Once I debated Frank Gaffney about the first war on Iraq, which he heralded and promoted. He is a militarist, an imperialist, an Ashcroftian on civil liberties, a welfare statist, and a man who doesn’t heed George Washington about inappropriate crushes on foreign governments. A neocon, in other words. Today, reports Norman Singleton, “the evil Frank Gaffney smears Karen Kwiatkowski”:
“Even the Defense Department — an organization whose senior ranks have been largely populated by Donald Rumsfeld with individuals who actually support the President’s security policies — has nonetheless found its efforts to help develop and advance those policies under assault from people with ‘insider’ credentials. Patrick Lang, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, and Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force officer who served a tour in the Pentagon’s policy shop, have leveled of late a number of charges to the effect that classified information was selectively used to justify otherwise unsupportable claims that Saddam posed a threat.
“In fact, neither critic appears to have been directly involved in or otherwise to have first- hand knowledge of the alleged activities. Instead, they seem to be passing on scuttlebutt whose provenance, to say nothing of veracity, seems highly questionable. In the case of Ms. Kwiatkowski, a review of numerous screeds she has published on the Internet — including some evidently written while on active duty — evince an ideological hostility towards the President, the Secretary of Defense and others in her chain of command that calls into question her objectivity and the accuracy of her charges.”
9:52 am on August 12, 2003