Douglas Feith is a fascinating character. Dubbed by General Tommy Franks as the “stupidest f*cking guy on the planet,” he is one of the neocons who still goes on TV like he did nothing wrong, when he should be hiding under a rock and having trouble sleeping at night. On Monday, Feith stammered and stuttered his way through the widely discredited laundry list of reasons why — despite conventional wisdom and reality — the administration’s case for war was completely honest and forthright.
Here is just a small taste of Feith’s deceit and the money quote from Stewart:
Download | Play 
Download | Play (click here for the full 22-minute, unedited interview)
“You removed the ability for the American public to make an informed decision. Once you have removed that, then you no longer have the authority. You told us what part of the argument is appropriate to know about.”
Although Stewart did a solid job of holding Feith’s feet to the fire, I think he missed a couple of opportunities to really nail him. Rumsfeld’s flunky maintains that everyone involved really did weigh the pros and con, and that they frankly conveyed both sides of the argument to the public.
Well, I would love to hear his predictably laughable response to any one of these:
The reinsertion of the infamous sixteen words into the SoTU.
The Downing Street Memo that confirmed “facts were being fixed around the policy“ to remove Saddam Hussein.
Why was Powell’s entire UN speech based on the claims of someone named Curveball — an informant who the CIA repeatedly warned was entirely unreliable and a drunk.
Why was the opinion of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, who unequivocally concluded the aluminum tube and centrifuge angle was bogus, suppressed?
Why weren’t we told that Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, reached out to the CIA and debunked every myth about their non-existent weapons programs.
And on and on and on…
Feel free to add your own examples in the comment section.
Filed Under: Liars, The Daily Show/Jon Stewart, White House
Tags: Douglas Feith, Iraq War, Neocon Lies, Office Special Plans
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…he should be hiding under a rock and having trouble sleeping at night.
No, he should be [do not advocate violence] at the Hague (after a fair trial, of course).
I liked where Jon was heading, just wish he’d gone further faster.
But then again, is it really Comedy Central’s job to cover the fourth estate?
Saw this interview, Stewart crushed him.
well at least JS had SOME teeth in this interview. the question that begs to asked is where were they for the mccain interview?
I love that point about momentum from the second part. There was no momentum for a new war until they up and created it (and we all remember the members of the administration on talk show after talk show until they finally convinced the majority that it needed to be done).
RoscoPeeholePain @ 4:
I agree!
And your handle is funny as hell!
Feith has a perfectly logical theory for the Saddam-Al Qaeda link: Six Degrees of Separation!
Why? Oil. The newly commissioned and-based CVA Iraq. Launching point for coloniztion of Arab states and theft of their national resources. Profits for the Carlisle Group. Profiteering for Haliburton. Wealth beyond dreams of avarice for defense contractors. Cover for dismantling the Constitution. Further cover for perpetrating the overthrow of the American government while replacing it with a totalitarian police state. By their reckoning, it’s mission accomplished….they’ve done very well for themselves.
stupidest fucking guy on the planet
SEC. RUMSFELD (August 03, 2004): But Doug Feith, of course, is without question, one of the most brilliant individuals in government. He is – he’s just a rare talent. And from my standpoint, working with him is always interesting. He’s been one of the really the intellectual leaders in the administration in defense policy aspects of our work here.
in 2004 that might have been a compliment (to some), but today that quote is damning.
call me vindictive, but for the rest of feith’s sad miserable existence i think he should have to wake, drink, sleep, eat, shit, etc. the nightmare he helped spurn. he should be followed, mocked and ridiculed every day he has left in his slug-spittle life. at his house, at georgetown, when he goes out to restaurants, etc., everywhere he goes, there should be a group of people holding up the images of the mutilated bodies, the dead children, the dead american soldiers/marines, taunting him, making him dread living.
that would be my wish for the stupidest fucking guy on the planet. his actions and lies helped kill hundreds of thousands, and if he doesn’t go before a war crimes tribunal his life should still be one long, waterboard-like, torturous existence.
SEC. RUMSFELD (August 03, 2004): [inaudible] remember Doug and others here as well as people outside of government urging that Iraqis be trained and given an opportunity to participate in the liberation of the country. And Doug unquestionably was in the forefront of that. You can imagine that a group of professional uniformed military personnel preparing for a major conflict and recognizing the difficulties of it, he [Feith] focused on their piece of it, which is the piece of getting that job done and getting it done in the fastest way that saved the most lives and the military and civilian as well. So that interest that Doug and others had, I think, was a valid one.
it is easy to let rummy hang feith.
Five years later, and there are still plenty of shitheads who actually believe they can make a legit argument for defending the Iraq invasion.
Just shows how stubborn and blind the GOP can be. They’ll say the sky is green….then keep repeating it over and over until they simply wear down the opposition.
Bottom line: this country is in some very serious trouble. And don’t expect the rest of the world to lend a helping hand. It’s time for the bully to get its payback.
Why don’t you admit that you took a huge gamble with American lives and treasure and lost.
Jon really hit it out of the park last night. It was not funny, not fake news, but considered non-revisionist evaluation.
In the end, it makes the dirty little chimp seem dumber than before and darth dick all that more paranoid and evil.
If incompetence is next to Godliness, their places are assured. If not, well then history’s judgement will be harsher than anything we can write here.
I believe in the Military draft for at least one person. Go directly to the front lines in Iraq, do not pass go, do NOT collect $200. (Actually, the draft is good for all their children as well).
I don;t watch, nor care to watch, Jon (I’m MSM now too!) Stewart any longer. He’s had McSame on numerous times, including recently - and never gets down to brass tacks with these guys. Always lets them off the hook with a guffaw here or an aw shucks there. He had his chances (plural) but is now relegated to the dustbin of MSM papparazzi.
They lied America into endless war and he has the chutzpah to go on a book flogging tour.
Hey,that rhymes.
When Feith started to go down the path saying something about “If Saddam Hussein had just been honest about his WMD”, that nailed it right there. The Iraqis said they had no WMD, the search teams in Iraq before the war found no WMD, and no WMD have been found since the war. Before the invasion many people said “Give the weapons inspectors more time”, but they were pulled out before the invasion. The emperor (Bush) has no clothes. It was all an illusion designed to get us into this crazy war, for deeper motives.
when do WE send them to prison…can’t we make citizen arrests???
As long as people like Feith remain on the street and not in prison America is doomed.
The meek shall inherit the earth
But only after the powerful have blasted it.
Sachem @ 13:
bush and cheney are not incompetent. they were not put into power not by us but by the military industrial mediatainment complex and they are doing what is right for the people that put them and kept them in power.
we know there was malfeasance
in both the 2000 and 2004 elections….yet people like you think it’s incompetence that drives their policies
wake the fuck up
Feith continues to repeat lies
A real problem is that we have yet to witness the completion of Phase II of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which was supposedly investigating all of the pre-war intelligence. Republican Senator Pat Roberts did everything in his power when he headed this committee to divert, dilute and delay the findings of Phase II. I believe there are two parts to this investigation that are still not completed. One of the sections has to do with the Office of Special Plans which Feith, Ledeen, Rhode, Wurmser and others operated out of. Where they “allegedly” created, cherry picked and dessiminated the false pre-war intelligence out of.
Will Democratic Senator Rockefeller complete this investigation.
Will the American public witness anyone held ACCOUNTABLE for the false pre-war intelligence and the stovepiping of this intelligence into the White House. Holding these people accountable is the very least THE VERY LEAST that our reps can do for those who have been killed, injured or displaced by this immoral and unnecessary war.
Hold those responsible for an INTELLIGENCE SNOWJOB accountable!
The Republicans seems to be great at holding a President for lies under oath having to do with BLOWJOB!
Think Progress has a great deal at their site about Phase II
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS): Chairman of the Senate Cover-up Committee
http://thinkprogress.org/roberts-coverup/
SSCI report (the part that has been finished)
http://209.85.215.104/search?q.....&gl=us
THE WAY I UNDERSTAND IT THE OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS WAS “OFF LIMITS” TO THE INVESTIGATION FOR A LONG TIME
Stewart does a great job while conducting an extremely difficult balancing act. First, he has a limited amount of time to work with. Second, if he totally hammers conservative guests he won’t get others to appear on the show in the future. If you’re like me, there are times when I’m thinking, “interrupt this idiot regarding the lie that they just spouted”…but Jon has to give them a chance to speak, otherwise he’s no better than O’Reilly. Jon is so successful because of these abilities.
marko @ 18:
fEITH SHOULD BE IN PRISON
[I’m going to let this slide, But in future Please don’t post in all Caps. Thank You. Site Monitor]
Idiot.
It sounds like Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose character trying to defend Nixon …
Stephen Johnson @ 14:
Draft their children first.
That way they can personally experience the results and cost of their arrogance and dishonesty.
Man. Fuck you, Feith, you fucking Fucktard.
That’s what Stewart should have said right at the end of the interview.
I have not watched this how in a while because it seems to me that Stewart is ALWAYS hosting Republicans who are crminals. He never gives McCain a hard time, and I don’t believe he has ever had John Edwards on his show. As an Edwards supporter I was disappointed with how the corporate media (including Jon Stewart)suppressed Edwards’ exposure to the voting public. I don’t think Stewart is sincerely in the corner of the average American.
Does NORML put out propaganga?
Does anybody put out anymore?
colon powell and the fingerpaintings of wmd at the UN.
i wish stewart (or somebody) would ask mr. feith about his relationship with the likud party in israel. it’s a very important topic and it’s hardly ever addressed.
You can scroll through Think Progress to find out more about Phase I and Phase II of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Phase II has yet to be completed. (this is the investigation that was looking into Feith’s Office of Special Plans
There are many articles here about Phase II
http://thinkprogress.org/roberts-coverup/
Here is an article worth reading by Stephen Green which includes info about Feith
February 28 / 29, 2004
A CounterPunch Special Report
Serving Two Flags
Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration
By STEPHEN GREEN
Douglas Feith: Hardliner, Security Risk
“Bush’s appointment of Douglas Feith as DoD Undersecretary for Policy in early 2001 must have come as a surprise, and a harbinger, even to conservative veterans of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administration. Like Michael Ledeen, Feith is a prolific writer and well-known radical conservative. Moreover, he was not being hired as a DoD consultant, like Ledeen, but as the third most senior United States Defense Department official. Feith was certainly the first, and probably the last high Pentagon official to have publicly opposed the Biological Weapons Convention (in 1986), the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (in 1988), the Chemical Weapons Convention (in 1997), the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (in 2000), and all of the various Middle East Peace agreements, including Oslo (in 2000).
Even more revealing perhaps, had the transition team known of it, was Feith’s view of “technology cooperation,” as expressed in a 1992 Commentary article: “It is in the interest of U.S. and Israel to remove needless impediments to technological cooperation between them. Technologies in the hands of responsible, friendly countries facing military threats, countries like Israel, serve to deter aggression, enhance regional stability and promote peace thereby.”
What Douglas Feith had neglected to say, in this last article, was that he thought that individuals could decide on their own whether the sharing of classified information was “technical cooperation,” an unauthorized disclosure, or a violation of U.S. Code 794c, the “Espionage Act.”
Ten years prior to writing the Commentary piece, Feith had made such a decision on his own. At the time, March of 1972, Feith was a Middle East analyst in the Near East and South Asian Affairs section of the National Security Council. Two months before, in January, Judge William Clark had replaced Richard Allen as National Security Advisor, with the intention to clean house. A total of nine NSC staff members were fired, including Feith, who’d only been with the NSC for a year. But Feith was fired because he’d been the object of an inquiry into whether he’d provided classified material to an official of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. The FBI had opened the inquiry. And Clark, who had served in U.S. Army counterintelligence in the 1950’s, took such matters very seriously…..more seriously, apparently, than had Richard Allen.
Feith did not remain unemployed for long, however. Richard Perle, who was in 1982 serving in the Pentagon as Assistant secretary for International Security Policy, hired him on the spot as his “Special Counsel,” and then as his Deputy. Feith worked at ISP until 1986, when he left government service to form a small but influential law firm, then based in Israel.
In 2001, Douglas Feith returned to DoD as Donald Rumsfeld’s Undersecretary for Policy, and it was in his office that “OSP”, the Office of Special Plans, was created. It was OSP that originated–some say from whole cloth–much of the intelligence that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have used to justify the attack on Iraq, to miss-plan the post-war reconstruction there, and then to point an accusing finger at Iran and Syria…..all to the absolute delight of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.”
ysbaddaden @ 29:
who? abbey norml?
AND we are very concerned about all the Iran propaganda.
Live blogging the Chicago Iran hearings…
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33398
Talking points article about Feith and his shamelessness
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsme.....doug_feit/
The Shamelessness of Doug Feith and the Neocons
By M.J. Rosenberg - April 7, 2008, 5:09PM
How amazing is it that Doug Feith has the audacity to go on Sixty Minutes to essentially brag about the war he and his fellow neocons tricked America into?
4000 Americans dead. Iraq destroyed. Thousands of dead Iraqi children.
And this war criminal goes on television to hawk his book. Watch this portion of the interview. To his credit, interviewer Steve Kroft looks like he wants to vomit.
But why belabor Feith. Any administration that would give this guy a security clearance, let alone make him #2 at the Pentagon, clearly knew what it was doing. Feith is an idiot but he is what Bush and Cheney wanted.
Neocons like Feith have no conscience. They see the death and destruction that they caused in Iraq and think, “Hey, that will make an interesting chapter in my memoir.” And how does America respond to this immorality? We buy their books, hire them to work at our best universities, and seat them on the boards of wealthy corporations.
Ignorant, weak, pathetic, accessory to mass murder and genocide. Where ever this goof goes in life, anyone he runs into who was against this immoral oil grab/war should be allowed to kick him up the ass.
Feith brought a knife to a gun fight.
Gotta give Stewart some credit. It would be very challenging for me to shake the hands of some of those he has shook. A true professional this Stewart. You know he must wash over and over once off camera.
Maybe he can move his show to Vermont or Europe so their will be some arrests when they finish taping.
What does these prisoners of their war/crony crimes know about freedom anyway?
Where would the news media be without Comedy Central? At least someone is asking the tough questions. Too bad it’s a comedian that has to do it instead of “journalists.”
Add to the list:
1. Rumsfeld knew the weapons were, north, south, east and west of Baghdad.
2. Iraq’s non-existent WMD were sent to Syria
3. Hussein was involved with al Qaeda and plotting 9/11
4. Hussein could attack us with nukes within 6 months
5. The US wants democracy in Iraq and the Middle East
6. The US is waging a war against terror
7. Bush had a plan for post-war Iraq
8. Iraq’s oil would pay for
warliberation and reconstruction9. Hussein had bio-weapons labs
10. Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes
11. Saddam would give WMD to terrorists
12. Iraqis would greet us as liberators
The person who has covered the subject of torture in Guantanamo Bay and its main players extensively and comprehensively, and that would include Douglas Feith, is Philippe Sands. He has written a book on the subject [ which, I believe, is entitled Torture Team] and an article on this topic in the May issue of Vanity Fair. In the article, Feith claimed that he had no knowledge of torture taking place in that prison location in Cuba. When Sands showed Feith a memo written by Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II, which stated that “I have discussed this [torture] with the Deputy [that would be Donald Rumsfeld], Doug Feith and General Myers”, and asked Feith to comment on the memo, all Feith could say to Sands was that he had mispronounced his name. The last thing that these miscreants will ever do is admit that they are wrong, as they seem to believe that their hubris will forever go unpublished. Unfortunately, since Nancy Pelosi has declared impeachment to be off the table, they are probably right to think this.
BaScOmBe against Bitter Elitist Bullshit @ 33:
Y B Normal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0izPsLSm-zM
i thought stewart did a great job…he just let feith talk
and the more he spoke, the more idiocy spewed out of that asshats mouth
It’s amazing how these guys want to rewrite history and the facts. Goldberg wanting ideas on the legacy of Bush. Doesn’t he know that Glen Greenwald alredy wrote that book? He must