Preemptive intelligence, like preemptive war. Pick up people who might commit terrorist acts, not those who actually have. A perfect recipe for show trials and random street sweeps like the ones that gave us Abu Ghraib. And completely contradictory to the practice or theory of professional intelligence analysts. But, of course, Cambone, a graduate of the neo-conservative hotbed Claremont College, is not an analyst but an ideologue.

An ideologue, who as USD-I gets his clammy hands on 85% of the intelligence budget versus the mere 12% under the director of central intelligence. Frankly, Cambone would had to have been consulted just for the money needed to insert private contractors and military intelligence into interrogation.

Yet, at the Senate Hearings this all powerful czar swore up and down he knew nothing--nada, zip, zero, zilch--about Miller, about the Red Cross, about MI, about the dogs, about the pictures.....

And a hypnotized media has never called him on that outrageous performance.

Four: Feith

Nor has there been a solitary twitter about the role of the enigmatic Douglas Feith, though he deserves it as much as Cambone. Until he left in early 2005, Feith was Cambone's opposite number at Defense as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD-P), a post Cambone himself held earlier.

If Cambone had the means to tamper with intelligence-gathering and interrogation, Feith had the motive.

A vocal advocate of regime change in the Middle East long before 9-11, a hard-line Zionist hawk and member of ZOA (Zionist Organization of America), Feith's publicly expressed views are incendiary. He has stated that Oslo should be repudiated and the West Bank and Gaza reoccupied even if "the price in blood would be high" as "a necessary form of detoxification." (10)

And his actions in government match. In 1982, he was investigated over allegations that he had handed over secret documents to the Israeli embassy and left the National Security Council under a cloud. Later, he was hired back by Richard Perle. On leaving the Pentagon in 1986, he promptly started a law firm in Israel. His partner at the time, Marc Zell, is a spokesman for the Jewish settlers' movement on the occupied West Bank. Yes--those settlers. (11) The ones several parasangs to the right of Ariel Sharon. Naturally--that would have nothing whatsoever to do with any opinions Feith might hold on Arabs, Iraq, or the proper way to chat with a manacled Muslim.

In 2001, with the US economy in recession and financial crisis looming in the markets and neo-conservatives ensconced in power, friends began helping friends: Wolfowitz as Deputy Secretary of State brought Feith in at DOD, while Feith brought Perle to the Defense Policy Board and hired another favorite ideological hit man, Michael Ledeen, who also has a documented history of siphoning classified information to Israeli intelligence and selling sensitive military technology to China. Ledeen was hired by Feith at OSP to handle material requiring high-level security clearance. (12)

And what does this cozy arrangement have to do with Abu Ghraib? Well--for a start, it blows a hole in the theory that rounding up a few Semitic goat-herds and housewives has anything to do with national security--at least in the common meaning of that term, to wit., refraining from selling out the interests of the nation-state to which one belongs by accident of birth, choice, or lack of initiative. Because it's quite clear from the action-packed resumes of the crew of transnational wheelers and dealers above, that national--or even international- security is the last thing on their minds.

Feith has also been up to more institutionalized shenanigans:

First, he was active in the controversial Defense Policy Board, whose former head Richard Perle resigned when conflicts of interest between his board duties and his business affairs came to light. Then, he was also boss at the Office of Special Plans, which "stove-piped" un-vetted or raw intelligence on Iraq directly (outside the normal channels, that is) to the White House. The objective was to buttress the administration's flimsy case for war. Which means that Feith was grasping for any wisp of straw when it came to intelligence. And so, had every incentive to get it for us whole-sale where he could most easily--on the Iraqi street. (13)

And an important point. OSP, set up by Wolfowitz, had direct responsibility for detainee operations in Iraq. By dismissing the advice of Middle Eastern experts at the State Department on post-war planning, it contributed hugely to the failure of prison policy. OSP also oversaw reconstruction contracts--with all their outrageous bid-rigging and profiteering. And it did all of this through an institutional end-run around government.

Yet, at the Senate Hearings, Cambone swore up and down that Feith was in the dark about Abu Ghraib and the Taguba report, although when the report actually came out, here's what Daniel Dunn, the top computer security officer in Feith's office had to say in an urgent email memo to Pentagon staff:

"Information contained in this report is classified; do not go to FOX News to read or obtain a copy." (14)

Sounds like at least one person knew that Feith had something to fear.

And Feith himself quietly resigned last year, some say, because of yet another scandal--the Larry Franklin case. Franklin, convicted of espionage this year, worked for Feith at OSP in 2002 and 2003 and was sent abroad on sensitive missions--involving Iran-Contra figures-- aimed at pushing through the Iraq WMD hustle. Franklin pleaded guilty in January to passing information to Israel about U.S. policy towards Iran through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S. (15)

So there you have it.

Take two rancid Christian zealots and a half-pint of frothing Zionist fanaticism. Add to it a well-curdled neo-conservative ideologue and stir until bubbling in a Middle Eastern cauldron. Top with a generous helping of psycho-sexual sadism. And voila, Torture Imperial. Serves several thousands at a time.

Miller, Boykin, Cambone, and Feith.

Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld also, of course. Possibly, Rice and President Bush.

But for now, these four will do.

Lila Rajiva is a free-lance journalist and author of "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American media," (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at: lrajiva@hotmail.com 

Notes:

(1) "In Guantanamo Bay Documents, Prisoners Plead for Release
U.S. Makes First Public Accounting Of Detainees," Josh White and Julie Tate, Washington Post, March 5, 2006; Page A08. See also "Pentagon discloses names of Gitmo detainees," Miranda Leitsinger and Ben Fox, AP, March 4, 2006.

(2) See "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media," Lila Rajiva, MR Press, December 2005, p. 51.

(3) Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing, May 11, 2004.

(4) "How Dubious Evidence Spurred Relentless Guantánamo Spy Hunt," Tim Golden, New York Times, December 19, 2004. See also "Who Is Geoffrey Miller: Is the Man from Guantánamo the Right Man for Iraq?" Peter Ogden, Center for American Progress, May 17, 2004.

(5) "General Casts War in Religious Terms," Richard T. Cooper, Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2003.

(6) "Moving Targets: Will the counter-insurgency plan in Iraq repeat the mistakes of Vietnam?" Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, December 13, 2003. See also "US Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq," Julian Borger, Guardian, 9 December 2003.

(7) Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing, May 11, 2004.

(8) In "The Secret World of Stephen Cambone: Rumsfeld's Enforcer," (Counterpunch, February 7, 2006), Jeffrey St. Clair writes that a Republican staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told CounterPunch that the little-known Cambone rivals Paul Wolfowitz in power at the Pentagon. "Cambone is a truly dangerous player," said the staffer." He is Rumsfeld's guard dog, implacably loyal. While Wolfowitz positions himself to step into the top spot should Rumsfeld get axed, Cambone has dug in and gone to war against the insurgents in the Pentagon. Cambone's fingerprints are all over the occupation and the interrogation scandal. For him, there's no turning back." St. Clair contends credibly that "Cambone's real mission was to keep tabs on Feith, a notorious hothead and Cheney loyalist whom Rumsfeld distrusts."

(9) "Intelligence on demand: An interview with Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence," Glenn W. Goodman, Jr., ISR Journal, December 1, 2003.
http://www.defenselink.mil/usdi/camboneinterview.html

(10) "A Dangerous Appointment," James Zogby, Washington Watch, April 16, 2001

(11) "Loss of Feith in Douglas," Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service, November 7, 2003. (Reprinted in Asia Times).

(12) "Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration," Stephen Green, Counterpunch, February 28/29, 2004. Again, one has to clearly distinguish between acceptable information sharing between two very close allies and the fine point at which something crosses that boundary.

(13) "The new Pentagon papers: A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war," Karen Kwiatkowski, Salon.com, March 10, 2004.

(14) "The Israeli Torture Template: Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks,"
Wayne Madsen, Counterpunch, May 10, 2004.

(15) "Pentagon analyst indicted for leaks to Israel: a subterranean power struggle in Washington," Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web, 10 May 2005.

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