Why is it that no one in the media or any dem is talking about the Office of Special Plans that was created by dick and rummy when all the intelligence was telling them that Iraq had no WMD. They used this secretice department to make up evidence of WMD and ignore the facts:

DIA WARNINGS IGNORED: In September, 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency (http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Pentagon/us-dod-iraqchemreport-060703.htm) told the White House that there is " no reliable information (http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/templates/article.asp?NewsID=4928) on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons." The report also said, "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UN actions."

DOE WARNINGS IGNORED: In September, 2002, the Energy Department's technical experts warned the White House that the aluminum tubes Iraq was seeking --the central basis for the conclusion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program -- were ill-suited to build centrifuges for enriching uranium (http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/pdf/Iraq/declassifiedintellreport.pdf) . In fact, Secretary Powell even admitted before the U.N (http://64.4.30.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=d0956f80e6ea7a784d97d87731e8d3bd&lat=1075302281&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ecnn%2ecom%2f2003%2fUS%2f02%2f05%2fsprj%2eirq%2epowell%2etranscript%2e07%2f) . that there was controversy over the tubes.

STATE DEPT. INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS IGNORED: In October, 2002, the State Department's Intelligence and Research Department (INR) told the White House that its WMD conclusions were inaccurate (http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/pdf/Iraq/declassifiedintellreport.pdf) . Its report said, "the activities we have detected do not ... add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons." The Financial Times on 7/30/03 noted that this warning was specifically reiterated to Secretary Powell during the preparations of his U.N. speech, but again was ignored.

AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE WARNINGS IGNORED: While President Bush said Iraq had Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that could spray biological weapons on American soil, the WP reported on 9/26/03 that "the government organization most knowledgeable about UAV programs - the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center - had sharply disputed that notion" to the White House, but was ignored.

Why is it that the Office of Special Plans is not being talked about? That is the source of this scandal!

I'm getting hoarse from yelling at the tv

Karen Kwiatkowski has written extensively about this (any of your links include hers....haven't checked...sorry)

she's no goggle-eyed liberal, either.

for those who don't already know, she was THERE in the pentagon, working at the.............OSP!

start here......I linked these yesterday
http://www.amconmag.com/12_1_03/feature.html
http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/article3.html
http://www.amconmag.com/1_19_04/article1.html

from pat buchanan's magazine, so this isn't LWingnut sputa

she also devastatingly nails ALL the top thugs in the junta here
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski-arch.html

a sample

What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline. If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of ``intelligence'' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I can identify three prevailing themes.

• Functional isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key areas of interest to Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia.

.........

• Cross-agency cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and an overwhelming number of these appointees having such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies -- in particular the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President.

Within the Central Intelligence Agency, it was less clear to me who the appointees were, if any. This might explain the level of interest in the CIA taken by the Office of the Vice President. In any case, I personally witnessed several cases of staff officers being told not to contact their counterparts at State or the National Security Council because that particular decision would be processed through a different channel. This cliquishness is cause for amusement in such movies as Never Been Kissed or The Hot Chick. In the development and implementation of war planning it is neither amusing nor beneficial for American security because opposing points of view and information that doesn't ``fit'' aren't considered.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/6424570.htm

she goes on to discuss the pervasive groupthink that characterized what passed for analysis there, among other things, asserting that this will be studied by historians as a key aspect of the admin's way of dealing with almost everything that came to its attention, including unconstitutional usurpation of powers, along with purposeful deceit of congress in order to start a fricking WAR!

it'll get there. The latest issue of mother jones had a great article on this. sooner or later (preferably sooner) this will finally come up.

and why he voted yes...siad he was told the unmanned planes would be attacking the east coast and they were from Iraq..but would be launched off of ships....sooo...he voted yes...and asked questions later..(my assessment)

wonder what Kennedy heard that made him vote NO?

these senators are too willing to believe the pres, for some reason.

that, and political considerations, involving voting yea/nay against war. you KNOW they're afraid of having the exact same thing done to them as was done to Cleland

He mentioned Rice and tennet testifying...maybe the OSP would come out then...Warner will make the decision on the hearing...as I write that..I know it won't happen.

The OSP was designed to justify an attack on Iraq. Patrick Lang, former director of Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the New Yorker the OSP "started picking out things that supported their thesis and stringing them into arguments that they could use with the President. not intelligence. It's political propaganda." The agency was quietly disbanded in March, on the eve of the war, its (very special) mission accomplished.

Soooo, that's what Bush* was talking about...

Mission Accomplished

I say investigate the heck out of it.

for the same reason they refuse to say a word about PNAC and the openly published PNAC plans to impose a US economic and miltarty domination of the rest of the world. I can only assume they figure they'll be pissing off some powerful people and making a whole mess of trouble for themselves if they do.

Note who was one of the parties involved in sending bogus info to OSP.

The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.

"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.

The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

It's not hard to imagine that indignation and fury that would descend on the head of anyone who brought up an issue which raised questions about Israeli involvement in feeding false intelligence to justify the Iraq war.