According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney. ...The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharons office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddams Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise. None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels, said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feiths authority without having to fill in the usual forms. The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israels Likud party. theguardian/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 08:37:54 +0000
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