*EPF302 06/04/2003
DoD Report: Defense's Feith Denies Pentagon Manipulated Intelligence Reports
(Intelligence, Iraq, Terrorists) (340)

Washington -- A senior U.S. Defense Department official June 4 described as inaccurate news reports of a special group formed at the Pentagon to manipulate intelligence reports about Iraq's links to international terrorist groups and its weapons of mass destruction program in order to make a case for going to war.

Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, told journalists at a special Pentagon briefing that a small group functioning within his office from October 2001 to August 2002 did find some connections between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, the terrorist group al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction. But the information was used to help Pentagon planners develop a more effective strategy for fighting a global war on terrorism and not to make a case for waging war in Iraq, he said.

Feith said the team he formed focused on international terrorist networks and how they related to states sponsoring terrorism, which included Saddam Hussein's regime.

"It showed that we cannot simply assume that the only cooperation that existed in the world among terrorist groups and their sponsors was on some kind of pure ideological or philosophical lines," he said.

The team was not designed to replace or supersede the work of the Central Intelligence Agency, nor issue its own intelligence judgments regarding Iraq's WMD, Feith said. When the team had finished its work and had found some linkages between Iraq and al-Qaida, it met with CIA Director George Tenet in August 2002 and shared its observations, he said.

"These were simply observations of this team based on the intelligence that the intelligence community had given to us," he said. After the meeting, the team ended its work, he said.

Feith also said the team formed in his office was not designed to attempt to topple the current Iranian government as some news reports inaccurately indicated. He said the future of Iran's current government will be determined by its people.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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