Who Is Douglas Feith?

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April 1987-1994: Richard Perle Travels to Turkey and Negotiates Large Contract for Firm He Helped Start
Richard Perle travels to Turkey where he negotiates an $800,000 contract for International Advisors Inc. (IAI), a company which he started with Douglas Feith, and for which he recruited six former executive branch staff officials. He becomes a consultant to IAI and receives $48,000 annually from 1989 to 1994. IAI is registered as Turkey’s foreign agent with the Justice Department. It receives $800,000 from Turkey in 1989, and then $600,000 annually from 1990 to 1994. [Rossides, 9/6/2002]

November 1995: US Current and Former Officials Play Prominent Roles in Dayton Peace Talks
Richard Perle and Douglas Feith act as advisors to the government of Bosnia during the Dayton peace talks. They do not register with the Department of Justice, as required by US law. Richard Holbrooke is the chief NATO civilian negotiator and Wesley Clark the chief NATO military negotiator. [Washington Watch, 5/13/2001] After the Dayton peace talks, Richard Perle then serves as a military adviser to the Bosnian government. [AFP Reporter, 1997]

July 8, 1996
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” [Washington Times, 10/7/2002; Chicago Sun-Times, 3/6/2003] The paper, whose lead author is Richard Perle, advises the new, right-wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to break with the policies of the previous government by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism….” Much along the lines of an earlier paper by Israeli Oded Yinon (see February 1982), the document urges the Israelis to aggressively seek the downfall of their Arab neighbors—especially Syria and Iraq—by exploiting the inherent tensions within and among the Arab States. Specifically, it recommends that Israel work with Turkey and Jordan to remove Saddam Hussein from power as a means of “foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” [Studies, 7/8/1996; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/19/2003] Other suggestions for Israel include abandoning the Oslo Accords, developing a foreign policy based on a traditional balance of power strategy, reserving its right to invade the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a strategy of “self-defense,” abandoning any notion of “land for peace,” reestablishing a policy of preemptive strikes, forging closer ties to the US while taking steps towards self-reliance, and seeking an alternative to Yasser Arafat as leader of the PLO. [Studies, 7/8/1996]

1997: Ahmed Chalabi Says He Supports Normal Relations between Iraq and Israel
Ahmed Chalabi, speaking before an audience at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), insists that with just minimal support from the US, Saddam Hussein’s government could easily be toppled and replaced with a government friendly to Israel. Chalabi’s ideas reportedly catch the attention of neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. [Newsweek, 5/31/2003; New Yorker, 6/7/2004]

Before October 1997: $400 Million Bosnian Defense Fund Fuels Balkan Conflict
Fourteen nations, including the US, support a $400 million “Bosnian Defense Fund,” which reportedly collects cash and equipment contributions for a “train and equip” program that is operated by the US. [Arms Trade News, 10/1997] According to investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, a former Naval Officer who has worked with the NSA: “Via something called the Bosnia Defense Fund, these countries [Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Brunei, Jordan, and Egypt] deposited millions of dollars into US coffers to buy weapons for the Bosnians…. According to Washington K Street sources, the law firm that established the Bosnia Defense Fund was none other than Feith and Zell, the firm of current Pentagon official and leading neo-con Douglas Feith. Feith’s operation at Feith and Zell was assisted by his one-time boss and current member of Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle.” [CounterPunch, 9/18/2003]

February 19, 1998
The Committee for Peace and Security publishes an open letter to President Bill Clinton outlining a 9-point “comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime.” The letter is signed by a litany of former US government officials known for their neoconservative viewpoints. Several of the signatories are also involved with the Project for the New American Century and had endorsed a similar letter published by that organization the previous month. [Abrams et al., 2/19/1998; CNN, 2/20/1998]

2001-2003: US Intelligence Bases Assessements on Information Provided by INC
The US intelligence community—most notably the intelligence gatherers working in the Pentagon offices under Douglas Feith (see September 2002) —bases several of its intelligence assessments concerning Iraq on information offered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and by Iraqi defectors provided by the INC, despite warnings from the State Department and some CIA analysts that the lobbying group cannot be trusted. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Independent, 9/30/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Unnamed administration official] The INC’s primary intelligence organization is its Information Collection Program (ICP), which conducts about 20 percent of all US intelligence’s verbal debriefings of Iraqi prisoners, insurgents, and defectors. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 336-337] Some of the INC’s intelligence on Iraq is reportedly funneled directly to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney by Francis Brooke, the DC lobbyist for the group. [Newsweek, 12/15/2003 Sources: Memo, Francis Brooke] Brooke will later acknowedge that the information provided by the INC was driven by an agenda. “I told them [the INC], as their campaign manager, ‘Go get me a terrorist and some WMD, because that’s what the Bush administration is interested in.’” [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 230] Brooke had previously worked for the Rendon Group, “a shadowy CIA-connected public-relations firm.” [Mother Jones, 1/2004]

January 20-September 10, 2001: Bush Administration Sees Rogue States with Missiles as Top Security Threat Instead of Al-Qaeda
Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (R) and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (L) speak to reporters in Moscow after taking part in negotiations with Russia regarding an anti-ballistic missile shield on May 11, 2001.Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (R) and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (L) speak to reporters in Moscow after taking part in negotiations with Russia regarding an anti-ballistic missile shield on May 11, 2001. [Source: Yuri Kochetkov/ Corbis]While still campaigning to become president, George W. Bush frequently argued the US should build an anti-ballistic missile shield (see October 12, 2000). After Bush is made president, the development of such a shield and getting out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty the US has signed that would prevent such a shield, becomes the top US security priority. Senior officials and cabinet members make it their top agenda item in meetings with European allies, Russia, and China. Five Cabinet-level officials, including Condoleezza Rice, travel to Moscow to persuade Russia to abandon the ABM Treaty. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith is there on September 10 to make the same case. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/5/2004] In a major speech given on May 1, 2001, Bush calls the possible possession of missiles by rogue states “today’s most urgent threat.” [New York Times, 5/2/2001] In a June 2001 meeting with European heads of state, Bush names missile defense as his top defense priority and terrorism is not mentioned at all (see June 13, 2001). It will later be reported that Rice was scheduled to give a major speech on 9/11, in which, according to the Washington Post, she planned “to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and [made] no mention of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or Islamic extremist groups…” However, the speech will be cancelled due to the 9/11 attacks.(see September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 4/1/2004] Bush’s missile shield stance is highly controversial. For instance, in July 2001 a Guardian article is titled, “US Defies Global Fury Over Missile Shield.” [New York Times, 5/2/2001] Domestic critics suggest the missile shield could start a new arms race and cost over $500 billion. [Reuters, 5/3/2001] Some argue that Bush’s missile focus is diverting attention from terrorism. For instance, Sen. Carl Levin (D) tells Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at a June 2001 hearing that the US is spending too much money on missile defense and not “putting enough emphasis on countering the most likely threats to our national security… like terrorist attacks.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/5/2004] On September 5, 2001, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd writes, “And why can George W. Bush think of nothing but a missile shield? Our president is caught in the grip of an obsession worthy of literature” and notes that “sophisticated antimissile interceptors can’t stop primitive, wobbly missiles from rogue nations, much less germ warfare from terrorists…” [New York Times, 9/5/2001] On September 10, 2001, Sen. Joseph Biden (D) warns that if the US spends billions on missile defense, “we will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat, while the real threats come into this country in the hold of ship, or the belly of a plane.” In 2004, a San Francisco Chronicle editorial will suggest that if the Bush administration had focused less on the missile shield and had “devoted more attention, more focus and more resources to the terrorist threat, the events of Sept. 11 might have been prevented.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/5/2004]

September 11, 2001: Rumsfeld’s ‘Brain Trust’ in Europe When Attacks Occur
Seven members of Donald Rumsfeld’s so-called neocon “brain trust,” including Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and William Luti, head of the Pentagon’s Near Eastern and South Asian desk, are “busy on unrelated missions in Europe and the Middle East.” They return to Washington the next day (see September 12, 2001). [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 234 Sources: William Luti, Douglas Feith]

End Part I