The Latest Friday Night News Dump

So, the Washington Post and other news outlets posted a bunch of stories today about how Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans within the Pentagon was investigating whether there were links between al Qaeda and Iraq and that the actions of that office were somehow inappropriate. Too bad the article got nearly all the basic facts wrong.

The investigation was carried out by the Department of Defense's Inspector General. The IG's report got into the hands of Sen. Carl Levin, who has been aching to slam the Bush Administration for any and all actions relating to the run up to the war in Iraq.

So, what does the report say? Well, if you read that initial Washington Post article, you'd think that there was something illicit or untoward going on at the Pentagon. You would have thought that Feith, Wolfowitz and the neocons were trying to spin the intel to show a link between al Qaeda and Iraq.

The Washington Post claims to have layers of fact checkers and reviewers, yet they got basic facts of this story wrong. The paper improperly attributed key details and misrepresented practically the entire story.

Correction to This Article
A Feb. 9 front-page article about the Pentagon inspector general’s report regarding the office of former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith incorrectly attributed quotations to that report. References to Feith’s office producing “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” and that the office “was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda” were from a report issued by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in Oct. 2004. Similarly, the quotes stating that Feith’s office drew on “both reliable and unreliable reporting” to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq “that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC [Intelligence Community] and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration” were also from Levin’s report. The article also stated that the intelligence provided by Feith’s office supported the political views of senior administration officials, a conclusion that the inspector general’s report did not draw. The two reports employ similar language to characterize the activities of Feith’s office: Levin’s report refers to an “alternative intelligence assessment process” developed in that office, while the inspector general’s report states that the office “developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers.” The inspector general’s report further states that Feith’s briefing to the White House in 2002 “undercuts the Intelligence Community” and “did draw conclusions that were not fully supported by the available intelligence.”

Yet, before the corrections could go out, the story were picked up by other papers and readers who may have been led to believe that the Pentagon was rebuking Feith and Wolfowitz et al for conducting the very kind of intel reviews that the Left (including Levin) were actually asking for all along. Ed goes on to note:

None of this has anything to do with the war or its intel analysis. Feith and Wolfowitz have served as targets for Democrats for years, and now that they have returned to power, they want to use whatever they can to finish them politically. Carl Levin and Jay Rockefeller can't wait to start holding hearings on the matter, even though the IG explicitly states that no laws were broken and the effort was properly revealed to Congress. This is just another venue for political payback, and nothing more.

The paper associated the the term inappropriate to describe the IG report findings into the Office's actions. The problem with that was that the commentary of inappropriateness came from Levin's comments on the report, not the report itself.

Oh really? It's inappropriate to hunt down all potential links between the terrorist organization that struck the US on 9/11 and potential ties to a regime that has been known to harbor other terrorist organizations and where the US had little or no intel assets on the ground? This is what Levin thinks will improve national security?

Independent analysis on a wide range of threats that could show that there were links between the terrorist organization behind the deadliest attacks ever on US soil and a country that has been a sore spot in the US foreign policy for more than a decade? None of the other intel agencies were willing to touch the subject, but running the analysis somehow is inappropriate? I think Levin has to answer some questions of his own here. Just what exactly is a proper avenue of analysis and investigation to determine threats against the nation posed by al Qaeda? Should it not include relationships between nations hostile to the US and the terrorist organization? It's not as though Iraq wasn't kicking out terrorist groups left and right and denying them sanctuary.

On the contrary, Iraq was a home to quite a few terrorists and played a safe haven and terror training camp to some. Salman Pak is an example of one such terror training camp. None of this means that Iraq was behind 9/11 as some folks on both sides of the aisle are more than eager to conflate; it simply means a willingness to work together to further undermine US interests in the region.

Others blogging this: Sister Toldjah, Ace of Spades, Flopping Aces, The Political Pit Bull, PointFive, Conservative Times, Jules Crittenden, Blackfive, Powerline, Fuzzilicious Thinking, Jammie Wearing Fool, Macranger.

UPDATE:
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