Feinstein’s comments re: Intelligence Committee - Phase II

As the Resident PNAC Fanatic, I wrote to various CongressCritters (specifically, Feinstein, Levin and Rockefeller as members of the Intelligence Committee, and Reid, Kerry, Byrd, Boxer and Pelosi as outspoken critics), pointing to PNAC as the root to our current problems.

Feinstein finally got around to responding and her comments are included below with significant points outlined in bold. My original correspondence follows, for anyone who may be curious.

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Thank you for writing to me about Phase II of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into pre-war intelligence. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

It is now very clear that the intelligence that led many members of Congress to vote to authorize the use of force was both bad and wrong. I believe that the American people deserve to know whether that intelligence was misused by the Administration in building up the case for war. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, I have been pushing for the completion of this work for almost two years. I have enclosed the text of the letter I wrote to Committee Chairman Pat Roberts on this issue in July.

The Senate recently held a closed session to discuss this matter. A panel of three Republicans and three Democrats, including myself, then worked out a plan to move Phase II of the Intelligence Committee's investigation forward. The full Committee is now holding regular meetings to work on the investigation. Phase II will cover five key areas:

* the use or misuse of pre-war intelligence;
* the accuracy of pre-war intelligence with respect to weapons of mass destruction and terrorism in Iraq;
* pre-war intelligence on post-war Iraq;
* intelligence activities conducted by the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense; and
* the use of intelligence provided by the Iraqi National Congress.

I will continue to work hard to ensure that the review is done in a thorough and timely manner, and gets to the bottom of important questions about pre-war use of intelligence.

Again, thank you for writing to me. I hope that you will continue to write to me on issues of importance to you.

Best regards.

Following is the text of a letter Senator Feinstein sent Friday, July 29, to Senator Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Intelligence Committee:

"I am increasingly dismayed by the delay in completing the Committee's 'Phase II' investigation into intelligence prior to the Iraq War. As you know, the Committee voted unanimously on February 12, 2004 to investigate five questions on pre-war intelligence, including use of intelligence by policymakers. Nearly eighteen months later, much work remains before these questions will be satisfactorily answered.

In addition to the terms set out early last year, the Committee should address the significant issues raised by the so-called 'Downing Street Memo' - whether the 'intelligence and facts were being fixed' to support the policy of using military force against Iraq. This claim raises serious questions about the use of intelligence, and whether intelligence resources were unduly focused away from other priorities in order to provide additional - and as we have found, flawed - intelligence on Iraq.

It would also be my preference to include in Phase II any new revelations concerning the CURVEBALL case since the Committee's first Iraq report. It is important that the Committee complete its study of these questions, both to fulfill our oversight responsibilities and because there is no other body capable of doing this work. The
Committee's report assessing the intelligence on Iraq's WMD capabilities was of outstanding quality and demonstrated both our ability to inform the American public and uncover needs for intelligence reform.

I urge you to take whatever steps are needed to complete the Phase II investigation and produce a report as comprehensive and thoughtful as the first phase of the Committee's investigation. I stand ready to participate in this investigation in any way possible."
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My correspondence to Congress Critters (as well as various media personalities and journalists):

The Democrat’s bold move to force completion of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report is historic. After the initial report was completed, Senator Jay Rockefeller said “It was clear to all of us in this room who were watching that, and to many others, that they had made up their mind that they were going to go to war. And I believe to this day, and I always have and I’ve said so publicly many times in regretting my vote, that there was a predetermination, even going back to 1998 in a letter to Bill Clinton, saying, "The time for diplomacy has ended and now is the time for the use of military force."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38650-2004Jul9_3.html

The 1998 letter to President Clinton was issued by the Project for a New Century (PNAC). This is important because members of the PNAC have been seamlessly merged into the White House, Pentagon, World Bank and United Nations. ALL roads lead to PNAC! I urge you to carefully consider the link below since it offers context and perspective to current events and connects the remaining dots to the Big Picture that may not have been immediately obvious.

PNAC 101 - Rise of the Neocons
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/PNAC_101

Recent excerpts from various media sources follow so you can fully appreciate the validity and pertinence of the PNAC aspect to the story.
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“In 1992, Libby and former Pentagon deputy Paul Wolfowitz wrote a paper favoring the use of pre-emptive force to prevent countries from developing weapons of mass destruction. The paper later won praise from the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, which called it "a blueprint for maintaining U.S. pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival."

Prosecutor, White House at Odds Over Libby - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051030/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_reconstruction
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“Throughout the 1990s Libby -- along with Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and a slew of other leading defense and foreign policy officials -- clamored to finish the job they failed to complete in the 1991 Persian Gulf War: removing Saddam Hussein as the first step to installing Western-style democracy throughout the Middle East.

“In the late 1990s, Libby was among those associated with the Project for a New American Century, a think tank that publicly urged President Clinton to use military force to remove Hussein from power.

Indictments put focus on neoconservatives - http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/29/indictments_put_focus_on_neoconservatives/
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I. LEWIS "SCOOTER' LIBBY JR.

Founding member of the Project for a New American Century with Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush and others, 1997.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/29/Worldandnation/Libby__A_private_man_.shtml
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“The leader of the team was Libby, Cheney's chief of staff. Libby had studied at Yale with Paul Wolfowitz, who brought him to Washington. He co-authored a hawkish policy document with Wolfowitz in the Department of Defense for its head, Dick Cheney, after the Gulf War in 1992. When it was leaked, it embarrassed the first President Bush. Libby was a founding member of the Project for a New American Century in 1997 during the Clinton years, when many neoconservatives were out of office. The PNAC attempted to use the Republican-dominated Congress to pressure Clinton to take a more belligerent stance toward Iraq, and it advocated significantly expanding military spending and using U.S. troops as "gendarmes" in the aftermath of wars to "shape" the international security environment.

All the vice president's men
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/28/vice_president/index_np.html
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“Makiya's work provided ammunition for the neoconservatives who were seeking a role for the United States (and for themselves) after the Cold War. Robert Kagan was one of this group, William Kristol another, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle two more. The glue of the group was a belief that the United States must exploit its enhanced, post-Soviet hegemony to refashion the politics of the planet in a democratic mold. Under the banner of the Project for a New American Century, they published an open letter to President Clinton in 1998 calling for regime change in Iraq.”

'We're an empire' -
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/10/30/were_an_empire/
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“The fifteen-month PR blitz conducted by the White House was a massive fraud designed to trick the public into accepting a goal that Bush's advisers had held even before the election. A strategy document Dick Cheney commissioned from the Project for a New American Century, written in September 2000, for example, asserts that "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." But, as the document reflects, the Administration hawks knew the public would not agree to an attack against Iraq unless there were a "catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."

The White House Criminal Conspiracy
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/delavega/3
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Bush’s electoral success originates from the coalition of neo-conservatives – such as Cheney and Rumsfeld, and their experience of government going back to the Reagan era – coupled with the fundamentalist Christian right-wing. Their foreign policy agenda – advocated by aggressive conservatives such as the former assistant secretary of defence, Richard Perle – was on hold until 9/11. Those attacks changed everything, with the “war on terror” opening up the opportunity for all the key players involved in the Project for a New American Century – such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and Wolfowitz – to “solve” the problem of the Middle East their way.

THE CHINKS IN THE NEOCON ARMOUR
http://www.sundayherald.com/52584
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I trust you'll have the integrity to inform the public about PNAC and its importance as the underlying force behind current events.

Sincerely,

Thanx for your efforts! PNAC does need to be brought to the attention of the people, it explains many things, doesn't it?

If you're so inclined, you can help spread the word. The link in my sig line has details.

Keith’s Barbeque Central

just excellent! :)

...Reid's huge Rule 21 gambit, there has been little information about completion of the investigation. Why no further discussion in the media? Why no announcements of progress, deadlines, etc? After taking the initiative, getting some momentum, and taking the rare opportunity to lead the GOP-dominated congress on an important, current topic (Iraq justification) why have the dems disappeared with respect to Phase II? Did the GOP say they would proceed with investigation but no one can talk about it? Why not a weekly update for the press and public?

To her credit Feinstein (my senator) has definitely been in the forefront on this issue, but even her letter is vague and non-committal. "Worked out a plan to move the investigation forward..." "...now holding regular meetings..." Why not point out that two months ago Roberts said the project was nearly finished? Why not tell us when the thing will be complete? Why not tell us what what the Roberts committee has or has not been doing for the last year? Why not tell us when they might get around to telling us more?

I will say that it looks to me like the same thing is happening as happened to other important oversight issues like Abu Ghraib, election reform, DSM and WMD, Medicare lies, PNAC infestation of government, 9/11, environmental pillage, terrible nominations and appointees, FBI mismanagement, Katrina, deficits,etc. Delay, divert, relieve some pressure by admitting to more minor offenses, delay some more, water down, lie, talk about steroids, designate one or two dems to give appearance of opposition...and in the end it looks like something is being done but, really....not. We once again avoid public discussion that makes the government, as a whole, look incomptetent or evil or both.

Any reason to think this won't be business as usual? Another dem opportunity missed and the public gets screwed again? Or....dems FOR ALMOST THE FIRST TIME IN FIVE YEARS force honest congressional oversight and discussion of a dangerous, rogue administration?

Sorry for the wet blanket, but I think it is important to be realistic regarding congress so we can demand better...as you are doing. Again thanks.

The Dems raised some holy hell to force the issue in the first place so I doubt they'll just let it sink into oblivion. Phase II is most important because Rockefeller knows about PNAC since Phase I! Whether he brings it to the forefront of public awareness remains to be seen. But having Di-Fi even acknowledge the Office of Special Plans gives me encouragement.

that was sent to her the month earlier. Her office probably got a ton of calls from Dems complaining she wouldn't sign on to it.

www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/thanks-jane-but-im-sta_b_13032.html

snip

Republicans are stealing the country, robbing the national coffers, and letting people continue to die in a false war. Meanwhile the "opposition's" leaders are equivocating, dancing around the subject, and busying themselves with flag-burning amendments and criticism of video games. When they're not doing that, they're whining about what was "stolen" without thinking clearly about how to get it back. We're trapped in a drama that has an antagonist but no protagonist.

No matter how many times I repeat the incantation, "Republicans are evil," John McCain and others are not going to agree with me. They should, but they won't. My training tells me to concentrate on what I can do differently, since I can't change the other guy. What I, and others like me, can do differently is to demand that the Democratic Party stand for something meaningful - and that it do a much better job as the party of opposition. Failing that, I can do something else: I can try to force a change in that party's leadership, or take my support elsewhere.

Needless to say, I'm just one voice, but I plan to keep using it (at least part of the time) on what I think Democrats should do better or differently. I'll continue to slam them when I think they're betraying their own core values, for their distorted ideas about what's expedient. Will it help? I don't know. But I'm going to keep doing it.

snip

"demand that the Democratic Party stand for something meaningful "

Even if the Dems had a "meaningful" platform, who among them would step forward to be our voice? We have no LEADERS - people with vision AND courage.

"Courage is not the absence of fear, it's doing what's right in the presence of fear!"

...at least for her to have one of her form letters sent out. but hey, it's an election year for her and if that means she gets on the stick about these issues then, all the better.

Great info, by the way!

Thank you for all of your work, both in compiling the information, and passing in on to Congress and journalists. Would I love to be a fly on the wall during this PhaseII.

Pronounced PEE-nah-cons.

It will be helpful to separate them out in people's minds from the more palatable "conservatives" or even "neocons" (which really is just a conservative who's still breathing).

Not least of which would be the right-wing mind (the one they share between them) whose innate cowardice might soon have them parroting "I'm a neocon, not a PNACon!" in a futile attempt to evade their well-deserved comeuppance.

It also provides a useful meme for educating people, who merely have to google "PNAC" to discover (to their horror) that these dominationists have been panting in masturbatory anticipation for the "Pearl Harbor/9-11" event that would allow them to foist their meglomanaical, neofascist caper onto a sufficiently terrorized (more so by the "bomb threat" of "mushroom clouds in 45 minutes" than by the 20 guys with boxcutters) American People.

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www.january6th.org

Everyone talks around it with the ”neocon” label, which is entirely too generic. Call a spade a spade and identify them by name….PNAC, dammit! Only then can people definitively identify the evils that plague this country. You can’t defeat an enemy until you know who they are!

She hardly ever responds , :thumbsup: