Rumsfeld made his own intelligence

July 15, 2003 8:32 PM

Rumsfeld's personal spy ring The defense secretary couldn't count on the CIA or the State Department to provide a pretext for war in Iraq. So he created a new agency that would tell him what he wanted to hear. Today, Salon also looks into the role played by John Bolton. Is investigative journalism now just relegated to the web? [you have to look at an ad, I believe]
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly (24 comments total)

hm, that ACLU daypass add is reasuring...
posted by delmoi at 8:49 PM on July 15, 2003

what would be reasurring for you delmoi ? "sponsored by Office of Special Plans ?
posted by bureaustyle at 9:56 PM on July 15, 2003

relegated to the web?

Well, in the dead-trees world, this was news more than two months ago.
posted by Zurishaddai at 9:58 PM on July 15, 2003

I like that name " Office of Special Plans", I just wonder what those special plans are ? anybody has any idea what Bush Administration means with special plans ?
posted by bureaustyle at 9:59 PM on July 15, 2003

To all those Salon day-pass haters out there, you can use THIS LINK to automatically jump to the front page with the daypass cookie set (without having to check out the advertisement).

This public service announcement brought to you by Civil Disobedient, and the letters F and U (to the advertisers, not to our dear readers).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:02 PM on July 15, 2003

The ad and the subsequent link didn't even load for me (OS X, Safari.) If I promise to look at a Nike ad on the subway tomorrow, is it okay for someone to mirror this for me? Hell, I'll even chip in for a gold-plated bidet for Talbot. (Bitchy, but it's the fashionable thing to say, I s'pose.)
posted by stonerose at 10:02 PM on July 15, 2003

That's pretty smart, delmoi, you sure did debunk the hell out of the points in the article, good spanking job, you sleuth you.
posted by xmutex at 10:02 PM on July 15, 2003

One gold-plated bidet for Civil_Disobedient, coming right up.
posted by stonerose at 10:04 PM on July 15, 2003

Zurishaddai :
But is the New Yorker the exception or the rule?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:21 PM on July 15, 2003

I dunno, it's the only paper news periodical I get!

Civil_Disobedient: Thanks for the Salon link. I don't visit much, but I've fixed my link, and I can pass this on to someone who goes through the daypass routine every day of her life.
posted by Zurishaddai at 10:45 PM on July 15, 2003

Zurishaddai:
To come to think of it, I only get Harper's. Yeah, liberal media!
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:58 PM on July 15, 2003

Wolfowitz told the New York Times last year that 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."

I can't tell if this is an excuse for the mistakes that seem to have been made, or a rationale for creating an intelligence project that would be more motivated for finding intelligence.

Either way, wouldn't it have made sense to have had the CIA and the CPIA (cherry picking intelligence agency, not to be confused with the CIPA) sit down together and vet each others intelligence. And to have listened when the CIA said they didn't think it was credible?
posted by weston at 10:59 PM on July 15, 2003

The Office of Special Plans motto--hear mo' evil, see mo' evil, speak mo' evil
posted by y2karl at 11:25 PM on July 15, 2003

Thanks for the hint, Civil_Disobedient. With a little editing of ye olde cookies.txt I now have a never-expiring day pass, and there aren't any more banner ads!
posted by zsazsa at 6:34 AM on July 16, 2003

I swear to Crunk if anyone FPPs the Weapons of Mass Destruction story on the sidebar....
posted by jon_kill at 6:59 AM on July 16, 2003

I take it from the illustration that Rumsfeld & Cheney are controlling Michael Jackson.
posted by goethean at 8:00 AM on July 16, 2003

I swear, I think Rumsfeld is one of a new breed of right wing New Agers who think that they can shape reality through the power of their fervent beliefs. I think Rummy feels that, if he has enough snarling policy minions and intelligence trolls at his command, he can - like Cap'n Piccard - wave his hand and command "Let it be so." and...... It will be so!

Not.
posted by troutfishing at 8:49 AM on July 16, 2003

That's "Make it so," troutfishing!
Turn in your transcorder!
posted by squirrel at 10:32 AM on July 16, 2003

my favorite spook agency of old was the Office of Alien Property
posted by clavdivs at 11:44 AM on July 16, 2003

"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."

Of course, there is also a phenomenon that people pursuing specific hypothesis tend to screw up the intelligence reports by denying reality.

The public's perception of the current administration's competence is rapidly circling the drain.
posted by dglynn at 1:03 PM on July 16, 2003

This whole charade is finally becoming indefensible by The Apologists.

Nod off on the park bench for too long and you begin to look like a bum. Which isn't to say you are even though you are drunk. You just have to explain it to the snickering kids who recognize you as the school principal.

What do you tell them? That you're not the principal? They've already seen you.

Oversight. Congressional and citizen oversight. It works the same for left wingers and right wingers. We've all been duped by these charlatans. Now it's our duty to fix what they've broken, together. What is it they say? AIDS doesn't discriminate. Well, neither does tyranny. And if you believe that some fly by night intelligence office Rumsfeld set up is beyond scrutiny, as some sort of residual support for this idiotic invasion, then I just hope there are good Christians and Muslims out there praying for you. Because Democracy obviously ain't your bag.

"Democracy can be messy." -Donald Rumsfeld

Indeed. That's why he sought to circumvent American democracy. So he could bring it to the long suffering Iraqi people.

You guys might like to take a gander at this latest post at uggabugga.
posted by crasspastor at 3:50 PM on July 16, 2003

very valuable link, crasspastor. thanks.
posted by stonerose at 8:50 PM on July 16, 2003

"....Like O'Brien in 1984?" - skallas

Well, that might be closer to the reality of it. I'm not really sure what Don Rumsfeld believes, but I'm convinced that many on the US right believe that winning ( in finance or in politics ) = an ability to control the public opinion which, in turn spawns a reality congruent with one's right wing ideology (at least in the short term, anyway).
posted by troutfishing at 8:54 PM on July 16, 2003

The spies who pushed for war
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:12 PM on July 16, 2003