TextSearch

A former Pentagon official whose office generated faulty information that was used to push the United States toward war with Iraq, Feith is now at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, where he advocates hawkish strategic weapons policies.

Douglas Feith last updated: November 21, 2014 Share:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window) Please note: The Militarist Monitor neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site. Affiliations Hudson Institute: Senior Fellow (2008 - ) Council on Foreign Relations: Member U.S. Institute of Peace: Ex-Officio Member Center for Security Policy: Former Chairman; Founding Member, Board of Advisors Middle East Forum: Letter Signatory One Jerusalem: Cofounder Georgetown University: Professor (2006-2008) National Institute for Public Policy: Missile Defense Study Team Leader Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: Former Advisor Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf: Letter Signatory Government Service Defense Department: Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (2001-2005); Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy (1984-1986); Special Counsel to Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle (1982-1984) National Security Council: Middle East Specialist (1981-1982) Business International Advisors, Inc: Former Head Feith & Zell, P.C.: Former Managing Attorney (1986-2001) Northrop Grumman: Represented with Feith & Zell Lockheed Martin: Represented with Feith & Zell Education Harvard College: A.B. Georgetown University Law Center: J.D. Related: Pentagon Reined in Cheney’s Plans for Iran Strikes; Plus, Profile on Douglas Feith, Thomas McI Douglas Feith: Portrait of a Neoconservative Cheney’s Man Slated to Replace Feith Is Iran Next? Office of Special Plans Foundation for Defense of Democracies Robert Joseph Charles M. Kupperman Rick Perry Foreign Policy Initiative Douglas Feith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is a longtime neoconservative activist and former lawyer known for his advocacy of militarist security policies and right-wing “pro-Israel” views. Feith served four years in the George W. Bush administration as Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.[1] The controversial (and now defunct) Office of Special Plans, viewed by many as the origin of the faulty intelligence used to justify the Iraq War, was set up under Feith’s purview.[2] Feith left office in August 2005 amid allegations that he deliberately skewed intelligence on Iraq to bolster the case for war,[3]which some observers have argued could amount to a war crime.[4] Feith tried to fend off criticism of his record in War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of Terrorism, a memoir about his service in the Bush administration that was published in April 2008. Hudson Institute In September 2008, the Hudson Institute, a bastion of neoconservative advocacy, announced that it had hired Feith as a senior fellow. As the director of Hudson’s Center for National Security Strategies, Feith has focused much of his work on promoting costly weapons programs, devising strategies for combatting radical Islam, and arguing against negotiations with Iran. In a November 2013 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal about negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, Feith argued that “peace and arms-control agreements” are basically a waste of time. “What typically happens with such agreements is the following: On the democratic side, political leaders hype the agreement to their voters as a proud diplomatic achievement. The nondemocratic side—typically an aggressive, dishonest party—cheats,” Fieth wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in November 2013. “If Mr. Obama can justify his deal with Iran only by promising to ‘crank up’ the relaxed sanctions if and when the Iranian regime cheats, no one should buy it.”[5] A few months later, in January 2014, Feith signed a letter published by the William Kristol-founded Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) that suggested additional sanctions on Iran could help diplomacy succeed, despite the fact that most observers appear to think that adopting additional sanctions would effectively scuttle talks.[6] One observer commented that the FPI letter “implicitly endorses” a bill that had been floated in Congress by hawkish Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) that would impose new Iran sanctions. In April 2012, he coauthored with Abram Shulsky and William Galston a Hudson report outlining a “battle of ideas” against “America’s radical Islamist enemies,” which was titled “Organizing for a Strategic Ideas Campaign to Counter Ideological Challenges to U.S. National Security.” In March 2010, he co-authored with Shulsky the report “Organizing the U.S. Government to Counter Hostile Ideologies.” And in 2009, he teamed up with Shulsky and Jack David to author a briefing paper entitled “START Treaty Renewal and America’s Strategic Posture.” In a November 2011 op-ed for the Journal published amid a flurry of anti-Obama cri...

Douglas Feith - Militarist Monitor