Search and Replace: Q, N

Summary: In this post I look at the report released by the House Intelligence Committee. It serves two purposes, in my opinion: To present the first "case" against Iran, under the guise of calling for better intelligence on Iran. And to suggest that, since we don’t have good intelligence on Iran, we can’t negotiate with them, because we’d have no way of verifying any agreement.

I’ve been pondering two questions of late. First, why did the Neocons move Fred Fleitz to a staff position on the House Intelligence Committee. And second, how they hell do they plan to lie us into war in Iran when, this time, the public and the intelligence community have their guard up?

Fred Fleitz, as you’ll recall, was the guy John Bolton hand-picked to serve as his enforcer while Bolton was at State. He was instrumental in end-running the State Department’s INR, by insisting that WINPAC do the vetting that INR normally would have; as a result, he made it possible for Bolton to say all manner of inflammatory things that the intelligence community didn’t back. Fleitz was also involved in Bolton’s attempt to get those who didn’t back his hawkish views fired. There were accusations that Fleitz and Bolton’s other minions were breaking the rules regarding Secure Compartmentalized Intelligence (that is, they were circulating super-secret documents in ways they shouldn’t have), with who knows what aim. And Fleitz is an odds-on favorite to the be the source of Valerie Plame’s NOC identity for Dick and his minions when they outed Plame’s identity. Fleitz was moved to the House Intelligence Committee back in the spring, and I’ve wondered ever since whether it meant he was cooperating with Fitzgerald (and therefore needed a different job) or whether they had designs to bulldoze crappy intelligence through the House Intelligence Committee. It appears the latter is the correct guess (big surprise).