Intelligence and Politics

So the MSM is playing this DoD intelligence report as shrilly as their "non-partisan" world view will allow. It is interesting that I find little in the press, other than Feith's interview on Fox that discusses particulars like the original report was alternative analysis in criticism of how the CIA had made its own report. Though the criticism of the CIA was considered a good thing after the start of the Iraq war, it's quite humorous to see that it is now being viewed as inappropriate when it was done before.

WALLACE: The Pentagon inspector general issued a report Friday that was highly critical of your actions back in 2002. It says your office disseminated what it called, quote, "alternative intelligence assessments about links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida that made the case for going to war."

Let's take a look if we can, here. While such actions -- this is from the inspector general's report. "While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the products did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the intelligence community and were, in some cases, shown as intelligence products."

Mr. Feith, were you giving the president, the vice president and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld the ammunition they wanted to go to war?

FEITH: What the people in the Pentagon were doing who were criticized by the inspector general was providing a critical look at the CIA's work on the Iraq-Al Qaida connection.

And there was a sense on their part that the CIA was filtering its own intelligence to suit its own theory that the Baathists would not cooperate because they were secularists with the religious extremists of Al Qaida, that they were not doing proper intelligence work, and our people were criticizing them, not putting forward an alternative intelligence analysis.

WALLACE: Now, who asked you to do that, and what were your marching orders?

FEITH: Well, as it turns out, there were actually several people who independently started working at lower levels of the government. One of them was an assistant to Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. Two of them worked in my office.

I'm still wondering why this "alternative" analysis is being viewed as being bad. It should be an indicator of some issues with the CIA making poor analysis in the beginning, though I would say taking the alternative analysis on it's own would be equally irresponsible.

WALLACE: Okay. Let's talk about it, because the briefing was titled "Iraq and Al Qaida Making the Case", and here are some of the highlights from your PowerPoint presentation. "Intelligence indicates cooperation in all categories, mature symbiotic relationship." "Some indications of possible Iraq coordination with Al Qaida specifically related to 9/11."

And you said an alleged meeting between 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague in April 2001 was a known contact.

Mr. Feith, all of that -- all of that was wrong, wasn't it?

FEITH: No, not at all. There was substantial intelligence. I mean, evidence is a legal term not really appropriate here. There was a lot of information out there. Intelligence is very sketchy, and it's always open to interpretation.

On this issue, there were people who disagreed about the intelligence and the people in the Pentagon were giving a critical review. They were not presenting alternative conclusions. They were presenting a challenge to the way the CIA was looking at things and filtering its own information.

WALLACE: I have to tell you, I mean, when I -- I mean, I read these as "mature symbiotic relationship", "known contact" -- that sure sounds like conclusions.

FEITH: You're plucking language out of a briefing, the thrust of which was why is the CIA not accounting for information that it had that suggested an Iraq-Al Qaida relationship when the CIA was excluding that information from its own finished intelligence at the time.

It was a criticism. It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence. What the people in the Pentagon were doing was right. It was good government.

In fact, as the Silverman-Robb Commission has said, and as the Senate Intelligence Committee has said, we need more, not less critical reading of intelligence by policy people.

That is interesting, but if it was just criticism, why did it end up being used as a briefing rather than as a stimulus for forcing the CIA to reassess its stand on the Al-Qaeda/Saddam link. No doubt that politics stepped in here. Which makes things even more confusing for the person trying to figure out what the truth is. Not that many are trying.

WALLACE: You say this wasn't wrong. Respectfully, sir, the Pentagon inspector general says parts of your analysis were not supported by available -- let me finish -- by available intelligence, and let me continue.

Take a look at this if you will. The 9/11 Commission said, "We have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts between Iraq and Al Qaida ever developed into a collaborative, operational relationship."

The 9/11 Commission also concluded, "The available evidence does not support the original Czech. report of an Atta-Ani meeting."

Mr. Feith, the Pentagon inspector general says some of your intelligence was not supported by the evidence that came from the intelligence community. The 9/11 Commission said a number of your conclusions were wrong. And the Senate Intelligence Committee also said it was wrong.

FEITH: Nobody ever claimed that what the 9/11 Commission said was -- the case was wrong. In other words, we didn't dispute the -- the 9/11 Commission report said there was no...

WALLACE: But they disputed you, sir.

FEITH: No, they didn't. Nobody in my office ever said there was an operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida. It's just not correct. I mean, words matter. And people are throwing around loose allegations, vague allegations, based on not reading the words carefully.

WALLACE: Mr. Feith, I'm just taking comments from your PowerPoint. You said some indications of possible Iraqi coordination with Al Qaida specifically related to 9/11. You said that the Atta- Ani meeting in Prague in 2001 was a known contact.

FEITH: The people who did that briefing were taking the position that the intelligence community took originally. The CIA later changed its views on that meeting after the time relevant here.

There's an enormous amount of misinformation about this subject. Your quote from the 9/11 Commission report is significant. That did not contradict my office. Nobody in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship.

There was a relationship. That relationship was summarized on October 7th, 2002, by George Tenet in a letter that he sent, unclassified, to the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, and it basically brought together what the CIA had been saying, what my people had been criticizing, and it summarized the Iraq-Al Qaida relationship.

And we stood on that, and I think that that was the best information that the government had.

Hmm. I want to give him some benefit of the doubt, but I'm not completely convinced. "Operational Relationship" is quite specific. From what Feith has stated, I think he has a point. Unfortunately, without everything laid out at the basic level, I don't see how you can get to the point of parsing what is correct. He does appear to make the point though that "operational relationship" is far more specific than anyone in his brief ever claimed. That could easily have been an error with the 9/11 commission's decision on how to posture the intelligence. Unfortunately, the further you get from the original briefing, the farther you are likely to be getting from what was actually stated.

You can read a brief of the DoD-IG report here. Personally, it appears to me that much of what is flashing through the news is bent in its context. How bent it the original information got in the political games after it's release is difficult to say, though it does appear that very little of the relationship between Saddam and Al-Qaeda was ever used by the administration, irrespective of how the MSM and the politicians have tried to recreate history.