Keepin' the Feith
I read with much interest Laura Rozen's "More to Come?" (2/12/07), about Douglas Feith.
It reminded me of the pervasive Cheney propaganda machine of which he is part, and specifically, a change he drove that turned one Discovery Channel into to what is now The Military Channel. When I first learned of this change and his involvement (perhaps a year or more ago), I looked over their website and found Daimler-Chrysler was a large advertiser on their home page. I then wrote a quick email to Daimler-Chrysler, asking if they knew they were sponsoring a propaganda outlet. There was no response from them, but I don't see their ads there now.
Thanks for the continuing coverage of one of the many anti-Constitution members of the Cheney administration.
Bill Darbyshire
Galien, MI
Who's to Blame?
Your recent article entitled "The Blame Game" by Gareth Porter (2/2/07) included references to an article that I recently completed for Jane's Intelligence Review on the issue of potential Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah culpability in the transfer of Explosively-Formed Projectile (EFP) technology to Iraqi militias. Your article also reflected views shared in an interview I undertook with Mr. Porter on the same subject. Whilst I think your article made some valid points, I would like to clarify some unintentional errors in interpretation that resulted from the author's reading of my written work and interview material.
For instance, the article refers to claims about Iranian culpability made by Major General Richard Zahner, Deputy Chief of Staff for intelligence of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, and then goes on to state that Zahner's assertion is contradicted, however, by the most in-depth study of the subject so far -- my article published in Jane's. In fact, there is nothing in Zahner's statements that I would disagree with. All the points he makes about the forensic evidence of fabrication of EFP technology inside Iran are compelling and fit well with the broader evidential base that I have seen in classified and unclassified reporting.
Mr. Porter then goes on to claim that: "If Iran had deliberately shipped the explosive to southern Iraq last year, the batch number would have been different from a batch that was given to Hezbollah years earlier." This is not a correct statement. Firstly, a batch of explosives can be created in a certain year and distributed over a number of years. Witness the packets of 1980s Semtex that remains in circulation. More importantly, the shiploads of explosives years earlier were shipped from Iran to the Palestinian Authority (during the years 2001-2003). Lebanese Hezbollah was not involved in at least two of the three shipments, perhaps not in any of them.
Iran is Lebanese Hezbollah's key sponsor and since 2001 it has directly provided military and financial support to Palestinian rejectionist factions, neatly jumping into the slot vacated by many Arab governments when post-9/11 anti-terrorist funding measures took effect. My belief is that Lebanese Hezbollah operatives are the key transfer mechanism for EFP technology -- after all, they are the experts in using it. But I also believe that Iran has facilitated this kind of technology by Lebanese Hezbollah. Therefore, I strongly disagree with Mr. Porter's assertion that "Knights' research on EFPs illustrates that the Bush administration campaign to blame Iran for the Shiite use of modern weapons is based not on intelligence but rather, once again, on its own faith-based worldview."
Though I'm British, I would count myself as a Democrat (capital D) in thought and deed. I am also committed to the truth and feel that Democrats do not need to spin it. When being interviewed, I could detect that the article had a pre-determined conclusion. I'm aware that this is a fiddly military-technical issue that is easy to misinterpret but I would very much appreciate it if you could publish this letter to set the record straight.
Michael Knights
London, UK
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