So I Started Reading the Feith Book...

[SteveMetz]

Just when I think it can't get any more bizarre: on pp. 496-497, Feith says POTUS approved a plan to turn over political power to Iraqis as quickly as possible. Bremer initially accepted that but then was brainwashed by the nefarious Department of State and CIA (kind of Rosemary's Baby ceremony, no doubt). So rather than implement the President's policy, he undertook a year of American occupation. The blame hence lies with him.

For this "explanation" to be true, one has to assume that the President failed to notice that Ambassador Bremer was not implementing his policy. And no one pointed that out to him.

Yep, Dougie, makes perfect sense!

[John T. Fishel]

Bremer's book, My Year in Iraq, seem like the unvarnished truth!

[SteveMetz]

Bremer defends himself but at least is psychologically and morally capable of admitting to mistakes. Feith, on the other hand, has no problem spinning the most surreal, even laughable explanations to prove that he never made a mistake.

[SteveMetz]

Two final thoughts about this and then, to borrow Chief Joseph's phrase, "I will rant no more for forever."

1. Feith does not understand the roots and causes of the post-Hussein conflict in Iraq. It was due to the unwillingness of the Sunni Arabs to accept a loss of power and status, and the unwillingness of the Shiites and Kurds to allow the Sunni Arabs to have disproportiante power and status. Feith asserts that a speedy handover of political authority to some sort of cobbled together Iraqi government would have prevented the rise of resistance. I don't think so since this would not have addressed the root cause of the conflict. Plus, Feith never makes clear whether this cobbled together Iraqi government was going to be defended by a cobbled together Iraqi security force, or by American troops. Given how hard it has been to build a new Iraqi security force, it's hard to imagine the former. And the latter would have inspired just as much anger, resentment, and resistance as having CPA run things in Baghdad. So Feith's silver bullet--a speedy handover of authority to Iraqis--is a pipedream (or feithdream).

2. Feith, like other members of the administration, cannot grapple with the idea that people may understand their policies and perceptions and still oppose them. He attributes all opposition, domestic and foreign, to failed strategic communications (mostly on the part of the State Department). As I often say, if you have a crappy product, the solution is not better advertising; it's a better product.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've scheduled several hours of scream therapy.

[SteveMetz]

OK, I lied. One more. I just couldn't let this pass. In the conclusions, he offers advice to the intelligence community. This is my favorite: "Maintain a scholarly or scientific frame of mind--the opposite of the ideologue to whom the facts don't matter."

[Tom Odom]

1. Feith does not understand the roots and causes of the post-Hussein conflict in Iraq. It was due to the unwillingness of the Sunni Arabs to accept a loss of power and status, and the unwillingness of the Shiites and Kurds to allow the Sunni Arabs to have disproportiante power and status.

Clearly you do not grasp that Wolfowitz as Feith's immediate boss had already declared that such sectarian schisms were of such a low order as to have no influence on the outcome. Ergo, they could not be root cause because they had no roots....


It is all very clear when you live in a controlled environment like the 2003 OSD.

Tom

[SteveMetz]

Clearly you do not grasp that Wolfowitz as Feith's immediate boss had already declared that such sectarian schisms were of such a low order as to have no influence on the outcome. Ergo, they could not be root cause because they had no roots....


It is all very clear when you live in a controlled environment like the 2003 OSD.

Tom

Guilty as charged. This could explain why my resume didn't make it past the initial screening by some 22 year old intern when I sent it to the Transition Team after the 2000 election.

[marct]

Feith, like other members of the administration, cannot grapple with the idea that people may understand their policies and perceptions and still oppose them. He attributes all opposition, domestic and foreign, to failed strategic communications (mostly on the part of the State Department).

OK, I lied. One more. I just couldn't let this pass. In the conclusions, he offers advice to the intelligence community. This is my favorite: "Maintain a scholarly or scientific frame of mind--the opposite of the ideologue to whom the facts don't matter."

if he has been studying logic with Gusterson and Price ? I mean, after all, they appear to be so close in their formal reasoning that some type of linkage probably exists.

As I often say, if you have a crappy product, the solution is not better advertising; it's a better product.

Now, now, Steve, let's not be too hasty. After all, to people like Feith, the product cannot be crappy by definition, so the true source of the problem must lie in the false consciousness of the consumer. This is a basic philosophical point institutionalized by the Dominicans, expanded upon by Marx and converted into application by such high minded groups as the KGB, the SS, Jim and Tammy-Fae Bakker and certain radical Post-Modernists. The essential Truth that they propound is exactly the same as what Feith is saying "Eat Sierra and like it... If you don't like it, it's someone else's fault!!!!!"

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've scheduled several hours of scream therapy.

You might try this instead of scream therapy - a useful set of skills for when you interview Dougie in the future .

[SteveMetz]

Now, now, Steve, let's not be too hasty. After all, to people like Feith, the product cannot be crappy by definition, so the true source of the problem must lie in the false consciousness of the consumer. This is a basic philosophical point institutionalized by the Dominicans

Now that just proves that Dominicans should stick to playing major league baseball.

By the way, I'm going to a Feith presentation on the book at Hudson on Monday.

[marct]

Now that just proves that Dominicans should stick to playing major league baseball.

Better than some of their other activities .

By the way, I'm going to a Feith presentation on the book at Hudson on Monday.

Oh, that should be so much fun ! Try to remember that since he won't be at Georgetown next year, he talk will be aimed at showing MSM executives that he really does have what it takes to have his own sitcom in primetime.

[Steve Blair]

Try to remember that since he won't be at Georgetown next year, he talk will be aimed at showing MSM executives that he really does have what it takes to have his own sitcom in primetime.

Only if he hooks up with one of the Hilton girls or a semi-finalist from American Idol. Otherwise he ain't got a snowball's chance in hell.

[Tom Odom]

Now that just proves that Dominicans should stick to playing major league baseball.

By the way, I'm going to a Feith presentation on the book at Hudson on Monday.

We want VIDEO!!!!! With a blog follow up of course!

[SteveMetz]

We want VIDEO!!!!! With a blog follow up of course!

Well, to sate your yearnings, you could go to the CSIS web site, click on CSIS TV on the right, and watch his presentation from last night.

[SWJED]

Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains by Dana Milbank, Washington Post.

Mistakes were made. But not by him...

[Tom Odom]

Well, to sate your yearnings, you could go to the CSIS web site, click on CSIS TV on the right, and watch his presentation from last night.

No no

We want video of you grilling him, kind of a reverse "Ask Ben Stein" as in "Steve Metz Asks..."

[SteveMetz]

No no

We want video of you grilling him, kind of a reverse "Ask Ben Stein" as in "Steve Metz Asks..."

Naw. He'd just start crying. Then I'd have to hug him and go, "There, there!"

[Cavguy]

The well known lefty mouthpiece The Washington Times has posted a scathing review of the book.

How Iraq War was planned, executed By John Weisman

There is a lot to recommend "War and Decision," Douglas J. Feith's apologia of his 2001-2005 tour as Donald Rumsfeld's under secretary of defense for policy. Few books have chronicled the labyrinthine, cutthroat process of policy-making from the inside in as detailed a manner as has Mr. Feith. Mr. Feith is also a fine writer. But the most important contribution "W&D" makes to the growing body of literature about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the war on terror and why it should be required reading in schools of public service and government was probably inadvertent on Mr. Feith's part.

"W&D" should be widely read so we never again make the mistakes Mr. Feith and his fellow Pentagon, State Department, CIA and White House senior political staffers made during their planning and execution of the Iraq war, or their tunnel vision abandonment of a successful Afghan campaign that has condemned us to near stalemate and a rejuvenated, opium-funded Taliban. It is obvious Mr. Feith is bright. His vacuity about the real world, however, is shocking.

It's cross town rival, The Washington Post, has a similar, humorous take from Dana Milbank. I also read the tidbit where Feith will be losing his Georgetown position soon.

"Iraq War Is Everyone Else's Fault, Feith Explains"

Mistakes were made. But not by him.

Doug Feith, the No. 3 man at the Pentagon before, during and after the invasion of Iraq, has come in for his share of blame for the failures there -- in large part because he led the Pentagon policy shop that badly misstated the case for war and bungled the planning for the aftermath. Gen. Tommy Franks called him "the dumbest [bad word] guy on the planet." George Tenet of the CIA called his work on Iraq "total crap." And Jay Garner, once the American administrator in Iraq, deduced that Feith is "incredibly dangerous" and, "He's a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected."

Now Feith, whatever the state of his electrons, is showing just how dangerous he can be. He's written a book designed to settle the score with his many opponents in the administration, and in a book-launch event last night at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he pointed his finger every which way but inward.

Classic. That Feith inhabits a dream word seems to be a conclusion from across the spectrum. Glad to see such idots can't access high positions.

[SteveMetz]

Unfortunately, I didn't make the presentation at the Hudson Institute today. Got in my car to drive down, and it started shaking and the check engine light came on, so I had to abort.

[Ski]

He was the cabin boy on the ship of fools...

[Cavguy]

Unfortunately, I didn't make the presentation at the Hudson Institute today. Got in my car to drive down, and it started shaking and the check engine light came on, so I had to abort.

Kind of like he did with Iraq .....

No analogy there!