Something the Cheney administration is good at

In my previous post, I insinuated that the administration is entirely incompetent. That was unfair. They are extremely good at bullying and intimidating people who work for them.

The inspector-general’s report, released last week, described as “inappropriate” the work of a small intelligence unit within Feith’s office. The unit was created during a crucial period in 2002 when the Bush administration first began making the case to invade Iraq.

In particular, the report concluded that analysts working for Feith presented top policymakers with “alternative” intelligence assessments that suggested a direct link between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda (as well as a possible Iraq connection to the September 11 attacks). The analysts did so, the report concluded, without fully disclosing that their portrayal of the evidence conflicted with the consensus views of the U.S. intelligence community.

In the original draft of his report, Gimble recommended that the Defense Department policy office establish new internal controls to make sure that officials there do not conduct “intelligence activities.” He also recommended that any alternative judgments be clearly labeled as such—and that policy officials spell out precisely how they diverged from those of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies.

But after reviewing a copy of Gimble’s draft, Edelman wrote a 52-page response, dated Jan. 16, 2007, that rejected virtually everything the inspector-general had to say (except Gimble's conclusions that Feith’s activities were not illegal). Edelman described the report as having “numerous factual inaccuracies, omissions and mischaracterizations.”

At the same time, Edelman challenged the competency of Gimble even to weigh in on the “appropriateness” of Feith’s work, saying that the inspector-general’s “opinion” on this issue “is not entitled to any particular deference” because he “does not have special expertise” on an issue that is “fraught with policy and political dimensions.”

As for the inspector-general’s recommendation that his office change procedures and make other changes, Edelman wrote that he does not agree with any of them. “Accordingly,” Edelman wrote, his office “has taken no actions, and plans none, in response to the proposed recommendations.”

While the reply was unusually feisty for a bureaucratic memo, Gimble’s response may have been just as unusual. While sticking by his factual findings and conclusions about the inappropriate actions of Feith’s analysts, the inspector-general chose to delete his recommended policy changes from the final report. Asked for comment, a spokesman in the inspector-general’s office shared with NEWSWEEK a memo Gimble wrote back to Edelman in which he concluded that the “circumstances prevalent in 2002” (when the alleged inappropriate behavior occurred) “are no longer present today.” Gimble wrote that the establishment of a new intelligence office in the Pentagon answerable to an under secretary and the “aggressive efforts” of the director of national intelligence—a position created by Congress in 2004—“have all contributed to a more favorable operational environment.”

Feith said today he was gratified that the inspector-general changed his report in response to Edelman’s criticisms. The IG’s proposed policy changes, he said, were “completely impractical.” He said they would have stifled criticism of the intelligence community consensus, which, he said, “history shows” is “sometimes very wrong.”

Never have so many been so wrong about so much. Then bragged about it.