Laura Rozen: "the pre-war intelligence issue is clearly the issue that is

[understandinglife]

... of most sensitivity to the White House."

Cheney's statements, in particular during the past week, are ample evidence that Ms. Rozen is correct.

As we all know, it is Cheney who is doing all he possibly can to obscure the truth -- nothing new, but now he knows that the bulk of the population are aware that he and Bush and the other neoconsters not only lied but that because of their actions they will be recorded in history as treasonous war criminals.

Just how much was known about their lies before March 19, 2003, is actually considerable. A sample of the truth can be found in Section III of my pamphlet entitled We the People ... Have No Clothes:

Section III

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”: Each of us is responsible. How our government misled us into war with Iraq.

There was an amazing moment in November of 1863 when an American President stood in the midst of a vast battlefield steeped with the blood of thousands and spoke words which should never have had to be spoken again, “…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Unfortunately, we all know that as resolute and as just as President Lincoln was, and as valid a direction for humanity his words described, millions and millions have died in war since then. Each of you can examine the various wars America has engaged in since 1863. If you seek the facts, many of your assumptions about the reasons for, and validity of, each of those wars will, in many cases, be challenged. For the purposes of this primer on post-imperialist America, we return to an examination of the war on Iraq.

Congressman Ron Paul (R - TX) cogently describes what the newly installed Bush administration and a compliant Congress did because the vast majority of Americans did not bother to play their essential role as citizens of the Republic: be informed, be critical, and refuse to be manipulated by fear. Read the following and contemplate how much more stable and secure every American would be if we faced future threats together, first demanding the complete truth from those we pay to gather facts and make decisions.

The desire by American policymakers to engineer regime change in Iraq had been smoldering since the first Persian Gulf conflict in 1991. This reflected a dramatic shift in our policy, since in the 1980s we maintained a friendly alliance with Saddam Hussein as we assisted him in his war against our arch nemesis, the Iranian Ayatollah. Most Americans ignore that we provided assistance to this ruthless dictator with biological and chemical weapons technology. We heard no complaints in the 1980s about his treatment of the Kurds and Shiites, or the ruthless war he waged against Iran. Our policy toward Iraq played a major role in convincing Saddam Hussein he had free reign in the Middle East, and the results demonstrate the serious shortcomings of our foreign policy of interventionism that we have followed now for over a hundred years.

In 1998 Congress capitulated to the desires of the Clinton administration and overwhelmingly passed the Iraq Liberation Act, which stated quite clearly that our policy was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. This act made it official: “The policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein.” This resolution has been cited on numerous occasions by neo-conservatives as justification for the pre-emptive, deliberate invasion of Iraq. When the resolution was debated, I saw it as a significant step toward a war that would bear no good fruit. No legitimate national security concerns were cited for this dramatic and serious shift in policy.

Shortly after the new administration took office in January 2001, this goal of eliminating Saddam Hussein quickly morphed into a policy of remaking the entire Middle East, starting with regime change in Iraq. This aggressive interventionist policy surprised some people, since the victorious 2000 campaign indicated we should pursue a foreign policy of humility, no nation building, reduced deployment of our forces overseas, and a rejection of the notion that we serve as world policemen. The 9/11 disaster proved a catalyst to push for invading Iraq and restructuring the entire Middle East. Though the plan had existed for years, it quickly was recognized that the fear engendered by the 9/11 attacks could be used to mobilize the American people and Congress to support this war. Nevertheless, supposedly legitimate reasons had to be given for the already planned pre-emptive war, and as we now know the “intelligence had to be fixed to the policy.”

Immediately after 9/11 the American people were led to believe that Saddam Hussein somehow was responsible for the attacks. The fact that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were enemies, not friends, was kept from the public by a compliant media and a lazy Congress. Even today many Americans still are convinced of an alliance between the two. The truth is Saddam Hussein never permitted al Qaeda into Iraq out of fear that his secular government would be challenged. And yet today we find that al Qaeda is now very much present in Iraq, and causing chaos there.

The administration repeatedly pumped out alarming propaganda that Saddam Hussein was a threat to us with his weapons of mass destruction, meaning nuclear, biological, and chemical. Since we helped Saddam Hussein obtain biological and chemical weapons in the 1980s, we assumed that he had maintained a large supply-- which of course turned out not to be true. The people, frightened by 9/11, easily accepted these fear-mongering charges.

You have just read the words of a Congressman and a member of the same party which frightened and manipulated most of us. But we must not make excuses, and let’s stop being naïve victims of those whom we pay to tell us the truth, serve the Constitution and, most importantly, protect those of us who have the least. The fact is, we had the facts and we had experts telling them to us during the interval Mr. Bush and his administration were attempting to manipulate all of us and the members of the UN. If you are unaware of how much was known before March 19, 2003, and are upset by the preceding sentences, let us look at what experts wrote to Mr. Bush prior to our declaration of war on Iraq.

February 7, 2003


MEMORANDUM FOR: The President of the United States of America

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Secretary Powell's presentation at the UN today requires context. We give him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq, but only a "C-" in providing context and perspective.

What seems clear to us is that you need an intelligence briefing, not grand jury testimony. Secretary Powell effectively showed that Iraq is guilty beyond reasonable doubt for not cooperating fully with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That had already been demonstrated by the chief UN inspectors. For Powell, it was what the Pentagon calls a "cakewalk."

The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war. Speaking both for ourselves, as veteran intelligence officers on the VIPS Steering Group with over a hundred years of professional experience, and for colleagues within the community who are increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence, we feel a responsibility to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than "UN v. Saddam Hussein." And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting in which sobriquets like "sinister nexus," "evil genius," and "web of lies" can be more hindrance than help.

Flouting UN Resolutions

The key question is whether Iraq's flouting of a UN resolution justifies war. This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell's presentation does not come close to answering it. <clip>

Containment

You have dismissed containment as being irrelevant in a post 9/11 world. You should know that no one was particularly fond of containment, but that it has been effective for the last 55 years. And the concept of "material breach" is hardly anything new.

Material Breach

In the summer of 1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 1984 President Reagan declared it an outright violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At an ABM Treaty review in 1988, the US spoke of this continuing violation as a "material breach" of the treaty. In the fall of 1989, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate the radar at Krasnoyarsk without preconditions.

We adduce this example simply to show that, with patient, persistent diplomacy, the worst situations can change over time.

You have said that Iraq is a "grave threat to the United States," and many Americans think you believe it to be an imminent threat. Otherwise why would you be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf area? In your major speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, you warned that "the risk is simply too great that Saddam Hussein will use instruments of mass death and destruction, or provide them to a terror network."

Terrorism

Your intelligence agencies see it differently. On the same day you spoke in Cincinnati, a letter from the CIA to the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with such weapons or give them to terrorists. UNLESS:

"Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions."

For now, continued the CIA letter, "Baghdad appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical/biological warfare against the United States." With his back against the wall, however, "Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.

Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.

As recent events around the world attest, terrorism is like malaria. You don't eliminate malaria by killing the flies. Rather you must drain the swamp. With an invasion of Iraq, the world can expect to be inundated with swamps breeding terrorists. In human terms, your daughters are unlikely to be able to travel abroad in future years without a large phalanx of security personnel.

We recommend you re-read the CIA assessment of last fall (that would be 2002) that pointed out that "the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed," and that "the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist." That CIA report cited a Gallup poll last year (i.e., 2002) of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased."<clip>

Casualties

Reminder: The last time we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came back ill - many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary of Veterans Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly 200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat. Thus, casualties of further war will inevitably displace other veterans who need VA services.

In his second inaugural, Abraham Lincoln appealed to his fellow citizens to care for those who "have borne the battle." Years before you took office, our country was doing a very poor job of that for the over 200,000 servicemen and women stricken with various Gulf War illnesses. Today's battlefield is likely to be even more sodden with chemicals and is altogether likely to yield tens of thousands more casualties. On October 1, 2002 Congress' General Accounting Office reported "serious problems still persist" with the Pentagon's efforts to protect servicemen and women, including shortfalls in clothing, equipment, and training. Our troops deserve more effective support than broadcasts, leaflets, and faulty equipment for protection against chemical and biological agents.

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is irrefutable or undeniable. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

/s/ Richard Beske, San Diego; Patrick Eddington, Alexandria; Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe; Raymond McGovern, Arlington; William Christison, Santa Fe

Steering Group

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

The individuals who wrote and signed that memorandum to Mr. Bush have more than 100 years of combined expertise in our national security. Their letter to Mr. Bush was published and available for any American to read on the day they sent it. How many did read it? How many Americans followed critically Mr. Powell’s performance at the UN and asked the hard questions? Why does it matter?

Well, today, as you are reading this text, consider calling the families of the more than 2000 members of our Armed Forces who have died because of a war on Iraq that never should have happened. Perhaps, most importantly, consider the possibility that if all of us had participated as conscientious citizens of our government, this war would have very likely been prevented.

The intelligence professionals did not stop when Mr. Bush refused to consider their concerns. They made another valiant effort to serve the Republic and all of us on March 18, 2003, the day before Mr. Bush launched an aggressive invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation.

March 18, 2003

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President of the United States of America

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem

We last wrote you immediately after Secretary of State Powell's UN speech on February 5, in an attempt to convey our concerns that insufficient attention was being given to wider intelligence-related issues at stake in the conflict with Iraq. Your speech yesterday evening did nothing to allay those concerns. And the acerbic exchanges of the past few weeks have left the United States more isolated than at any time in the history of the republic and the American people more polarized.

Today we write with an increased sense of urgency and responsibility. Responsibility, because you appear to be genuinely puzzled at the widespread opposition to your policy on Iraq and because we have become convinced that those of your advisers who do understand what is happening are reluctant to be up front with you about it. As veterans of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, the posture we find ourselves in is as familiar as it is challenging. We feel a continuing responsibility to "tell it like it is" - or at least as we see it - without fear or favor. Better to hear it from extended family than not at all; we hope you will take what follows in that vein.

We cannot escape the conclusion that you have been badly misinformed. It was reported yesterday that your generals in the Persian Gulf area have become increasingly concerned over sandstorms. To us this is a metaphor for the shifting sand-type "intelligence" upon which your policy has been built.

Worse still, it has become increasingly clear that the sharp drop in US credibility abroad is largely a function of the rather transparent abuse of intelligence reporting and the dubious conclusions drawn from that reporting - the ones that underpin your decisions on Iraq.

Flashback to Vietnam

Many of us cut our intelligence teeth during the sixties. We remember the arrogance and flawed thinking that sucked us into the quagmire of Vietnam. The French, it turned out, knew better. And they looked on with wonderment at Washington's misplaced confidence -its single-minded hubris, as it embarked on a venture the French knew from their own experience could only meet a dead end. This was hardly a secret. It was widely known that the French general sent off to survey the possibility of regaining Vietnam for France after World War II reported that the operation would take a half-million troops, and even then it could not be successful.

Nevertheless, President Johnson, heeding the ill-informed advice of civilian leaders of the Pentagon with no experience in war, let himself get drawn in past the point of no return. In the process, he played fast and loose with intelligence to get the Tonkin Gulf resolution through Congress so that he could prosecute the war. To that misguided war he mortgaged his political future, which was in shambles when he found himself unable to extricate himself from the morass.

Quite apart from what happened to President Johnson, the Vietnam War was the most serious US foreign policy blunder in modern times - until now.

Forgery

In your state-of-the-union address you spoke of Iraq's pre-1991 focus on how to "enrich uranium for a bomb" and added, "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." No doubt you have now been told that this information was based on bogus correspondence between Iraq and Niger. Answering a question on this last week, Secretary Powell conceded-with neither apology nor apparent embarrassment-that the documents in question, which the US and UK had provided to the UN to show that Iraq is still pursuing nuclear weapons, were forgeries. Powell was short: "If that information is inaccurate, fine."

But it is anything but fine. This kind of episode inflicts serious damage on US credibility abroad-the more so, as it appears neither you nor your advisers and political supporters are in hot pursuit of those responsible. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has shown little enthusiasm for finding out what went awry. Committee Vice-Chairman, Jay Rockefeller, suggested that the FBI be enlisted to find the perpetrators of the forgeries, which US officials say contain "laughable and child-like errors," and to determine why the CIA did not recognize them as forgeries. But Roberts indicated through a committee spokeswoman that he believes it is "inappropriate for the FBI to investigate at this point." Foreign observers do not have to be paranoid to suspect some kind of cover-up.

Who Did It? Who Cares!

Last week Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey cited a recent press report suggesting that a foreign government might be behind the forgeries as part of an effort to build support for military action against Iraq and asked Secretary Powell if he could identify that foreign government. Powell said he could not do so "with confidence." Nor did he appear in the slightest interested.

We think you should be. In the absence of hard evidence one looks for those with motive and capability. The fabrication of false documentation, particularly what purports to be official correspondence between the agencies of two governments, is a major undertaking requiring advanced technical skills normally available only in a sophisticated intelligence service. And yet the forgeries proved to be a sloppy piece of work.

Chalk it up to professional pride by (past) association, but unless the CIA's capabilities have drastically eroded over recent years, the legendary expertise of CIA technical specialists, combined with the crudeness of the forgeries, leave us persuaded that the CIA did not craft the bogus documents. Britain's MI-6 is equally adept at such things. Thus, except in the unlikely event that crafting forgery was left to second-stringers, it seems unlikely that the British were the original source.

We find ourselves wondering if amateur intelligence operatives in the Pentagon basement and/or at 10 Downing Street were involved and need to be called on the carpet. We would urge you strongly to determine the provenance. This is not trivial matter. As our VIPS colleague (and former CIA Chief of Station) Ray Close has noted, "If anyone in Washington deliberately practiced disinformation in this way against another element of our own government or wittingly passed fabricated information to the UN, this could do permanent damage to the commitment to competence and integrity on which the whole American foreign policy process depends."

The lack of any strong reaction from the White House feeds the suspicion that the US was somehow involved in, or at least condones, the forgery. It is important for you to know that, although credibility-destroying stories like this rarely find their way into the largely cowed US media, they do grab headlines abroad among those less disposed to give the US the benefit of the doubt. As you know better than anyone, a year and a half after 9/11 the still traumatized US public remains much more inclined toward unquestioning trust in the presidency. Over time that child-like trust can be expected to erode, if preventive maintenance is not performed and hyperbole shunned.

Hyperbole

The forgery aside, the administration's handling of the issue of whether Iraq is continuing to develop nuclear weapons has done particularly severe damage to US credibility. On October 7 your speechwriters had you claim that Iraq might be able to produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year. Formal US intelligence estimates, sanitized versions of which have been made public, hold that Iraq will be unable to produce a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, if then. In that same speech you claimed that "the evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program"-a claim reiterated by Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press on March 16.

Reporting to the UN Security Council in recent months, UN chief nuclear inspector Mohammed ElBaradei has asserted that the inspectors have found no evidence that Iraq has reconstituted its nuclear weapons program. Some suspect that the US does have such evidence but has not shared it with the UN because Washington has been determined to avoid doing anything that could help the inspections process succeed. Others believe the "evidence" to be of a piece with the forgery - in all likelihood crafted by Richard Perle's Pentagon Plumbers. Either way, the US takes a large black eye in public opinion abroad.

Then there are those controversial aluminum tubes which you have cited in major speeches as evidence of a continuing effort on Iraq's part to produce nuclear weapons. Aside from one analyst in the CIA and the people reporting to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, there is virtually unanimous agreement within the intelligence, engineering, and scientific communities with ElBaradei's finding that "it was highly unlikely" that the tubes could have been used to produce nuclear material. It is not enough for Vice President Cheney to dismiss ElBaradei's findings. Those who have followed these issues closely are left wondering why, if the vice president has evidence to support his own view, he does not share it with the UN.

Intelligence Scant

In your speech yesterday evening you stressed that intelligence "leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And yet even the Washington Post, whose editors have given unswerving support to your policy on Iraq, is awash with reports that congressional leaders, for example, have been given no specific intelligence on the number of banned weapons in Iraq or where they are hidden. One official, who is regularly briefed by the CIA, commented recently that such evidence as does exist is "only circumstantial." Another said he questioned whether the administration is shaping intelligence for political purposes. And, in a moment of unusual candor, one senior intelligence analyst suggested that one reason why UN inspectors have had such trouble finding weapons caches is that "there may not be much of a stockpile."

Having backed off suggestions early last year that Iraq may already have nuclear weapons, your administration continues to assert that Iraq has significant quantities of other weapons of mass destruction. But by all indications, this is belief, not proven fact. This has led the likes of Thomas Powers, a very knowledgeable author on intelligence, to conclude that "the plain fact is that the Central Intelligence Agency doesn't know what Mr. Hussein has, if anything, or even who knows the answers, if anyone."

This does not inspire confidence. What is needed is candor-candor of the kind you used in one portion of your speech on October 7 (2002). Just two paragraphs before you claimed that Iraq is "reconstituting" its nuclear weapons program, you said, "Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem."

True, candor can weaken a case that one is trying to build. We are reminded of a remarkable sentence that leapt out of FBI Director Mueller's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 11 - a sentence that does actually parse, but nonetheless leaves one scratching one's head. Mueller: "The greatest threat is from al-Qaeda cells in the US that we have not yet identified."

This seems to be the tack that CIA Director Tenet is taking behind closed doors; i.e., the greatest threat from Iraq is the weapons we have not yet identified but believe are there.

It is not possible to end this section on hyperbole without giving Oscars to Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell, who have outdone themselves in their zeal to establish a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. You will recall that Rumsfeld described the evidence-widely recognized to be dubious-as "bulletproof," and Powell characterized the relationship as a "partnership!" Your assertion last evening that "the terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed" falls into the same category. We believe it far more likely that our country is in for long periods of red and orange color codes.

Half-Truth

Here we shall limit ourselves to one example, although the number that could be adduced is legion.

You may recall that a Cambridge University analyst recently revealed that a major portion of a British intelligence document on Iraq had been plagiarized from a term paper by a graduate student in California — information described by Secretary Powell to the UN Security Council as “exquisite” intelligence. That same analyst has now acquired from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the transcript of the debriefing of Iraqi Gen. Hussein Kamel, son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, who defected in 1995.

Kamel for ten years ran Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile development programs, and some of the information he provided has been highly touted by senior US policymakers, from the president on down. But the transcript reveals that Kamel also said that in 1991 Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. This part of the debriefing was suppressed until Newsweek ran a story on it on February 24, 2003.

We do not for a minute take all of what Kamel said at face value. Rather we believe the Iraqis retain some chemical and biological warfare capability. What this episode suggests, though, is a preference on the part of US officials to release only that information that supports the case they wish to make against Iraq.

In Sum

What conclusions can be drawn from the above? Simply that forgery, hyperbole, and half-truths provide a sandy foundation from which to launch a major war.

Equally important, there is danger in the temptation to let the conflict with Iraq determine our attitude toward the entire gamut of foreign threats with which you and your principal advisers need to be concerned. Threats to US security interests must be prioritized and judged on their own terms. In our judgment as intelligence professionals, there are two are real and present dangers today.

1 -- The upsurge in terrorism in the US and against American facilities and personnel abroad that we believe would inevitably flow from a US invasion of Iraq. Concern over this is particularly well expressed in the February 26 letter from FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley to Director Mueller, a letter well worth your study.


2 -- North Korea poses a particular danger, although what form this might take is hard to predict. Pyongyang sees itself as the next target of your policy of preemption and, as its recent actions demonstrate, will take advantage of US pre-occupation with Iraq both to strengthen its defenses and to test US and South Korean responses. Although North Korea is economically weak, its armed forces are huge, well armed, and capable. It is entirely possible that the North will decide to mount a provocation to test the tripwire provided by the presence of US forces in South Korea. Given the closeness of Seoul to the border with the North and the reality that North Korean conventional forces far outnumber those of the South, a North Korean adventure could easily force you to face an abrupt, unwelcome decision regarding the use of nuclear weapons—a choice that your predecessors took great pains to avoid.

We suggest strongly that you order the Intelligence Community to undertake, on an expedited basis, a Special National Intelligence Estimate on North Korea, and that you defer any military action against Iraq until you have had a chance to give appropriate weight to the implications of the challenge the US might face on the Korean peninsula.

/s/ Richard Beske, San Diego; Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe; William Christison, Santa Fe; Patrick Eddington, Alexandria, VA; Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA

Steering Group

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

More than two years later, nothing in that assessment provided to Mr. Bush by expert and patriotic civil servants is incorrect. At this point, I could easily divert to a hundred or more pages of accountings of just how precise the information provided to Mr. Bush on March 18, 2003, was. That is not the point of this primer. The point is, each of you reading this book had access to the facts presented to Mr. Bush. The point is millions of people throughout the world and, essentially, the entire United Nations told Mr. Bush and each and every one of us what we were about to do on March 18, 2003, was not just a mistake, but also a violation of international law with no basis in reality.

We, the people, had no clothes not just on March 20, 2003, when Mr. Bush invaded Iraq, but we had had our garments shredded long before that, as Congressman Ron Paul eloquently entered into the Congressional Record on September 8, 2005, from which I previously cited his comments.

Our complicity as non-diligent citizens was compounded after March 20, 2003 and has continued to the present. However, at least one group of American citizens has become a voice of reason, hope and unrelenting demand for accountability. By August of 2005, much more information has emerged further vindicating the expert advice offered to Mr. Bush and his administration in February and March of 2003 by the veteran intelligence professionals. In another memorandum to Mr. Bush, they summarize the horrific consequences of his unwillingness to represent the facts truthfully to the American public, and to act upon the truth rather than on his imperialistic agenda.

24 August 2005

Memorandum for: The President

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Subject: Recommendation: Try a Circle of "Wise Women"

By way of re-introduction, we begin with a brief reminder of the analyses we provided you before the attack on Iraq. On the afternoon of February 5, 2003, following Colin Powell's speech before the UN Security Council that morning, we sent you our critique of his attempt to make the case for war. (You may recall that we gave him an "A" for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq and a "C-" for providing context and perspective.)

Unlike Powell, we made no claim that our analysis was "irrefutable/undeniable." We did point out, though, that what he said fell far short of justification for war. We closed with these words: "We are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

To jog your memory further, the thrust of our next two pre-war memoranda can be gleaned from their titles: "Cooking Intelligence for War" (March 12) and "Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem" (March 18). When the war started, we reasoned at first that you might have been oblivious to our cautions. However, last spring's disclosures in the "Downing Street Memo" containing the official minutes of Tony Blair's briefing on July 23, 2002 - and the particularly the bald acknowledgement that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of war on Iraq - show that the White House was well aware of how the intelligence was being cooked. We write you now in the hope that the sour results of the recipe - the current bedlam in Iraq - will incline you to seek and ponder wider opinion this time around.

A Still Narrower Circle

With the departure of Colin Powell, your circle of advisers has shrunk rather than widened. The amateur architects of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seem still to have your ear. At a similar stage of the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson woke up to the fact that he had been poorly served by his principal advisers and quickly appointed an informal group of "wise men" to provide fresh insight and advice. It turned out to be one of the smartest things Johnson did. He was brought to realize that the US could not prevail in Vietnam; that he was finished politically; and that the US needed to move to negotiations with the Vietnamese "insurgents."

It is clear to those of us who witnessed at first hand the gross miscalculations on Vietnam that a similar juncture has now been reached on Iraq. We are astonished at the advice you have been getting - the vice president's recent assurance that the Iraqi resistance is "in its last throes," for example. (Shades of his assurances that US forces would be welcomed as "liberators" in Iraq.) And Secretary Rumsfeld's unreassuring reminders that "some things are unknowable" and the familiar bromide that "time will tell" are wearing thin. By now it is probably becoming clear to you that you need outside counsel.

The good news is that some help is on its way. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has taken the initiative to schedule a hearing on September 15, where knowledgeable specialists on various aspects of the situation in Iraq will present their views. Unfortunately, it appears that this opportunity to learn will fall short of the extremely informative bipartisan hearings led by Sen. William Fullbright on Vietnam. The refusal thus far of the House Republican leadership to make a suitable conference room available suggests that the Woolsey hearing, like the one led by Congressman John Conyers on June 16, will lack the kind of bipartisan support so necessary if one is to deal sensibly with the Iraq problem.

Meanwhile, we respectfully suggest that you could profit from the insights of the informal group of "wise women" right there in Crawford. You could hardly do better than to ride your bike down to Camp Casey. There you will find Gold Star mothers, Iraq (and Vietnam) war veterans, and others eager to share reality-based perspectives of the kind you are unlikely to hear from your small circle of yes-men and the yes-woman in Washington, none of whom have had direct experience of war. As you know, Cindy Sheehan has been waiting to get on your calendar. She is now back in Crawford and has resumed her Lazarus-at-the-Gate vigil in front of your ranch. We strongly suggest that you take time out from your vacation to meet with her and the other Gold Star mothers when you get back to Crawford later this week. This would be a useful way for you to acquire insight into the many shades of gray between the blacks and whites of Iraq, and to become more sensitized to the indignities that so often confound and infuriate the mothers, fathers, wives, and other relatives of soldiers killed and wounded there.

Names and Faces

Here are the names, ages, and hometowns of the eight soldiers, including Casey Sheehan, killed in the ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004:

Specialist Robert R. Arsiaga, 25, San Antonio, Texas
Specialist Ahmed A. Cason, 24, McCalla, Alabama
Sergeant Yihjyh L. Chen, 31, Saipan, Marianas
Specialist Israel Garza, 25, Lubbock, Texas
Specialist Stephen D. Hiller, 25, Opelika, Alabama
Corporal Forest J. Jostes, 22, Albion, Illinois
Sergeant Michael W. Mitchell, 25, Porterville, California
Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, 24, Vacaville, California

Mike Mitchell's father, Bill, has been camped out for two weeks with Cindy Sheehan and others a short bike ride from your place. They have a lot of questions - big and small. You are aware of the big ones: In what sense were the deaths of Casey, Mike Mitchell and the others "worth it?" In what sense is the continued occupation of Iraq a "noble cause?" No doubt you have been given talking points on those. But the time has passed for sound bites and rhetoric. We are suggesting something much more real - and private.

Questions

There are less ambitious - one might call them more tactical - questions that are also accompanied by a lot of pain and frustration. Those eight fine soldiers were killed by forces loyal to the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shia cleric with a militant following, particularly in Baghdad's impoverished suburbs. The ambush was part of a violent uprising resulting from US Ambassador Paul Bremer's decision to close down Al Hawza, al-Sadr's newspaper, on March 28, 2004.

And not only that. A senior aide of al-Sadr was arrested by US forces on April 3. The following day al-Sadr ordered his followers to "terrorize" occupation forces and this sparked the deadly street battles, including the ambush. Also on April 4, Bremer branded al-Sadr an "outlaw" and coalition spokesman Dan Senior said coalition forces planned to arrest him as well. In sum, before one can begin to understand the grief of Cindy, Bill, and the relatives of the other six soldiers killed, you need to know - as they do - what else was going on April 4, 2004.

You may wish to come prepared to answer specific questions like the following:

1. Closing down newspapers and arresting key opposition figures seem a strange way to foster democracy. Please explain. And how could Ambassador Bremer possibly have thought that al-Sadr would simply acquiesce?

2. Muqtada al-Sadr seems to have landed on his feet. At this point, he and other Shiite clerics appear on the verge of imposing an Islamic state with Shariah law and a very close relationship with Iran. With this kind of prospect, can you feel the frustration of Gold Star mothers when the extremist ultimately responsible for their sons' deaths assumes a leadership role in the new Iraq? Can you understand their strong wish to prevent the sacrifice of still more of our children for such dubious purpose?

Perhaps you will have good answers to these and other such questions. Good answers or no, we believe a quiet, respectful session with the wise women and perhaps others at your doorstep would give you valuable new insights into the ironic conundrums and human dimensions of the war in Iraq.

A member of our Steering Committee, Ann Wright, has been on site at Camp Casey from the outset and would be happy to facilitate such a session. A veteran Army colonel (and also a senior Foreign Service officer until she resigned in protest over the attack on Iraq), Ann has been keeping Camps Casey I and II running in a good-neighborly, orderly way. She is well known to your Secret Service agents, who can lead you to her. We strongly urge you not to miss this opportunity.

/s/ Gene Betit, Arlington, Virginia; Sibel Edmonds, Alexandria, Virginia; Larry Johnson, Bethesda, Maryland; David MacMichael, Linden, Virginia; Ray McGovern, Arlington, Virginia; Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, Minnesota; Ann Wright, Honolulu, Hawaii

Steering Group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Indeed, additional expert signatories have joined the veteran intelligence group compared to the 2003 letters to Mr. Bush, and much else has changed. In this letter we see reference to the “Downing Street Memo”, a document not available to the public in 2003. We didn’t need it in 2003 to know that Mr. Bush had no case for invading and occupying Iraq, but once it was leaked and published by Michael Smith in the Sunday Times (UK) on May 1, 2005, the entire world became aware of the collusion of British and American senior government executives to “fix the intelligence and facts around the policy”. In other words, Bush was planning to invade and occupy Iraq irrespective of the lack of any legitimate reason for doing so, and he and his associates would continue to do whatever it took to make it appear their actions were justified.

That sham is now fully exposed, but, in returning to the thesis of this primer, how many of you before reading this pamphlet were already aware of these facts? How many of you, prior to now, have read the leaked “Downing Street Memo”? How many of you are going to stay engaged and demand accountability each step of the way, when failure to do so is likely to mean more unnecessary killing and pillaging?

We need to be much more inquisitive, and we should not allow any future President or Congress to act unless it is truly on our behalf and based on truth and decency.

That being said, let’s continue building the case as to why any other approach to our government is unacceptable.

Link to a free download of the entire pamphlet:

http://missionnotaccomplished.us/WTPv17n.pdf

Cheney, of course, will continue to lie until he is forced to plea-bargain. That can't happen soon enough.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

1. Dana Milbank: "It was about as close as the vice president gets to ...

Opening the Door to Debate, and Then Shutting It

By Dana Milbank

Tuesday, November 22, 2005; Page A04

Vice President Cheney protested yesterday that he had been misunderstood when he said last week that critics of the White House over Iraq were "dishonest and reprehensible."

What he meant to say, he explained to his former colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, was that those who question the White House's use of prewar intelligence were not only "dishonest and reprehensible" but also "corrupt and shameless."

It was about as close as the vice president gets to a retraction.

Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/21/AR2005112101375.html

Talk about projection ....


Peace.

[wtbymark]

2. a 12 page post?!?!?!?!

holy crap, a little night reading? lol

[understandinglife]

3. "a little night reading"!! Yes, and hopefully it won't put you to sleep ..

... faster than otherwise ;)

Feel free to download the entire pamphlet and print it; might be easier.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

4. Have received word from the graphics artists who created the cover ...

... that they expect to have the typeset layout of the pamphlet in draft form shortly.

So, we continue to make progress regarding having it published, especially since a significant amount of the expense of publication has been eliminated.

I'll post a link to the "publication ready" version as soon as it is available.


Peace.