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| Feith replies to Levin |
| 2004-10-24 |
| A Pentagon official accused by a leading Senate Democrat of deceiving Congress about intelligence on Iraq's pre-war links to the al-Qaida terrorist network says the dispute is based on a misunderstanding that could have been avoided if he had been asked to explain. In a letter to Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Douglas Feith laid out in detail his handling of CIA reports on the Iraq-al-Qaida relationship and denied that he ignored corrections requested by the CIA when he gave a summary of the reports to Congress in January 2004. Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, is Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's top policy adviser. The Associated Press was provided a copy Saturday night of Feith's letter, which was sent to Levin on Oct. 20, the day before Levin released a report arguing that Feith and other Pentagon officials exaggerated the available intelligence on links between Iraq and al-Qaida in order to bolster the Bush administration's case for removing then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The White House denies that intelligence was misused or manipulated in the run-up to the war. Republican senators noted this week that Levin's report was issued just before the Nov. 2 elections. In his report, Levin said the CIA requested corrections to a memo written by Feith and provided to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in October 2003, before the memo could be distributed widely to the Senate Armed Services Committee and other congressional panels two months later. But, Levin's report says, important changes requested by CIA were not made, including adequate alterations to information about the credibility of a source who provided raw intelligence on the Iraq-al-Qaida link. Levin suggested that the changes would have weakened evidence of a link. Feith disputed this in his letter. He wrote that the CIA asked that he delete reference to a "raw intelligence report" - meaning a report whose information had not yet been fully verified - because it contradicted one of the points made in Feith's original report on the Iraq-al-Qaida relationship. Feith said he did so. "The CIA did not ask us to make any specific changes to our text, but pointed out that the earlier raw report contradicted one of our comments, which was, however, supported by the later products that we cited," Feith wrote. The "products" he referred to were finished, rather than raw, CIA reports. Feith wrote that he made all the changes requested by the CIA when he submitted the materials to the Senate Armed Services Committee and other panels that requested them. In his letter to Levin, Feith also expressed apparent frustration at being accused of misleading Congress on this matter. "Your allegations have an accusatory tone," he wrote. "If you had called me or asked to meet and discuss these matters, we could have cleared up the misunderstandings that underlie your allegations." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #16 Free speech. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-10-25 12:49:16 AM |
| #15 Hey, Sock Puppet of Doom, where do you get off calling me a self hating jew? What do you know about me that makes you think you can write something like that about me? . |
| Posted by: Senator Carl Levin 2004-10-25 12:31:38 AM |
| #14 If I am a US Senator and a Jew and a Democrat, does that mean I'm a self hating jew? . |
| Posted by: Moishe Sylvester 2004-10-25 12:16:18 AM |
| #13 So, if someone says, "We need to rethink our support of Israel", then that means he's a self hating jew? . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-10-24 11:33:39 PM |
| #12 Mike you are trolling. But you must be somehow handicaped in your reading ability if you didn't understand my first post to this thread. I will state it differently. I will also depost 20 bucks into the RantBurg paypal account to pay for the useless waste of bandwidth. Levin supports Kerry who said "We need to rethink our support of Israel" meaning we need to side with or be more sympathetic with the Palestinians. Kerry then quickly flip floped. Levin didn't miss a beat, didn't back down on the Bush bashing. He is a self hating jew as far as I am concerned along with a being a jerk and asshole. Mike are you the descendent of jews? Do you have any practicing jews as blood relatives? I am and I do. I think I can judge a self hating jew buy his political actions. Levin qualifies. If you like Levin fine. I don't. I will not support him. I sure as hell wouldn't vote for him if I had to. I don't have enough information on Douglas Feith to form an opinion, nor do I care to. I don't think any further discussion will be helpful. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-10-24 11:31:50 PM |
| #11 Sock Puppet of Doom, what is it about Senator Carl Levin as an individual Jew that prompts you to call him a self hating jew? Do you really believe that's all we need to know about Senator Carl Levin? . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-10-24 11:00:10 PM |
| #10 SPoD, why do you call him "self hating"? . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-10-24 8:33:32 PM |
| #9 I know I shouldn't respond to trolling. I see nothing in this article to change my opinion of Levin. He is a typical left wing secular jew. I don't have enough information on Douglas Feith to form an opinion, nor do I care to. This is a waste of Fred's bandwidth. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2004-10-24 7:27:10 PM |
| #8 I usually stay away from this type of discussion, and usually input only smart-ass comments on most articles, but this I want to respond to this. My opinion is if someone wants to call anyone a "self-hating Jew," it's just like if they simply called him a "jackass" or an "idiot." I'm not going to ask for proof whether the person is really a "jackass" or an "idiot," because I know what a jackass and idiot are: they are tangible things and also slang terms. The point is it's a name. Who cares? Have a problem with SPofD because of inaccuracies thrown against Levin's record, or just call him immature for calling Levin names. Other than that, who cares? I've read lots of SPofD's postings, and they're pretty rational. Mike has some good points now and then, too. But to start off a thread asking for proof if a Senator is a "self-hating Jew" is pretty weak. |
| Posted by: nada 2004-10-24 7:19:48 PM |
| #7 Some Rantburgers consider this type of argument (He's a self hating jew; that's all you need to know about him) to be acceptable, but some don't. I myself don't like to see it. If Sock Puppet of Doom thinks it's an acceptable argument, then let him explain himself before he repeats it again. How does he determine who is a self hating jew and who isn't one? Does he have an inner voice that informs him, or what? If he provides a good explanation, then he can keep repeating the argument. If he doesn't provide a good explanation, then maybe he ought to consider refraining from it again in the future. . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-10-24 7:03:17 PM |
| #6 I still think Mike's One of the most important things to allan is....... pretty funny. I fear he may be going tville tho. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-10-24 5:14:11 PM |
| #5 With whom? |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-10-24 4:57:36 PM |
| #4 Start over Mike, you still have credibility, but act fast. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-10-24 4:56:45 PM |
| #3 No, I would like Sock Puppet of Doom to explain whether both these Jews -- Levin and Feith -- are self hating jews or whether only Levin is. And why he makes the distinction. SPD raised the subject, let him elaborate. . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-10-24 3:12:52 PM |
| #2 Give it up, Mike, you wore it out yesterday. |
| Posted by: Tom 2004-10-24 2:57:29 PM |
| #1 Sock Puppet of Doom says that Carl Levin is a self hating jew and that's all we need to know about him. My question is whether the same is true about Douglas Feith. Is he a self hating jew too? If so, is that all we need to know about him? Maybe Sock Puppet of Doom himself can share his insights with us on this topic. . |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-10-24 2:41:05 PM |