Sunday 20 November 2005
While it is altogether appropriate for Congress's attention to be riveted on the future and, specifically, on how to end the disaster in Iraq, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) continue to be asked about the past and how the George W. Bush administration was able to create/corrupt intelligence to convey a false picture of the need for war on Iraq in the first place.
Renewed, if short-lived, interest in this issue can be traced to Senator Harry Reid's demand on November 1 that Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, make good on his promise to complete his investigation into this issue (the so-called "Phase 2" study that Democratic senator Jay Rockefeller acquiesced in postponing until after last year's election).
Don't hold your breath. Roberts is still diddling Rockefeller, who, as ranking Democrat on Roberts's committee, has a painful propensity for letting himself be outmaneuvered. The two are still far from agreement on how to proceed, and Roberts seems likely to use another pending study to delay still further the completion of "Phase 2."
Congressional sources disclosed Thursday that the Department of Defense Inspector General has agreed to review the pre-war intelligence activities of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, a main architect of the war on Iraq. The IG investigation could take at least six months, say defense officials. Indeed, the study is not yet under way, since the IG is "still discussing it with the Roberts committee staff," according to Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman.
For the gullible, here's a new promise from Pat Roberts: "We're going to try to expedite it [the IG study on Feith] as much as possible ... The IG knows we are very eager to get this done but he wants to get it done right."
Right.
Not that it really matters. Attempting to get an apolitical study out of Roberts's committee would be a fool's errand, even if Rockefeller had more backbone. Pat Roberts, you may recall, rejected as "inappropriate" Rockefeller's suggestion last year that the committee ask the FBI to look into who manufactured the (in)famous forgery about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger.
Don't despair. We in VIPS have been hard at work on this issue since well before the war. Indeed, it was/is our raison d'être.
Where to look for the answers? Try the just published "Neo-CONNED Again!" a collection of essays and interviews by and with VIPS and other professionals. My colleague Col. W. Patrick Lang, USA (ret) and I have authored chapters devoted specifically to how intelligence was corrupted to "justify" an unjustifiable war - or, in the words of the Downing Street Minutes, how "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Pat's article, "Drinking the Kool-Aid: Making the Case for War with Compromised Integrity and Intelligence," was originally published in the summer 2004 Middle East Policy Journal. Mine is titled "Sham Dunk: Cooking Intelligence for the President." The text is posted here.
But for a fuller picture on the Iraq misadventure, you may wish to obtain the book itself. For it also contains a wealth of insight from the likes of Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Karen Kwiatkowski, Jeffrey Record, Tom Engelhardt, Sam Gardiner, Michael Ratner and many others.
The experience of the past few years has shown that, although Pat Roberts prides himself on being a US Marine, waiting for him to deliver on his promises is like waiting for Godot. (See "Semper Fraud, Senator Roberts.") There, fellow Marine (and VIPS member) Scott Ritter offers unique insight into Pat Roberts, including his foot-dragging on the "Phase 2" investigation.