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04 June 2003

Feith Denies Pentagon Manipulated Intelligence Reports

(Defense Department Report) (350)
A senior U.S. Defense Department official June 4 described as inaccurate
news reports claiming that a special group was formed at the Pentagon to
manipulate intelligence reports about Iraq's links to international
terrorist groups and its weapons of mass destruction program in order to
make a case for going to war.
Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, told
journalists at a special Pentagon briefing that a small group
functioning within his office from October 2001 to August 2002 did
find some connections between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, the
terrorist group al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction. But the
information was used to help Pentagon planners develop a more
effective strategy for fighting a global war on terrorism and not to
make a case for waging war in Iraq, he said.
Feith said the team he formed focused on international terrorist
networks and how they related to states sponsoring terrorism, which
included Saddam Hussein's regime.
"It showed that we cannot simply assume that the only cooperation that
existed in the world among terrorist groups and their sponsors was on
some kind of pure ideological or philosophical lines," he said.
The team was not designed to replace or supersede the work of the
Central Intelligence Agency, nor issue its own intelligence judgments
regarding Iraq's WMD, Feith said. When the team had finished its work
and had found some linkages between Iraq and al-Qaida, it met with CIA
Director George Tenet in August 2002 and shared its observations, he
said.
"These were simply observations of this team based on the intelligence
that the intelligence community had given to us," he said. After the
meeting with Tenet, the team ended its work, he said.
Feith also said the team formed in his office was not designed to
attempt to topple the current Iranian government, as some news reports
inaccurately indicated. He said the future of Iran's current
government will be determined by its people.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)