On March 25, 1968, Johnson complained to a small gathering of confidants:
“The leaks to the New York Times hurt us...We have no support for the war...I would have given Westy the 206,000 men.”
Moral to the story: patriotic truth telling can prevent wider wars. Please take heed, those of you privy to plans for expanding the war in Iraq into Iran or elsewhere.
Spinning Hope
There will be lots of spin in Washington these next few weeks, and “hope” will be the byword. In his August 28 speech on Iraq, the president set the tone:
“All these development are hopeful — they’re hopeful for Iraq, and they’re hopeful for the Middle East, and they’re hopeful for peace”
Bush goes on to mention that Gen. Petraeus will be heard from shortly. Indeed, over the past several weeks, the president has been punctuating virtually every other public sentence with “Gen. Petraeus” or “David.” It is as though Bush is expecting what might be called a “Petraeus ex machina” to extricate himself from the deep hole Cheney and he have dug together.
The spinning will only succeed if Congress is blinded by the nine rows of campaign medals and ribbons on Petraeus’ chest, forgets about the Shanks in our Army and Marines, and allows itself to be taken in by the new Westmoreland.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his 27-years as a CIA analyst, he chaired NIEs: he is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
