By IRNA
New York : A former Pentagon official has written a book attacking Colin Powell, the CIA and other US officials over the US-led Iraq war, the Washington Post said.
As undersecretary of defense until 2005 Douglas Feith was closely involved with the planning of the invasion.
However, in “War and Decision”, he blames officials outside the Pentagon for seriously mismanaging the invasion and occupation, the daily said.
Out next month, it is the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making.
The newspaper said that Feith accuses intelligence officials and the US state department, led at the time by Powell, of repeatedly scuppering defense department plans for the invasion.
According to the Post, Feith claims that US President George W.
Bush told a National Security Council meeting “war is inevitable” weeks before a team of UN weapons inspectors, headed by Hans Blix, had made their final report on Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities.
IRNA reporter in New York said, citing the newspaper, that Feith singled Powell out for criticism, saying that though he allowed himself to be portrayed as a dove, he never spoke out against the war.
He also criticizes Condoleezza Rice, who took over from Powell as secretary of state, for having failed in her then role as national security adviser, saying that she did not unite the US’s war planning, the Post said.
And, according to the paper, he castigates Paul Bremer, the US official in charge of the subsequent US occupancy as having done more harm in Iraq than good and says military chief Gen Tommy Franks had no interest in post-war planning.
Feith was investigated by the Pentagon’s inspector general last year for his department’s pre-war assessments which linked Saddam Hussein’s regime to the al-Qaeda terror group.