Douglas Feith
Encyclopedia
Douglas J. Feith served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
for United States President
George W. Bush
from July 2001 until August 2005. His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense
(DoD) relations with foreign countries, and DoD's role in U.S.
Government interagency policymaking.
Upon his resignation, Feith joined the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
at Georgetown University
, as a Professor and Distinguished Practitioner in National Security Policy for a two year stint.
Feith is the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute
, a public policy think-tank.
. He was one of three siblings born to Rose and Dalck Feith
. His father, Dalck, was a member of the Betar
, a Revisionist Zionist youth organization, in Poland
, and a Holocaust survivor who lost his parents and seven siblings in the Nazi concentration camps. Dalck came to the United States during World War II
, and became a businessman, a philanthropist
, and a donor to the Republican party
.
Feith grew up in Elkins Park
, part of Cheltenham Township
, a Philadelphia suburb. He attended Philadelphia's Central High School
, and later attended Harvard University
, where he obtained his undergraduate degree and graduated magna cum laude in 1975. He continued on to the Georgetown University Law Center
, receiving his J.D.
magna cum laude in 1978.
At Harvard, Feith studied under Professor Richard Pipes, who later provided Feith with his initial entry into government. Pipes had joined the Reagan administration
's National Security Council
in 1981 to help carry out the "project" Pipes and his students had conceived. Feith joined the NSC that same year, working under Pipes. Before that, he worked for three years as an attorney with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
Married with four children, Feith makes his home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland
.
, who was then serving as Assistant Secretary to the United States Secretary of Defense
. Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger
promoted Feith in 1984 to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy and, when Feith left the Pentagon in 1986, Weinberger gave him the highest Defense Department civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service medal.
During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, Feith helped to convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff
, Weinberger and Secretary of State
George Shultz all to recommend against ratification of changes to the Geneva Conventions
. The changes, known as the Additional Protocols, grant armed non-state actors prisoner of war
status under certain circumstances even if they fail to distinguish themselves from the civilian population to the same extent as members of the armed forces of a high contracting party. Reagan informed the United States Senate
in 1987 that he would not ratify Additional Protocol I. At the time, both the Washington Post and the New York Times editorialized in favor of Reagan's decision to reject Additional Protocol I as a revision of humanitarian law that protected terrorists.
in private practice with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP for 3 years, after which he joined the Reagan Administration (see previous section).
Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith co-founded, with Marc Zell
, the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. The firm engaged in lobbying efforts for, among others, the Turkish, Israeli and Bosnian governments, in addition to representing defense corporations Lockheed Martin
and Northrop Grumman
. Feith left the firm in 2001, following his nomination as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2001. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with other neoconservatives
, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. With his new appointment in hand, Feith proved influential in having Richard Perle chosen as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Feith was criticized during the first term of the Bush administration for creating the Office of Strategic Influence
.This department came into existence to help with the War on Terror
. The office's aim was to influence policymakers by submitting biased news stories into the foreign media. Douglas Feith played a significant role in the build up to the Iraq war. As part of his portfolio, he supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans
, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community. The office, eventually dismantled, was later criticized in Congress and the media for analysis that was contradicted by CIA analysis and investigations performed following the invasion of Iraq. General Tommy Franks
, who led both the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq War, once called Feith "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet."
In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued a report that concluded that Feith's office "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." Senator Carl Levin
, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq. The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war." At Senator Levin's insistence, on April 6, 2007, the Pentagon's Inspector General's Report was declassified and released to the public.
Responding to criticism of a report that linked Al-Qaeda with Iraq under Saddam Hussein
, Feith called the office's report a much-needed critique of the CIA's intelligence. "It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence", Feith said. "What the people in the Pentagon were doing was right. It was good government." Feith also rejected accusations he attempted to link Iraq to a formal relationship with Al Qaeda. "No one in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship", Feith said. "There was a relationship." Feith stated that he "felt vindicated" by the report of the Pentagon inspector general. He told the Washington Post that his office produced "a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."
Feith, was the first senior Pentagon official to leave the administration after Bush was re-elected. There was some speculation when Feith announced he was leaving as to why he was stepping down. Some believed he was pressured to leave because of problems over his performance and his increasing marginalization.
at Georgetown University
, where he taught a course on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policy. He came to Georgetown
's School of Foreign Service
after leaving Stanford
's Hoover Institution
and was appointed by School of Foreign Service Dean, Ambassador Robert Gallucci
. However, his hiring "caused an uproar among the Foreign Service school faculty", who lobbed ugly insults at the Law Center faculty and Law Center alumni who had studied with Feith and defended his qualifications to teach at the University. Two years later, Feith's contract was not renewed, causing continuing hostility between the Georgetown Law Center faculty and alumni and the Foreign Service school faculty.
, and has contributed money to various party candidates over the years. Sympathetic to the neoconservative wing of the party, he has over the last 30 years published many works on U.S. national security
policy. His work on US–Soviet détente
, arms control
and Arab–Israeli issues generated considerable debate. One of Feith's controversial views was his argument that increasing the number of political appointees equated to more democracy. Given that democracy involves those being represented choosing their representatives, this view seems to be self-contradictory.
Feith's writings on international law
and on foreign and defense policy have appeared in The Wall Street Journal
, Commentary
, The New Republic
and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller's Churchill as Peacemaker
, Raphael Israeli's The Dangers of a Palestinian State and Uri Ra'anan's Hydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism, as well as serving as co-editor for Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History.
Feith has long advocated a policy of "peace through strength
". He was an outspoken skeptic of U.S.-Soviet détente and of the Oslo
, Hebron
and Wye Processes on Palestinian-Israeli peace. In particular, he criticized the Oslo Accords and the Camp David
peace agreement mediated by former President Carter between Egypt
and Israel. In 1997, he published a lengthy article in Commentary
, titled "A Strategy for Israel". In it, Feith argued that the Oslo Accords were being undermined by Yasser Arafat
's failure to fulfill peace pledges and Israel's failure to uphold the integrity of the accords it had concluded with Arafat. Furthermore, he was an opponent of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
, the International Criminal Court
and the Chemical Weapons Convention
which he criticized as ineffective and dangerous to U.S. interests.
In 1998, Feith was one of a number of U.S. officials
who signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton
calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein
. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress
and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act
of 1998. Congress approved the Act, and Clinton signed it into law.
Feith generally favors US support for Israel and has promoted US-Israeli cooperation. Along with Richard Perle
and David Wurmser
, he was a member of the study group which authored a controversial report entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, a set of policy recommendations for the newly elected Israeli prime minister
, Benjamin Netanyahu
. The report was published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies without an individual author being named. According to the report, Feith was one of the people who participated in roundtable discussions that produced ideas that the report reflects. Feith pointed out in a September 16, 2004 letter to the editor of the Washington Post that he was not the co-author and did not clear the report's final text. He wrote, "There is no warrant for attributing any particular idea [in the report], let alone all of them, to any one participant."
Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel. Feith was one of the eighteen founding members of the organization One Jerusalem
to oppose the Oslo peace agreement. Its purpose is "saving a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel." He is also Director of Foundation for Jewish Studies, which "offers in-depth study programs for the adult Washington Jewish community that cross denominational lines."
Feith was interviewed by the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes
in a segment that was aired on April 6, 2008. During this interview he promoted his newly released memoir, War and Decision
and defended the decision making that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
under claims of universal jurisdiction. The merits of starting an investigation are under review.
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is a high level civilian official in the United States Department of Defense. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is the principal staff assistant and adviser to both the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy Secretary of Defense for all matters...
for United States President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
from July 2001 until August 2005. His official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
(DoD) relations with foreign countries, and DoD's role in U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Government interagency policymaking.
Upon his resignation, Feith joined the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, as a Professor and Distinguished Practitioner in National Security Policy for a two year stint.
Feith is the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute
Hudson Institute
The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
, a public policy think-tank.
Personal
Feith was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. He was one of three siblings born to Rose and Dalck Feith
Dalck Feith
Dalck Feith, father of Douglas Feith, was a Holocaust survivor who came to America as a refugee and ultimately gained success as a businessman and philanthropist....
. His father, Dalck, was a member of the Betar
Betar
The Betar Movement is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group...
, a Revisionist Zionist youth organization, in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and a Holocaust survivor who lost his parents and seven siblings in the Nazi concentration camps. Dalck came to the United States during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, and became a businessman, a philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
, and a donor to the Republican party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
.
Feith grew up in Elkins Park
Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
Elkins Park is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is split between Cheltenham and Abington Townships in the suburbs of Philadelphia, roughly from Center City, Philadelphia.-Points of interest:...
, part of Cheltenham Township
Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania
Cheltenham Township is a home rule municipality in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. Although it retains the word "Township" in its official name, it has been governed by a home rule charter since 1977 and is therefore not subject to the Pennsylvania Township Code. The population was...
, a Philadelphia suburb. He attended Philadelphia's Central High School
Central High School (Philadelphia)
Central High School is a public secondary school in the Logan section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Central, the second-oldest continuously public high school in the United States , was founded in 1836 and is a four-year university preparatory magnet school...
, and later attended Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, where he obtained his undergraduate degree and graduated magna cum laude in 1975. He continued on to the Georgetown University Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center is the law school of Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C.. Established in 1870, the Law Center offers J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D. degrees in law...
, receiving his J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
magna cum laude in 1978.
At Harvard, Feith studied under Professor Richard Pipes, who later provided Feith with his initial entry into government. Pipes had joined the Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
's National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
in 1981 to help carry out the "project" Pipes and his students had conceived. Feith joined the NSC that same year, working under Pipes. Before that, he worked for three years as an attorney with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
Married with four children, Feith makes his home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda is a census designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House , which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda...
.
Reagan Administration
Feith first entered government as a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council alongside his old professor, Richard Pipes, in 1981. Feith was terminated from his post as a Middle East analyst, at the National Security Council, because of questions that rose within the FBI as to whether he provided confidential material to an Israeli embassy official. He transferred from the NSC Staff to Pentagon in 1982 to work as Special Counsel for Richard PerleRichard Perle
Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government, a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970’s...
, who was then serving as Assistant Secretary to the United States Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
. Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
Caspar Weinberger
Caspar Weinberger
Caspar Willard "Cap" Weinberger , was an American politician, vice president and general counsel of Bechtel Corporation, and Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from January 21, 1981, until November 23, 1987, making him the third longest-serving defense secretary to date, after...
promoted Feith in 1984 to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy and, when Feith left the Pentagon in 1986, Weinberger gave him the highest Defense Department civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service medal.
During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, Feith helped to convince the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
, Weinberger and Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
George Shultz all to recommend against ratification of changes to the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
. The changes, known as the Additional Protocols, grant armed non-state actors prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
status under certain circumstances even if they fail to distinguish themselves from the civilian population to the same extent as members of the armed forces of a high contracting party. Reagan informed the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
in 1987 that he would not ratify Additional Protocol I. At the time, both the Washington Post and the New York Times editorialized in favor of Reagan's decision to reject Additional Protocol I as a revision of humanitarian law that protected terrorists.
Private practice
Feith began his career as an attorneyLawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
in private practice with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP for 3 years, after which he joined the Reagan Administration (see previous section).
Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith co-founded, with Marc Zell
Marc Zell
L. Marc Zell is a Washington, DC born attorney, currently based in Israel.Graduated with an A.B. from Princeton University in Germanic Languages and Literatures with a concentration in theoretical linguistics and a J.D. with honors from the University of Maryland at Baltimore...
, the Washington, DC law firm of Feith & Zell. The firm engaged in lobbying efforts for, among others, the Turkish, Israeli and Bosnian governments, in addition to representing defense corporations Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
and Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American global aerospace and defense technology company formed by the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company was the fourth-largest defense contractor in the world as of 2010, and the largest builder of naval vessels. Northrop Grumman employs over...
. Feith left the firm in 2001, following his nomination as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
Bush administration
Feith joined the administration of President George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2001. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with other neoconservatives
Neoconservatism
Neoconservatism in the United States is a branch of American conservatism. Since 2001, neoconservatism has been associated with democracy promotion, that is with assisting movements for democracy, in some cases by economic sanctions or military action....
, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. With his new appointment in hand, Feith proved influential in having Richard Perle chosen as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Feith was criticized during the first term of the Bush administration for creating the Office of Strategic Influence
Office of Strategic Influence
The Office of Strategic Influence, or OSI, was a department created by the United States Department of Defense on October 30, 2001, to support the War on Terrorism through psychological operations in targeted countries, including the United States...
.This department came into existence to help with the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
. The office's aim was to influence policymakers by submitting biased news stories into the foreign media. Douglas Feith played a significant role in the build up to the Iraq war. As part of his portfolio, he supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans
Office of Special Plans
The Office of Special Plans , which existed from September 2002 to June 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, as charged by then-United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with...
, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community. The office, eventually dismantled, was later criticized in Congress and the media for analysis that was contradicted by CIA analysis and investigations performed following the invasion of Iraq. General Tommy Franks
Tommy Franks
Tommy Ray Franks is a retired general in the United States Army. His last Army post was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, overseeing United States Armed Forces operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East...
, who led both the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq War, once called Feith "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet."
In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued a report that concluded that Feith's office "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." Senator Carl Levin
Carl Levin
Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
, Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that "The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq. The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war." At Senator Levin's insistence, on April 6, 2007, the Pentagon's Inspector General's Report was declassified and released to the public.
Responding to criticism of a report that linked Al-Qaeda with Iraq under Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, Feith called the office's report a much-needed critique of the CIA's intelligence. "It's healthy to criticize the CIA's intelligence", Feith said. "What the people in the Pentagon were doing was right. It was good government." Feith also rejected accusations he attempted to link Iraq to a formal relationship with Al Qaeda. "No one in my office ever claimed there was an operational relationship", Feith said. "There was a relationship." Feith stated that he "felt vindicated" by the report of the Pentagon inspector general. He told the Washington Post that his office produced "a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."
Feith, was the first senior Pentagon official to leave the administration after Bush was re-elected. There was some speculation when Feith announced he was leaving as to why he was stepping down. Some believed he was pressured to leave because of problems over his performance and his increasing marginalization.
Post-government career
Following his government service, Feith was employed by the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign ServiceEdmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
, where he taught a course on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policy. He came to Georgetown
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
's School of Foreign Service
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service is a school within Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., United States. Jesuit priest Edmund A...
after leaving Stanford
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
's Hoover Institution
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded in 1919 by then future U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, an early alumnus of Stanford....
and was appointed by School of Foreign Service Dean, Ambassador Robert Gallucci
Robert Gallucci
Robert L. Gallucci is an Italian American academic and diplomat, who currently works as President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He previously served as Dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 1996 to June 2009...
. However, his hiring "caused an uproar among the Foreign Service school faculty", who lobbed ugly insults at the Law Center faculty and Law Center alumni who had studied with Feith and defended his qualifications to teach at the University. Two years later, Feith's contract was not renewed, causing continuing hostility between the Georgetown Law Center faculty and alumni and the Foreign Service school faculty.
Views and publications
Like his father, Feith is a RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, and has contributed money to various party candidates over the years. Sympathetic to the neoconservative wing of the party, he has over the last 30 years published many works on U.S. national security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
policy. His work on US–Soviet détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
, arms control
Arms control
Arms control is an umbrella term for restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation, and usage of weapons, especially weapons of mass destruction...
and Arab–Israeli issues generated considerable debate. One of Feith's controversial views was his argument that increasing the number of political appointees equated to more democracy. Given that democracy involves those being represented choosing their representatives, this view seems to be self-contradictory.
Feith's writings on international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
and on foreign and defense policy have appeared in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller's Churchill as Peacemaker
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, Raphael Israeli's The Dangers of a Palestinian State and Uri Ra'anan's Hydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism, as well as serving as co-editor for Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History.
Feith has long advocated a policy of "peace through strength
Peace through strength
"Peace through strength" is a conservative slogan supporting military strength for the purpose of creating peaceful international relations.For supporters of the MX missile in the 1970s, the missile symbolized "peace through strength." The phrase was popular in political rallies during 1988...
". He was an outspoken skeptic of U.S.-Soviet détente and of the Oslo
Oslo Accords
The Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles , was an attempt to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict...
, Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
and Wye Processes on Palestinian-Israeli peace. In particular, he criticized the Oslo Accords and the Camp David
Camp David
Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States and his guests. It is located in low wooded hills about 60 mi north-northwest of Washington, D.C., on the property of Catoctin Mountain Park in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Thurmont, at an elevation of...
peace agreement mediated by former President Carter between Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Israel. In 1997, he published a lengthy article in Commentary
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
, titled "A Strategy for Israel". In it, Feith argued that the Oslo Accords were being undermined by Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
's failure to fulfill peace pledges and Israel's failure to uphold the integrity of the accords it had concluded with Arafat. Furthermore, he was an opponent of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was a treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons....
, the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
and the Chemical Weapons Convention
Chemical Weapons Convention
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. Its full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction...
which he criticized as ineffective and dangerous to U.S. interests.
In 1998, Feith was one of a number of U.S. officials
Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century was an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that lasted from 1997 to 2006. It was co-founded as a non-profit educational organization by neoconservatives William Kristol and Robert Kagan...
who signed an open letter to President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
calling for the United States to oust Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
. Feith was part of a group of former national security officials in the 1990s who supported Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress
Iraqi National Congress
The Iraqi National Congress is an umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. It was formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.-History:INC was set up following the...
and encouraged the U.S. Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act
Iraq Liberation Act
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, and states that it is the policy of the United States to support democratic movements within Iraq...
of 1998. Congress approved the Act, and Clinton signed it into law.
Feith generally favors US support for Israel and has promoted US-Israeli cooperation. Along with Richard Perle
Richard Perle
Richard Norman Perle is an American political advisor, consultant, and lobbyist who began his career in government, a senior staff member to Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970’s...
and David Wurmser
David Wurmser
David Wurmser is a Swiss-born American foreign policy specialist. He served as Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, as special assistant to John R. Bolton at the State Department and as a research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute . He served in...
, he was a member of the study group which authored a controversial report entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, a set of policy recommendations for the newly elected Israeli prime minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
, Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...
. The report was published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies without an individual author being named. According to the report, Feith was one of the people who participated in roundtable discussions that produced ideas that the report reflects. Feith pointed out in a September 16, 2004 letter to the editor of the Washington Post that he was not the co-author and did not clear the report's final text. He wrote, "There is no warrant for attributing any particular idea [in the report], let alone all of them, to any one participant."
Feith also served on the board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel. Feith was one of the eighteen founding members of the organization One Jerusalem
One Jerusalem
One Jerusalem is an organisation with the stated mission of "maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel". It was founded as a response to the Oslo Peace Process, specifically, out of a concern that the settlement might lead to Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem's Temple...
to oppose the Oslo peace agreement. Its purpose is "saving a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel." He is also Director of Foundation for Jewish Studies, which "offers in-depth study programs for the adult Washington Jewish community that cross denominational lines."
Feith was interviewed by the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
in a segment that was aired on April 6, 2008. During this interview he promoted his newly released memoir, War and Decision
War and Decision
War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism is a memoir written by Douglas Feith, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, in which he presents a history of the beginning of the War on Terrorism and the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. The book was released on...
and defended the decision making that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
War and Decision
On April 8, 2008, Feith's memoir, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, was published by HarperCollins.Possible investigation
Feith is one of several Bush Administration officials under consideration for investigation of possible war crimes in a Spanish court, headed by Baltasar GarzónBaltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish jurist who served on Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional. He was the examining magistrate of the Juzgado Central de Instrucción No...
under claims of universal jurisdiction. The merits of starting an investigation are under review.
Further reading
- War and Decision: Ford Hall Forum Boston, MA October 23, 2008 a video of a talk by Douglas Feith 1hr and 42min.
- Maureen Dowd, "The Dream is Dead," The New York Times, 12 December 2007
- Vanity Fair editor Craig Unger on the development of the Office of Special Plans
- Special Plans: the blogs on Douglas Feith and the faulty intelligence that led to war by Allison Hantschel, Wilsonville, Oregon: William, James & Co., September 2005 ISBN 1-59028-049-0
- Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America by Smith, Grant F., Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2006, ISBN 0-9764437-4-0.
- Clear Ideas vs. Foggy Bottom by Melanie Kirkpatrick, The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
August 5, 2003, p. A8. - White House Learned of Spy Probe in 2001 by Curt Anderson, Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, September 3, 2004. - Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib by Seymour Hersh, New York: Harper Collins. 2004. ISBN 0-06-019591-6.
- Israel's Legitimacy in Law and History Feith, Douglas J., et al.; ed. Siegel, Edward M.; assoc.ed. Barrekette, Olga; Proceedings of the Conference on International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York, October 21, 1990), Sponsored by The Louis D. Brandeis Society of Zionist Lawyers, Center for Near East Policy Research, 1993, ISBN 0-9640145-0-5.
- A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm by David WurmserDavid WurmserDavid Wurmser is a Swiss-born American foreign policy specialist. He served as Middle East Adviser to former US Vice President Dick Cheney, as special assistant to John R. Bolton at the State Department and as a research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute . He served in...
, 1996 - Plan of Attack by Bob WoodwardBob WoodwardRobert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004, ISBN 0-7432-5547-X. - A Dangerous Appointment: Profile of Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense under Bush by James J. Zogby, Middle East Information Center, April 18, 2001
- Israeli Settlements: Legitimate, Democratically Mandated, Vital to Israel's Security and, Therefore, in U.S. Interest, The Center for Security Policy, Transition Brief No. 96‐T 130, December 17, 1996
External links
- Douglas Feith's personal website
- Douglas Feith biography, from The Jewish Virtual LibraryJewish Virtual LibraryJewish Virtual Library is an online encyclopedia published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise . Established in 1993, it is a comprehensive website covering Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish culture.-History:...
- Profile: Douglas Feith a timeline of Feith's Iraq policies at Center for Cooperative Research