HerbEly

Note to the NYT and WaPo: the Truth is Already in Your Files

    Today’s New York Times features an editorial editorial following yesterday’s story on Douglas Feith. The WaPo follows yesterday’s story by Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung with a report on Senate disagreement over the Pentagon inspector general’s critique of Feith and his office. Both papers are making the case that Feith distorted available intelligence to demonstrate an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. The Post acknowledges that yesterday:

An article in yesterday's Washington Post misattributed to the inspector general's report critical comments about the Pentagon operation made by committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.).

    Both papers need to dig a little deeper into their own files. When they do they should find stories about DITSUM 044-02. From its numbering this defense intelligence summary appears to have been the 44th issue in 2002. If the document were published daily this would have placed it early in the year. According to news reports the document disputed the Iraq-Qaeda link.

    It is possible that Feith may properly have challenged the documents. However, the NYT and WaPo stories indicate that Feith made the case for war by failing to tell his superiors that the case was less than solid.

    While the inspector general’s report most likely provides additional detail on Feith’s maneuverings, the DITSUM 044-02 story was reported by Pat Lang on November 6, 2005. It was reported here on November 10, 2005 as The Emperor’s New Threat Assessment and on June 10, 2006 as Politicization of Intelligence: Part V.

    The Senate has had more than enough time to figure out what went wrong. Now it needs to debate the crucial question: what do we do now about Iraq?

Politicization of Intelligence, Part VI

We’ve been at this for quite a while. . Now we read extracts from the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Thomas V. Gimble. Here is the lead paragraph from the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith:

Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon's inspector general.

The NYT’s David Cloud and Mark Mazetti start it this way:

A Pentagon investigation into the handling of prewar intelligence has criticized civilian Pentagon officials for conducting their own intelligence analysis to find links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but said the officials did not violate any laws or mislead Congress, according to Congressional officials who have read the report.

Pat Lang gave an accounting of how all this happened in the summer 2004 edition of the Middle East Policy Journal.  He is not optimistic that things have changed:

Douglas Feith is now gone from the Pentagon but his spirit marches on there.  The "Iraq Project" is reborn with new goals.  We now have the "Iran Project."

    Maybe we can now understand what Vice President Cheney meant when he said that the administration did not bring political pressure on the intelligence community. They didn’t need to press for different assessments, they just used their own.

    NOTE: This post linked to Beltway Traffic Jam for 02/09/07

Real Leaders Set Ethical Standards

Pat Lang clearly disapproves of the Senate vote to confirm George Casey as Chief of Staff of the United States Army. He contrasts Casey’s performance with that of George C. Marshall:

George Casey is probably a fine man, a man of honor, a man deserving of many things, but in his consistent failure to accurately inform the Congress of the United States and the citizens of the United States of the real situation in Iraq he fails the "Marshall Test" for me.

George Marshall sets the standard. He built the US Army and Air Forces that won World War Two.  He was unafraid, modest, humble and without interest in currying favor with politicians.  He told Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed him Chief of Staff, that he should not call him George, even in private, because it might be necessary in the course of the war for Roosevelt to fire him and he did not want their personal relationship to be a problem if that were necessary.  When he was Secretary of State he rebuked Dean Rusk, his assistant, for not correcting him in public when he misspoke.  Rusk said that he had not wanted to "hurt Marshall's feelings."  Marshall replied that he "had no feelings other than those reserved for Mrs. Marshall."  He was absurdly libeled by the egregious Joe McCarthy, and never said or wrote a word in reply.  Never...  I could go on.

While I’ve touched on standard setting before, no one should just sit back and blame leaders for failure to set standards. The only standard we can set is our own – and that one imperfectly.

    There is a twist on the old saying that “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” The twist is this: “when the going gets tough, the tough get going – right out of the room and let someone else do the work.” This twist is a variation on my own twist of Isaiah 6:8 - “Here I am, Lord – send somebody else!”

    Many times we can take refuge in the old admonition to “sweep our own side of the street.” Someone else’s failure to set an ethical standard is no excuse for our own failures. On other occasions there may be no escape. We may find that we have to practice the ninth discipline of workplace spirituality and oppose our leaders in order to make the system work as it is intended. At that point we will need all the courage and discernment we can find. Of course, if we are afraid of the consequencees, we can always pray for the cup to pass away.

An Honest Senate Debate is a Strategic Necessity

    Twice in the past week we have read Washington Post editorials and articles urging the Senate carefully read the 2007 NIE on Iraq. On February 6, the WaPo cited the NIE and urged Senators to concentrate on the realities in Iraq and not on domestic political positioning. On February 3, WaPo writer Dafna Linzer contended that the 2007 NIE  is much improved over the 2002 Estimate:

The intelligence community's glossy October 2002 estimate, which claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was touted by the White House as a main reason for war with Iraq. After no such weapons were found, the intelligence community -- particularly the CIA -- significantly altered the way in which it would conduct future analyses, highlight uncertainty and acknowledge dissent.

As Washington Times writer Alan Reynolds noted, - twice - the 2002 NIE made far more modest claims:

The real scandal is not that these senators or the president lied when they all agreed Iraq had fearsome stockpiles of mysterious weapons. The real scandal is that they were all so gullible as to be taken in by such an obvious CIA deception.

In June 2003, in "Intelligence Without Brains," I wrote, "The senators should have read the CIA report last October, and not just the summary." Many irate critics then questioned my own intelligence, but not one pretended to have bothered to read the report. Why not? It can be easily downloaded at www.odci.gov/cia/reports.

The first two pages of that WMD story were called "key judgments," though there was no judgment and little intelligence. All the strong conclusions appear on these first pages, followed by ample waffling.

On this point I differ – a bit – with Reynolds. As one who participated in groups drafting similar documents, my intuition is that the NIE drafters were attempting to convey a double message. The drafters were under pressure to find for a WMD threat. They did so in a highly qualified manner, perhaps hoping that Senators could use the text to challenge the administration’s case for going to war. We can argue that they should have been more public about their challenge. We don’t know what was said in private.

    The Post is correct in challenging the Senators to have an honest debate, setting aside considerations of the already existing presidential election campaign. The debate is a matter of crucial strategic importance. As I’ve posted, before reasonable assurance of public support is a critical factor. We can only hope that the Senate takes the time to thoroughly and carefully consider all the evidence. Pointing fingers at the intelligence community does not help.

NOTE: this post linked to Beltway Traffic Jam for 2/8/07