Shadow "Office of Special Plans" Government...

[Peter Frank]

This only scratches the surface (as many of us know).


"shadow government" -- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dblended%26field-keywords%3D%252522shadow%252520government%252522%26store-name%3Dall-product-search/104-4418143-4746355

The first Google result for "shadow government" "office of special plans":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

Special investigation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The spies who pushed for war

Julian Borger reports on the shadow right wing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force

Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian


As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.
It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses.

This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicizing and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defense and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hard line conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war...<snip>


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22shadow+government%22+%22office+of+special+plans%22

[EST]

1. Add in the OSI-office of strategic information-

the official "liars club" of this criminal misadministration, devoted to lies and coverups, and you have the worst bunch of incompetent clods that ever cheated its way into power in the USA.

As a young man, my life was pretty much destroyed by war mongers. My family has suffered many injuries and deaths and I've lost many good friends because of lieing government war hounds, eager to rule the world, and now these bastards have given my country away to big business, foreign investors, and other outright criminals.

I've never been a "burning" patriot, but I am well and truly pissed, consumed with loathing for these heartless manipulators who take what I and so many others have bought and paid for with much blood and treasure and waste it, on their own greed and consumption! I will never forgive them.

[H2O Man]

2. Senator Robert Byrd

Losing America; Norton Books; 2004; pages 78-79

"Only hours after the 9-11 attacks, the administration installed a 'shadow government of about 100 senior executive branch officials to live and work secretly outside Washington at two East Coast locations, reportedly run from the White House. White House chief of staff Andrew Card directs the shadow government from the White House, where he is immune from giving testimony to Congress (have we heard this before?). The shadow government is supposed to assume comand of the government in case of national emergency. Of course, this shadow government consists of one branch only, the executive branch.

"This shadow government was created under the authority of he 'continuity of operations' plans left over from the Cold War and executive orders by President Ronald Reagan. However, the Congress has not sanctioned the shadow government, nor were members of Congress even made aware of its existence until the story was leaked in March 2002. This shadow government has been described as an 'indefinite precaution,' which can mean anything. While a few newspaper stories appeared in March 2002, very little new information has been reported since then. The shadow goverment is presumed to continue its operation outside of congressional oversight."

[H2O Man]

3. John W. Dean

Worse Than Watergate; Little, Brown & Co; 2004; pages 101-105 and 120- 124

In his classic work, Worse Than Watergate, Dean has an early section titled "Cheney's Shadow National Security Council." It begins on page 101, with a close examination of Cheney and Scooter Libby's efforts to create a new intelligence operation outside of any possible controls by anyone or any group outside of the executive branch. Dean's description is both accurate and, for anyone who values the Constitution, chilling.

Then, in "Hiding and Politicizing Contingent Government" (120-4), Dean exposes the 9-11 changing of our form of government for what it really is. This was not simply an effort to continue our government in any "American way." Dean notes, "What started as a precaution soon became permanent .... By keeping it all secret, no one will know until it is too late."

[H2O Man]

4. James Bamford

A Pretext for War; Anchor Books; 2004; pages 72-4

"Given overall responsibility for the secret government was Vice President George H. W. Bush, with L. Col. Oliver North, a key player in the Iran-contra scandal, as the National Security Councilaction player.The operation was hidden under the cover name 'National Program Office' and was run by a two-star general from a nondescript Washington office building. Among the key players in the shadow government were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and James Woolsey.

"At the time, Cheney was a congressman from Wyoming; Rumsfeld was CEO of G.D. Searle & Co., which produced such products as Metamucil and Nutra-Sweet; and Woolsey was a lawyer in private practice. Except for Rumsfeld's brief stint as a Middle East envoy, none held a full-time position within the Reagan administration. Nevertheless, they all had high-level national security experience -- Cheney served as White House Chief of Staff under President Geralf Ford, Rumsfeld was a former congressman and also served as Ford's Chief of Staff and later as Secretary of Defense, and Woolsey was Undersecretary of the Navy in the late 1970s.

"Unlike Eisenhower, who had one team of private citizens and several cabinet officers, Reagan's shadow government was made up of three teams, each with a cabinet officer who would become president. In the lead-up to war or national emergency, or as soon after an attack as possible, each team would fly to a secure location somewhere within the United States. Each would be named after a color -- such as the Red, Blue, or Green Team -- and one would be predesignated as the lead group with the others as backups. .....

"The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed. Rather than through legislation, it was created by Top Secret presidential fiat. In fact, Congress would have no role in the new wartime administration. 'One of the awkward questions we faced,' said one of the participants, 'was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them.' When George H. W. Bush was elected president, he continued the program, but with the Cold War over,President Bill Clinton decided to end it."

Bamford goes on, between pages 74 and 92, to explain how on 9-11, VP Cheney decided to replace the government of Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton with the one he made with Ollie North, Donald Rumsfeld, and James Woolsey.

[H2O Man]

5. A while back,

DUer Emit suggested another book to me, James Mann's "Rise of the Vulcans." The book has some extremely important information on Cheney and Rumsfeld's early work, planning the "shadow government." I hope Emit will expand on this for us.

I think that DUers, and indeed all Americans, will consider the implications of this "shadow government." This is not some strange delusional thought process of a conspiracvy theorist -- it is the strange delusional thought processes of a small group of evil men who think they are justified in revoking the form of constitutional democracy that this country was built upon, and to substitute a form of government that is -- at least in my opinion -- dangerously close to being fascist.

It may make far more sense to view things like the Plame scandal and the NSA domestic spying scandal in the context of the shadow government, rather than in terms of a government with three co-equal branches. Do the actions of men like VP Cheney make more sense in the context of a shadow government that has grabbed the reins of power, or in terms of a constitutional balance of powers-type government?

[Ufomammut]

6. Denial and psychological avoidance

I haven't been here very long, but the pattern I've picked up on is how the more typically 'political' threads tend to recieve many more replies than a topic like this that truly warrants everyone's attention.

But then, that's how it works here in Amerika, huh?

[H2O Man]

7. I'm hoping more DUers

will read and participate on this thread.

[harpo]

8. I've heard lots about OSP over the years...they are the group..

that pretty much was in charge of gathering and putting together intelligence that would back their war. They cherry picked and filtered what the CIA/FBI were getting and purposely misled the CIA on many occasions...chalabi has a lot to do with that group as well.