Apparently Doug Feith lost patience waiting for the candy flower explosion that would let him write a sneering gloatfest over the prostrate bodies of his critics, so he cut that stuff out and published an I didn’t do it book instead. But where is the jacket blurb from Tommy Franks?
If anything the book ought to help DC reporters see why it’s useless to bow and scrape for favors from top-placed sources like Feith. Information from these people is always self-serving, three fourths bullshit and, as the book will thoroughly show, political appointees usually know less about their subject than mid-level careerists. People who make $60,000 a year don’t serve foie gras crostini at their cocktail parties, but then reporters who interact with them live without the shame of being Judith Miller.
For me the most entertaining aspect is Feith’s persistent support for fallen neocon darlings like Ahmed Chalabi, who at one time they thought would make a great choice for Saddam 2.0. I wish I knew how many times an Iraq booster has insisted to me, despite all evidence, that I was crazy to think that we would go into Iraq with such a transparently idiotic plan. In a sense it’s true. Wth Chalabi’s incompetent, double-dealing hucksterism in even plainer view these days it seems almost incredible to believe that someone would put America’s security in the hands of such a tool, and fail to come up with a backup strategy if genius plan #1 fails to deliver. The guy switched his loyalty to Iran after the war, assuming that he even needed to switch.
A typical example of a neoconnish war booster walking back the Chalabi story is… Doug Feith.
Feith, the No. 3 Pentagon official, has been struggling to put to rest what he regards as unfair charges that he was trying to create a separate intelligence network in the Pentagon to guide administration decisions, and that he was an “intimate” of Chalabi. Feith met with Chalabi fewer than 10 times, said a spokesman.
So how fiercely does Feith’s magnum opus deny the Chalabi connection? Not very.
Others have criticized Feith’s plan as relying too heavily on Iraqi exile politicians, including Ahmed Chalabi. Feith says that he considered Chalabi one of the most astute and democratically minded Iraqis but that he had no special brief for him. Instead, he charges that the State Department, the CIA and the military’s Central Command were pathologically opposed to the exiles and to Chalabi in particular.
Verily. Only John Bolton’s moustache knows when State and the CIA will wash out the stain of being “pathologically opposed” to handing Iraq to a band of criminal nincompoop conmen who were working for Iran.
joe
Tommy Franks is the Wilhelm Keitel of our era. Yes sir, absolutely sir, great idea sir, you’ll never hear me disagreeing with your numbers sir, have you lost some weight sir?
On the list of Bush administration villains behind this war, that hand-picked neo-con lackey doesn’t get nearly enough press.
Martin
As random happenstance would have it, a coworker of mine is a personal friend of Leila Chalabi (Ahmed’s wife). They’ve known each other for two decades or so. She was telling me back in 2001 that they were making a case for overthrow. I forget her exact words but it was something along the lines of ‘It’s almost all lies, of course, but it’s toward a good outcome. They’d be stupid to put Chalabi in charge of anything though, he’s a disaster.” She never liked Ahmed. But they were close enough that Leila would invite her to their place in Jordan for vacation.
We had some very interesting lunch conversations for about 2 years there.
Mithras
The guy switched his loyalty to Iran after the war, assuming that he even needed to switch.
My theory is the invasion of Iraq is the result of a brilliant Iranian intelligence op.
Dennis - SGMM
ZOMG! You can’t be suggesting that they outsmarted George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney!
In any case, we have the Iranians right where they want us.
chopper
why didn’t he call the book “if i did it”? ghostwritten by O.J.?
4tehlulz
‘sup War Nerd?
jake
If they wanted another double-dealing shifty bastard in place of Saddam, Chablis was an ideal choice.
srv
Holy Crap! Is this for real?
Dana Rohrbacher (R)…
Jay C
Well, Dana Rohrbacher’s rant – or at least the parts about the Bush Adminsistration’s “criminality” – is certainly right on the mark – but his weaving of “connections” between the OKC and ’93 WTC bombers is, to put it charitably, a bit strained. (IIJM, or is srv’s excerpt above a little convoluted?)
Ol’ Dana did have it right about one thing, though:
No, but it certainly doesn’t hurt…..
J. Michael Neal
More fucking stupid than Liberal Fascism? I find that hard to believe.
PeterJ
O/T, but it seems like Tucker is going to get canceled.
They should give the timeslot to Rachel Maddow.
maxbaer (not the original)
I say the ball’s in your court Condi And Colin. Are you going to take that shit from the stupidest fucking guy on the planet? Hit him back!
jake
That’s great news PeterJ. I wish I could be certain they won’t give his spot to Mike Savage or Glenn Beck or something equally vile.
TenguPhule
The Glorious Victorious Legacy of G.W. Bush by Condi Rice and Al Gonzo.
bryanD
“srv Says:
Holy Crap! Is this for real?”
Good link. Thanks.
“PeterJ Says:
O/T, but it seems like Tucker is going to get canceled.”
Patented Tucker interview technique:
TUCKER: “Blah,blah..what do think? I think blahblahblah…”
GUEST:
“They should give the timeslot to Rachel Maddow.”
I think Rachel’s calling is locker room correspondent at Ladies tennis matches. Katrina Vanden Heuvel: effective leftoid. And Phil Donohue in his CNBC format was excellent. He lit some kind of fire under Neil Boortz’s ass once. I’ve never seen a fat man fly offstage so fast before.
Also, the suspended guy, Schuster. The more details to master, the better he is. I was impressed with his Libby trial reporting.
And while the axe is sharp, I’d replace Brian Williams with Melissa Francis.
Martin
Rohrbacher is a fucking lunatic. Always has been. He has a constituency of one and will say and do anything to serve that constituency. CA-46 is trending blue so he needs to do something and following Bush into the shithole like McCain is seems like a loser.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Birdzilla
I heard that BILL CLINTON wanted another title for his book but MEIN KAMPF was taken
Geoduck
Fallen? Isn’t he still confortably tucked away inside the Iraqi “government”? I’ll maybe count him out if his bullet-ridden corpse turned up in ditch somewhere. Maybe.
Chuck Butcher
Just to up the counter, Tim, I’d read this earlier today and was trying to think of a way to express my contempt. Now you’ve gone and done it and I’d wind up plagarizing. I hardly ever do link blips, maybe I’ll just do that and save myself the grief of trying to say what’s been better said.
Z
I live for the day when all these f*ckers are prosecuted as the war criminals they are.
Rick Taylor
The President said this in July of 2003. Hardly anyone cared, and as far as I know, he was never challenged on it. That’s when it seemed to me we had fallen into George Orwell territory, where the President could say something that was demonstrably false, and no one cared. We’d always been at war with Eurasia. And of course he went on to be re-elected.