Pre-War Intelligence 'Manipulated' / War Still Mired In Quag

I haven't written a full post on the Iraq war since Monday and already I feel out of the loop! Time flies when you're having fun escalating a war. The big news of the week is this, which really should just be confirming the obvious at this point-

A "very damning" report by the Defense Department's inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. He said the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

The investigation by acting inspector general Thomas F. Gimble found that prewar intelligence work at the Pentagon, including a contention that the CIA had underplayed the likelihood of an al-Qaida connection, was inappropriate but not illegal. The report was to be presented to Levin's panel at a hearing Friday...

Bold added by me... this doesn't involve Anna Nicole Smith, so you might've missed it.

It can't be reiterated enough, but this wasn't just some good idea that turned sour. It was a con job from the beginning. The lies of the administration started this war. Their hubris ensured its failure.

The article continues, though, with relatively good news for one former official-

The report found that former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had not engaged in illegal activities through the creation of special offices to review intelligence. Some Democrats also have contended that Feith misled Congress about the basis of the administration's assertions on the threat posed by Iraq, but the Pentagon investigation did not support that.

There's no law specifically, I guess, against cooking intelligence, so you're good to go, Doug! Wooo! Mr. Feith was, of course, one of many at the head of the campaign to market the war in 2002/2003. He helped direct the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in this role from his position at the Pentagon. Here's how he now defends the actions from that period-

"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."

Que?

Here is a guy who was #2 at the Pentagon under Donald Rumsfeld, helped craft the case for war, a case revealed to be wrong (either on purpose or on accident, depending on your point of view), a case that convinced the country we urgently needed to go to war, a war that has cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars with no end in sight... and he's saying that all was just some minor, side 'criticism' of the actual intelligence and that he never really endorsed it any way. Just really let it sink in.

Moving on, an oversight hearing earlier this week by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that "The Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis". And who was there to defend it? Why, former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient L. Paul Bremer, of course.

And while the President and the majority of Republicans in the Senate continue to support the escalation, officials deep inside the Pentagon are trying to develop plans to prepare for what many see as the inevitable failure of the President's 'new way forward'.

Finally, another helicopter crashed (the fifth in a two-week period), killing many soldiers, as the new Baghdad security crackdown is now under way (and going swell, I imagine).

It's really going to be a very long two years.