Former CIA analysts speak up about the Bush deceptions

[grannylib]

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0311&article=031110x

Very interesting article...an exerpt

"Sojourners: In the build up toward the war in Iraq, the Bush administration made allegations that are proving more and more to be demonstrably false. Were they just misunderstandings of intelligence data, or were we being sold a bill of goods? Was it an honest mistake?

Ray McGovern: No, by no stretch of the imagination was it an honest mistake. We were able to tell very last fall that there was very little substance to the main charges with respect to weapons of mass destruction. Even the sanitized version of the National Intelligence Estimate that was put on the CIA Web site—if you looked at it closely with any experience in intelligence, you could see what a thin reed they were relying on, and that there was little possibility of substantiating Dick Cheney's claim that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. That, of course, is the mushroom cloud that scared Congress into ceding its power to wage war."

Click on the link above to read the entire article

[DrBB]

1. DAMN, is that interesting stuff

I'm familiar with McGovern--he's been extensively quoted here on the war and intel manipulation--and VIPS, but there was all kinds of stuff there that was new to me. Not least, I was fascinated by his religious views and those of the other interviewee--exposure to liberation theology, McGovern's 4-year in-church protest on the denial of women's ordination. Fascinating stuff.

On the geo-political level, I thought McGovern's answer to the question of whether we are going to invade Iran was fascinating and chilling:

McGovern: One of the central factors here is the role of Israel. The war on Iraq was just as much prompted by the strategic objectives of the state of Israel as it was the strategic objectives of the United States of America. Indeed, the people running this war are people who have worked for the government of Israel in the past, people who have prepared position papers for former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and others. These are people who are well attuned to Israel's objectives.

The authors of the Project for the New American Century have set out for the United States to become the dominant power in the world. And, Israel, for its own part, is hell bent on remaining the dominant power in the Middle East. The confluence of objectives is striking. Israel has as much to do with the war in Iraq as does the United States of America.

It doesn't seem likely, if only for military capability reasons, that we're going to be invading Iran soon. However, it is publicly known that Ariel Sharon, during his last visit here to Washington, raised the possibility that Israel might take out the nuclear facilities that are being constructed in Iran. This is exactly what they did, with respect to Iraq, in 1981. The Osirak nuclear facility was taken out by Israeli Mirage bombers. The United States and other nations unanimously condemned that act as an act of war at the U.N. Security Council. Not until Vice President Cheney spoke a year ago did any prominent U.S. spokesperson endorse that attack. Cheney thought it was a great idea, and cited it in his speech. We later learned that Cheney has a photograph of the destroyed Osirak reactor on the wall of his office. One can by no means rule out the possibility that Sharon, with the tacit encouragement of the Pentagon, would fly his Mirages right into Iran and take out their nuclear facility, with consequences that one can hardly imagine. I don't think the United States is going to attack Iran anytime soon. I would consider it a fair bet that Israel will.

Thanks for posting this, Grannylib!

[Say_What]

2. Also interesting was the three former CIA agents who testified

before the Democratic Policy Cmte. Hearing on Intelligence Leaks last weekend on CSPAN. One of the things they repeated several times was how Cheney and co. went to the CIA to meet with junior agents and insinuate that they weren't finding WMD because they weren't looking in the right places, etc. etc. The 30 year CIA veteran, Cannistraro, said in all of his years he had never seen anything like it. That Cheney/Bush Co. would not take no for an answer and that they consistently use intimidation etc., to try to manipulate the CIA.

Here's the transcript.

<clips>

...CANNISTRARO: Yes. I've had some experience in that, Senator.

And it's clear that when the analysts are being interviewed, there is

always some senior person there with us, congressional affairs person,

someone from the General Counsel's Office. And that could be

construed by the person who's doing the testifying as subtle pressure

not to be too candid, not to be too frank.

I've read the newspaper reports, but I've also talked to former

colleagues of mine who are still active and who lived through some of

this period of what I would call intimidation and pressure. Yes, they

say it's intimidation, they say it's pressure.

The fact that it's manifested by a very senior official, vice

president of the United States -- the first time in my 27 years in

intelligence, the first time I have ever heard of a vice president of

the United States going out to CIA and sitting down with desk-level

analysts. President and vice president coming out, making a speech,

cutting a ribbon? Absolutely. A commemoration ceremony.

But sitting down and debating with junior-level analysts, and

pushing them to find support for something he personally believes,

that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium, that, to me, is pressure and that's intimidation.

...CANNISTRARO: Well, I think that underlies the purpose of the

visits is that the vice president, as well as other senior officials

in the administration, were convinced of this because they were

getting separate information. They were getting information from an

intelligence operation that has been described in various ways.

There are euphemisms being used to describe it, but there was an

intelligence collection operation at the Department of Defense in the

undersecretary of policy's office and they were getting intelligence

information from other people outside the intelligence community;

information which was not vetted with the community, which was not

coordinated with the intelligence community, not even with DIA.

And much of this information we now know, in retrospect, was

fraudulent. Some of it was fabricated, some of it was just so

speculative it should not have ever risen to the level of being

reported. But a lot of this information made its way into

policymakers' public statements.

Yes I think look there was an underground war going on within the

administration, certainly between the Pentagon and the CIA. I'm a

private citizen now and so I think I can comment on it as an observer

outside government, but it was very clear to me that was going on.

Part of it was the underlying contempt for the CIA by

professional ideologues who believed that the agency was a squishy

place that came up with soft judgments and didn't look hard enough for

the information. Their mantra was: ``You're not going to find

anything unless you know what you're looking for.'' Well, if you know

what you're looking for, you are going to find it because you're

predisposed to find it. And that's against the intelligence effort.

But I think that's the fundamental problem here is that

policymakers at the NSC, at the Defense Department and the White

House itself already believed in something and they were looking for the

supporting intelligence data. Sometimes they got it. Many times they did not get

it. And when they didn't get it it was again subjected to criticism and contempt.

There's no question that, you know, intelligence agencies and

policy-makers should have a dynamic relationship; it's not that their

assumptions should not be queried or second-guessed. That's fine.

Policy-makers should be keeping the intelligence community on its toes.

``Are you looking for this? Are you looking for that?'' You know,

``Put more resources here. Put more resources there. Reexamine your

assumptions.'' That's fine. I've seen it that happen. I saw it happen

in the Reagan administration. Saw it happen with Bill Casey, who was

originally accused of distorting intelligence for policy-makers.

Never, never did Casey ever drop to the level that we've seen

today. He fought with analysts about the subject of whether the Soviet Union was involved with supporting terrorism. The analysts challenged him and challenged him quite effectively, and Casey backed off. That doesn't seem to happen today.

<http://democrats.senate.gov/news/transcript-cia.html>

[RainDog]

3. excellent interview

...and I noted that McGovern is, like so many across this nation, equating the machinations of the Bush regime with those of the Nazis and the invasion of Poland.