Time For A Counter-Coup. No Kidding!

Dick Cheney wasn't kidding when he said "full speed ahead," and he wasn't just talking about Iraq.


Feith-Based Intelligence (SUPER-SIZED)
by Devilstower
Fri Apr 27, 2007 at 09:49:15 AM PDT

Back in 2002, George W. Bush had a problem. He couldn't get the intelligence he wanted to justify going to war in Iraq. Oh, he could get lots of information, and some of it even suggested that Iraq was a danger. Only the information generated by intelligence agencies came with lots of caveats, possibilities, and alternatives. That wouldn't do.

Luckily, Cheney had the right man handy in Douglas Feith. Feith was the hardest of hardcore neocons, a protégé of Casper Weinberger who hated diplomacy, hated negotiation, hated every plan that didn't involve a series of loud explosions. Doug Feith was the one guy who could be counted on to never produce anything but black and white answers. In Feith's world, solutions were only generated in the crosshairs of a bomb sight. Negotiation and grey areas were for wimps.

So, the Office of Special Plans was whipped up in the Pentagon as an alternative branch of intelligence sure to generate the damn the facts, full speed ahead documents Bush and Cheney needed to get their war on. Feith, who had previously written an open letter to Bill Clinton calling for immediate war in Iraq, was only too happy to comply. He pulled out his editing pencil and struck down every point of evidence that contradicted the goal of going into Iraq.

Feith didn't expend all this ammo building up a case for taking out Saddam. He also directed his guns toward the CIA. When the CIA reported that the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda was vague at best, Feith's office fired back their own report, making Osama and Saddam out to be bosom buddies. According to Feith "CIA's interpretation ought to be ignored."

It shouldn't be too surprising to find that Feith and his cohorts had critics among the intelligence community (including Larry Johnson). Critics who just happened to be right. When the Office of Special Projects was closed down in June, 2003, and Feith was sent to make mischief elsewhere, it might have seemed that the intelligence agencies had finally removed a thorn from their sides.

Only, that's not quite how it worked out.

Instead of intelligence ousting Feith's one-side distortions, exactly the opposite happened. Since 2003, there's been a distinct trend. One by one, the intelligence agencies of the United States have been handed over to former military officers, and only those officers who have been most supportive of the Bush approach.

The CIA is now under General Michael Hayden. Hayden led the CIA's development of a huge database of domestic phone calls, saying that he relied on "advice from the White House," that this was legal. Hayden is also the guy who argued that "probable cause" was not in the Constitution. His announced strategy for the CIA includes shifting intelligence gathering to private industry.

Lt. General Keith Alexander came in 2005 to head up huge and secretive National Security Agency. Once there, he took over a program called "Trailblazer," which is intended to make it much easier for NSA's 30,000 employees to monitor vast amounts of phone calls and email. Alexander defended handing over information on private citizens to John Bolton. "If anything," said Alexander, "the problem is we probably overprotect."

Vice Admiral Mike McConnell took on a new role as Director of National Intelligence. You might remember him from his arguments in favor of expanding the government's right to peek at email and listen in on telephone conversations sans warrant.

Vice admiral Scott Redd got the top spot at the National Counterterrorism Center, Lt. General Michael Maples came in as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Lt. General Jim Clapper hopped into the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence position. Next month, the Senate will consider Lt. General Dell Dailey to run the office of counterterrorism at the State Department.

See a trend? It's not that Feith was routed from the Pentagon. It's that a cadre of Feith clones have been placed in charge of all intelligence. Every intelligence agency is now part of the super-sized Office of Special Plans.

The advantages for the Bush team are numerous:

Politicization of the intelligence community.

Politicization of the military.

Elimination of diplomatic options

Military officers who don't demonstrate their loyalty are allowed to retire. Sure, they can snip from the sidelines, but that can be passed off as sour grapes (and besides, these guys make excellent scapegoats). Intelligence staff who don't agree with the new direction are passed over, given less attractive assignments, and gradually forced from office. Military officers who toe the neocon line are offered an opportunity to extend their careers into a new area, to reshape intelligence in their image, and to blow away the fuzzy-wuzzy barriers of diplomacy and legalities that had stifled them in the past. A spot high up in intelligence becomes the cherry on top of a military career -- a cherry reserved for those who have the right politics. The end result is an intelligence community composed only of men who know how to swing a hammer -- which makes every problem look very much like a nail.

In the build up for Iraq, there were few at the top of the intelligence chain willing to stand in defense of the truth (and no, warmed over memoirs delivered four years too late don't count). Next time around, Bush will be assured that all the intelligence he receives fits his preconceived world view. The Expanded Office of Special Plans will see to that.

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