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Douglas Feith

Douglas J. Feith has served as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush since July 2001.

His responsibilities include the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense relations with foreign countries and the Department's role in U.S. Government interagency policy making. Feith leads the Northern Gulf Affairs Office, renamed from Office of Special Plans. In July 2004, this Pentagon unit was heavily criticised by the Senate intelligence committee's review of the intelligence leading to war in Iraq. The allegation is that the Office of Special Plans sought to sideline the CIA's assessments of intelligence on Iraq. Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democrat co-chair of the committee, said that Feith's office may have undertaken "unlawful" intelligence-gathering initiatives, resulting in calls for Feith's resignation.[1] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/11/wsept11.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/11/ixnewstop.html)

Feith is also thought to be responsible for a top secret report, written days after the 9/11 attacks, that called for US retaliation by attacking countries in South America or Southeast Asia (some with an alleged Hizbollah presence). Information about the document has been released by the 9/11 Commission Report. Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, as well as other "non-Al Qaeda targets" like Iraq are given as possible targets. The reasoning advanced is that such a move would have come as a "surprise to the terrorist" which would have been caught "off-guard". [2] (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5570015/site/newsweek)

Feith is described as a neoconservative and Zionist and advocates a close alliance between the United States and Israel. Some of his critics have labeled him as anti-Arab (see e.g. [3] (http://middleeastinfo.org/article701.html)).

Previous to his appointment, Feith spent fifteen years as the managing attorney of the law firm of Feith & Zell, P.C., located in Washington, D.C. (September 1986-July 2001).

From March 1984 until September 1986, Feith served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. Before becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary, Feith served as Special Counsel to Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. He transferred to The Pentagon from the National Security Council at the White House, where he worked in 1981-82 as a Middle East specialist.

Feith's writings on international law and on foreign and defense policy have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New Republic and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller, ed., Churchill as Peacemaker; Douglas J. Feith, et al., Israel?s Legitimacy in Law and History; and Uri Ra?anan, et al., eds., Hydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism.

Feith holds a J.D. (magna cum laude) from the Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. (magna cum laude) from Harvard College.

A May 16, 2004 news article in The Boston Globe identifies Douglas Feith as having argued during the Reagan administration that Geneva Convention protections should not be extended to terrorists who mingled with civilians. In 2001 this policy was implemented and signed off by Defense Department counsel, and led to the designation of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as "enemy combatants" rather than "prisoners of war."

Many of Feith's critics label him a chickenhawk, criticizing him for his lack of military experience. One such critic is United States Army General Tommy Franks, who, according to Bob Woodward's 2004 Plan of Attack, described Feith as the "f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth" (p.281) [4] (http://slate.msn.com/id/2099277/)[5] (http://www.cfr.org/pub7248/max_boot/the_long_march_to_baghdad.php).

In August 2004 it was revealed that one of Feith's top lieutenants, Larry Franklin, an analyst and Iran specialist, has been a subject of a broad FBI investigation and the target of espionage allegations. He is said to have passed secret information to two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of AIPAC and to Naor Gilon, a "senior official" of the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

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