You have said you regret the "blot" on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.
If you were blindsided, well, here's an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damn spot...or blot.
It has always strained credulity, at least as far as I was concerned, to accept the notion that naiveté prevented you from seeing through the game Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet were playing on Iraq.
And I was particularly suspicious when you chose to ignore the strong dissents of your own State Department intelligence analysts who, as you know, turned out to be far more on target than counterparts in more servile agencies.
It was equally difficult for me to believe that you thought that, by insisting that shameless George Tenet sit behind you on camera, you could ensure a modicum of truth in your speech before the U.N. Security Council. You were far savvier than that.
That is certainly the impression I got from our every-other-morning conversations in the mid-80s, before I went in to brief the President's Daily Brief to your boss, then-Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, one-on-one.
I saw the street smarts you displayed then. The savvy was familiar to me. I concluded that it came, in part, from the two decades you and I spent growing up in the same neighborhood at the same time in the Bronx.
On those Bronx streets, rough as they were, there was also a strong sense of what was honorable -honorable even among thieves and liars, you might say. And we had words, which I will not repeat here, for sycophants, pimps, and cowards.
Your U.N. speech of Feb. 5, 2003 left me speechless, so to speak - largely because of the measure of respect I had had for you before then.
Outrage is too tame a word for what quickly became my reaction and that of my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), as we watched you perform before the Security Council less than six weeks before the unnecessary, illegal attack on Iraq.
The purpose - as well as the speciousness - of your address were all too transparent and, in a same-day commentary, we VIPS warned President George W. Bush that, if he attacked Iraq, "the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."
That's history. Or, as investigative reporter Ron Suskind would say, "It's all on the record."
You have not yet summoned the courage to admit it, but I think I know you well enough to believe you have a Lady Macbeth-type conscience problem that goes far beyond the spot on your record.
With 4,141 American soldiers - not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens - dead, and over 30,000 GIs badly wounded, how could you not?
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for 27 years, and is now on the Steering Group of (more...)
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Like the kind you get if a friend wins a coveted prize--writing, peace, or any good kind. Ray McGovern is a name I've responded to for such a long time. Gentle persuasion, good writing and personal commitment are something to like.
However, to read a letter so intimate from one associate (friend) to another while knowing that it would be widely read just shows that "openness" has a way of transcending everyday arguments involving interminable political struggles. As I read, I saw Secretary Powell sitting in the hot seat at the UN meeting, and I also remember reading all about the Drumheller report, and then came James Risen's book to tell us more about US Intelligence in the 21st century.
The "if you break it, you'll buy it" quote from the Woodward book hung over everything.
But when all was finished, I thought the case was made. Colin Powell is an intelligent observer of world affairs. He will come to take that role again if we welcome him back.
Thanks for giving of yourself, Ray McGovern.
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Margaret Bassett (45 articles, 2909 quicklinks, 42 diaries, 1851 comments [99 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 at 4:14:10 PM
I also found this to be informative and sad, vividly remembering Colin Powell's testimony at the U.N. about WMD and trusting him...
How can we trust anyone in our government when our Congress will not even hold open inpartial impeachment hearings on the list of high crime charges commited by the Bush/Cheney administration while the main stream media refuses to do honest investigations and reports? Don't the resulting lives lost and human suffering deserve more careful consideration?
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Hubert Steed (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 84 comments [10 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Aug 16, 2008 at 4:42:53 PM
Thank you Ray McGovern! You have been there, consistently, but this is a particularly superb offering.
Colin Powell is a particularly "High Value" potential witness for Truth. There are too few of those among the ones who have ever joined or been in the administration's *crew* who have everhad enough integrity or honor (once *that's* being seen close up) to become repulsed by *it* sooner or later, and then to leave, unable to support anyone or anything that stems from *there*.
Colin Powell, right now, knows the enormity and graveness of the difference it would make to the 300 million+ people in this country, as well as everyone and every living thing around this world, to halt Bush and Cheney et al, in their tracks, right now, and thereby prevent exploding the rest of the Middle East or anywhere else into conflagration, nuclear detonation, radiation, mass death and destruction............ ---and all the rippling, expanding consequences stemming from there.........
He knows how QUICKLY dual impeachment could actually be accomplished, what with knowing how clear cut and evident the Truth would be, how evident that Truth would be KNOWN to be, coming, even now, from himself, in particular.
Colin Powell now knows that information is clearly available that would "absolve" him, legislators, and any others who were not key players 'in the loop', of informed complicity........
Colin Powell knows what a difference it would make to remove all the ongoing present plethora of threat of false flags and other unnessary disasters, all and each driving the default companion threat of "martial law", calling off our "elections", throwing away our Constitution, and all the derailing, devolving, desecrative course of ripples extending downward from there............
Did/does Colin Powell dream of being one of those "elite"? Is being True to "elite criminals" more important than being True to Truth and Honor? Is being True to "elite criminals" more important than bearing True faith and allegiance to the Constitution? More important than honoring the oath and duty to support, protect and defend the constitution? Is Colin Powell actually one of those who supports things like "culling" humanity? Reverse Robinhood? Does he wish to "live" by a ticket for underground? Is his hide more important than the fate of many millions? How many millions dying and suffering are enough to be as important as one Colin Powell?
How many could actually think that a "ticket" underground in *their* world could lead to anything good, much less to anything worth living through?
Colin Powell is not the only such particularly "High Value" potential witness for Truth.
It is TIME, right NOW, for all honorable beings to step up to the plate! No more Time To Pause! NOW!
You'll hate it later, if later, you find out its then, too late!
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