Pentagon IG Admits Prewar Intel Was Cooked by Feith

AP– note that last night, the headline read, “Report: Prewar Intel Not Ilegal.” This was the headline on the exact same hyperlink last night. What’s happened is that last night the GOP spin was placed on the story, distracting from the relevant point of the report, which is the fact that Douglas Feith cooked the intelligence to sell the war on Iraq, replacing that judgment with an irrelevant ruling (which the IG was not qualified to make) that Feith had not broken the law while doing so. As Levin said last night, when this report was released on the eve of his hearing on the subject:

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.