However, you are probably not aware of another book released recently, which did not get the adoring, orgasmic coverage of the mass media: Douglas Feith's War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. For those of you who do not know who is Douglas Feith, he served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005.

Now, whom do you think has more credible information when it comes to the details of the war effort: an incompetent Press Secretary who was fired (whose book was funded by Leftist, America-hater George Soros) or a respected former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Well, unless you are suffering from BDS, you chose the latter.

The gentlemen at Power Line have been doing a great series of posts about this book, which, unlike the hit-job with nothing new to say by McClellan, has many revelations that should be of interest to anyone who has any true intellectual curiousity about the war effort. This would obviously not include anyone who rants about "Bush Lied! People Died!", "No WMDs!", "War for Oil!" and "Bush had no plan for post invasion!" Those are people who choose to form opinions based on their biased emotions instead of opening their minds and using their logic.

For the rest of us though, this is an amazing opportunity to get an idea of what went on at the highest levels of our goverment "at the dawm of the war on terrorism".

So I hope you will all stop reading about the disgruntled putz McClellan and spend your time reading about this book by Douglas Feith. Hopefully these discussions at Power Line will also intrigue you enough to purchase the book and learn all the details provided by Mr. Feith. I know it is already on my Amazon Wish List.

Also, if pure interest in getting the facts about "the dawn of the war on terrorism" does not convince you to purchase the book, you should know that Mr. Feith is donating all proceeds from the book to charities which help military veterans and their families. (Probably another reason why the mass media and the Left have downplayed and slammed this book.)

We invited Mr. Feith to preview the book in his own words for our readers. He has graciously responded:

I've been doing many interviews about my book in recent days - and I've heard from many journalists and others that the book surprises them. It tells a story that contradicts key parts of almost all the major books about the Iraq war.

For example, it refutes the notion that President Bush came into office determined to go to war no matter what - that the administration refused or failed to consider the arguments against war. In fact, as my book reveals, the most serious analysis of the downsides and risks of war was produced in the Pentagon by Rumsfeld and his top advisers - not by Colin Powell, Rich Armitage, George Tenet or other officials who are reputed to have been the voices of caution.

My book contradicts the common allegation that Pentagon civilians did not plan for post-Saddam Iraq. It explains what is wrong with the charge that the State Department had a plan that Defense officials discarded. It explains what is wrong with the charge that Rumsfeld and his advisers were dupes of the Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi - and what is wrong with the assertion that we intended to "anoint Chalabi" as the leader of Iraq.

My book quotes extensively from previously classified documents - from numerous memos that were exchanged among Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Tenet, General Myers, VP Cheney and the President. It recounts numerous meetings ? and it does so, not on the basis of after-the-fact interviews in which officials remember (or pretend to remember) years after the fact what occurred in those meetings, but on the basis of the notes I took while attending the meetings. In writing the book, I made the radical decision that words would be put in quotation marks only if they were actually spoken by the characters in my history at the very time and place described.

Among the main topics covered in the book are:

· The development of the strategy for the war on terrorism in the hours and days after 9/11 - a strategy that broke with US counter-terrorism policies of the previous decades - a strategy that aimed not simply to punish the perpetrators of 9/11, but (much more ambitiously) to prevent follow-on 9/11-scale attacks.

· For all the errors the administration has made and the terrible problems we have encountered in recent years, especially in Iraq, it is a notable achievement that we are six and half years past 9/11 and the United States has not been hit again as we were hit then. This owes something, I believe, to our strategy.

Another major topic covered in the book is the rationale for the Iraq war. I explain what the President and his top officials were concerned about - why Iraq was a problem made more urgent and more worrisome by 9/11 even though we did not believe that Saddam was responsible for the 9/11 attack itself.

The book reviews the issue of politicization of intelligence - and the accusations of manipulation of intelligence. It explains the actual controversy between my office and the CIA over the intelligence on the Iraq-al Qaida relationship. The actual controversy was not a clash in which Defense officials argued that there was an intimate Iraq-al Qaida relationship while CIA officials argued for a more sober assessment. Rather it was an argument about methodology and professionalism. It was about the criticism by Defense officials of the CIA's politicization of its own intelligence.

And perhaps most newsworthy, the book explains for the first time anywhere the key postwar plan developed by the administration - the plan for political transition in post-Saddam Iraq. It was a plan developed in the Defense Department - and it aimed to prevent a prolonged US occupation of Iraq. It was a plan to put Iraqis in charge of their own government promptly after Saddam's overthrow. It was a plan that built on our experience in Afghanistan, where the US overthrew the Taliban regime but did not establish a US occupation government. As I say in the book, it was a plan "which my office drafted, Powell and Armitage tried to delay, President Bush approved, Jay Garner began to implement, and L. Paul Bremer buried."

Much of the latter part of the book deals with how this plan was undone and the harmful consequences that resulted.

While the book recounts controversies and debates, it does so in a way that I think is far more fascinating than the snide and shallow self-justification that is typical in memoirs of former officials. I refer in the book to the "I was surrounded by idiots school of memoir-writing." I don't like that school. I find it boring and bad history. While I was in the administration, I had many disagreements with other officials, but I generally thought that their arguments had important merits. When I disagreed, it was usually because I thought that an alternative strategy or policy had even more merit.

Throughout, I have tried to be critical of all the work I discuss in the book - that of other agencies, that of the Defense Department and that of my own office and myself. Washington Post reporters apparently assume that former officials' memoirs are inevitably finger-pointing, blame-laying books. Some have asserted this about my book, but they did so without actually having read it. If they eventually do read it, they will find that they were wrong.

I've been pleased that writers who did read the book have written favorably about it ? for example: Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal, Lawrence Di Rita at NRO, and Frank Gaffney in the Washington Times.

I tried to make my book a useful, accurate account - as accurate as one man's account can be. I care about accuracy. That is why I relied so heavily on the contemporaneous written record. That is why I provided footnotes and endnotes so extensively. The book is 530 pages long, with around 140 pages of notes and reproduced documents. And I want readers to pay attention to the notes - to read them. I'd be happy if they challenge me on my use and interpretation of the documents. I have created a website - War and Decision (5) ? where anyone can go and easily pull up the unclassified documents and articles and other material that I cite.

I was very pleased the other day when Professor Dan Byman joked at a talk I gave at Georgetown University that my website will strike fear in the hearts of professors across America. The idea of someone making it easy for people to check one's footnotes ? a terrifying idea, he said, but he complimented it as the essence of scholarship.

I want to invite all of you to read my book and visit War and Decision to plunge into the actual record of the fateful decision of the Bush administration at the dawn of the war on terrorism.

It should be noted that in addition to the book's contribution to history, the book is responsible for another contribution. Mr. Feith is donating all the proceeds from the book to charities that help veterans and their families.

Our Interview of Doug Feith (2)

Doug Feith on the Northern Alliance (3)

Debunking the received wisdom about Iraq war policy-making (4)

So reading this article from Melanie Phillips is frustrating and baffling at the same time. Frustrating, because it is yet another source where someone has proven that Saddam either had WMD or had the resources setup to start up his programs were he to go unchallenged. And baffling, because, if what Dave Gaubatz, an agent in the US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations who searched Iraqi WMD sites after the fall of Saddam, says is correct, then the Bush Administration is covering up the fact that they were absolutely correct about Saddam's caches of WMD, because they don't want to take criticism for not preventing the caches of WMD to fall into terrorists' hands, as the war was intended to do.

Still, this is an interesting read. Of course, because of the Bush Administration's utter incompetence in defending itself against the "BUSH LIED!" mantra of the Left, the Democrats and the MSM, those people who believe the "BUSH LIED" lie will just discount this, while those of us who know the facts are left with just another set of facts that people in power refuse to show the American public to set the record straight.

I have to say that this really angers me. And I really don't understand why the Bush Adminstration continues to lie about not finding WMD. I certainly hope they have a good reason for it, because allowing the "BUSH LIED!" lie to take hold with a good portion of the country has completely divided us as a nation and completely eroded support for the war effort.

Found via Scott Johnson at Power Line: Meet Dave Gaubatz

It's a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It's also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam's Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam's use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Dave Gaubatz, however, says that you could not be more wrong. Saddam's WMD did exist. He should know, because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don't know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, 'lost' his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam's WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.

You may be tempted to dismiss this as yet another dodgy claim from a warmongering lackey of the world Zionist neocon conspiracy giving credence to yet another crank pushing US propaganda. If so, perhaps you might pause before throwing this article at the cat. Mr Gaubatz is not some marginal figure. He's pretty well as near to the horse's mouth as you can get.

Having served for 12 years as an agent in the US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, Mr Gaubatz, a trained Arabic speaker, was hand-picked for postings in 2003, first in Saudi Arabia and then in Nasariyah in Iraq. His mission was to locate suspect WMD sites, discover threats against US forces in the area and find Saddam loyalists, and then send such intelligence to the Iraq Survey Group and other agencies.

Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq -- two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra -- which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true.

This was, in the first place, because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20 to 30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.

'There was no doubt, with so much effort having gone into hiding these constructions, that something very important was buried there', says Mr Gaubatz. By speaking to a wide range of Iraqis, some of whom risked their lives by talking to him and whose accounts were provided in ignorance of each other, he built up a picture of the nuclear, chemical and biological materials they said were buried underground.

'They explained in detail why WMDs were in these areas and asked the US to remove them,' says Mr Gaubatz. 'Much of this material had been buried in the concrete bunkers and in the sewage pipe system. There were also missile imprints in the area and signs of chemical activity -- gas masks, decontamination kits, atropine needles. The Iraqis and my team had no doubt at all that WMDs were hidden there.'

There was yet another significant piece of circumstantial corroboration. The medical records of Mr Gaubatz and his team showed that at these sites they had been exposed to high levels of radiation.

Read it all: "I found Saddam's WMD Bunkers"

Also, Allahpundit at HotAir notes that FrontPageMag covered this story last year, as did the NYTimes. The fact that we have not told Syria to hand over the WMD or face the consequences, especially when they are contributing to the terrorism in the world and in Iraq and Israel and Lebanon through Hezb'Allah and allowing terrorists to cross their borders into Iraq, is maddening. We allow the world to call us liars and evil and warmongers and idiots, when we have intel showing that the WMD are in Syria. Why the HELL aren't we acting on it.

As I said before, the Bush Administration better have a DAMN good reason for lying like this.

Also see this NY Sun article from Jan 2006: Iraq's WMD Secreted to Syria, Sada Says

The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.

"There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."

Mr. Sada's comments come just more than a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."

Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in 2003. And President Bush himself has conceded much of the point; in a televised prime-time address to Americans last month, he said, "It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong."

Said Mr. Bush, "We did not find those weapons."

Again, this pisses me off to no end, because the Left and the Democrats and the media use these quotes to completely discredit the facts that come out about WMD being found.

And ONCE AGAIN, the Bush Administration better have a DAMN GOOD REASON for lying like that.

UPDATE I: Interesting comment at HotAir by Perchant:

The Democrats stalled our invasion of Iraq. Their stalling strategy had its own catch phrase called "why the rush to war?". We now have the answer to that question.

My conspiracy theory on that one was that some Democrats (using runners like McDermott, Bonior, Lindauer) worked with the Russians, the French and other oil for food partners to remove Saddam's WMD from Iraq so that Saddam could accept a last minute inspection. The clock ran out on them and "shock and awe" commenced. They were hollering "no wmds" before we even entered Baghdad and there was no reason for them to be confident of that.

UPDATE II: Commenter stonemeister has another good point:

If the truth were known, it would become public that Iraq, with the help of Russia (which also supplied aircraft and trucks), shipped off WMDs, supplies, materials, and manufacturing equipment to Iraq and even some to Iran, shortly before the war started.

Letting this info out would burn bridges (as if they existed) between us and Russia, and would cause the middle east to go up like a tinderbox. Israel would feel threatened by Syria, and feel tempted to strike these stockpiles before they were attacked, and Iran would have the perfect excuse to attack Israel. If we "insulted" Russia with these facts, they would turn more against us (as if that were possible), and eliminate any chance they could take our side against the Islamists. Plus the fact that North Korea, Russia, France and Germany was selling supplies, materials, and equipment to Iraq and Syria, the whole thing would blow up.

Talk about a world war! That's why Bush has been willing to take his lumps, to fight one battle at a time. I don't think he was counting on one of the battles he'd fight was with the Dems and press of his own country!

And that is probably it right there. I don't think anyone could have predicted how Bush Derangement Syndrome would infect the Left, the Democrats and the MSM so much so that they would commit treason. The fact is, all of us underestimated the utter delusion and hatred that infects the leftists, based on their losing their political power in 2000.

UPDATE III: Via Commentor TheBigOldDog:

This is an important companion article in Melanie's Diary:

The questions that need to be asked about those WMD

It's long but important. For example:

At the 2006 Summit, a tape recording of Saddam discussing his nuclear weapons technology was presented to the public. The tape clearly shows Saddam discussing a progress report on a laser enrichment system for uranium, one of the more advanced methods to make a nuclear bomb. This nuclear technology tape had sat untranslated in a Kuwaiti warehouse along with thousands of shelf feet of captured Intelligence files. Mr. Negroponte had decided to give them a low priority until the 2006 Summit revealed their importance.

I think the reason the Admin has downplayed the WMD story is because the worst has indeed happened. As she says, through American incompetence, the worst case scenario has now been realised -- that Saddam's WMD are in the hands of terrorist regimes waging war against the west.

UPDATE IV: This is interesting. Seems as though there is a China connection. Very troubling. Via commentor TheBigOldDog:

They were in Libya and of the nuclear variety, funded by the Saudis, with Pak plans, NK materiel, and staffed by Pak and Iraqi scientists.

And the documents were written in CHINEESE!

Again, from Melanie:

When Col. Quaddafi turned over his blueprints for a nuclear warhead, they were written in Chinese. Even more alarming, the IAEA discovered that tens of thousands of advanced P-2 uranium centrifuges had been manufactured in Malaysia, but had gone missing. The Summit now believes that China had arranged this shipment for Iraq.

UPDATE V: Also see this NY Sun article: Ex-Officer Spurned on WMD Claim

UPDATE VI: Absolutely excellent post by commentor angryamerican. And s/he makes a great point. Saddam's excuse for the shipments to Syria before the 2003 invasion was "humanitarian aid" to Syria. Saddam did not have enough aid for his own country due to using the Oil-for-Food money to build palaces and fund his WMD programs, yet we're supposed to believe he could give aid to Syria? Riiiiiiiight. Of course the illogical idiots suffering from BDS on the Left take Saddam's claims as "gospel".

In 2002 and 2003 it was reported that the NSA satellites had taken satellite photos of Iraqi Convoys leaving suspected chemical facilities and going into 3 sites in Syria.

Saddam Hussein's #2 Iraqi Air Force General, General Sada, has testified that he oversaw the transport of Chemical Weapons into Syria, but they were disguised as "humanitarian" aid in 2002 and 2003 before the invasion:

http://newyorksun.com/

These 20 planeloads are what General Sada said contained the Chemical Weapons in this story from Relief Web in June 2002: Iraq sends 20 planeloads of aid to Syrian victims of dam collapse

Saddam Hussein said those 20 planeloads contained "humanitarian aid", but he was under U.N. Sanctions?!

He said he didn't have enough humanitarian supplies, which is what he used for the excuse to let his own people starve??!!
But he had enough to send 20 planeloads of "humanitarian aid" to Syria??!!

—————————————————————————————————

And this was further validated by Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf).

"A Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, 2004, to Dutch newspaper "De Telegraaf," that he knows the three sites where Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept."

A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq WMD located in three Syrian sites

In 2004 10 al-Qaeda terrorists were captured in Jordan with more than 20 tons of Chemical Weapons. The reported targets were the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence, and the U.S. Embassy.

It has been reported that up to 100,000 could have been killed in the Terrorist Bombing.

al-Qaeda got those Chemical Weapons out of Syria:

Jordan 'was chemical bomb target'

CNN: Jordan says major al Qaeda plot disrupted

Jordan: Major al Qaeda chemical plot foiled

In 2003 Iraqi Nuclear Scientist, Dr Mahdi Obeidi, revealed he was hiding the key Nuclear Research and Nuclear Centrifuges needed to restart Saddam's Nuclear Weapons Program under Saddam's order.

Saddam reported these nuclear documents, and key nuclear centrifuge parts as "Destroyed" in 1995!

The experts argued that Saddam Hussein had ASPIRATIONS of reconstituting his Nuclear Weapons Program.

These Nuclear Documents and key Nuclear Centrifuge parts were declared DESTROYED by Saddam. They were NOT.

CNN: Nuke program parts unearthed in Baghdad back yard