Words Hurt: Feith Backs Out of Congressional Hearing Due to ‘Personal Attacks’

Douglas Feith, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, was scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary committee today in its examination of the role played by Pentagon lawyers in developing and approving aggressive interrogation techniques.

But when Feith found out this morning that he would have to sit next to Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powel’s former chief of staff and a prominent critic of the administration, he refused to attend.

His lawyer fired off a letter, which includes this argument:

“What I object to is not that Mr. Wilkerson disagrees with Mr. Feith about the issues; in
discussions of issues of public importance, disagreements are inevitable and welcome. But what should neither he expected nor tolerated are the kinds of personal, vicious, groundless attacks that Mr. Wilkerson has repeatedly directed against my client. Mr. Wilkerson has made a point of setting himself up as a personal antagonist of Mr. Feith.

Among other things, Mr. Wilkerson has accused my client of disloyalty to the United
States. Specifically, in an April 2006 interview in American Prospect, he accused Mr. Feith of being a “card-carrying member of the Likud party” whose allegiance is to Israel rather than to the United States. Wilkerson said of Mr. Feith in 2005: “Seldom have I met a dumber man.” though Mr. Feith believes he not only has never met Mr. Wilkerson, but has never even been in the same room with him. Mr. Wilkerson has accused Mr. Feith of producing a “labyrinth of lies,” as he has called Mr. Feith’s meticulously documented recent book, War and Decision, in a debate sponsored by the New America Foundation. And Mr. Wilkerson has been actively promoting the notion that United States Government officials who did not share his views about the conduct of the global war on terror should be prosecuted as war criminals in foreign or international tribunals.”

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