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?
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