Levin: Pentagon ‘twisted’ Iraq intelligence information: 02/09/07
By Gordon Trowbridge
Detroit News
WASHINGTON — An investigation by the Pentagon’s internal watchdog of the run-up to the Iraq war shows top Defense Department officials manipulated intelligence on Iraq’s relationship with al-Qaida, Sen. Carl Levin said today.
Levin, D-Detroit, had asked for the report from the Pentagon’s inspector general of the activities of Douglas Feith, a senior civilian under then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in convincing the White House and other senior policy-makers that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist group behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
The independent 9-11 commission and other investigations have found no evidence of meaningful links between Iraq and al-Qaida.
“Senior administration officials used the twisted intelligence produced by the Feith office in making the case for the Iraq war,” Levin said in opening a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the report. “The bottom line is that the intelligence relating to the Iraq/al-Qaida relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration’s decision to invade Iraq.”
Levin pointed to statements by Vice President Dick Cheney and others before the war alleging the al-Qaida link and citing intelligence developed by Feith’s office that had been leaked to a conservative magazine.
Among the inspector general’s findings: Feith developed and distributed intelligence linking Iraq and al-Qaida; and Feith’s conclusions differed from consensus judgments of the nation’s intelligence community and were unsupported by the underlying intelligence data.
At issue is an organization called the Office of Special Plans, set up by Rumsfeld under Feith shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Democrats have long charged, and news reports have indicated, that Feith used the office to undermine conclusions by the CIA and other intelligence agencies that there was no link between Saddam and al-Qaida. Levin asked in 2005 for an inspector general’s report on Feith’s activities.
Most of the inspector general’s report is classified, but according to a two-page unclassified summary, the report confirmed many of Levin’s allegations.
The report found that Feith’s activities did not break the law, and were authorized by Rumsfeld.
But “the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the Intelligence Community,” the summary reads.
In one example, the report found that Feith’s office briefed White House staffers that there was evidence of some coordination between Iraq and al-Qaida on the Sept. 11 attacks, an accusation sharply denied by other intelligence agencies. Thomas Gimble, the Pentagon inspector general, said during his testimony today that Feith’s office included in its briefings some inaccurate conclusions even after agreeing to remove them in meetings with CIA officials.
Republicans sought to dismiss the findings, saying the allegations had been investigated and dismissed by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee in 2005.
“I don’t think in any way this report can be read as a devastating condemnation,” said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.