The fucking stupidest guy on the face of the Earth's PowerPoint presentation on the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection
The unwieldy headline for this post comes from Gen. Tommy Franks, describing former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, one of the neoconservative architects of the Iraq War. Yesterday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich) released Feith's brief to the White House on the relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. You can see the declassified PowerPoint presentation here (hat tip: Talking Points Memo).
The presentation is breathtaking in its fucking stupidity. Feith concludes that Iraq and Al-Qaeda had a "mature, symbiotic" relationship, even though most of the evidence is based on pure speculation or intelligence information that was suspect even during the run up to the war. Take this little ditty on page 12:
"Through cheating on Oil for Food program, CIA estimates Iraq has earned $325 million by March 2000
-- Some of the funds could be used to finance terrorist organizations"
Sure! Why not? Of course, some of the funds could be used to support animal rescue shelters for injured kittens, so this isn't evidence in any conceivable sense of the word, but hey, it's not like we're going to war over this sort of stuff anyway, right?
But there's more. From page 8:
"Fragmentary reporting points to possible Iraqi involvement not only in 9/11 but also in previous Al Qaida attacks"
Fragmentary reporting points to possible involvement? Well, I'm sold, how about you? Talk about your airtight proof.
Of course, it's not all speculation and bullshit. At times, Feith managed to drill down on some hard intelligence to support this nefarious Iraqi-Al Qaeda axis of evil:
"CIA has corroborated June 2000 Prague visit [by 9/11 hijacker Mohammed] Atta."
This meeting between Atta and Iraqi intelligence never happened, despite Bill Safire's (and apparently, Douglas Feith's) insistence. And I'm fairly certain the CIA corroborated no such thing, though I'll need to check my worn copy of the 9/11 Commission Report.
I could go on, but you get the idea. For a different perspective, check out Feith's "I am NOT the Stupidest Fucking Guy on the Planet" website here.
posted by Ben at 9:37 AM
3 Comments:
Thank you, Ben, for the link. I didn’t think I could get more cynical about these folks; live and learn....
This is an amazing document. Truly. But I don’t think “stupid” is the correct word to characterize it. It is delusional.... I mean that literally. There are a host of factual errors and dubious interpretations, but it also makes things up. The statement on page 14 (“CIA has corroborated June 2000 Prague visit by Atta; Atta also confirmed to have visited Prague in 1994”) will, no doubt, surprise some at CIA.
The only thing missing is the final slide with the Kool Aide recipe.
To paraphrase Pink Floyd, I am cognitively numb....
Thanks again, Ben; this is not to be missed.
-- Big Daddy
I agree completely -- and I knew you'd like it.
Feith continues to blame the CIA for everything. The hypocrisy is beyond belief, since the neocons haven't trusted the CIA since the days of Jesus Angleton.
The mind reels at the stupidity of our government under Bush. But the times they are a' changin'...
Clearly, we need clinical terms to describe these folks.
Two of the first three paragraphs from a story in today's Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html?hpid=topnews):
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June.
Post a Comment
<< Home