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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (87369)	2/7/2007 2:06:21 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

IRAQ WAR-PLANNERS CORRUPTION PROBED (* Notice in this breaking story that an Israeli spy was found in a high position amongst this group, and also notice how they deliberately concocted lies to feed the public and congress, and how that crook Chalabi was trusted as our #1 Iraqi exile ally) The Office of Special Plans The report on the secretive Office of Special Plans and its coterie of controversial players is perhaps the most awaited section of the Phase II report. Led by Feith, the group's members also included Larry Franklin, who pleaded guilty to leaking classified documents regarding Iran to a Washington-based Israeli lobby in 2005; prominent neoconservative and Iran-Contra intermediary Michael Ledeen; and Middle East expert Harold Rhode, who purportedly sought to purge the Pentagon of anyone opposing the group’s hawkish Iraq agenda. Another prominent member was Ahmed Chalabi, who headed up the Iraqi National Congress – an Iraq opposition group created by the Rendon Group, a defense contractor for the U.S. military, after the first Gulf War. Although he was wanted for embezzlement in Jordan and a suspected Iranian spy, the Administration presented Chalabi as a credible anti-Saddam leader. Chalabi was later found to be a primary source of bogus intelligence provided to the Pentagon and U.S. reporters, including Judith Miller, then writing for The New York Times. The Office of Special Plans was created by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. On an organizational level, Feith ran the operation, which then purportedly “cooked” and filtered intelligence that favored an Iraq invasion. More specifically, the OSP was tasked with finding intelligence that fit the administration's anti-Iraq policy and was treated as a favored and separate intelligence channel by the Office of the Vice President. While the US intelligence community struggled to check a hawkish Executive Branch set on going to war, the OSP funneled questionable information directly to the White House, bypassing standard channels and operational procedures and deploying its own “off book teams” into the region without notifying special forces already on the ground. A history of espionage allegations Compounding concerns over a self-investigating Defense Department are a history of confessed and alleged espionage by members of the OSP. A previous investigation by RAW STORY revealed an apparent “revolving door policy” at the Pentagon which allowed officials whose clearances had been revoked to return to powerful positions in US government. Feith's access to classified information and any possible wrongdoing can likely be laid at the feet of more senior officials in the Bush Administration – namely former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld – who would have been forced to overrule Pentagon background checks to reissue Feith's clearances after he was booted from the National Security Council for espionage allegations in the mid-1980s. According to the Washington Post, Feith faced questioning in 2004 on allegations that he or other officials may have passed classified information to an Iraqi politician or a pro-Israeli lobby group. Asked if he was still under investigation by the FBI or if he was cleared, Feith responded, “Still? There never was such an investigation.” Iran specialist Larry Franklin – who worked directly under Feith – pleaded guilty in 2005 to conspiracy to pass classified information to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israeli lobby group, and illegal possession of national defense information. Feith has not been charged or accused of wrongdoing in the case. In 1978, former Rumsfeld Deputy Paul Wolfowitz was investigated for allegedly passing a classified document on proposed US weapons sales to Israel through the same pro-Israeli lobby. The inquiry was later dropped. Wolfowitz now serves as president of the World Bank. Wolfowitz, who at the time was working for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, was brought into that position by conservative political adviser Richard Perle, who was also questioned in connection with the Franklin case. A Bush appointee, Perle most recently served as chairman of the Pentagon Defense Policy Board but resigned his chairmanship after the Franklin case broke. According to an FBI wiretap, Perle discussed classified information with the Israeli embassy when he was a foreign policy aide for Senator Henry M. Jackson in 1970; in 1978, the New York Times reported that he inappropriately accepted classified data from a CIA official, again as Jackson’s aide.