Feith: Iraq Attack Was Preemptive

This segment was originally broadcast on April 6, 2008. It was updated on July 3, 2008.

The name Douglas Feith may not mean much to most Americans, but to students of the Iraq war and historians already studying it, he is one of the main architects.

From 2001 to 2005, Feith was under secretary of defense for policy and the No. 3 man at the Pentagon, intimately involved both pre-war strategy and post-war planning. His boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, called Feith one of the most brilliant individuals in government but he has also been a lightning rod for criticism and a magnet for blame.

As correspondent Steve Kroft first reported in April, in his memoir, which has been called the first insider account of decision making in Iraq, Feith defends much and apologizes for very little. But he offers some unusual insights about the path to war.

If Feith doesn't look or sound much like a warrior that's because he isn't; he's an intellectual, a hawkish, neo-conservative defense policy wonk, who occupied one of the top rungs on the Pentagon ladder, playing a key role in shaping the military's response to 9/11 and the decision to go to war with Saddam Hussein.

Asked why the decision was made to go after Saddam Hussein after 9/11, when even then, the United States government realized Saddam didn't have anything to do with the attacks, Feith answers, "What we did after 9/11 was look broadly at the international terrorist network from which the next attack on the United States might come. And we did not focus narrowly only on the people who were specifically responsible for 9/11. Our main goal was preventing the next attack."

Kroft follows up, asking, "So you're saying you didn't think it was that important to go after the people who were responsible for it -- more important to go after people who weren't responsible for it?"

"No," Feith explains, "I think it was important to go after the people who were responsible for 9/11. But it was also important to disrupt the international terrorist networks and prevent whatever plans there were for follow-on attacks."

Kroft points out that using those standards, the U.S. could have invaded North Korea or Syria or Iran.

Feith concedes the point, but counters that Iraq was a special case, in large part, because of Saddam's record.

Feith says Saddam had already attacked Kuwait, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia; that he had defied the United Nations, evaded economic sanctions, used weapons of mass destruction on his own people and had the know-how, if not the wherewithal, to build a nuclear weapon. Feith believes the U.S. invasion was justifiable as an act of self-defense. In his book, he used the term "anticipatory self-defense."

"In an era where WMDs can put countries in a position to do an enormous amount of harm," he tells Kroft, "the old of idea of having to wait until you actually see the country mobilizing for war doesn't make a lot of sense."

The American public was led to believe that Saddam Hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them, something which famously turned out not to be the case.

"One of the reasons people were told we were going to war in Iraq was because of the imminent attack with weapons of mass destruction was about to happen," Kroft observes.

When Feith replies, "I don't believe anybody in the U.S. government said that," Kroft begins to read to him from a statement by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld:

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Rumsfeld's statement is followed with words from President Bush warning, "The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American," which, in turn, is followed by Vice President Cheney's statement, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."

Feith responds, "It is true that there was a serious error that the CIA made in saying that we would find WMD stockpiles. And it was a terrible mistake for the administration to have made those stockpiles in any way a part of the case for war. I don't think we needed to."

"Wasn't that the whole lynchpin for the war?" asks Kroft. "I don't believe so," the former Defense Department official answers.

Feith insists that Saddam still had WMD programs in place and the capability to resume production. He says even Rumsfeld conceded privately that the U.S. might not find any weapons of mass destruction on the ground. And he told the president so in a memo that outlined all of the things that could possibly go wrong.

Some call it, "the CYA Memo," but Feith says that is a mischaracterization of the list. "I mean, it was very intense and very disturbing work to anticipate all the possible problems of a war."

Feith called the document "the Parade of Horribles," and printed many of them in his book, he says, to refute the perception that Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush launched the war without considering or understanding the possible consequences.

Kroft summarizes some of them, including the possibility that the U.S. could become so absorbed with its Iraq effort that it would pay inadequate attention to other serious problems; that war could cause more harm and entail greater costs than expected; that it would not go on for two to four years, but eight to 10 years; that terrorist networks could improve their recruiting and fundraising as a result of the U.S. being depicted as anti-Muslim; that Iraq could experience ethnic strife among Kurds, Sunnis and Shia and that the war could damage America's relationship with allies and its reputation in the world community.

Kroft asks Feith if perhaps one or two of these "horribles," might happen. Feith responds, "One of the things that is reflected in this memo is Secretary Rumsfeld's deeply-held view that it's foolish to try to predict the future," says Feith.

"Well, as it turned out, he was pretty good at anticipating problems" Kroft responds, "because virtually all these things have happened."

"Well, in a broad sense," Feith concedes. "A lot of these things happened. It was a very honest effort to assess what the downsides of war would be."

When Kroft follows up with, "You still recommended that it was the right thing to do." Feith explains, "We certainly understood that these are the things that might happen. That's why we wrote them down. And I do think that, when the president assessed the risks of leaving Saddam in power, you could have come up with quite a serious, troubling list of the risks involved in leaving Saddam in power."

In his memoir, "War and Decision," Feith writes there was one potential problem the Pentagon seriously underestimated: the ability of Saddam loyalists to create, carry out and sustain a bloody resistance.

"Probably the main thing that we didn't anticipate was that, you know -- from the grave, as it were -- that regime would be able to operate the way it's operated in the insurgency," Feith tells Kroft in the interview.

The result was a lack of detailed contingency planning and a shortage of troops. Feith concedes that he and his colleagues didn't realize that sending a smaller, mobile force to topple Saddam would make it difficult to establish order after he fell.

"The looting that arose in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam … was a problem that the coalition forces had to deal with." Feith says, "I think we paid a very large price for the fact that, you know, our forces did not get that problem under control."

"One of the things that you say, was that we didn't have the manpower or the resources to do it," says Kroft.

"I don't believe I raised the troop level issue in that connection," says Feith. "But, I mean, you'll tell me if I misremember my own book."

Kroft refreshed his memory, reading, "The small force strategy for major combat operations, while it saved American lives, limited the number of forces we had to deal with the looting."

"That's a fair point," says Feith. "Your point is correct."

To make matters worse, two months after the invasion, the U.S.-led Provisional Authority running Iraq made one of the most controversial and most criticized post-war decisions. Newly-appointed Ambassador Paul Bremer announced that the Iraqi army would be disbanded, turning 400,000 unemployed and armed men into the streets.

"I guess the first time I heard the idea, it came from Ambassador Bremer when he was on his way to Baghdad," Feith tells Kroft. "I didn't sign off one way or the other. I told him that he has to discuss it with Secretary Rumsfeld."

And did he?

"[Bremer] says that he did. I was not in on those conversations," says Feith.

"Did Secretary Rumsfeld sign off on it?" probes Kroft.

"I did not find, in the record, any piece of paper in which Secretary Rumsfeld signed off on it," he said.

"You had never asked Secretary Rumsfeld? That's the part I find hard to believe," says Kroft. "I mean, there are hundreds of decisions. But this isn't one of hundreds of decisions. This is a decision to dissolve the Iraqi army."

"Well, the Iraqi army was, at that point, dissolved," Feith tells him. "This was the issue of do you reconstitute them or start from scratch with a new military?"

"But you're raising doubts about whether there was approval," parries Kroft. "That's why I'm doing this."

"No, no. What I'm saying is the process by which this decision was made was not a great process," Feith concludes.

Feith, who taught the past two years at Georgetown University, intimates in his book that none of this might have happened if the administration had stuck with his plan for post-war Iraq, which involved quickly ceding some authority and responsibility to a group of Iraqi exiles and Kurds, which included Ahmed Chalabi.

"We developed plans to try to give meaning to the concept of liberation rather than occupation," says Feith. "And one of, one of my great regrets is that the United States wound up setting up an occupation government in Iraq for 14 months. Which I think was a -- was a serious mistake."

Feith says there have been lots of errors in judgment, but not by him. He is generous in his criticism of Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and General Tommy Franks. And they have returned the favor, plus interest.

"General Franks basically [called you], the dumbest guy on the face of the planet. Former CIA Director George Tenet called your intelligence evaluations 'total crap.' This isn't normal Washington discourse," says Kroft.

"I agree. And some people, when they deal with controversy, political issues, use harsh language," says Feith. "And I - I don't think it's a great thing."

When ask why he thinks this vitriolic language was directed at him, Feith responds, "You'd have to ask them."

Some of them have already answered that question in books of their own or with quotes in the books of others, portraying Feith as a bureaucratic bully hell-bent on war. The most frequent and damaging charge has been that Feith used his Pentagon office to produce alternative intelligence reports that linked Saddam to al-Qaeda and then passed them on to the White House. Some of it, like a report that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, has been widely discredited. An investigation by the Pentagon's inspector general called Feith's activities "inappropriate," but not illegal or unauthorized.

When Kroft asks Feith if he agrees the report was a rebuke, he answers, "Yes." He goes on saying, "I think it was an unfounded rebuke. An ill founded rebuke."

Is Feith happy with the way things have played out in Iraq?

"I don't think anybody can be happy," he says. "We've, we've, we've had terrible losses. We have the Americans who have lost their lives, and Iraqis who have lost their lives. Our coalition partners. It's been a costly war."

Kroft asks a final question, "Knowing what you know now, do you still think this was the right thing to do?"

"I think the president made the right decision given what he knew. And given what we all knew," says Feith. "And to tell you the truth, even given what we've learned since."

In his memoir, Feith doesn't dwell on the terrible human cost of the war, but he clearly has been moved by it. He has donated all his proceeds to a foundation he has created to benefit veterans and their families.

Produced by L. Franklin Devine and Michael Rosenbaum