In our various oral and written presentations on Iraq, my veteran intelligence officer colleagues and I took no delight in sharply criticizing what we perceived to be the corruption of intelligence analysis at CIA. Nothing would have pleased us more than to have been proven wrong. It turns out we did not know the half of it.
...I almost became physically ill reading the cynical response from the deputy director of the task force:
"As I said last night, let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about."
Reading this brought to consciousness a painful flashback to early August 1964. We CIA analysts knew that reports of a second attack on U.S. destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf were spurious but were prevented from reporting that.
...Aberrations like the Tonkin Gulf cave-in notwithstanding, the analysis directorate was widely known as the unique place in Washington where one could normally go and expect a straight answer unencumbered by any political agenda. And we were hard into some very controversial – often critical – national security issues. It boggles my mind how any president, and particularly one whose father headed the CIA, could expect to be able, without that capability, to make intelligent judgments based on unbiased fact.
...I almost became physically ill reading the cynical response from the deputy director of the task force:
"As I said last night, let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curveball said or didn't say, and the powers that be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curveball knows what he's talking about."
Reading this brought to consciousness a painful flashback to early August 1964. We CIA analysts knew that reports of a second attack on U.S. destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf were spurious but were prevented from reporting that.
...Aberrations like the Tonkin Gulf cave-in notwithstanding, the analysis directorate was widely known as the unique place in Washington where one could normally go and expect a straight answer unencumbered by any political agenda. And we were hard into some very controversial – often critical – national security issues. It boggles my mind how any president, and particularly one whose father headed the CIA, could expect to be able, without that capability, to make intelligent judgments based on unbiased fact.
It boggles my mind how any career operative could not understand the history of the CIA, its uses and abuses, and think that Tonkin Gulf was an "aberration", and not understand that the president we're talking about here wouldn't know an intelligent judgment if it flew up his nose, and is definitely not interested in unbiased fact. I guess Mr. McGovern will have to wait for part two of the report to figure that out.
No....wait...
It is said that truth is the first casualty of war. Sadly, in the case of Iraq, even before the war, truth took a back seat to a felt need to snuggle up to power – to stay in good standing with a president and his advisers, all well known to be hell-bent on war on Iraq.
...David Corn of The Nation led his own report with, "The United States went to war on the basis of false claims."
Not so. This is precisely the spin that the Bush administration wants to give to the Senate report, i. e., that the president was misled; that his decision for war was based on spurious intelligence about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
But the president's decision for war had little to do with intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It had everything to do with the administration's determination to gain control of strategic, oil-rich Iraq, implant an enduring military presence there, and – not incidentally – eliminate any possible threat from Iraq to Israel's security.
...Last, but hardly least, it was not until several months after the Bush White House decided to make war on Iraq that the weapons-of-mass-destruction-laden National Intelligence Estimate was commissioned, and then only because Congress needed to be persuaded that the threat was so immediate that war was necessary.
...David Corn of The Nation led his own report with, "The United States went to war on the basis of false claims."
Not so. This is precisely the spin that the Bush administration wants to give to the Senate report, i. e., that the president was misled; that his decision for war was based on spurious intelligence about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
But the president's decision for war had little to do with intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It had everything to do with the administration's determination to gain control of strategic, oil-rich Iraq, implant an enduring military presence there, and – not incidentally – eliminate any possible threat from Iraq to Israel's security.
...Last, but hardly least, it was not until several months after the Bush White House decided to make war on Iraq that the weapons-of-mass-destruction-laden National Intelligence Estimate was commissioned, and then only because Congress needed to be persuaded that the threat was so immediate that war was necessary.
Well? Can't he see he's just answered his own question? I think his mind is addled, not boggled.
Roberts seemed at pains to lay the blame on a "flawed system," but a close reading of the committee report yields the unavoidable conclusion that CIA analysis can no longer be assumed to be honest – to be aimed at getting as close to the truth as one can humanly get. For those of you cynics about to smirk, I can only tell you – believe it or not – that truth was in fact the currency of analysis in the CIA in which I was proud to serve.
Well, Mr. McGovern, I respect you, and I know that there are many men and women in the intelligence agencies who share your morals and are doing their best work. I am not smirking. But I am standing here with my mouth agape at your naiveté. After all, you have just admitted that this kind of sullying of your work is "not without precedent", and that the pResident had an agenda into which he was determined to fit the intelligence. How can any of you continue to work in these organizations without suspecting that you are shills for darker motives?
And my next question is, what are you going to do about it?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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