Letters to the Editor
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And when you preorder Great American Hypocrits...
Make sure to pick up a copy of Douglas Feith's upcoming ~700 page book on April 8th to go with it, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism
http://www.amazon.com/War-Decision-Inside-Pentagon-Terrorism/dp/0060899735/antiwarbookstore
There is a fun article on antiwar.com about it:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=12575
Neocon Valor Is an Act of Feith
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Doug is particularly scornful of Colin Powell, who publicly appeared to be a voice of moderation. Feith does not like moderation, and he refers to Powell as a "dove." Powell "downplayed" the threat posed by Iraq while never opposing the actual invasion, according to Feith. Powell also is blamed for failing to convince France, Germany, and Turkey to support the Iraq war effort, conveniently ignoring that popular sentiment in all three countries was overwhelmingly opposed to joining the United States on its fool's errand. Feith also takes shots at his nemesis Tommy Franks, whom he accuses of having no interest in postwar planning; at Condoleezza Rice for failing to coordinate policy; and at Paul Bremer for doing more harm than good while in Iraq. All of those charges are more than a little bit true, but it is interesting how Feith completely exonerates both himself and the Pentagon for the massive failures in judgment that characterized the Iraq fiasco.
Doug claims that his plan to establish an Iraqi Interim Authority that would have shared power between U.S. officials and appointed Iraqis, many of whom would have been exiles, would have worked but for the sabotage carried out by disloyal subordinates at the State Department and CIA. Ahmed Chalabi, who provided reams of false information to justify the war in the first place, would have undoubtedly been one of those appointees. Feith calls the opposition to Chalabi "pathological," but it is more likely true that everyone else was seeing what he chose to ignore. Chalabi has been convicted of massive bank fraud in Jordan, is considered an intelligence fabricator both by the CIA and State Department, and is generally believed to be a double agent who was working for the Iranian intelligence service at the same time as he was "assisting" the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
Short Version: Feith plays apologist for himself by blaming everyone else (except Bush) and everything Feith did was entirely "appropriate".