.
.
Most of us can remember one or two creepy kids in our neighborhood when we were growing up. Remember the ones who seemed to know a lot about military stuff, weapons and weird conspiracies? They might have been nice enough, but tended to say things to freak out other kids, like “Those who speak, pay.”*

Hold that thought, and recall back in October 2003 when we heard something pass by in the news about an odd new intelligence unit in the Pentagon that skirted the formal channels. It was dismissed by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld who said something like, “Well look, we receive huge volumes of intelligence and it seems reasonable to have a small staff to help me sift through it all.” Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz put it another way to the the New York Times, saying there is "a phenomenon in intelligence work that people who are pursuing a certain hypothesis will see certain facts that others won't, and not see other facts that others will." ... or will see facts in a way that fits their aim.

Now, imagine if a bunch of those creepy guys from your childhood grew up, sought out people of like mind, and were clever enough to position themselves in a special intelligence office that had direct access to the Office of the Vice President of the United States? That would make a pretty creepy story, wouldn't it? This story is told in “The Lie Factory,” a five page piece by Robert Dryfus and Jason Vest, which appears in the Jan/Feb 2004 issue of Mother Jones.

The background to the story goes something like this. Back in the first Bush administration, there was this group of creepy guys named Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and some others, who worked in the Pentagon. They wrote a strategic plan for using the military to take over the Middle East to promote good American values that would ensure a prosperous future for the world. Senior intelligence and national security advisers of George H.W. Bush rolled their eyes, and quickly deep-sixed the report, shuddering at the thought of it getting out to the media.


Paul Wolfowitz
.


Richard Perle
.


Douglas Feith

During the Clinton administration, this same group stayed busy. They maintained close associates like Newt Gingrich and enlisted Donald Rumsfeld as one of their own. They worked the conservative think tank conference circuit, wrote letters to members of the Clinton Administration, and advocated the removal of Saddam Hussein. They also wrote white papers like the famous one by the Project for a New American Century, which was a revision of the strategy report that was deep-sixed by the first Bush administration.

Then, in 2000, this group got a big break, being placed into positions of influence when George W. Bush came to power. Much has been written about this group of neoconservatives in the past couple of years, in part because their old strategy paper was adopted by George W. Bush within his National Security Strategy, which includes the famous pre-emptive strike doctrine.

But now, thanks to Dryfus and Vest, we find out there is more to the story of this increasingly well known group of neoconservatives. It seems that they were behind the fleeting news story about the odd new intelligence unit in the Pentagon. Specifically, they took over the Office of Special Plans (OSP), turning it into an Iraq war promotion and planning unit. The OSP had unusual direct access to Vice President Cheney. The odd new intelligence unit was eventually incorporated into the OSP.

In the official organization chart, the OSP reports to retired Navy Captain William Luti, a former staffer for Cheney and Gingrich, who is now Bush's Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia Affairs (NESA). Luti is characterized by an NESA veteran, who says, “He makes Ollie North look like a moderate.”

The Mother Jones article describes a host of other people like Harold Rhode, David Wurmser, Abram Shulsky, Col. William Bruner and other key players, who all seem connected in web of past associations with people like Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle, and Wolfowitz as past staffers on Capitol Hill or as leaders in organizations like the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which have long histories of advocating regime change in Iraq. The article includes a helpful organizational chart showing links among the key Pentagon units, the Defense Advisory Board, and some links to outside entities, like the CIA and DEA (both filtered through the OSP), the private Iraqi National Congress headed by Ahmad Chalabi, and some think tank connections. The heads of the key units are identified, and some of their historical ties are noted in the chart.

Dryfus and Vest tell how veteran professionals were pushed aside so these neoconservatives could effectively run a disinformation campaign in the lead up to the 2003 Iraq war. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, assigned to work closely with this group, was shocked at what she saw. She described the information that was being sent directly to the Vice President, saying, “It wasn't intelligence – it was propaganda.” She's not alone in her view. The article includes similar statements by about four other intelligence officials, and a neoconservative academician, who is probably regretting his candid remarks at this time.

The power of this group is measured in part by the fact that they seem immune from any serious investigation. The authors note that Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-VW), and Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) are pressing the Republican lead Senate and House to expand the Iraq intelligence investigations into the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, but it seems unlikely to happen without significant public pressure. Perhaps this article will help.

In addition to the article, you might be interested in accessing a December 18, 2003 interview of Robert Dryfus featured on Democracy Now! With Amy Goodman, in audio format, at www.democracynow.org/article.pl

This review by Jim Kent, December 29, 2003.

* This was the response of one of the neoconservatives who refused to be interviewed for the Mother Jones story.