Office of Special Plans -- info everyone DID NOT have access to, Mr. Bush.

[quiet.american]

Every time Bush pushes the lie that EVERYONE had access to the same information he did, alarm bells should go off about the so-called "Office of Special Plans" that was formed to do an end-run around the Pentagon and Congress, and to whose information EVERYONE certainly DID NOT have access.

The Guardian newspaper did a good write up on this in 2003. It would be nice to see a reporter call Bushco on their bushit about everyone having the same intelligence by bringing up this so-called agency once run by "the f**king stupidest guy on the face of the earth" (according to Gen. Tommy Franks), Douglas Feith.


excerpt:

The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.

excerpt

There was a mountain of documentation to look through and not much time. The administration wanted to use the momentum gained in Afghanistan to deal with Iraq once and for all. The OSP itself had less than 10 full-time staff, so to help deal with the load, the office hired scores of temporary "consultants". They included lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous rightwing thinktanks in Washington. Few had experience in intelligence.

excerpt

"They surveyed data and picked out what they liked," said Gregory Thielmann, a senior official in the state department's intelligence bureau until his retirement in September. "The whole thing was bizarre. The secretary of defence had this huge defence intelligence agency, and he went around it."


Much more detail worth re-visiting here

[Captain Hilts]

1. B-I-N-G-O!!!! nt

[kentuck]

2. Yes, what happened to OSP, Mr. President ?

And why were they created in the first place? To create your own intelligence, you say? Huh?

[texpatriot2004]

3. Exactly OSP pitched to WHIG and there you have it...the CIA was

circumvented.