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Douglas Feith

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Douglas Feith

Douglas J. Feith (born July 16, 1953) served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush from July 2001 until he resigned from his position effective August 8 2005. Feith holds a J.D. (magna cum laude) from the Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. (magna cum laude) from Harvard College.

His responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense (DoD) relations with foreign countries, and DoD's role in U.S. Government interagency policymaking.

When Feith left the Defense Department in 2005, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld highlighted the following accomplishments :

  • A plan to revamp America’s Global Defense Posture -- move troops, move families, move contractors, and facilities from where they were at the end of World War II to the end of the Cold War to where they’re needed and usable
  • A NATO Response Force to counter threats and to deal with crises
  • New security relationships in Central Asia and South Asia;
  • Helping to fashion a new National Security Defense Strategy that helps guide DoD in planning assumptions for the war on terrorism as well as other responsibilities.
  • The training and equipping of foreign forces;
  • The creation of an Office of Post-conflict Reconstruction in the Department of State; and
  • The Global Peace Operations Initiative.

In his speech, Rumsfeld said:

"Years from now, unfortunately it may be many years, accurate accounts of what’s taking place these past four years will be written and it will show that Doug Feith has performed his duties with great dedication, with impressive skill and with remarkable vision during this perilous and indeed momentous period in the life of our country."

Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon from September 2002 to June of 2003. This now defunct intelligence gathering unit has been accused of manipulating intelligence to bolster support for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. These accusations are under investigation by the Pentagon's Inspector General and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Sources within the SSCI report Feith and the Defense Department have been less than helpful in their investigation into the Office of Special Plans prewar activities.

It has been alleged by Former NSC Intelligence Director Vincent Cannistraro and author Stephen Green that Douglas Feith involuntarily left the NSC in March, 1982 after he fell under suspicion of the FBI of passing classified material to Israeli embassy officials who were not entitled to receive it. This version of events is disputed by the NSC head at the time, Judge William Clark. It should be noted that a future subordinate of Douglas Feith, Larry Franklin, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 12 years in Federal prison for similar charges in the AIPAC espionage scandal. The FBI counter-espionage probe into improper transmission of classified information to AIPAC and Ahmed Chalabi could involve Feith, who refuses to comment on the investigation.

Feith is now a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and is co-chairing a task force on strategies for combating terrorism at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is writing a memoir about his work on the War on Terrorism which will be published by HarperCollins. He may soon take a position in the faculty of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Background

Feith is a neoconservative. He has over the last thirty years published many works on U.S. national security policy. For a substantial sample, see . His work on US-Soviet detente, arms control and Arab-Israeli issues generated considerable debate. In particular, his writings on Israel and Zionism have drawn attacks from those who oppose his views. (see e.g. ).

Feith has long advocated a policy of peace through strength. He was an outspoken skeptic of U.S.-Soviet detente and of the Oslo Process on Palestinian-Israeli peace.

Feith first entered government as a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council (NSC) under Ronald Reagan in 1981. He transferred from the NSC Staff to Pentagon in 1982 to work as Special Counsel for Richard Perle, who was then serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger promoted Feith in 1984 to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy and, when Feith left the Pentagon in 1986, Weinberger gave him the highest Defense Department civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service medal. Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith established the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. His law firm colleague, Marc Zell, was resident in Israel. Three years later, Feith was retained as a lobbyist by the Turkish government. Among other clients, his firm represented defense corporations Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

Various newspaper stories and books have asserted that Feith was a co-author of a controversial report A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm , a set of policy reccomendations for the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The report was published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies without an individual author being named. According to the report, Feith was one of the people who participated in roundtable discussions that produced ideas that the report reflects. Feith pointed out in a Sept 16, 2004 letter to the editor of the Washington Post that he was not the co-author and did not clear the report's final text. He wrote, "There is no warrant for atrributing any particular idea , let alone all of them, to any one participant."

Feith wrote critically about the Oslo process and the Camp David peace agreement mediated by former President Jimmy Carter between Egypt and Israel. In 1997, he published a lengthy article in Commentary magazine, titled "A Strategy for Israel." In it, Feith argued that the Oslo Process was being undermined by Yasser Arafat's failure to fulfill his peace pledges and Israel's failure to uphold the integrity of the accords it had concluded with Arafat.

Two years later, Feith and other former US officials signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton calling for the United States to work to oust Saddam Hussein. Feith was part of a community of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported the work of Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress to encourage the US Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. That act was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton.

Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes military and strategic ties between the United States and Israel.

Feith is a conservative on foreign policy and arms control. He was an outspoken opponent of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Chemical Weapons convention which he criticized as ineffective and dangerous to U.S. interests.

Feith favors US support for Israeli security and has promoted US-Israeli cooperation. His late father, Dalck Feith, a philanthropist and businessman from Philadelphia, was a Holocaust survivor who had been active in the Zionist youth movement Betar in Poland before World War II. Both father and son were honored by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) which is conservative in its policy positions and often makes common cause on foreign policy issues with conservative Christian organizations.

Feith's writings on international law and on foreign and defense policy have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New Republic and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller's Churchill as Peacemaker and Uri Ra'anan's Hydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism, as well as serving as co-editor for Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History.

During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan Administration, Feith was instrumental in getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense Weinberger and Secretary of State Shultz all to recommend (successfully) to the President not to ratify changes to the Geneva Conventions. The changes, known as Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, would have allowed terrorists to be treated as combatants and prisoners of war even if they had engaged in practices that endangered non-combatants or otherwise violated the laws of war. President Reagan informed the Senate in 1987 that he would not ratify Protocol I. At the time, both the Washington Post and the New York Times editorialized in favor of President Reagan's decision to reject Protocol I as a pro-terrorist revision of humanitarian law. As Under Secretary, Feith continued to champion US respect for the Geneva Conventions. See his oped article "Conventional Warfare" in Wall Street Journal May 24, 2004. When the logic of President Reagan's decision on Protocol I was applied by President Bush in 2001 in designating Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as "enemy combatants" or "unlawful combatants" rather than as "prisoners of war," a passionate debate ensued (and continues) as to whether one is undermining or supporting the Geneva Conventions by giving terrorist detainees POW status.

United States Army General Tommy Franks, according to Bob Woodward's 2004 Plan of Attack, described Feith as the "fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth" (p.281). . In his biography, American Soldier, Tommy Franks clarified the context of this phrase by stating that he was talking to his subordinates who were upset with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith and Franks said that his actual words were 'word is going around that Feith is the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth'; thus, he says he was reporting what he heard about Feith rather than expressing his own personal opinion. In 2005, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, publicly stated he could "testify to" Franks' comment and added "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man."

United States Marine Corps General Peter Pace, now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, worked closely with Feith, co-chairing with him the Defense Department's Campaign Planning Committee (CAPCOM). The New Yorker May 9, 2005 (p. 36) interviewed Pace about Franks' criticism and reported: "Pace, who calls Feith a 'true American patriot,' said he did not understand Franks' attack. 'This is not directed at any individual,' Pace said, 'but the less secure an individual is in his thought processes and in his own capacities, the more prone they were to be intimidated by Doug, because he's so smart.'" The same New Yorker article reported on Rumsfeld's reaction to Franks: "Feith's most prominent defender is Rumsfeld, who told me that Feith is 'one of the brightest people you or I will ever come across. He's diligent, very well read, and insightful.' Rumsfeld explained Feith's trouble with Franks this way: 'If you're a combatant commander and you're in the area of operations and you're hearing from people in Washington, what you're hearing is frequently not on point to what you're worrying about at the moment, just as the reverse is also true.'"

Accusations and Refutations

Some newspapers, journalists, bloggers and political opponents have linked Feith's name with scandals and accusations relating to Israel. When a Montana newspaper reported one such accusation, Judge William Clark, who was President Reagan's National Security Adviser at the relevant time, got a September 22, 2005 letter to the editor published to correct the record: "Your article cites a Mr. Cannistraro to the effect that Mr. Feith was fired for wrongdoing from President Reagan's National Security Council in 1982. I was President Reagan's National Security Advisor at the time and I tell you that is untrue. Mr. Feith served honorably on my staff and went on to serve well at the Pentagon under Secretary Cap Weinberger. Because of his fine record, President George W. Bush hired him as his Under Secretary of Defense for Policy." This contrasts with Stephen Green who alleges Feith was fired by Judge William Clark. Former Counterterrorism Chief Vincent Cannistraro confirms that Feith was fired for leaking classified material to Israel.

Feith's security clearance was revoked in March 1982 after an FBI probe into Feith's alleged transmission of classified material to an employee of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. Feith's clearances were reinstated by the Bush administration after 2000.

Feith is under investigation by the Pentagon's Inspector General and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for his alleged manipulation of intelligence prior to the Iraqi invasion of 2003. Feith is also being investigated by the FBI in relation to the AIPAC espionage scandal, which led to the conviction of a former subordinate, Larry Franklin.

Further reading

  • Melanie Kirkpatrick, "Clear Ideas vs. Foggy Bottom". "Wall Street Journal" August 5], p. A8.
  • Curt Anderson. White House Learned of Spy Probe in 2001. Associated Press. September 3, 2004.
  • Seymour Hersh. Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: Harper Collins. 2004. ISBN 0060195916.
  • Conference on International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict; Siegel, Edward M.; Feith, Douglas J.; & Louis D. Brandeis Society of Zionist Lawyers (1994). Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History. Center for Near East Policy. ISBN 0964014505.
  • David Wurmser (1996). "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm".
  • Bob Woodward. Plan of Attack. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2004. ISBN 074325547X.

External links

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