Category: The Dish

Feith-Based Intelligence

Feithchrishondrosgetty

Here’s a quote to anger up the blood:

"This was not ‘alternative intelligence assessment’. It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."

That’s former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith on his Pentagon report detailing a "mature symbiotic relationship" between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Feith now refuses to endorse the substance of the pre-war intelligence that helped persuade Americans to go to war – and now claims he wasn’t even defending the substance at the time! Maybe he could have been clearer back in 2003. Or maybe he’s liar and a fraud.

The Obama Honeymoon

It’s over:

Obama’s about to endure a going-over that would make a proctologist blush. Why has he sometimes said his name is Arabic, and other times Swahili? Why did he make up names in his first book, as the introduction acknowledges? Why did he say two years ago that he would ‘absolutely’ serve out his Senate term, which sends in 2011, and that the idea of him running for president this cycle was ‘silly’ and hype ‘that’s been a little overblown’?

In interviews, strategists in both parties pointed to four big vulnerabilities: Obama’s inexperience, the thinness of his policy record, his frank liberalism in a time when the party needs centrist voters, and the wealth of targets that are provided by the personal recollections in his first book, from past drug use to conversations that cannot be documented.

Inevitable, I guess. But I wish Obama the best. He’s a fresh voice, apparently sincere, with an ability to speak bravely about tough issues with civility and insight. That’s not en endorsement, I hasten to add. But it is a hope.

Another Torture Victim

From the WaPo:

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

C’mon, Jonah, C’mon, Steyn. C’mon, JPod. Have a good laugh. It’s fucking hilarious, isn’t it?