Doug Feith | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2001 | |
| Under Secretary of Defense for Policy | |
| In office July 16, 2001 – August 8, 2005 | |
| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Walter B. Slocombe |
| Succeeded by | Eric S. Edelman |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1953-07-16)July 16, 1953 (age 71) Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Georgetown University (JD) |
Douglas Jay Feith (/ˈfaɪθ/; born July 16, 1953) is an American lawyer who served asUnder Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005. He is a senior fellow at theHudson Institute, a conservativethink tank.
Feith has been described as an architect of theIraq War.[1][2] In the lead up to the war, he played a key role in promoting the false claim that theSaddam Hussein regime had anoperational relationship with al-Qaeda (even though there was scant credible evidence of such a relationship at the time). A PentagonInspector General report found that Feith's office had "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternativeintelligence 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."[3][4]
Feith was born to a Jewish family inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, one of three children of Rose (née Bankel) and Dalck Feith. His father was a member of theBetar, aRevisionist Zionist youth organization, in Poland, and aHolocaust survivor who lost his parents and seven siblings in theNazi concentration camps.[5] Dalck came to the United States during World War II and became a businessman, aphilanthropist, and a donor to theRepublican party.[6][7]
Feith grew up inElkins Park, part ofCheltenham Township, aPhiladelphia suburb. He attendedPhiladelphia'sCentral High School, and later attendedHarvard University, where he obtained his undergraduate degree and graduatedmagna cum laude in 1975. He continued on to theGeorgetown University Law Center, receiving his J.D. magna cum laude in 1978. After graduation, he worked for three years as an attorney with the law firmFried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
Feith worked on the staff of senatorHenry M. Jackson in 1975[8] before going on to work onElmo Zumwalt's campaign against segregationist senatorHarry Byrd, Jr.[9] Byrd, an independent since 1970, defeated Zumwalt, a Democrat, 57–38%.[10]
At Harvard, Feith had studied underRichard Pipes, who joined theReagan administration'sNational Security Council, in 1981, to help carry out a private intelligence project calledTeam B that Pipes and his students had conceived.[11] Feith joined the NSC as a Middle East specialist that same year, working under Pipes.
He transferred from the NSC staff tothe Pentagon, in 1982, to work as special counsel forRichard Perle, who was then serving as assistant secretary to theUnited States Secretary of Defense.Secretary of DefenseCaspar Weinberger promoted Feith, in 1984, to deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy. When Feith left the Pentagon, in 1986, Weinberger awarded him theDepartment of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the department's highest civilian award.
During his time in the Pentagon in the Reagan administration, Feith helped to convince theJoint Chiefs of Staff, Weinberger andSecretary of StateGeorge Shultz all to recommend against ratification of changes to theGeneva Conventions. The changes, known as the "Additional Protocols," grant armed non-state actorsprisoner 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.[12] Reagan informed theUnited States Senate in 1987 that he would not ratify Additional Protocol I. At the time, bothThe Washington Post andThe New York Times editorialized in favor of Reagan's decision to reject Additional Protocol I as a revision of humanitarian law that protected terrorists.[13][14]
Feith began his career as an attorney in private practice with the law firmFried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP for 3 years, after which he joined the Reagan administration (see the previous section).
Upon leaving the Pentagon, Feith co-founded, withMarc 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 corporationsLockheed Martin andNorthrop Grumman. Feith left the firm in 2001, following his nomination as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
Feith joined the administration of PresidentGeorge W. Bush as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in 2001. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with otherneoconservatives, including Richard Perle andPaul Wolfowitz. With his new appointment in hand, Feith proved influential in having Richard Perle chosen as chairman of the Defense Policy Board.[15] Feith was criticized during the first term of the Bush administration for creating theOffice of Strategic Influence. This office came into existence to support theWar on Terror. The office's aim was to conduct non-covert influence operations in foreign countries. However, after significant media scrutiny into what exactly would fall within the OSI's mandate, Defense SecretaryDonald Rumsfeld had Feith shut the office down, while transferring its functions elsewhere within the Department of Defense. Feith played a significant role in the buildup to theIraq War.[16] Feith has been characterized as an architect of the Iraq War.[1][2]
As part of his portfolio, he supervised the PentagonOffice of Special Plans, a group of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community.[17][18] The office was responsible for hiringLawrence Franklin, who was later convicted along withAIPAC employeesSteven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman for passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomatNaor Gilon. The office, eventually dismantled, was later criticized in Congress and the media for analysis that was contradicted by CIA analysis and investigations performed following theinvasion of Iraq. In response to the allegedly poor work of Feith's Office of Special Plans, GeneralTommy Franks, who led both the2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the Iraq War called Feith "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet".[6][19][20]
Feith was responsible for thede-Ba'athification policy promulgated inCoalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Order 1 which entered into force on 16 May 2003.[21][22]
In February 2007, the Pentagon's inspector general issued areport that concluded that Feith's office "developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq andal-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers." This repeated Feith's earlier involvement withTeam B as a postgraduate, when alternative intelligence assessments exaggerating threats to the United States turned out to be wrong on nearly every point. The report found that these actions were "inappropriate" though not "illegal." SenatorCarl 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."[3] At Senator Levin's insistence, on April 6, 2007, the Pentagon's Inspector General's Report was declassified and released to the public.[23]
Responding to criticism of a report thatlinked Al-Qaeda with Iraq underSaddam 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."[24] Feith stated that he "felt vindicated" by the report of the Pentagon inspector general.[25] He toldThe 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."[3]
Feith was the first senior Pentagon official to leave the administration after Bush was re-elected.[15] 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.[26]
Following his government service, Feith was employed by theEdmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service atGeorgetown University, where he taught a course on the Bush administration'santi-terrorism policy. He came toGeorgetown'sSchool of Foreign Service after leavingStanford'sHoover Institution and was appointed by School of Foreign Service dean,Robert Gallucci.[27] However, his hiring "caused an uproar among the Foreign Service school faculty." Two years later, Feith's contract was not renewed,[28] causing continuing hostility between the Georgetown Law Center faculty and alumni and the Foreign Service school faculty.
In 2008, Feith became a senior fellow atHudson Institute, where he is the director of its Center for National Security Strategies.[29][30]
Feith is aRepublican, and has contributed money to various party candidates over the years.[31] He has been described as aneoconservative.[32] One of Feith's controversial views was his argument that increasing the number of political appointees equated to more democracy,[15] which would help align government policy to the promises politicians make before they get into office.
Feith's writings have appeared inThe Wall Street Journal,Commentary, andThe New Republic. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller'sChurchill as Peacemaker, Raphael Israeli'sThe Dangers of a Palestinian State and Uri Ra'anan'sHydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism, as well as serving as co-editor forIsrael's Legitimacy in Law and History.
Feith is an ardent supporter of Israel. Along withRichard Perle andDavid Wurmser, he was a member of the study group which authored a controversial report entitledA Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,[33] a set of policy recommendations for the newly elected Israeliprime 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 ofThe 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 was on the board of theJewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a think tank that promotes a military and strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.[34]
Feith was interviewed by the CBS news magazine60 Minutes in a segment that was aired on April 6, 2008.[35] 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.
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.
In 2009, Feith became one of several Bush administration officials under consideration for investigation of possiblewar crimes in a Spanish court, headed byBaltasar Garzón under claims of universal jurisdiction. The case had reportedly still been active as of 2011.[36][37][38][39][40][41][42]
Feith is married with four children.[43][6] His eldest son, Daniel Feith, graduated fromHarvard College andYale Law School and served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Consumer Protection Branch in theUnited States Department of Justice.[44] His second son, David Feith, graduated fromColumbia University and worked as an editorial writer forThe Wall Street Journal and an assistant editor atForeign Affairs before serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in theUnited States Department of State from July 2020 to January 2021[45] and at theUnited States National Security Council from January to April 2025.[46][47]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | United States Department of Defense Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 2001–2005 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
