neocon-artist feith officially "deplorable" (with an assist from fox news, of course)
DoD Statement on News Reports of al-Qaida and Iraq Connections
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.
A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on October 27, 2003 from Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the Department to provide the reports from the Intelligence Community to which he referred in his testimony before the Committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.
The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the Committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the Intelligence Community.
The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA, or, in one case, the DIA. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the Intelligence Community. The selection of the documents was made by DOD to respond to the Committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.
Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.
defenselink.mil
Today, Fox News anchors are repeatedly mentioning the blockbuster story "proving" a long-time link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
The leak was made to a truly unbiased source, the Weekly Standard. The neocon magazine titles the article on the "leaked" memo, "Case Closed."
The memo is from another unbiased source: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, one of the most hard-core neoconservatives at the Pentagon.
At one point, a Fox reporter referred to the Weekly Standard as having "close ties to the White House." You would think that they might mention that Fox and the Weekly Standard are both owned by Rupert Murdoch. Current and retired intel officers have identified the work of Feith's Office of Special Plans as a key component of the exaggerated and manipulated intelligence produced on Iraq. Feith himself has been accused of being behind previous leaks of "raw intelligence."
I wonder who "leaked" this memo to the Weekly Standard? |
