets all day. Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers!