Why isn't anyone nailing the Office of Special Plans for the bad intel?

[redqueen]

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html

CIA Probe Finds Secret Pentagon Group Manipulated Intelligence on Iraqi Threat
by Jason Leopold
July 25, 2003

A half-dozen former CIA agents investigating prewar intelligence have found that a secret Pentagon committee, set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, manipulated reams of intelligence information prepared by the spy agency on the so-called Iraqi threat and then delivered it to top White House officials who used it to win support for a war in Iraq.

(snip)

The ad-hoc committee, called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other Pentagon hawks, described the worst-case scenarios in terms of Iraq's alleged stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and claimed the country was close to acquiring nuclear weapons, according to four of the CIA agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the information is still classified, who conducted a preliminary view of the intelligence.

The agents said the Office of Special Plans is responsible for providing the National Security Council and Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and Rumsfeld with the bulk of the intelligence information on Iraq's weapons program that turned out to be wrong. But White House officials used the information it received from the Office of Special Plans to win support from the public and Congress to start a war in Iraq even though the White House knew much of the information was dubious, the CIA agents said.

For example, the agents said the Office of Special Plans told the National Security Council last year that Iraq's attempt to purchase aluminum tubes were part of a clandestine program to build an atomic bomb. The Office of Special Plans leaked the information to the New York Times last September. Shortly after the story appeared in the paper, Bush and Rice both pointed to the story as evidence that Iraq posed a grave threat to the United States and to its neighbors in the Middle East, even though experts in the field of nuclear science, the CIA and the State Department advised the White House that the aluminum tubes were not designed for an atomic bomb.

much, much more...

[doc03]

1. Was thinking that myself, also when they say everyone thought

that Iraq had WMD they don't remember Scott Ritter, Hans Blix and the UN weapons inspectors. When Jay Rockefeller spoke about it Friday he said that if he knew then what he knows now he wouldn't have voted for the war. The information was there and (everyone) just ignored it.

[CWebster]

2. You got it

But what can you expect? They even remove the stand that the war was a mistake from the official Democratic platform and then expect us to fall in line.

[leftofthedial]

3. you're confusing the committee's task with an actual investigation

it actually is a coverup. the neocons committed treason. this committee's job is to make the CIA the scapegoat and cover up the crimes.

[whosinpower]

4. That is correct

Rockefeller's report does not go into detail how the OSP goal and job was to discredit the CIA findings....because they were not damning enough! Nor does this report go into detail on how in the opening days of this administration, there was MUCH talk about invading Iraq, even prior to Sept. 11.

Face it - the administration took a position and then cherrypicked intelligence to fit their needs....turned out the intelligence was bogus - but IN NO WAY DID THEY DECIDE TO RAMP UP THE DRUMBEAT OF WAR BECAUSE OF THE INTELLIGENCE. This was an already preconcieved position. I will repeat that - this was a preconcieved position - and when the CIA failed to give them what they(the neocons) wanted in terms of propeganda - OSP was created.

Here is another report that is packed full of details how OSP was created, by whom, for whom, and who it reported to.

http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html

[Ernesto]

5. motherjones? What kinda a commie are you?

It's so sad that we have a media that never approachs Mother Jones' proclivity to tell it like it is. Maybe that is why MJ ain't jammed with glossy corporate full page adds. Corporations know liberals are too damn smart for their BS.

[redqueen]

8. Whatever happens it's still on us

It's up to us to demand better service. Demanding they address the OSP while demanding they release part 2 of the whitewash BEFORE the elections is the LEAST we can do.

As you can see in the thread below, stuff like this just isn't exciting enough for most.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1970315&mesg_id=1970315

[MasonJar]

6. The Pugs obviously have a plan that will keep the Dems from

ever being in control of Congress again because it will be major payback time. These idiots do not even let the Dems represent the people, as in, for example, when the Pigs would not let the dems have input on the Medicare bill.

[Ernesto]

7. Well since Nixon's southern strategy was so successful,

(i.e. repuke racism) it may be years before we can take the congress back.