OK. I listened to the interview on Fox News Sunday and in a nutshell, here is my take. Please take into consideration that I am a cynic and have grown WAY passed sick and tired of politicians acting like the donkeys they are.
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace (FOX)
2/14/07
This interview was in regard to the recent controversy about pre-Iraq war intelligence and how it was used.
Mr. Feith was asked point-blank if he was giving the GWB administration the “ammunition they wanted to go to war”. Mr. Feith, if he wasn’t on national TV may have answered more fervently but, in a nutshell, he said, “No”. He said that it was the way the bureaucracy works when you have several people from different offices working together. He stated that at least two people from the Deputy Secretary’s office were working on the project as well. The report was given to Donald Rumsfeld and he directed that the report be given to George Tenet in the CIA for collaboration.
Mr. Wallace then proceeded to tell Mr. Feith that several institutions claimed that his work was faulty and wrong, those being the 911 Commission, the Inspector General of the Pentagon and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mr. Feith claimed that they made no such allegations because no one really read the report his section wrote or they did not read it carefully enough. He claims that they pick and chose what they wanted to read and then drew incorrect assessments.
Mr. Feith said that no one ever made the claim that there was an “operational relationship” between Saddam Hussein and Al Qa’ida. He did say that there was a “relationship” and that relationship was defined by George Tenet of the CIA.
Mr. Feith also went on and stated that it seems that Steve Hadley and George Tenet obviously got their wires crossed, paraphrase mine. He said that all parties knew of his departments’ thoughts and critical analysis of the CIA and George Tenet’s logic was circular.
In my assessment, this is a perfect example of CYA so prevalent in DC. There are all too many career bureaucrats, each entity thereof sorely afraid to take a stand and take their lumps if wrong or soak in the glory if they are correct in their assessments. Neither the left hand nor the right hand knows what is going on and this leaves ample wiggle-room and many avenues to take for the proverbial finger pointing. Such is life in The Big Worm known as Washington, DC.
From a grunt’s point of view, mainly myself, we always had a good chuckle (sarcastic overtones) when we read “critical analysis” from the intelligence people. Their philosophy seemed to be, “We bet your life on our intelligence”. So much of it was wrong or loosely laid out and we knew why. Perhaps if the people collecting the intelligence data in DC were in the field, they would be more enthusiastic in the trusting of their sources and to be more careful how they place the facts, figures and suppositions into play.
Finger-pointing and not accepting the consequences of one’s own actions is a cowards’ ploy.
Labels: Editorial, News Review
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