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{{Short description|American political official (born 1953)}}
]


{{use mdy dates |date=June 2021}}
'''Douglas J. Feith''' (b. ] ], ]), served as the ] for ] ] from ] until he resigned from his position effective ] ]. Feith holds a ] (magna cum laude) from the ] and an ] (magna cum laude) from ].
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Doug Feith
| image = Douglas J. Feith, 2001.jpg
| caption = Official portrait, 2001
| office = ]
| president = ]
| term_start = July 16, 2001
| term_end = August 8, 2005
| predecessor = ]
| successor = ]
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1953|7|16}}
| birth_place = ], ], U.S.
| death_date =
| death_place =
| party = ]
| education = ] (])<br />] (])
}}
'''Douglas Jay Feith''' ({{IPAc-en|'|f|aɪ|θ}}; born July 16, 1953) is an American lawyer who served as ] from July 2001 until August 2005. He is a senior fellow at the ], a conservative ].


Feith has been described as an architect of the ].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89429658|title=Feith Regrets Not Pushing 'Law and Order' in Iraq|website=]|access-date=2019-04-21}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/education/25georgetown.html|title=Faculty's Chilly Welcome for Ex-Pentagon Official|last=DeParle|first=Jason|date=2006-05-25|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-04-21 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> In the lead up to the war, he played a key role in promoting the false claim that the ] regime had an ] (even though there was scant credible evidence of such a relationship at the time). A ] ] report found that Feith's office had "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative ]s on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the ], to senior decision-makers."<ref name="washingtonpost2007" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/special-reports/iraq-intelligence/article24461020.html|title=Pentagon office produced 'alternative' intelligence on Iraq|first=Jonathan S.|last=Landay|agency=McClatchy DC|access-date=2019-04-21}}</ref>
His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, ] (DoD) relations with foreign countries, and DoD's role in ] Government interagency policymaking. Feith also had additional DoD responsibilities as explained in his job duties as discussed in this entry.


==Personal==
Feith is now on the faculty of the ] at ].
Feith was born to a Jewish family in ], one of three children of Rose (née Bankel) and Dalck Feith. His father was a member of the ], a ] youth organization, in Poland, and a ] who lost his parents and seven siblings in the ]s.<ref>{{cite news |last=Myers |first=Zara |date=October 27, 2005 |title=Dalck Feith, Electronics Chief and Community Leader, Dies at 91 |url=http://www.jewishexponent.com/dalck-feith,-electronics-chief-and-community-leader,-dies-at-91-0 |newspaper=Jewish Exponent |location=Philadelphia, PA}}</ref> Dalck came to the United States during World War II and became a businessman, a ], and a donor to the ].<ref name=learning/><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20160203_Rose_Feith__philanthropist_in_Philadelphia_and_Israel.html|title=Rose Feith, philanthropist in Philadelphia and Israel|first=Bonnie L.|last=Cook|date=3 February 2016|access-date=5 January 2017|work=]}}</ref>
==Early life==
Feith was one of three siblings born to Rose and ]. His
father, Dalck, was a member of the ''']''', a ] youth organization, in ], and a ] survivor who lost his parents and seven siblings in the ]s. He came to the United States during ], and became a successful businessman, a ], and a donor to the ].


Feith grew up in ], part of ], a ] suburb. Feith came of age during the tumultuous ] and ] era. He attended ]'s ]. Of that, Feith wrote "It’s a good school. The class that I was in at Central was the most talented group of kids that I ever went to school with, including college and law school."<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.northeasttimes.com/2005/0414/kids.html | title=In Defense of America, he’s third in line| publisher=] | date= ], ] | first=William | last=Feldman | accessdate =2007-02-12}}</ref><ref>http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:qFv2WjsHdokJ:www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/election2004/9776454.htm+feith+attended+philadelphia&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1</ref> Feith grew up in ], part of ], a ] suburb. He attended ]'s ], and later attended ], where he obtained his undergraduate degree and graduated ] in 1975. He continued on to the ], receiving his J.D. magna cum laude in 1978. After graduation, he worked for three years as an attorney with the law firm ].

Feith grew up with strong and lifelong opinions about ] and ]. According to Feith, " Chamberlain]] wasn’t popular in my house".<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050509fa_fact | title=A Little Learning: What Douglas Feith knew, and when he knew it.| publisher=] | date= ], ] | first=Jeffery | last=Goldberg | accessdate =2007-02-12}}</ref>
Feith attended ] for his ] ] and graduated ] in 1975. While at ], Feith says he "benefited especially from the lectures and books of ] ]",<ref name="DDTerrorism">{{cite news | url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAH/is_2004_April_23/ai_116585447 | title= Defense, democracy and the war on terrorism | publisher=] | date= ], ] | first=Douglas | last=Feith | accessdate =2007-02-12}}</ref> the head of ]'s ]n Research Center. Feith later said of his tutelage under Pipes: "We were part of a rather small minority in ] who thought that working to bring about the collapse of the ] was not only a noble pursuit, but a realistic project."<ref name="DDTerrorism" /> Feith also cites the works of philosophers ] and ] as two major intellectual influences.

Feith has expressed ambivalence about the overall intellectual pedigree ] gives its students. In an address on ], ] to Harvard's ] he said, "I want to reassure the students in the audience: a Harvard degree does not have to be a liability. In ] political circles, I've found, it may require some explaining."<ref>http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:ePEhlX8IzEcJ:www.marshallcenter.org/site-graphic/lang-en/page-mc-news-newsbrief/static/xdocs/mc/static/05-09b.pdf+feith+harvard+degree+kennedy&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6</ref>.

Pipes provided Feith with his initial entry into government, following graduation. Pipes had joined the ]'s ] in 1981 to help carry out the "project" Pipes and his students had conceived.<ref>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAH/is_2004_April_23/ai_116585447</ref> Feith joined the NSC that year, working for Pipes.


==Career== ==Career==
Like his father, Feith is a ].<ref>http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Douglas_Feith.php</ref> Sympathetic to the ] wing of the Republican party, he has over the last 30 years published many works on U.S. ] policy. For a substantial sample, see . His work on US-Soviet ], ] and ] issues generated considerable debate.


===Work as a Democrat===
Feith has long advocated a policy of "peace through strength". He was an outspoken skeptic of U.S.-Soviet detente and of the ], ] and ] Processes on Palestinian-Israeli peace.
Feith worked on the staff of senator ] in 1975<ref>{{cite news|last=Borger|first=Julian|title=Democrat hawk whose ghost guides Bush; Scoop Jackson's body is 20 years in the grave but his spirit goes marching on|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/06/usa.julianborger|access-date=26 October 2012|newspaper=The Guardian|date=6 December 2002}}</ref> before going on to work on ]'s campaign against segregationist senator ]<ref>{{cite book|last=Zumwalt Jr.|first=Elmo|title=On Watch: A Memoir|year=1976|location=Chapters 8 and 9}}</ref> Byrd, an independent since 1970, defeated Zumwalt, a Democrat, 57–38%.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?fips=51&year=1976&f=0&elect=0&off=3|title=1976 Senatorial General Election Results - Virginia}}</ref>


===Reagan administration===
Feith first entered government as a Middle East specialist on the ] (NSC) under ] in 1981. He transferred from the NSC Staff to Pentagon in 1982 to work as Special Counsel for ], who was then serving as ]. Secretary of Defense ] 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 ] and ].
At Harvard, Feith had studied under ], who joined the ]'s ], in 1981, to help carry out a private intelligence project called ] that Pipes and his students had conceived.<ref name="autogenerated10">{{cite news|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAH/is_2004_April_23/ai_116585447 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208204614/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAH/is_2004_April_23/ai_116585447 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-02-08 |title=Defense, democracy and the war on terrorism - Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith – Transcript &#124; US Department of Defense Speeches &#124; Find Articles at BNET.com |publisher=Findarticles.com |access-date=2010-07-18 |year=2004 }}</ref> Feith joined the NSC as a Middle East specialist that same year, working under Pipes.


He transferred from the NSC staff to ], in 1982, to work as special counsel for ], who was then serving as assistant secretary to the ]. ] ] promoted Feith, in 1984, to deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy. When Feith left the Pentagon, in 1986, Weinberger awarded him the ], the department's highest civilian award.
Feith was a member of the study group which authored a controversial report entitled '']'' , a set of policy recommendations for the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister ]. 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 ] ] 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 attributing any particular idea , let alone all of them, to any one participant."


During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, Feith helped to convince the ], Weinberger and ] ] all to recommend against ratification of changes to the ]. The changes, known as the "Additional Protocols," grant armed non-state actors ] status under certain circumstances even if they fail to distinguish themselves from the civilian population to the same extent as members of the armed forces of a high contracting party.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Solfe|first=Waldemar|title=A Response to Douglas J. Feith's Law in the Service of Terror – The Strange Case of the Additional Protocol|journal=Akron Law Review|year=1986–1987|volume=20|pages=266–68}}</ref> Reagan informed the ] in 1987 that he would not ratify Additional Protocol I. At the time, both '']'' and '']'' editorialized in favor of Reagan's decision to reject Additional Protocol I as a revision of humanitarian law that protected terrorists.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/17/opinion/denied-a-shield-for-terrorists.html | title=Denied: A Shield for Terrorists | work=The New York Times | date=February 17, 1987 |access-date =2009-04-05}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.dougfeith.com/docs/2008_07_15_Feith_Opening_Statement.pdf | title=Statement by Douglas J. Feith Before the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary | date=July 15, 2008 | access-date =2010-03-06}}</ref>
Feith criticized the Oslo Accords and the ] peace agreement mediated by former President Carter between ] and Israel. In 1997, he published a lengthy article in '']'', titled "A Strategy for Israel". In it, Feith argued that the Oslo Accords were being undermined by ]'s failure to fulfill peace pledges and Israel's failure to uphold the integrity of the accords it had concluded with Arafat.


===Private practice===
Two years later, Feith and other former U.S. officials signed an open letter to President ] calling for the United States to oust ]. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported ] and the ] and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the ] of 1998. Congress approved the Act, and Clinton signed it into law.
Feith began his career as an attorney in private practice with the law firm ] for 3 years, after which he joined the Reagan administration (see the previous section).


Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith co-founded, with ], the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. The firm engaged in lobbying efforts for, among others, the Turkish, Israeli and Bosnian governments, in addition to representing defense corporations ] and ]. Feith left the firm in 2001, following his nomination as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
Feith also served on the board of the ] (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.<ref>http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/JINSAandCSP.html</ref>


===Bush administration===
Feith is a ] on foreign policy and arms control. He was an outspoken opponent of the 1972 ], the ] and the ] which he criticized as ineffective and dangerous to U.S. interests.
Feith joined the administration of President ] as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2001. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with other ]s, including Richard Perle and ]. With his new appointment in hand, Feith proved influential in having Richard Perle chosen as chairman of the ].<ref name="shadow elite">{{cite book |title=Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market |last=Wedel |first=Janine R. |author-link=Janine R. Wedel |year=2009 |publisher=] |location=New York |isbn=978-0-465-02084-3 |page= |url=https://archive.org/details/shadowelitehowwo0000wede |url-access=registration |access-date=2012-05-02}}</ref> Feith was criticized during the first term of the Bush administration for creating the ]. This office came into existence to support the ]. The office's aim was to conduct non-covert influence operations in foreign countries. However, after significant media scrutiny into what exactly would fall within the OSI's mandate, Defense Secretary ] had Feith shut the office down, while transferring its functions elsewhere within the Department of Defense. Feith played a significant role in the buildup to the ].<ref name="blue">{{cite web |url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/de847418-70d3-11d9-b572-00000e2511c8.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/de847418-70d3-11d9-b572-00000e2511c8.html |archive-date=December 10, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Relief and speculation as Pentagon official quits |first=Demetri |last=Sevastopulo |date=2005-01-28 |work=] |access-date=2012-05-02}}</ref> Feith has been characterized as an architect of the Iraq War.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />


As part of his portfolio, he supervised the Pentagon ], a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community.<ref name="Alesandrovna">{{cite news |last=Alexandrovna |first=Larisa |url=http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_stalling_prewar_intelligence_1202.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080903201324/http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_stalling_prewar_intelligence_1202.html |archivedate=2008-09-03 |title= Senate Intelligence Committee Stalling Pre-war Intelligence Report |work=] |date=December 2, 2005 |access-date=May 22, 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |authorlink=Karen Kwiatkowski |first=Karen |last=Kwiatkowski |title=The new Pentagon papers |date=March 10, 2004 |work=Salon.com |url=https://www.salon.com/2004/03/10/osp/ |access-date=18 June 2021 }}</ref> The office was responsible for hiring ], who was later convicted along with ] employees ] and Keith Weissman for passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomat ]. The office, eventually dismantled, was later criticized in Congress and the media for analysis that was contradicted by CIA analysis and investigations performed following the ]. In response to the allegedly poor work of Feith's Office of Special Plans, General ], who led both the ] and the Iraq War called Feith "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet".<ref name=learning/><ref>{{cite web |last=Black |first=Simon |date=2011-04-09 |url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig11/black-s42.1.html |title=And This Year's Nobel Prize in Goes To... |work=] }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Fiasco: the American military adventure in Iraq |last=Ricks |first=Thomas E. |author-link=Thomas E. Ricks (journalist) |year=2007 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-303891-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JuWlzq_2IVwC&q=%22the+dumbest+fucking+guy+on+the+planet%22&pg=PT115 |access-date=April 12, 2011}}</ref>
Feith favors US support for Israel and has promoted US-Israeli cooperation. He also favors stronger US-Turkish cooperation, and increased military ties between Turkey and Israel. Both Feith and his father have been honored by the ] (ZOA), a conservative organization that often makes common cause on foreign policy issues with ] organizations.


]
Feith was one of 18 founding members of the organization ] to oppose the Oslo peace agreement. Its purpose is "saving a united ] as the undivided capital of Israel." He is also Director of ], which "offers in-depth study programs for the adult Washington Jewish community that cross denominational lines."


Feith was responsible for the ] policy promulgated in ] (CPA) Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003.<ref>Chandrasekaran, R. ''Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone''. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. pp 79-80</ref><ref>Kaplan, Fred ''Daydream Believers''. Hoboken: J. Wiley & Sons, 2008. p.152</ref>
Feith's writings on ] and on foreign and defense policy have appeared in '']'', '']'', '']'' and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller's ''] as Peacemaker'', Raphael Israeli's ''The Dangers of a Palestinian State'' 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''.


In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued a that concluded that Feith's office "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and ] relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." This repeated Feith's earlier involvement with ] as a postgraduate, when alternative intelligence assessments exaggerating threats to the United States turned out to be wrong on nearly every point. The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." Senator ], Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq. The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war."<ref name="washingtonpost2007">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020802387.html |title=Official's Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted |newspaper=]|date=2007-02-08 |access-date=2008-11-04 |first1=Walter |last1=Pincus}}</ref> At Senator Levin's insistence, on April 6, 2007, the Pentagon's Inspector General's Report was declassified and released to the public.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2007/SASC.DODIGFeithreport.040507.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326114447/http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2007/SASC.DODIGFeithreport.040507.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-26 |title=Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy}}&nbsp;{{small|(5.38&nbsp;MB)}}</ref>
During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, Feith was instrumental in getting the ], Weinberger and Shultz all to recommend (successfully) to the President not to ratify changes to the ]. The changes, known as Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, would have allowed non-state militants to be treated as combatants and ] even if they had engaged in practices that endangered non-combatants or otherwise violated the laws of war. 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 Reagan's decision to reject Protocol I as a revision of humanitarian law that protected terrorists. As Under Secretary, Feith continued to champion US respect for the Geneva Conventions, i.e. his Op-Ed article "Conventional Warfare" in the '']'' on ], ]. When the logic of Reagan's decision on Protocol I was applied by Bush in 2001 in designating ] fighters as "]s" 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 designating combatants as "]s" and denying detainees POW status.


Responding to criticism of a report that ] under ], Feith called the office's report a much-needed critique of the CIA's intelligence. "It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence", Feith said. "What the people in the Pentagon were doing was right. It was good government." Feith also rejected accusations he attempted to link Iraq to a formal relationship with Al Qaeda. "No one in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship", Feith said. "There was a relationship."<ref name=feithresponds>{{cite news |last=Feller |first=Ben |url=https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/02/12/official-defends-prewar-iraq-al-qaida-link/ |title=Official defends prewar Iraq-al-Qaida link |agency=] |work=East Bay Times |date=February 11, 2007 }}</ref> Feith stated that he "felt vindicated" by the report of the Pentagon inspector general.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/feb/08/20070208-105824-1688r/ |title=Defense report OKs policy chief's intelligence move |work=] |date=2007-02-08 |access-date=2008-11-04}}</ref> He told ''The Washington Post'' that his office produced "a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."<ref name="washingtonpost2007" />
Feith is now on the faculty of the ] at ], where he teaches a course on the Bush administration's ] policy. He came to ] ] after leaving ] ] and was appointed by School of Foreign Service Dean, Ambassador ].<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/education/25georgetown.html?_r=1&oref=slogin</ref> He is also writing a memoir about his involvement in the ] which will be published by ], and will be entitled "War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism." It is currently scheduled to be released in March 2008.<ref>http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060899735/</ref>


Feith was the first senior Pentagon official to leave the administration after Bush was re-elected.<ref name="shadow elite" /> There was some speculation when Feith announced he was leaving as to why he was stepping down. Some believed he was pressured to leave because of problems over his performance and his increasing marginalization.<ref name="purple">{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-104876866.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018005451/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-104876866.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2015-10-18 |title=Politics-U.S.: Feith leaving pentagon - twilight of the neo-cons? |first=Jim |last=Lobe |date=2005-01-28 |agency=] |access-date=2012-05-02}}</ref>
Feith told '']'' in 2005, "When history looks back, I want to be in the class of people who did the right thing, the sensible thing, and not necessarily the fashionable thing, the thing that met the aesthetic of the moment".<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050509fa_fact</ref>


===Post-government career===
==Professional praise==
Following his government service, Feith was employed by the ] at ], where he taught a course on the Bush administration's ] policy. He came to ]'s ] after leaving ]'s ] and was appointed by School of Foreign Service dean, ].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/education/25georgetown.html?_r=1&oref=slogin |work=The New York Times |title=Faculty's Chilly Welcome for Ex-Pentagon Official |first=Jason |last=Deparle |date=2006-05-25 |access-date=2010-05-01}}</ref> However, his hiring "caused an uproar among the Foreign Service school faculty." Two years later, Feith's contract was not renewed,<ref name="Kamen04232008">{{cite journal |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042202465.html|title=Feith and Hope|last=Kamen|first=Al|date=2008-04-23|issue=In the Loop|access-date=2008-08-29|newspaper=The Washington Post|pages=A19}}</ref> causing continuing hostility between the Georgetown Law Center faculty and alumni and the Foreign Service school faculty.
===Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld===
"Doug Feith, of course, is without question, one of the most brilliant individuals in government. He is – he’s just a rare talent. And from my standpoint, working with him is always interesting. He’s been one of the really the intellectual leaders in the administration in defense policy aspects of our work here."<ref>http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040803-secdef1501.html</ref>


In 2008, Feith became a senior fellow at ], where he is the director of its Center for National Security Strategies.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hudson.org/experts/552-douglas-j-feith|title=Experts - Douglas J. Feith - Hudson Institute|website=www.hudson.org|access-date=2018-06-05}}</ref><ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081106125133/http://www.hudson.org/learn/index.cfm?fuseaction=staff_bio&eid=DougFeith |date=2008-11-06 }}, Hudson Institute website.</ref>
When Feith left the Defense Department in 2005, Secretary ] highlighted the following accomplishments:<ref>http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2005/sp20050808-secdef1801.html</ref>


==Views and publications==
* 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 ] to where they’re needed and usable
Feith is a ], and has contributed money to various party candidates over the years.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Douglas_Feith.php |title=NEWSMEAT ▷ Douglas Feith's Federal Campaign Contribution Report |publisher=Newsmeat.com |date=2010-07-09 |access-date=2010-07-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100215080337/http://newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Douglas_Feith.php |archive-date=2010-02-15}}</ref> He has been described as a ].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/disciplining-terror/8507D81A57571A7DC8B1AF77F35EDCC3|title=Disciplining Terror by Lisa Stampnitzky|last=Stampnitzky|first=Lisa|date=2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=176 |doi=10.1017/CBO9781139208161|isbn=9781139208161|access-date=2019-02-14}}</ref> One of Feith's controversial views was his argument that increasing the number of political appointees equated to more democracy,<ref name="shadow elite"/> which would help align government policy to the promises politicians make before they get into office.
* A ] Response Force to counter threats and to deal with crises
* New security relationships in ] and ];
* 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.


Feith's writings have appeared in '']'', '']'', and '']''. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller's ''Churchill as Peacemaker'', Raphael Israeli's ''The Dangers of a Palestinian State'' 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''.
In his speech, Rumsfeld said:


Feith is an ardent supporter of Israel. Along with ] and ], he was a member of the study group which authored a controversial report entitled '']'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm |title=A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm |publisher=Israeleconomy.org |access-date=2010-07-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111209075946/http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm |archive-date=2011-12-09 }}</ref> a set of policy recommendations for the newly elected Israeli ], ]. 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 September 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 attributing any particular idea , let alone all of them, to any one participant."
: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 was on the board of the ] (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020902/vest |title=The Men From JINSA and CSP, by Jason Vest, 9/2/02 |publisher=Thenation.com |access-date=2010-07-18}}</ref>
===Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Ret.) Air Force General Richard Myers===
] credited Feith with a "great perspective" and "great respect for the military."


Feith was interviewed by the CBS news magazine '']'' in a segment that was aired on April 6, 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/03/60minutes/printable3992653.shtml|title=''Insider: Iraq Attack Was Preemptive''|website=] |access-date=February 15, 2019|archive-date=October 23, 2008|archive-url=https://archive.today/20081023024946/http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/03/60minutes/printable3992653.shtml|url-status=bot: unknown}}</ref> During this interview he promoted his newly released memoir, '']'' and defended the decision making that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In planning the war with Iraq, Feith "looked at implications of various actions that others might not think about", Myers said. "Doug is very bright and brings a very good strategic view to the table. He has solved some real problems."<ref>http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20040803-1545-rumsfeld-aide.html</ref>


===''War and Decision''===
===Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine General Peter Pace===
{{main|War and Decision}}
] ] ], now the Chairman of the ], worked closely with Feith, co-chairing with him the Defense Department's Campaign Planning Committee (CAPCOM).


On April 8, 2008, Feith's memoir, '']'', was published by HarperCollins.
At Feith's farewell-from-government ceremony on ], ], Pace as then vice-chairman of the ] said:


==War crimes investigation==
:Doug Feith is a patriot. It irritates me, not that anyone would question his thoughts or his policies -- that is absolutely fair game -- but that anyone would question his loyalty or his motives. I have watched this man for four years. He cares only about what is best for the United States. He works hard to understand as much as he can about the policy arena, and he works hard to articulate what he believes to be true.<ref>http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2005/sp20050808-1842.html</ref>
{{main|The Bush Six}}


In 2009, Feith became one of several Bush administration officials under consideration for investigation of possible ] in a Spanish court, headed by ] under claims of universal jurisdiction. The case had reportedly still been active as of 2011.<ref name=Reuters2009-03-28>
''The New Yorker'' ] ] (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.'" Pace believes "Early on, didn’t realize that the way he presented his positions, the way he was being perceived, put him in a bit of a hole. But he changed his ways."
{{cite news
| url=https://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLT53678920090329
| title=Spain may decide Guantanamo probe this week
| publisher=Reuters
| date=2009-03-28
| archive-date=2009-04-26
| url-status=live
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090426200038/http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLT53678920090329?sp=true
}}</ref><ref name=NYTimes2009-03-28>
{{cite news
| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/world/europe/29spain.html?_r=1&hp
| title=Spanish Court Weighs Inquiry on Torture for 6 Bush-Era Officials
| date=2009-03-28
| author=Marlise Simons
| work=The New York Times
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090416192704/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/world/europe/29spain.html?_r=1&hp
| url-status=live
| archive-date=2009-04-16
}}</ref><ref name=YahooNews2009-04-16>
{{cite news
| url=https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090416/ap_on_re_eu/eu_spain_us_torture_6
| title=Spanish AG: No torture probe of US officials
| date=2009-04-16
| author=Paul Haven
| publisher=]
| archive-url=https://archive.today/20090502234048/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090416/ap_on_re_eu/eu_spain_us_torture_6
| url-status=dead
| archive-date=2009-05-02
}}</ref><ref name=Cnn2009-04-23>
{{cite news
| url=https://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/23/spain.court.guantanamo/
| title=Spanish court sends Guantanamo case to new judge
| date=2009-04-23
| author=Al Goodman
| publisher=CNN
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503132622/http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/04/23/spain.court.guantanamo/
| url-status=live
| archive-date=2009-05-03
}}</ref><ref name=TheGuardian2009-04-29>
{{cite news
| url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/29/spain-court-guantanamo-detainees-torture
| title=Spanish court opens investigation of Guantánamo torture allegations
| date=2009-04-29
| author=Giles Tremblett
| work=The Guardian
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090502155938/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/29/spain-court-guantanamo-detainees-torture
| archive-date=2009-05-02
| url-status=live
| location=London
}}</ref><ref name=Afp2009-04-29>
{{cite news
| url=https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iAI5j8L_T9-ohjwCcZOXPT7Bf95g
| title=Spanish judge opens probe into Guantanamo torture
| date=2009-04-29
| publisher=]
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120116063649/http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iAI5j8L_T9-ohjwCcZOXPT7Bf95g
| url-status=dead
| archive-date=2012-01-16
}}</ref><ref name=TheTelegraph2009-04-29>
{{cite news
| url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/9658403/Spanish_judge_uses_memos_released_by_Barack_Obama_to_pursue_Bush_officials/
| title=Spanish judge uses memos released by Barack Obama to pursue Bush officials
| date=2009-04-29
| author=Gerald Warner
| work=The Daily Telegraph
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090503234856/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/gerald_warner/blog/2009/04/29/spanish_judge_uses_memos_released_by_barack_obama_to_pursue_bush_officials
| archive-date=2009-05-03
| url-status=dead
| location=London
}}</ref>


== Personal life ==
The same article reported on Rumsfeld's reaction to Franks:
Feith is married with four children.<ref>{{Cite web|title=News Post|url=http://www.cesjds.org/cf_news/view.cfm?newsid=4602|access-date=2020-11-16|website=www.cesjds.org}}</ref><ref name=learning>{{Cite magazine|last=Goldberg|first=Jeffrey|title=A Little Learning|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/05/09/a-little-learning-2 |date=May 1, 2005 |access-date=2020-11-16 |magazine=The New Yorker|language=en-us}}</ref> His eldest son, Daniel Feith, graduated from ] and ] and served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Consumer Protection Branch in the ].<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-08-05|title=Deputy Assistant Attorney General|url=https://www.justice.gov/civil/staff-profile/deputy-assistant-attorney-general-4|access-date=2020-11-16|website=justice.gov}}</ref> His second son, David Feith, graduated from ] and worked as an editorial writer for '']'' and an assistant editor at '']'' before serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the ] from July 2020 to January 2021.<ref>{{Cite web|title=David Feith|url=https://www.state.gov/biographies/david-feith/|access-date=2020-11-16|website=United States Department of State|language=en-US}}</ref>

<blockquote>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." Donald Rumsfeld, Feith's former boss, is also General Pace's superior, and appointed both Feith and Pace to their posts. Donald 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'"<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/050509fa_fact</ref></blockquote>

===National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley===
In a letter to Feith on the day of his resignation from government, ] ], ] wrote:

:Your efforts in developing the war on terrorism strategy, the global defense posture, the President’s ], ], Middle East speech, and moving forward the president’s agenda on advancing freedom and democracy are among your many significant accomplishments.

:For the last four years, you and your fine staff have provided outstanding support to Secretary Rumsfeld and the President.

:Your intellectual leadership within the interagency has helped us meet the challenges that face our nation at this critical time. But equally important, you have provided an example of honesty, decency, and integrity that have made you a valued colleague and friend to us all.

==Professional criticism==
===Director of the CIA, Michael Hayden===
At ] Director ]'s Senate confirmation hearing, ] ] asked nominee ] about Feith's ]:

:] ]: "Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith’s office<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact</ref><ref></ref> approach to intelligence analysis?"

:] Director ]: "No, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn’t comfortable."<ref>http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/18/hayden-i-wasnt-comfortable-with-administrations-approach-to-iraq-intelligence/</ref>

The ], ] the '']'' ran an article called "Hayden Corrects the Record." It pointed out that though Levin drew this comment from Hayden when the General was speaking extemporaneously, Hayden corrected the record afterward to clarify that his comments were not meant to say that Feith's work was wrong, misleading or inaccurate. According to the Wall Street Journal, "General Hayden has now publicly confirmed what he had previously said in private conversations with Mr. Feith and with ] Senator ]: To wit, that he did not intend those remarks as Senator Levin has spun them. In a letter to Mr. Kyl, General Hayden concedes that as former Director of the National Security Agency "I did not have any significant personal contact with Mr. Feith or his office and only occasionally saw the product of their work."

Hayden's letter adds that "the issues I attempted to address were focused on broad questions of analytic tradecraft, not characterizing the work of Mr. Feith’s office let alone attempting to address questions of lawfulness or even appropriateness. My comments about ‘wrong,’ ‘inaccurate,’ and ‘misleading’ were attached to a broader discussion of analytic challenges and not to any specific activities, including those under Mr. Feith."

===Former Director of the CIA, George Tenet===
The chapter "No Authority, Direction, or Control" of ]'s memoir deals with the prewar government debate about alleged connections between Iraq and the al-Qaeda. According to the '']'', Tenet's memoir paints an "unflattering portrait of Feith as a man eager to manipulate intelligence to push the country to war."<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050600952_pf.html</ref> Tenet refers to Feith's office as "Team Feith," writing that he saw their criticisms about the CIA's Iraq-al Qaeda work as "complete crap." He added that "when the Pentagon inspector general issued a report in February 2007 calling some of Feith's efforts 'inappropriate', Feith shot back. He said peddling his alternative intelligence was simply an exercise in 'good government.' Nonsense (Tenet wrote). This was an example of bad government" (Tenet, page 348).

Feith reviewed Tenet's memoir and responded to the allegations about his work in the ''Wall Street Journal'' on May 4.<ref>http://www.dougfeith.com/coverage_6.html</ref> On Tenet's account of the ] differences over Iraq-al Qaeda issues, Feith writes: "Mr. Tenet devotes a chapter to the matter of Iraq and al Qaeda, giving it the title: 'No Authority, Direction or Control.' The phrase implies that we argued that ] exercised such powers -- authority, direction and control -- over al Qaeda. We made no such argument. Rather we said that the CIA's analysts were not giving serious, professional attention to information about ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. The CIA's assessments were incomplete, nonrigorous and shaped around the dubious assumption that secular Iraqi Baathists would be unwilling to cooperate with al Qaeda religious fanatics, even when they shared strategic interests. This assumption was disproved when ] and ]ists became allies against us in the post-Saddam insurgency, but before the war it was the foundation of much CIA analysis."

===Former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice===
According to the long-running Washington newsletter, '']'', edited by ], quoting an anonymous source, Feith was standing in for Rumsfeld at a 2003 interagency 'Principals' Meeting' debating the Middle East, and ended his remarks on behalf of the Pentagon. Then-] ] said, "Thanks Doug, but when we want the Israeli position we'll invite the ambassador."<ref>http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_03_12/article1.html</ref>

===Former Secretary of State Colin Powell===
In ]'s book '']'', then-] ] called Feith's operation at ] the "]" office, alleging that it amounted to a separate, unchecked governing authority within the Pentagon.<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17347-2004Apr16?language=printer</ref>
Soon after publication of the book, Powell said:

<blockquote>I don't recall saying that, but it is a terrible term to use and it is out of place, completely out of place. I have known Doug Feith for many years. We have agreed on many issues and disagreed on some. And I just regret that that has gotten into the literature and become a fact.<ref>http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/31588.htm</ref></blockquote>

===Former Pentagon Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski (ret)===
] ], who was a Desk Officer in Feith's Policy organization, spoke of Feith's style:

:"He was very arrogant", describing what it was like to work with him. "He doesn't utilize a wide variety of inputs. He seeks information that confirms what he already thinks. And he may go to jail for leaking classified information to ''The Weekly Standard''."<ref>http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=7760</ref>

Kwiatkowski believes an article that appeared in ''The Weekly Standard'' included a written by Feith alleging ties between Saddam Hussein and ].

===Former Commander Coalition Forces in Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks (ret)===
Before the war in Iraq, the ] proposed recruiting a brigade of Free Iraqi Forces to enter Iraq with the Americans. Feith supported the idea behind the project. ] ] ] did not, as reported in the book '']'': "Franks remained unenthusiastic, to say the least. After a briefing from Luti on his pet project, Franks turned to Feith in a Pentagon corridor, letting him know where he stood: 'I don't have time for this fucking bullshit,' Franks exclaimed."<ref>http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.24311/pub_detail.asp</ref>

Franks, according to ''Plan of Attack'', says of Feith: "I have to deal with the stupidest fucking guy on the planet almost every day." (p.281).<ref>http://slate.com/id/2099277/</ref>.<ref>http://www.cfr.org/pub7248/max_boot/the_long_march_to_baghdad.php</ref> In his autobiography, ''American Soldier'', Franks describes a conversation with his subordinates who were upset with Rumsfeld, Feith and ]; Franks tells them, "Here's the deal, guys. I know ] - Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith - are demanding a lot. But they are not the enemy. Don't start thinking good guys-bad guys. We're all on the same side." They could see I was serious. "I'll worry about OSD, all of them - including Doug Feith, who's getting a reputation around here as the dumbest fucking guy on the planet," I continued. "Your job is to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Look, we're all professionals. Let's earn our pay."<ref>Tommy Franks, ''American Soldier'' p. 362.</ref>

On the ], ] edition of '']'', Franks changed his assessment of Feith in the following exchange with host ]:

:MATTHEWS: What did you think on a scale of one to 10 of the military expertise, of the civilians surrounding Secretary Rumsfeld, the people like Wolfowitz and Feith? How would you on a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put their military savvy?

:FRANKS: I would put the dipstick at oh &mdash; with a reasonable degree of understanding, I would put Doug Feith in a category as a brilliant man with some military understanding, but both of these gentlemen were apt to think out of the box. And candidly, Chris, for all I know, maybe that's what Don Rumsfeld wanted them to do.

:MATTHEWS: Were they ideologues or were they analysts?

:FRANKS: In my personal , they were analysts. Now, that does not imply that I'm making some statement that they were not ideologues, maybe so, but that's not the way that I saw them.<ref>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12354723/</ref>

===Former Viceroy of Iraq, General Jay Garner (ret)===

Former Viceroy of Iraq, General ], reported to Feith for 5 months following the invasion. Writing in the book "Fiasco," Garner wrote of Feith: "I think he's incredibly dangerous. He's a smart guy whose electrons aren't connected, so he arc lights all the time. He can't organize anything."<ref>http://books.google.com/books?id=RBzLAQAACAAJ&dq=FIASCO:+The+American+Military+Adventure+in+Iraq&ei=X4lhR-WCD4boiQHB2aT5Bg</ref>

===Former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State, Larry Wilkerson===
In 2005, Colonel ], Powell's chief of staff, publicly stated he could "testify to" Franks' 2004 comment, and added "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man."<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html</ref><ref>http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=82151&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=%2Fshows%2Fthe_daily_show%2Fvideos%2Fmost_recent%2Findex.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true</ref>

Regarding Feith and his colleague, ], Wilkerson has stated:

:A lot of these guys, including Wurmser, I looked at as card-carrying members of the ] party, as I did with Feith. You wouldn’t open their wallet and find a card, but I often wondered if their primary allegiance was to their own country or to Israel. That was the thing that troubled me, because there was so much that they said and did that looked like it was more reflective of Israel’s interest than our own.<ref>http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11423</ref>

===Former CENTCOM Deputy Director, Lt. General Michael DeLong===
In an interview with PBS on ], ], General Michael DeLong was asked about the information coming from Feith's office in the lead-up to the Iraq war. He replied:

:Feith wasn't somebody we enjoyed working with, and to go much further than that would probably not be a good thing. To be honest, we blew him off lots of times. Told the secretary that he's full of baloney, his people working for him are full of baloney. It was a real distraction for us, because he was the number three guy in the Department of Defense.<ref>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/delong.html</ref>

==Accusations and rebuttals==
===1982 NSC alleged firing and security clearance controversy===
It has been alleged by Former ] Intelligence Director ] and author Stephen Green that Douglas Feith involuntarily left the ] in March, 1982 and lost his security clearance after he fell under suspicion of the ] for passing classified material to Israeli embassy officials who were not entitled to receive it.<ref>http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040824-102938-1916r.htm</ref><ref>http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Pentagon_investigation_stalls_Phase_II_of_0130.html</ref><ref>http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FI02Ak02.html</ref> This would have required the Bush administration to reissue Feith his clearance before bringing him into the Pentagon.<ref>http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Pentagon_investigation_stalls_Phase_II_of_0130.html</ref> This version of events is ] by the NSC head at the time, Judge William Clark. When a ] newspaper reported this accusation, Clark, who was Reagan's National Security Adviser at the relevant time, wrote a ] ] letter to the editor<ref>http://www.billingsnews.com/story?storyid=18196&issue=285</ref> 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.

====Feith at the Office of Special Plans====
Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon from September 2002 to June 2003.<ref>http://www.answers.com/topic/office-of-special-plans</ref> This now defunct intelligence gathering unit has been accused of manipulating intelligence to bolster support for the ].<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact</ref> According to '']'', "This rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force."<ref>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html</ref> According to Kwiatkowski, the Office of Special Plans was "a ] shop" and she personally "witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president."<ref>http://militaryweek.com/kk121503.shtml</ref><ref>http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html</ref> ] ], in an official report on the Office of Special Plans, singles Feith out as providing to the ] a large amount of Iraq-Al Qaeda allegations which, post-invasion, turned out to be false.<ref>http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2004/102104inquiryreport.pdf</ref> Disarmament expert George Perkovich of the ] told ] in 2004, "By all accounts, things in Iraq have gone very, very badly. Doug Feith should have been fired a long time ago for incompetence."<ref>Steve Goldstein, "As Iraq struggles, critics zero in on Pentagon aide," ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' (28 September 2004) A1.</ref>

====Actions Feith authorized at the Office of Special Plans concerning Iraq====
A source of Iraqi ] intelligence was overseas "back-channel" meetings with foreign citizens, which Feith authorized.<ref>http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_stalling_prewar_intelligence_1202.html</ref> According to '']'' and The '']'', these foreigners included former ] figures<ref>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0808-12.htm</ref> and agents of Iraqi politician ]<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57595-2004Sep2.html</ref> who were shopping<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/31/2d_probe_at_the_pentagon_examines_actions_on_iraq/</ref> WMD<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact</ref> intelligence to the Office of Special Plans.<ref>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html</ref>.

As Kwiatkowski described, this unvetted WMD information was then "stove-piped" to the White House outside of established intelligence review safeguards for use in building support for the war.<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/031027fa_fact</ref> Post invasion, the ] found Iraq had no stocks of WMD, and had not produced WMD since 1991.<ref>http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html</ref>

These accounts conflict with the official findings of U.S. House and Senate inquiries into these matters. As noted a March 14, 2004 Washington Post article entitled "Feith's Analysts Given a Clean Bill": "Neither the House nor Senate intelligence committees...which have been investigating prewar intelligence for eight months, have found support for allegations that Pentagon analysts went out and collected their own intelligence.... Nor have investigators found that the Pentagon analysis about Iraq significantly shaped the case the administration made for going to war." The subjects of these investigations would be investigated again in 2006 by the Pentagon Inspector General (see below).

====Actions Feith authorized at the Office of Special Plans concerning Iran====
The "back-channel" meetings Feith authorized dealt not only with Iraq, but also with ]. When Powell learned that Feith was authorizing secret meetings with former Iran-Contra figures such as arms dealer ] to investigate options for regime change in Iran, he angrily complained on ], ] directly to Rumsfeld and then Rice about Feith conducting unauthorized missions that were contrary to official U.S. policy. A senior administration official said the US Government had learned about the unauthorised talks "accidentally", and that it was unsettling "the government hadn't learnt the lessons of last time around", referring to the secret contacts and rogue operations that led to Iran-Contra.<ref>http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/08/1060145871467.html</ref>

Feith's authorization of contact with Manuchar Ghorbanifar was also controversial. The CIA said that he "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator", and put him under a ], warning other intelligence agencies not to use him.<ref>http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html</ref>

====Investigations of the Office of Special Plans and of Feith====
Officially, Feith is currently under investigation by the Pentagon's Inspector General and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).<ref>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/08/31/2d_probe_at_the_pentagon_examines_actions_on_iraq/</ref> ] Intelligence Committee Chairman ] began the investigation when he wrote to the Pentagon Inspector General asking him to start the review:

“The Committee is concerned about persistent and, to date, unsubstantiated allegations that there was something unlawful or improper about the activities of the Office of Special Plans within the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy ... I have not discovered any credible evidence of unlawful or improper activity, yet the allegations persist.” In an attempt to lay these allegations to rest once and for all, he requested the Inspector General to “initiate an investigation into the activities of the Office of Special Plans during the period prior to the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom to determine whether any of activities were unlawful or improper; . . . whether the personnel assigned to the Office of Special Plans, at any time, conducted unauthorized, unlawful, or inappropriate intelligence activities.” Senator Levin has asked the Inspector General to look at the activities of the OUSDP generally, and not just the OSP. The SSCI is awaiting the outcome of the DOD Inspector General’s review."<ref>http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/Feb0706DoDIntellMS.pdf</ref> Sources within the SSCI report Feith and the Defense Department have been less than helpful to their investigation.<ref>http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Pentagon_investigation_stalls_Phase_II_of_0130.html</ref>

As of March 2006 the news organisation ] reports Pat Roberts, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was not allowing a complete investigation of Feith and his role at his Office of Special Plans. "One former intelligence official suggested that part of the reason for deferring the Feith inquiry was its sensitivity. A Feith investigation might unravel ''a bigger can of worms,'' the source said"<ref>http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Prewar_intelligence_probe_grinds_to_end_0411.html</ref>

====Defense Department Inspector General Report Issued====
Tasked to examine a briefing that members of Feith's Policy office delivered in summer-fall 2002 to Secretary Rumsfeld, CIA Director Tenet and White House officials including Steve Hadley and Scooter Libby, the Defense Department Inspector General Thomas Gimble found on ], ] that Feith's office did nothing unlawful, unauthorized or that attempted to mislead Congress<ref>http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6403435,00.html</ref> But, the Policy briefing's criticisms of the CIA's intelligence work were found by Gimble to be "inappropriate" because they were "inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community."<ref>http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-feith9feb09,1,3970451.story?coll=la-headlines-world&track=crosspromo</ref>

The Policy briefing in question "did not provide the most accurate analysis of intelligence to senior decision makers", Gimble argued, at a time when the White House was moving toward war with Iraq.<ref>http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-11-iraq-pentagon-intelligence_x.htm</ref>

According to the ''Washington Post'', Feith's "office had asserted in a briefing given to ]'s chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was 'mature' and 'symbiotic,' marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics. Instead, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives. The contrary conclusions reached by Feith's office -- and leaked to the conservative ''Weekly Standard'' magazine before the war were publicly praised by ] as the best source of information on the topic, a circumstance the Pentagon report cites in documenting the impact of what it described as 'inappropriate' work."<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html?hpid=topnews</ref>

In February 2007, Feith launched an Internet website, , following the Defense Department's Inspector General report on pre-war activities of the Pentagon's policy organization. The report, “spawned a lot of inaccurate commentary by politicians and misreporting by journalists,” and Feith said he launched the website, “to provide accurate information and sound commentary on the IG report controversy. I will use it also to provide reliable news items and other material about the work of the policy organization during my tenure as Under Secretary.”

Feith's undergraduate work at Harvard and National Security Council position under Professor Richard Pipes in the 1970s and 80's presages present-day controversy over intelligence critiques. At University, Feith was involved with "]" analysis: or critiques of existing intelligence.<ref>http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAH/is_2004_April_23/ai_116585447</ref> In the late 1970s, many American conservatives believed the Soviet Union was a qualitatively graver threat than US intelligence agencies believed. These fears later proved unfounded. Feith applied a similar ideological lens to existing intelligence regarding Iraq.<ref>http://www.slate.com/?id=2073238</ref><ref>http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/08/b140711.html</ref>

The response to the Inspector General's report has been determined along partisan lines.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.dodig.mil/IGInformation/archives/Unclass%20%20Executive%20Summary.pdf | title= Review of Pre-Iraqi War Activities by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy| publisher=] | date= ], ] | first= | last= | accessdate =2007-02-12}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/10/washington/10feith.html?em&ex=1171256400&en=d3f38b78d0ae254d&ei=5087%0A | title=Inquiry on Intelligence Gaps May Reach to White House| publisher=] | date= ], ] | first=David | last=Cloud | accessdate =2007-02-12}}</ref>

{{POV-section|date=February 2008}}
===Subordinate's involvement in the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal===
A subordinate of Feith's, ], was convicted, and sentenced to 12 years in ] ] in 2005 for charges in an ]. Franklin was accused and convicted of passing ] information to an Israeli ] and ], an employee of the Israeli ] lobby. The ongoing ] ] probe into improper transmission of ] information to ] from 1999 to shortly before the 2003 ] could involve Feith,<ref>http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FI02Ak02.html</ref> who refuses to comment on the investigation.<ref>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57595-2004Sep2.html</ref> Franklin was one of 1,500<ref>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/campaign/31inquire.html</ref> employees at Feith's Pentagon office, and officially worked six layers of bureaucracy beneath Feith. However, while leading the Office of Special Plans Feith used Larry Franklin repeatedly for sensitive meetings involving foreign citizens, overseas.<ref>http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_stalling_prewar_intelligence_1202.html</ref>

According to '']'', Feith's office had an unconventional relationship with Israel's intelligence services:

: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 ]'s office in Israel specifically to bypass ] and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's 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 Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.

:The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.<ref>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html</ref>

Writing in an op-ed for the ''Gulf News'', Adel Safty, the UNESCO Chair of Leadership and President of the School of Government and Leadership, Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, writes, "the FBI may be pursuing the wrong guy. Franklin is working for a more fanatical supporter of Israel with a higher security clearance: Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith, in his support for the extremist elements of the Israel's Likud party, played a crucial role in getting the USA to wage war against Iraq, and is trying to get it to intervene against Iran. Feith's services and loyalty to the Israeli extremists make the FBI investigation of Franklin's spy activities pale in insignificance."<ref>Adel Safty, "Spying for Israel: Got the Wrong Guy," ''Gulf News'' (13 September 2004).</ref>

Feith has been defended by his friend ], described as "head of the conservative Center for Security Policy and a Feith friend since they served together in the Reagan administration." Gaffney told the ''Philadelphia Inquirer'', "To construe Doug as this sort of running dog of the Jewish state, a Zionist proxy in the Pentagon, is totally false and deeply offensive."<ref>Steve Goldstein, "As Iraq struggles, critics zero in on Pentagon aide," ''Philadelphia Inquirer'' (28 September 2004) A1.</ref>


==Footnotes== ==Footnotes==
<!--See http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the <ref(erences/)> tags-->
{{reflist|2}} {{reflist|2}}


==Further reading== ==Further reading==
* ''{{usurped|1=}}'' a video of a talk by Douglas Feith 1hr and 42min.
*Maureen Dowd, "The Dream is Dead," The New York Times, 12 December 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/opinion/12dowd.html?em&ex=1197694800&en=5332f2b831e17d52&ei=5087%0A
*
*]
* ]
*''Special Plans: the blogs on Douglas Feith and the faulty intelligence that led to war'' by Allison Hantschel, Wilsonville, Oregon: William, James & Co., September 2005 ISBN 1-59028-049-0
* ''Special Plans: the blogs on Douglas Feith and the faulty intelligence that led to war'' by Allison Hantschel, Wilsonville, Oregon: William, James & Co., September 2005 {{ISBN|1-59028-049-0}}
*''Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America'' by Smith, Grant F., Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2006, ISBN 0-9764437-4-0.
* ''Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America'' by Smith, Grant F., Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2006, {{ISBN|0-9764437-4-0}}.
*''Clear Ideas vs. Foggy Bottom'' by Melanie Kirkpatrick, '']'' ], ], p. A8.
* ''Clear Ideas vs. Foggy Bottom'' by Melanie Kirkpatrick, '']'' August 5, 2003, p. A8.
*''White House Learned of Spy Probe in 2001'' by Curt Anderson, ], ], ].
* ''White House Learned of Spy Probe in 2001'' by Curt Anderson, ], September 3, 2004.
*''Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib'' by Seymour Hersh, New York: Harper Collins. 2004. ISBN 0-06-019591-6.
*''Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History'' Feith, Douglas J., ''et al''; ed. Siegel, Edward M.; assoc.ed. Barrekette, Olga; ''Proceedings of the Conference on International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict'' (New York, ], ]), Sponsored by ''The Louis D. Brandeis Society of Zionist Lawyers'', Center for Near East Policy Research, 1993, ISBN 0-9640145-0-5. * ''Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib'' by Seymour Hersh, New York: Harper Collins. 2004. {{ISBN|0-06-019591-6}}.
* ''Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History'' Feith, Douglas J., ''et al.''; ed. Siegel, Edward M.; assoc.ed. Barrekette, Olga; ''Proceedings of the Conference on International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict'' (New York, October 21, 1990), Sponsored by ''The Louis D. Brandeis Society of Zionist Lawyers'', Center for Near East Policy Research, 1993, {{ISBN|0-9640145-0-5}}.
*'''' by ], 1996 * '''' by ], 1996
*''Plan of Attack'' by ], New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0-7432-5547-X. * ''Plan of Attack'' by ], New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004, {{ISBN|0-7432-5547-X}}.
*''A Dangerous Appointment: Profile of Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under Bush'' by James J. Zogby, Middle East Information Center, ], ] * ''A Dangerous Appointment: Profile of Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under Bush'' by James J. Zogby, Middle East Information Center, April 18, 2001
*''Israeli Settlements: Legitimate, Democratically Mandated, Vital to Israel’s Security and, Therefore, in U.S. Interest'', The Center for Security Policy, Transition Brief No. 96‐T 130, ], ] * ''Israeli Settlements: Legitimate, Democratically Mandated, Vital to Israel's Security and, Therefore, in U.S. Interest'', The Center for Security Policy, Transition Brief No. 96‐T 130, December 17, 1996


==External links== ==External links==
*
===Biographies===
* {{C-SPAN|11999}}
*
*, from ''The ]'' * , from ''The ]''
*
* a timeline of Feith's Iraq policies at ]


{{S-start}}
===Editorials===
{{s-gov}}
Editorials and opinion columnists, in reverse chronological order:
* by Maureen Dowd, New York Times, December 12, 2007.
*, New York Sun editorial, February 12, 2007.
* by former senior CIA political analyst ], ], May-June, 2007.
* by Thomas Jocelyn, April 13, 2007.
* by Rich Tucker, Townhall.com, March 9, 2007.
*, by Robert Blackwill and Ed Rogers, The Washington Times, March 8, 2007.
*, by Mario Loyola, National Review, February 27, 2007.
*, by Michael Barone, The Washington Times, February 19, 2007.
*, by Hugh Hewitt, abcnews.com, Feb. 12, 2007.
*, Wall Street Journal editorial, February 12, 2007.
*, by Andrew McCarthy, National Review, February 9, 2007.
*, Wall Street Journal editorial, May 31, 2006.
*, Wall Street Journal editorial, October 25, 2004.
*, by ], ], September 3, 2004.
* by Jim Lobe, '']'', September 2, 2004.
* by Chris Suellentrop, '']'', Thursday, May 20, 2004.
* at ], 1986-present.

===Press releases and news articles===
* by Julian Borger '']'', ], ]
* by ], Republic Policy Committee, US Senate, ], ]
* by U.S. Senate
* by ], Pentagon Auditorium, Washington, DC, Monday, ], ]
* by The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the U.S.
* by Jeffrey Goldberg, '']'', 2005-05-09
* by D. Pierce Nixon, '']'', ], ]
* by Caitlin Moran, '']'', ], ]
* by Richard Sale, '']'', ]. 2004
* by Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks, '']'', ], ]
* by Larisa Alexandrovna, '']'', ], ]
* by Bryan Bender, '']'', ], ]
*] "". '']'', ], ]

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Latest revision as of 10:15, 10 December 2024

American political official (born 1953)

Doug Feith
Official portrait, 2001
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
In office
July 16, 2001 – August 8, 2005
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byWalter B. Slocombe
Succeeded byEric S. Edelman
Personal details
Born (1953-07-16) July 16, 1953 (age 71)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
EducationHarvard University (BA)
Georgetown University (JD)

Douglas Jay Feith (/ˈfaɪθ/; born July 16, 1953) is an American lawyer who served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.

Feith has been described as an architect of the Iraq War. In the lead up to the war, he played a key role in promoting the false claim that the Saddam Hussein regime had an operational relationship with al-Qaeda (even though there was scant credible evidence of such a relationship at the time). A Pentagon Inspector General report found that Feith's office had "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers."

Personal

Feith was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of three children of Rose (née Bankel) and Dalck Feith. His father was a member of the Betar, a Revisionist Zionist youth organization, in Poland, and a Holocaust survivor who lost his parents and seven siblings in the Nazi concentration camps. Dalck came to the United States during World War II and became a businessman, a philanthropist, and a donor to the Republican party.

Feith grew up in Elkins Park, part of Cheltenham Township, a Philadelphia suburb. He attended Philadelphia's Central High School, and later attended Harvard University, where he obtained his undergraduate degree and graduated magna cum laude in 1975. He continued on to the Georgetown University Law Center, receiving his J.D. magna cum laude in 1978. After graduation, he worked for three years as an attorney with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.

Career

Work as a Democrat

Feith worked on the staff of senator Henry M. Jackson in 1975 before going on to work on Elmo Zumwalt's campaign against segregationist senator Harry Byrd, Jr. Byrd, an independent since 1970, defeated Zumwalt, a Democrat, 57–38%.

Reagan administration

At Harvard, Feith had studied under Richard Pipes, who joined the Reagan administration's National Security Council, in 1981, to help carry out a private intelligence project called Team B that Pipes and his students had conceived. Feith joined the NSC as a Middle East specialist that same year, working under Pipes.

He transferred from the NSC staff to the Pentagon, in 1982, to work as special counsel for Richard Perle, who was then serving as assistant secretary to the United States Secretary of Defense. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger promoted Feith, in 1984, to deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy. When Feith left the Pentagon, in 1986, Weinberger awarded him the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the department's highest civilian award.

During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, Feith helped to convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz all to recommend against ratification of changes to the Geneva Conventions. The changes, known as the "Additional Protocols," grant armed non-state actors prisoner of war status under certain circumstances even if they fail to distinguish themselves from the civilian population to the same extent as members of the armed forces of a high contracting party. Reagan informed the United States Senate in 1987 that he would not ratify Additional Protocol I. At the time, both The Washington Post and The New York Times editorialized in favor of Reagan's decision to reject Additional Protocol I as a revision of humanitarian law that protected terrorists.

Private practice

Feith began his career as an attorney in private practice with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP for 3 years, after which he joined the Reagan administration (see the previous section).

Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith co-founded, with Marc Zell, the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. The firm engaged in lobbying efforts for, among others, the Turkish, Israeli and Bosnian governments, in addition to representing defense corporations Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Feith left the firm in 2001, following his nomination as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.

Bush administration

Feith joined the administration of President George W. Bush as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2001. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with other neoconservatives, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. With his new appointment in hand, Feith proved influential in having Richard Perle chosen as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Feith was criticized during the first term of the Bush administration for creating the Office of Strategic Influence. This office came into existence to support the War on Terror. The office's aim was to conduct non-covert influence operations in foreign countries. However, after significant media scrutiny into what exactly would fall within the OSI's mandate, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had Feith shut the office down, while transferring its functions elsewhere within the Department of Defense. Feith played a significant role in the buildup to the Iraq War. Feith has been characterized as an architect of the Iraq War.

As part of his portfolio, he supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community. The office was responsible for hiring Lawrence Franklin, who was later convicted along with AIPAC employees Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman for passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon. The office, eventually dismantled, was later criticized in Congress and the media for analysis that was contradicted by CIA analysis and investigations performed following the invasion of Iraq. In response to the allegedly poor work of Feith's Office of Special Plans, General Tommy Franks, who led both the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq War called Feith "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet".

Douglas Feith and General-Colonel Yuriy Nikolayevich Baluyevskiy hold a joint press conference at the Pentagon on Jan. 16, 2002.

Feith was responsible for the de-Ba'athification policy promulgated in Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003.

In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued a report that concluded that Feith's office "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." This repeated Feith's earlier involvement with Team B as a postgraduate, when alternative intelligence assessments exaggerating threats to the United States turned out to be wrong on nearly every point. The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." Senator Carl Levin, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq. The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war." At Senator Levin's insistence, on April 6, 2007, the Pentagon's Inspector General's Report was declassified and released to the public.

Responding to criticism of a report that linked Al-Qaeda with Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Feith called the office's report a much-needed critique of the CIA's intelligence. "It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence", Feith said. "What the people in the Pentagon were doing was right. It was good government." Feith also rejected accusations he attempted to link Iraq to a formal relationship with Al Qaeda. "No one in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship", Feith said. "There was a relationship." Feith stated that he "felt vindicated" by the report of the Pentagon inspector general. He told The Washington Post that his office produced "a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."

Feith was the first senior Pentagon official to leave the administration after Bush was re-elected. There was some speculation when Feith announced he was leaving as to why he was stepping down. Some believed he was pressured to leave because of problems over his performance and his increasing marginalization.

Post-government career

Following his government service, Feith was employed by the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he taught a course on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policy. He came to Georgetown's School of Foreign Service after leaving Stanford's Hoover Institution and was appointed by School of Foreign Service dean, Robert Gallucci. However, his hiring "caused an uproar among the Foreign Service school faculty." Two years later, Feith's contract was not renewed, causing continuing hostility between the Georgetown Law Center faculty and alumni and the Foreign Service school faculty.

In 2008, Feith became a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, where he is the director of its Center for National Security Strategies.

Views and publications

Feith is a Republican, and has contributed money to various party candidates over the years. He has been described as a neoconservative. One of Feith's controversial views was his argument that increasing the number of political appointees equated to more democracy, which would help align government policy to the promises politicians make before they get into office.

Feith's writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and The New Republic. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller's Churchill as Peacemaker, Raphael Israeli's The Dangers of a Palestinian State 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.

Feith is an ardent supporter of Israel. Along with Richard Perle and David Wurmser, he was a member of the study group which authored a controversial report entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, a set of policy recommendations 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 September 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 attributing any particular idea , let alone all of them, to any one participant."

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

Feith was interviewed by the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes in a segment that was aired on April 6, 2008. During this interview he promoted his newly released memoir, War and Decision and defended the decision making that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

War and Decision

Main article: War and Decision

On April 8, 2008, Feith's memoir, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, was published by HarperCollins.

War crimes investigation

Main article: The Bush Six

In 2009, Feith became one of several Bush administration officials under consideration for investigation of possible war crimes in a Spanish court, headed by Baltasar Garzón under claims of universal jurisdiction. The case had reportedly still been active as of 2011.

Personal life

Feith is married with four children. His eldest son, Daniel Feith, graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School and served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Consumer Protection Branch in the United States Department of Justice. His second son, David Feith, graduated from Columbia University and worked as an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal and an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs before serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the United States Department of State from July 2020 to January 2021.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Feith Regrets Not Pushing 'Law and Order' in Iraq". NPR. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
  2. ^ DeParle, Jason (May 25, 2006). "Faculty's Chilly Welcome for Ex-Pentagon Official". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
  3. ^ Pincus, Walter (February 8, 2007). "Official's Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  4. Landay, Jonathan S. "Pentagon office produced 'alternative' intelligence on Iraq". McClatchy DC. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
  5. Myers, Zara (October 27, 2005). "Dalck Feith, Electronics Chief and Community Leader, Dies at 91". Jewish Exponent. Philadelphia, PA.
  6. ^ Goldberg, Jeffrey (May 1, 2005). "A Little Learning". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  7. Cook, Bonnie L. (February 3, 2016). "Rose Feith, philanthropist in Philadelphia and Israel". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  8. Borger, Julian (December 6, 2002). "Democrat hawk whose ghost guides Bush; Scoop Jackson's body is 20 years in the grave but his spirit goes marching on". The Guardian. Retrieved October 26, 2012.
  9. Zumwalt Jr., Elmo (1976). On Watch: A Memoir. Chapters 8 and 9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. "1976 Senatorial General Election Results - Virginia".
  11. "Defense, democracy and the war on terrorism - Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith – Transcript | US Department of Defense Speeches | Find Articles at BNET.com". Findarticles.com. 2004. Archived from the original on February 8, 2007. Retrieved July 18, 2010.
  12. Solfe, Waldemar (1986–1987). "A Response to Douglas J. Feith's Law in the Service of Terror – The Strange Case of the Additional Protocol". Akron Law Review. 20: 266–68.
  13. "Denied: A Shield for Terrorists". The New York Times. February 17, 1987. Retrieved April 5, 2009.
  14. "Statement by Douglas J. Feith Before the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee of the House Committee on the Judiciary" (PDF). July 15, 2008. Retrieved March 6, 2010.
  15. ^ Wedel, Janine R. (2009). Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market. New York: Basic Books. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-465-02084-3. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  16. Sevastopulo, Demetri (January 28, 2005). "Relief and speculation as Pentagon official quits". Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 10, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  17. Alexandrovna, Larisa (December 2, 2005). "Senate Intelligence Committee Stalling Pre-war Intelligence Report". The Raw Story. Archived from the original on September 3, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2007.
  18. Kwiatkowski, Karen (March 10, 2004). "The new Pentagon papers". Salon.com. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  19. Black, Simon (April 9, 2011). "And This Year's Nobel Prize in Goes To..." LewRockwell.com.
  20. Ricks, Thomas E. (2007). Fiasco: the American military adventure in Iraq. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303891-7. Retrieved April 12, 2011.
  21. Chandrasekaran, R. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. pp 79-80
  22. Kaplan, Fred Daydream Believers. Hoboken: J. Wiley & Sons, 2008. p.152
  23. "Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 26, 2009. (5.38 MB)
  24. Feller, Ben (February 11, 2007). "Official defends prewar Iraq-al-Qaida link". East Bay Times. Associated Press.
  25. "Defense report OKs policy chief's intelligence move". The Washington Times. February 8, 2007. Retrieved November 4, 2008.
  26. Lobe, Jim (January 28, 2005). "Politics-U.S.: Feith leaving pentagon - twilight of the neo-cons?". Inter Press Service English News Wire. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  27. Deparle, Jason (May 25, 2006). "Faculty's Chilly Welcome for Ex-Pentagon Official". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2010.
  28. Kamen, Al (April 23, 2008). "Feith and Hope". The Washington Post (In the Loop): A19. Retrieved August 29, 2008.
  29. "Experts - Douglas J. Feith - Hudson Institute". www.hudson.org. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
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Preceded byWalter B. Slocombe United States Department of Defense
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
2001–2005 		Succeeded byEric S. Edelman
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