IRAQ - Pentagon Office 'Misled' On Iraq War.

The Pentagon inspector-general on Feb. 9 said a special Pentagon office created in the run-up to the Iraq war engaged in "inappropriate" activities by providing misleading intelligence to policymakers. The official said the Office of Special Plans set up by then Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith provided senior policymakers with "alternative intelligence assessments" on alleged links between al-Qaeda and Saddam's Iraq which were "inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community".

Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee and senior member of the Intelligence Committee, said the report was a "devastating condemnation" of senior Pentagon officials, adding: "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq/al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high ranking officials in the Department of Defence to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq when the intelligence assessments of the professional analysts of the intelligence community did not provide the desired compelling case".

The report came at a critical time for the White House as President George W. Bush struggled to keep Republican support for the war in Iraq. Democrats have long argued that Feith was engaged in helping Vice-President Dick Cheney build the case for war based on inaccurate, or misleading, intelligence.

Before the 2003 invasion, Cheney often referred to the alleged links between al-Qaeda and Saddam, which subsequent investigations confirmed never existed. While the report said the actions of Feith's office were not "illegal or unauthorised", it concluded that they were "inappropriate" because they "did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the intelligence community".

Feith, who now teaches at Georgetown University, told the Associated Press that the allegations of inappropriate activity were "bizarre", adding: "The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow 'unlawful' or 'unauthorized' and that some information it gave to congressional committees was deceptive or misleading".

Defence Secretary Gates, in Seville for NATO meetings on Feb. 9, said he had not read the report, which referred to activities that occurred under his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. But Gates, a former CIA director said: "Based on my whole career, all intelligence activities need to be carried out through established institutions where there is oversight".