Whistleblowers Call for Disclosure of Gov't's Iraq Deceit (Ellsberg & Co.)

[Khephra]

(press release)

To: National Desk, Defense Correspondent

Contact: Kawana Lloyd, Jessica Smith, or Steve Smith, all of Fenton Communications, 202-822-5200

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Daniel Ellsberg, joined today by 10 former employees of the FBI, CIA, State and Defense Departments, issued a call to current government officials to disclose classified information that is being wrongly withheld, about plans for and estimated costs of the war in Iraq, and other documents that contradict government lies.

The "call", in the form of an open memo to current government employees, says "It is time for unauthorized truth-telling." Drawing the clear parallel to Vietnam, the group urges that ongoing silence about government deceptions and cover-ups and reluctance to publicize information about the war's costs and projected casualties carries with it a significant price in human life and national security.

The group released a list of existing documents wrongly withheld within the government as examples of the kind that the public has a right to see. These include background on Army Staff estimates before the war that the Iraq effort would require several hundred thousand troops. Similarly, current estimates of potential casualty rates as the insurgency in Iraq continues to grow as well as the likely cost of waging war over the next few years almost surely exist, and should be disclosed now.

To current government officials, Ellsberg says: "If you have documentary evidence that our country has been lied into an unnecessary, wrongful, endless war-as I had during Vietnam-I urge you to consider doing right now what I wish I had done years earlier than I did: give the truth to Congress and the press, with copies of those documents. The personal costs you risk are great, but you may save many Americans from being lied to death."

Ray McGovern adds: "Truth. Never in the past 50 years has it been in such short supply in theUS defense/intelligence community. Yet it is the truth--once known--that will keep us free. Truth-tellers, arise!"

Ellsberg, best known for releasing the Pentagon Papers to Congress and the press in 1971, was joined at a Washington press conference by Ray McGovern, formerly an analyst for 27 years at the CIA, who provided several presidential staffs with their daily morning security briefings; Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator who was fired for revealing security lapses at the FBI; and Coleen Rowley, one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year as a Whistleblower, currently a Special Agent in the FBI's Minneapolis field office.

The Call and press conference are part of Ellsberg's ongoing work with the Truth Telling Project (more information at www.truthtellingproject.org). The conference is also sponsored by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, which has given its annual Award to Colleen Rowley and Katharine Gun (who will also be present at the conference) and, last night at American University, to Sibel Edmonds.

Gun, a former translator with the British equivalent of the NSA, was fired after leaking sensitive information to the British press about efforts to "surge" intercept capability against members of the UN Security Council. Gun was acquitted of charges of violating England's Official Secrets Act. Another participant is Major Frank Grevil, of the Danish Intelligence Service, who faces trial for releasing his estimates that revealed lack of evidence of WMDs in Iraq, contradicting his country's involvement in efforts to distort intelligence in order to support the war.

Other signers of the Call-including Mary Ann Wright, who resigned as Deputy Chief of Mission in Mongolia over the war-- will also be present, along with Ann Beeson of the ACLU and Beth Daly of the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

---

For more information contact: Kawana Lloyd, Jessica Smith, or Steve Smith, Fenton Communications, 202-822-5200

MEMO followsL

APPEAL TO: Current Government Officials:

FROM: Concerned Alumni

SUBJECT: Truth

It is time for unauthorized truth-telling.

Citizens cannot make informed choices if they do not have the facts-for example, the facts that have been wrongly concealed about the ongoing war in Iraq: the real reasons behind it, the prospective costs in blood and treasure, and the setback it has dealt to efforts to stem terrorism. Administration deception and cover-up on these vital matters has so far been all too successful in misleading the public.

Many Americans are too young to remember Vietnam. Then, as now, senior government officials did not tell the American people the truth. Now, as then, insiders who know better have kept their silence, as the country was misled into the most serious foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.

Some of you have documentation of wrongly concealed facts and analyses that-if brought to light-would impact heavily on public debate regarding crucial matters of national security, both foreign and domestic. We urge you to provide that information now, both to Congress and, through the media, to the public.

Thanks to our First Amendment, there is in America no broad Officials Secrets Act, nor even a statutory basis for the classification system. Only very rarely would it be appropriate to reveal information of the three types whose disclosure has been expressly criminalized by Congress: communications intelligence, nuclear data, and the identity of US intelligence operatives. However, this administration has stretched existing criminal laws to cover other disclosures in ways never contemplated by Congress.

There is a growing network of support for whistleblowers. In particular, for anyone who wishes to know the legal implications of disclosures they may be contemplating, the ACLU stands ready to provide pro bono legal counsel, with lawyer-client privilege. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) will offer advice on whistleblowing, dissemination and relations with the media.

Needless to say, any unauthorized disclosure that exposes your superiors to embarrassment entails personal risk. Should you be identified as the source, the price could be considerable, including loss of career and possibly even prosecution. Some of us know from experience how difficult it is to countenance such costs. But continued silence brings an even more terrible cost, as our leaders persist in a disastrous course and young Americans come home in coffins or with missing limbs.

This is precisely what happened at this comparable stage in the Vietnam War. Some of us live with profound regret that we did not at that point expose the administration's dishonesty and perhaps prevent the needless slaughter of 50,000 more American troops and some 2 to 3 million Vietnamese over the next ten years. We know how misplaced loyalty to bosses, agencies, and careers can obscure the higher allegiance all government officials owe the Constitution, the sovereign public, and the young men and women put in harm's way. We urge you to act on those higher loyalties.

A hundred forty thousand young Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq for dubious purpose. Our country has urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials. Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now.

SIGNATORIES

Call to Patriotic Truth Telling

Edward Costello, former special agent (Counterintelligence), Federal Bureau of Investigation

Sibel Edmonds, former language specialist, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Daniel Ellsberg, former official, U.S. Departments of Defense and State

John D. Heinberg, former economist, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor

Larry C. Johnson, former deputy director for Anti-Terrorism Assistance, Transportation Security, and Special Operations, Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism

John Brady Kiesling, former political counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, Department of State

David MacMichael, former senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council, Central Intelligence Agency

Ray McGovern, former analyst, Central Intelligence Agency

Philip G. Vargas, Ph.D., J.D., Dir. Privacy & Confidentiality Study, Commission on Federal Paperwork (Author/Director: "The Vargas Report on Government Secrecy" -- CENSORED)

Ann Wright, Retired U.S. Army Reserve Colonel and U.S. Foreign Service Officer

Twelve Examples of Existing Documents That Deserve Unauthorized Disclosure:

Each of these-wrongly withheld up till now -- could and should be released almost in their entirety, perhaps with minor deletions for genuine security reasons. (In many cases, official promises to release declassified versions have not been honored.)

1. Reports by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Guantanamo, Abu Ghrab and other prisons (ships, prisons in other countries) that hold prisoners from the "war on terrorism". (These reports have been provided to the US government but have not been made public.)

2. 28 pages redacted from the report of the Joint House-Senate Inquiry on Intelligence Activities before and after 9/11, concerning the ties between the 9/11 terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia.

3. 800 pages of the United Nations Report on Weapons of Mass Destruction that were taken by the United States during unauthorized Xeroxing and never given to the Security Council members. (The original report was 1200 pages in length but has never been published in its entirety)

4. Membership, advisors, consultants to Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, and any minutes from meetings (January - December, 2001).

5. Documents and photographs concerning/produced by military doctors or medical personnel that document abuses toward prisoners condoned by medical personnel.

6. Documents produced by military lawyers and legal staff that challenge the political policy makers decision to undercut the Geneva Conventions and any other extra-legal procedures.

7. The missing sections of the US Army General Taguba report on prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

8. Department of Justice-Inspector General (DOJ-IG) Report: RE: Sibel Edmonds vs. FBI, completed, classified

9. DOJ-IG Report: RE: FBI Translation Department (security breaches, intentional mistranslations, espionage charges), completed, classified

10. DOJ-IG Report: RE:FBI & Foreknowledge of 9/11, completed, classified

11. Full staff backup to General Shinseki's 2002 estimate that "several hundred thousand troops" would be required for effective occupation of Iraq.

12. The full 2002 State Department studies on requirements for the postwar occupation and restoration of civil government in Iraq.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=35915

[Joanne98]

1. Calling all patriots....... NOW is the time...........

kick:)

[Gregorian]

2. I can finally say it--- Bring it on.

1971. Again.

[BeFree]

3. Kick

It's time for the government employees to give all they've got.
We, the people, demand it.

[cal04]

4. sounds a lot like what Waxman has been doing since 2003

If you want to help Congress get to the bottom of the scandal over Iraq intelligence, now's your chance. Later this week, a key member of Congress will issue an all-points call for intelligence analysts to blow the whistle on President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others in the Bush administration who may have distorted, exaggerated, manipulated or lied about intelligence on Iraq in the run up to war.

By creating a tip line on his official Web site, Democratic congressman from California Henry Waxman is encouraging current and former U.S. national security officials to come forward and disclose how the administration played with intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda. A ranking member on the House Committee on Government Reform, Rep. Waxman is making it possible for officials to go on the record or remain anonymous, according to one of his aides. The announcement that Rep. Waxman intends to ask whistleblowers from the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies to come forward will be included in a letter to Rep. Tom Davis, the Virginia Republican who chairs the committee. The letter will also ask Davis to begin an official investigation of how the name of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was leaked to the media. Wilson, a retired diplomat, helped quash forged documents that Iraq sought to buy uranium for bomb-making in Niger, and subsequently Plame, who was an undercover CIA officer, was outed by anonymous U.S. officials.

Waxman's effort, which is sure to be controversial, is a sign that the simmering scandal about U.S. intelligence on Iraq won?t go away during 2004. The Senate intel committee is locked in a partisan dispute over Republican efforts to stonewall an inquiry into the Bush administration?s use of intelligence to justify war, including the Pentagon?s Office of Special Plans (OSP) and its subordinate intelligence unit. Yet there are signs that more and more disgruntled officials, including CIA officers, may come forward in the weeks to come. In The American Conservative, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who has already talked to some reporters, has begun penning a breathtaking account of her year in the Pentagon?s Office of Near East and South Asia affairs, which was headed by Capt. William Luti, a pro-war neocon. The OSP, headed by Abe Shulsky, another neocon, fell under Luti?s shop.

Meanwhile, Newsweek reports that Luti was a recipient of intelligence passed on to him by the Washington office of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the former Iraqi exile group led by Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the neocons and their candidate to be Iraq's next prime minister. The INC"whose intelligence was widely considered bogus and unreliable by the U.S. intelligence community"served as a conduit for hair-raising but unproven (and later disproven) reports about Iraq WMD and terrorism links. Now, Newsweek has obtained a memo from the INC's Washington rep that claims the INC fed its intelligence to Luti and directly to Vice President Cheney's office. Heaping more doubts on the integrity of the fact-finding process is new information from Israel suggesting that Israeli intelligence officials, too, joined U.S. and British intelligence in exaggerating the threat of Iraqi WMD. A report by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University last month called for an official investigation of how Israeli intelligence assessed the Iraqi threat. According to informed U.S. sources, a secret intelligence team was set up in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon?s office before the war in Iraq to generate data adding yet more justifications for war"intelligence that Sharon?s office then shared, in English, with Luti?s OSP"even though the Mossad, Israel?s intelligence service, was said to be much more cautious and restrained about the threat to Israel from Iraq.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9562
(from his site)
Iraq Intelligence
This tip line has been established to assist the Special Investigations Division in investigating (1) the gathering, analysis, and use of intelligence related to Iraq and (2) the improper disclosure of the identity of intelligence agents. The confidentiality of any person providing information will be strictly preserved.