[Update: I resisted the BREAKING tag but this is important folks because we need some attention on this hearing!]
Douglas Feith, intel neo-conman, warmonger, and CheneyOil apparatchik (and now conveniently teaching (?!) at Georgetown University), has been cleared by the Pentagon's Inspector General of legal wrongdoing (more on that legal thing below the fold) but cited for manipulation of intelligence nevertheless.
This news from the AP on the eve of Carl Levin's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on pre-war intelligence manipulation indicates that ...shocker... CheneyOil's Al Qaeda/ Saddam claims were "inappropriate."
In other words, using 9/11 for political gain isn't illegal, just disgusting:
Some of the Pentagon's prewar intelligence work, including a contention that the CIA underplayed the likelihood of al-Qaida connections to Saddam Hussein, was inappropriate but not illegal, a Defense Department investigation has concluded.
That's our leak thus far but Levin hints at evidence...
In a telephone interview Thursday, Levin said the IG report is "very damning" and shows a Pentagon policy shop trying to shape intelligence to prove a link between al-Qaida and Saddam.
Everyone knows Bush and Cheney used 9/11 fearmonging and WMD lies to start the Iraq war but now there's evidence to that effect?
Senator Levin, kick that shit DOWN brother.
As to that legal thing, apparently it was Republicans under CheneyOil loyalist Sentator Pat Roberts of Kansas who wanted this parsed in legal terms -- Levin simply wanted remedial action recommendations if the IG found wrongdoing.
Levin also said it was a "red herring" to say that he or others in Congress claimed that any of Feith's activities had been illegal. Feith has said the accusation that he misled Congress was, by definition, a claim that he had acted illegally.
Levin in September 2005 asked the inspector general to determine whether Feith's offices' activities were appropriate. If deemed inappropriate, the inspector general should recommend remedial action, Levin said then. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, separately asked the inspector general to decide on legality as well as appropriateness.
How sad.
United States Republican Senators essentially pimping for CheneyOil warmongers, throwing out red herrings, blocking review of CheneyOil at every turn for 6 long years... and then there's the whole obstruction of the Phase II investigation of pre-war intelligence abuses due out in the spring...
Feith runs with a nasty crowd, the worst of the worst neo-cons. Listen to what preceded his retirement to Georgetown:
A Senate aide on the committee, while not commenting on particular questions regarding the IG's report, confirmed that a major focal point involves former Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Policy Douglas Feith – a keystone of the Administration's intelligence on Iraq and director of the notoriously secretive Pentagon Office of Special Plans from September 2002 to June 2003.
Feith announced his resignation in January 2005, a week after the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh accused him of working with Israeli officials to select potential targets for a preemptive Iran strike. Link.
Selecting those targets for CheneyOil again was he?
I wonder what the Saudis will think of that Phase II report due out this spring, especially after news was made public that two of the 9/11 hijackers were communicating with the Saudi government prior to the attacks on 9/11...
Update: Important comment from standingup
Live streaming
from http://www.capitolhearings.org/
Friday, Feb. 9, 2007
9:30 a.m. [EST]
Armed Services
To receive a briefing on the Department of Defense Inspector General's report on the activities of the Office of Special Plans prior to the war in Iraq; to be followed by a closed session in SR-232A. SR-222
Look to the right column on the page, scroll down to the link for "Russell 222 (SR-222) Armed Services." This will launch the live feed with RealOne Player.
If that doesn't work, try the page from the Armed Services Committee page. The Senate Justice Committee had their own streaming webcast earlier this week for the hearing on the U.S. Attorneys.
Update 2: Thanks to drsmith131 for the tip:
But Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he'd review whether Feith may have violated the 1947 National Security Act.
The act "requires the heads of all departments and agencies of the U.S. government involved in intelligence activities `to keep the congressional oversight committees informed,' " Rockefeller said. "The IG has concluded that (Feith's) office was engaged in intelligence activities. The Senate Intelligence Committee was never informed of these activities. Whether these actions were authorized or not, it appears that they were not in compliance with the law."
Link.
!!!