Douglas Feith Biography Quotes 24 Report mistakes

Early Life and Family Background

Douglas J. Feith was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a family deeply marked by the history of the twentieth century: his father, Dalck Feith, was a Holocaust survivor who rebuilt his life in the United States and became a businessman and philanthropist. That family experience shaped Douglas Feith's interest in questions of national security, the moral responsibilities of democratic governments, and the defense of free societies against totalitarian threats. From an early age, he developed a strong interest in history, public affairs, and the law, which would frame his later career in Washington.

Legal Training and Early Washington Career

Feith trained as a lawyer and began his professional life in Washington, D.C., combining legal practice with policy work. Working in and around government exposed him to the intersection of law, diplomacy, intelligence, and military policy. He learned to navigate the bureaucracy of the national security establishment, building relationships with officials and policy thinkers who were focusing on Cold War strategy, arms control, and Middle Eastern affairs. That experience equipped him with a lawyer's attention to detail and a strategist's focus on long-term objectives.

Service in the Reagan Administration

Feith moved into senior policy roles during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. He served at the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy, working under officials tasked with shaping U.S. positions on arms control and security arrangements. He also worked earlier on the National Security Council staff as a specialist on Middle East issues. In this period he collaborated with influential defense figures, including Richard Perle, whose hard-nosed views on deterrence and the Soviet Union resonated with Feith's outlook. The Reagan years were formative for him, reinforcing a belief that American power, used prudently but decisively, could help transform dangerous regions and deter hostile regimes.

Law Practice and Policy Advocacy in the 1990s

Leaving government in the late 1980s, Feith co-founded a Washington law firm, Feith & Zell, that advised clients on international regulatory matters and national-security-related issues. Alongside his law practice, he became active in the policy world, participating in debates that would dominate the 1990s: how to handle rogue states, how to think about post-Cold War alliances, and how best to support democratic allies in the Middle East. He engaged with organizations such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and the Center for Security Policy, and allied with thinkers like David Wurmser and Richard Perle on matters of regional strategy.

Feith's name appeared on key policy documents of the era. He was among the authors of "A Clean Break", a 1996 study that argued for a strategic rethinking about the Middle East and advocated a more assertive, interest-driven posture by democratic states. He also supported statements associated with the Project for the New American Century, which urged a firmer approach toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq. These activities made him a known advocate for robust American leadership and helped place him among the defense intellectuals who influenced the policy debate before and after 2001.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

In 2001 Feith returned to the Pentagon as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, appointed by President George W. Bush and serving under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He worked closely with Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and interacted regularly with senior national security officials including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, and uniformed leaders across the Joint Staff and combatant commands. The September 11 attacks occurred soon after he took office, instantly heightening the demands on the policy shop he led and focusing it on counterterrorism, Afghanistan, and the wider challenge posed by state sponsors of terrorism.

Feith's responsibilities ranged from coalition-building and defense cooperation to long-term strategic planning. He was deeply involved in deliberations about Iraq, ballistic missile defense, and the reorganization of the defense establishment to confront non-state threats. His office sought to reassess intelligence judgments relevant to terrorism and regional threats, and to ensure Pentagon planning reflected updated analyses emerging after 9/11.

Iraq War Planning and Intelligence Controversies

The most debated aspects of Feith's tenure concern Iraq. Within his policy apparatus, a small team known as the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group examined links between terrorist organizations and hostile regimes; another element, later commonly referred to as the Office of Special Plans, was established to support postwar policy planning and to review intelligence relevant to Iraq. Analysts such as Abram Shulsky played roles in these efforts, and Feith's shop liaised with senior figures including Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld as well as with outside Iraqi opposition leaders like Ahmad Chalabi.

Critics in the intelligence community and in parts of the State Department contended that these Pentagon offices "stovepiped" or gave undue weight to certain reports about weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida. Feith rejected those criticisms and argued that his office appropriately challenged prevailing intelligence consensus and that policy makers needed to see competing analyses in order to make sound decisions. Subsequent reviews, including a 2007 Department of Defense Inspector General report, criticized some of the processes as "inappropriate" in terms of tradecraft and coordination, while noting they were not illegal. The public debate around these questions became a focal point of postwar recriminations and shaped how Feith's role has been remembered. General Tommy Franks was reported to have voiced sharp personal criticism of Feith during the period, further illustrating the intense interagency and civil-military frictions that accompanied the run-up to war.

Occupation and Postwar Governance Debates

As U.S. forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Feith's policy shop worked on the difficult questions of governance and stabilization. The Pentagon created the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance under retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner to begin postwar planning; soon after, the Coalition Provisional Authority led by L. Paul Bremer replaced ORHA and assumed broad governing authority. The handoffs and the rapid policy shifts they signaled created confusion about priorities such as de-Baathification and disbanding segments of the Iraqi security forces. Critics later argued that coordination problems between the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence community, and the White House contributed to instability. Feith maintained that his office had sought a more decentralized approach and that many key decisions reflected judgments made above his level or outside his purview. The personalities behind these choices, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, George Tenet, Jay Garner, and Paul Bremer, became central to the story of how Iraq was managed after the regime's collapse.

Publications, Teaching, and Later Work

After leaving government in 2005, Feith returned to private life, writing and teaching about national security. In 2008 he published "War and Decision", an extended memoir and defense of the Bush administration's strategy at the "dawn of the war on terrorism". The book offered his account of internal debates and the interplay between the Pentagon, the intelligence community, and the rest of the national security apparatus. It discussed in detail his interactions with Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and uniformed commanders, and it challenged prevailing narratives about both the prewar intelligence process and the occupation period.

Feith also joined the Hudson Institute as a senior fellow and taught at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he led seminars on strategy, policymaking, and the use of intelligence in government. In these roles he mentored students and contributed to public discussions on counterterrorism, great-power competition, and alliance management. He continued to publish articles and give interviews, often emphasizing lessons about bureaucratic organization, the need for candid red-team analysis, and the risks of both intelligence groupthink and hurried decision-making.

Assessments and Legacy

Douglas Feith's career encapsulates many of the core debates in U.S. foreign policy from the late Cold War through the post-9/11 era. Supporters view him as a principled strategist who pressed for serious attention to the nexus of terrorism and hostile states and who believed democratic powers must act before threats fully mature. They credit him with insisting on critical scrutiny of intelligence assessments and with championing policies aimed at reshaping security environments in ways favorable to U.S. interests and allies. Detractors argue that his approach encouraged overconfidence about the ease of political transformation, discounted warnings from career professionals, and contributed to analytical processes that overstated certain risks while understating the challenges of postwar governance.

The people around him, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice at the White House, Colin Powell at the State Department, George Tenet at the CIA, generals like Tommy Franks, and civilian administrators such as Jay Garner and Paul Bremer, help define the context in which he operated. Their disagreements, shifting alignments, and varied institutional equities shaped outcomes in ways that extend beyond any one official's portfolio. Feith's later work in academia and think tanks underscores his continuing interest in how governments can organize themselves to make better decisions under pressure. Whether praised or criticized, his trajectory offers a case study in the challenges of aligning intelligence, strategy, and execution during an era when the United States reevaluated its role in the world after the trauma of September 11.