Feith Cell Under Attack From Senate

Feith Cell Under Attack from Senate

The Telegraph points out that the annex to the Senate Intelligence report on failures leading to the Iraq war takes singular aim at Undersecretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith, for having set up a cell in the Pentagon that briefed the White House on Iraq without the knowledge of CIA director George Tenet. It may actually have broken the law by gathering intelligence.

This story won’t be a surprise to regular readers. What is remarkable is that the Democrats in the Senate apparently are beginning to get their footing and are actively gunning for Feith. He has strong support from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the main think tank of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), both of which have moved increasingly close to Israel’s far-right Likud Party, and it will be interesting to see if the senators prove willing to buck this influential lobby. If so, and if it is done successfully, such a move could damage the myth of AIPAC’s invincibility and open up American politics to a wider range of views on Mideast policy.