Apparently, many of the quotes in that WaPo report were mis-attributed to the Pentagon's inspector general. The quotes actually came from Democratic Senator Carl M. Levin, not the Pentagon. link

www.lesjones.com

You know this is all actually rather old news. There were stories on the internet about the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans" long ago. The problem was these stories were published in "Radical Lefty" websites and ingnored by all but a handful. None of the Mainstream Media sources touched these stories. Check out salon.com and google the name Karpenski. The New Republic also ran a good story about this and how the same trick (form a special group/committee, whatever, to produce the results you want) had been used before. I'll try to dig them up and post the links, if they're still good.

Take Care, Be Good and don't play in the street!

SteveMule

Yesterday's news, indeed. Check out (link...) , founded 1997, to understand just how long this war was in the making. There's a lot there, but be sure to read:

1) On the Letters/Statements tab: Statement of Principles (June, 1997), signed by Jeb Bush, Dick Cheny, "Scooter" Libby, Dan Quayle, Don Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, among others.

Their beef? That the Clinton Administration had not "fought for a defense budget that would advance American interests in the new century." (Military industrial complex, anyone?)

Their goal? To "rally support for American global leadership." (Imperialism, one lump or two?)

Their method? To "shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire." (Birth of a notion: Preemptive war.), *and*...

2) On the Iraq/Middle East tab: Editorial from the Weekly Standard titled "How to Attack Iraq," (November, 1998).

Shared with due credit to Jesse Mayshark, who circulated this background info widely in the spring of 2003.

Here are some the articles I found going back to the early days and what was ignored:

Exclusive: Cheney and the ‘Raw’ Intelligence - An uncovered memo suggests the Iraqi National Congress
was feeding intelligence to Cheney's aides
By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff (NEWSWEEK Dec. 15, 2006 Issue)
(link...)

Pentagon Office Base for Neoconservative Network Manipulating Iraq Intelligence
By Jim Lobe (September 15, 2003)
(link...)

The Crisis of Feith.
By Jim Lobe (November 7,2003)
(link...)

Fury over Pentagon cell that briefed White House on Iraq's 'imaginary' al-Qaeda links
By Julian Coman in Washington (Filed: 11/07/2004)
(link...)

THE STOVEPIPE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH (The New Yorker - Issue of 2003-10-27, Posted 2003-10-20)
How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence
community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.
(link...)

Bad Sourcing
U.S. agencies may have relied on fabricators and Saddam’s own spies for
intelligence on Iraq WEB EXCLUSIVE Newsweek (Feb. 11, 2004)
(link...)

There was no failure of intelligence
- US spies were ignored, or worse, if they failed to make the case for war
By Sidney Blumenthal (The Guardian - February 5, 2004)
(link...)

Intelligence on the Eve of War (February 1, 2004)
(link...)

The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story - Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn't Make Front Page
By Howard Kurtz (Washington Post Staff Writer, August 12, 2004; Page A01)
(link...)

The WMD Inspector No One Heeded
By Harley Sorensen (SF Gate, February 9, 2004)
(link...)

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.
By Eric Boehlert (Salon.com, July 16, 2003)
(link...)

The White House war with the CIA
Author Thomas Powers, an expert on U.S. spy agencies, wonders who will take the rap for 9/11 and the
"horrific, calamitous" mistake in Iraq.
By Mark Follman (November 8, 2003)
(link...)

And for More at Salon.com go to:
(link...)

Take Care, Be Good and don't play in the street!

SteveMule