It is as though I’m back as an analyst at the CIA, trying to estimate the chances of an attack on Iran. The putative attacker, though, happens to be our own president.
It is precisely the kind of work we analysts used to do. And, while it is still a bit jarring to be turning our analytical tools on the U.S. leadership, it is by no means entirely new. For, of necessity, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been doing that for almost six years now—ever since 9/11, when “everything changed.”
Of necessity? Yes, because, with very few exceptions, American journalists put their jobs at grave risk if they expose things like fraudulent wars.
The craft of CIA analysis was designed to be an all-source operation, meaning that we analysts were responsible—and held accountable—for assimilating information from all sources and coming to judgments on what it all meant. We used data of various kinds, from the most sophisticated technical collection platforms, to spies, to—not least—open media.
Here I must reveal a trade secret and risk puncturing the mystique of intelligence analysis. Generally speaking, 80 percent of the information one needs to form judgments on key intelligence targets or issues is available in open media. It helps to have been trained—as my contemporaries and I had the good fortune to be trained—by past masters of the discipline of media analysis, which began in a structured way in targeting Japanese and German media in the 1940s. But, truth be told, anyone with a high school education can do it. It is not rocket science.
Reporting From Informants The above is in no way intended to minimize the value of intelligence collection by CIA case officers recruiting and running clandestine agents. For, though small in percentage of the whole nine yards available to be analyzed, information from such sources can often make a crucial contribution. Consider, for example, the daring recruitment in mid-2002 of Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who was successfully “turned” into working for the CIA and quickly established his credibility. Sabri told us there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
My former colleagues, perhaps a bit naively, were quite sure this would come as a welcome relief to President George W. Bush and his advisers. Instead, they were told that the White House had no further interest in reporting from Sabri; rather, that the issue was not really WMD, it was “regime change.” (Don’t feel embarrassed if you did not know this; although it is publicly available, our corporate- owned, war profiteering media has largely suppressed this key story.)
One former colleague, operations officer-par-excellence Robert Baer, now reports (in this week’s Time) that, according to his sources, the Bush/Cheney administration is winding up for a strike on Iran;” that the administration’s plan to put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list points in the direction of such a strike; and that the delusional “neo-conservative” thinking that still guides White House policy concludes that such an attack would lead to the fall of the clerics and the rise of a more friendly Iran.
Hold on, it gets even worse: Baer’s sources tell him that administration officials are thinking “as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
Rove and Snow: Going Wobbly? Our VIPS colleague Phil Geraldi, writing in The American Conservative, earlier noted that in the past Karl Rove has served as a counterweight to Vice President Dick Cheney, and may have tried to put the brakes on Cheney’s death wish to expand the Middle East quagmire to Iran. And former Pentagon officer, retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the most devoted neo-cons just before the attack on Iraq, has put into words (on LewRockwell.com) speculation several of us have been indulging in with respect to Rove’s departure.
In short, it seems possible that Rove, who is no one’s dummy and would not want to be required to “spin” an unnecessary war on Iran, may have lost the battle with Cheney over the merits of a military strike on Iran, and only then decided—or was urged—to spend more time with his family. As for administration spokesperson Tony Snow, it seems equally possible that, before deciding he had to leave the White House to make more money, he concluded that his stomach could not withstand the challenge of conjuring up yet another Snow job to explain why Bush/Cheney needed to attack Iran. There is recent precedent for this kind of thing.
We now know that it was because former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld went wobbly on the Iraq war—as can be seen in his Nov. 6, 2006 memo to the president—that Rumsfeld was canned. (That was the day BEFORE the election.) In that memo, Rumsfeld called for a “major adjustment” in war policy. And so, Robert Gates, who had been waiting in the wings, was called to Crawford, given the test for malleability, hired, and dispatched by the president immediately to Iraq to weigh in heavily with the most senior U.S. generals (Abizaid and Casey). They had been saying, quite openly, Please, please; no more troops; a surge would simply give the Iraqis still more time and opportunity to diddle us while American troops continue to die. So much for the president always listening to his senior military commanders. And the bug of reality was infecting even Rumsfeld.
In his memo to the president, Rumsfeld suggested that U.S. generals “withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions—cities, patrolling, etc.,” and move troops to Kuwait to serve as a Quick Reaction Force. Bush, of course, chose to do just the opposite.
Our domesticated press has not yet been able to put two and two together on this story, so it has been left to investigative reporters like Robert Parry to do so. In his Aug. 17 essay, “Rumsfeld’s Mysterious Resignation,” Parry closes with this:
“The touchy secret about Rumsfeld’s departure seems to have been that Bush didn’t want the American people to know that one of the chief Iraq War architects had turned against the idea of an open-ended military commitment – and that Bush had found himself with no choice but to oust Rumsfeld for his loss of faith in the neoconservative cause.”
Granted, it is speculative that similar factors, this time with respect to war planning for Iran, were at work in the decisions on the departure of Rove and Snow. Someone ought to ask them.
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).
I've been saying that this administration is going to attack Iran, no matter what the situation. People have been calling this assumption crazy because of the mess we've currently in and it would be insane to do such.
Well, as Mr. McGovern has pointed out we're not talking about sane people here.
This administration will attack Iran. It will throw the world into a tailspin we'll never pull out of. The next few years, and I don't mean to sound melodramatic, might indeed be the last our species will see on this planet because if we don't do something to stop this madness, this madness will stop us.
GENERAL STRIKE SEPT. 11th - NO work - NO buying - Bring this country to a standstill! It might be the last chance we'll have to stop the madness.
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Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 1024 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 11:05:42 AM
The lunatics run from the insanity of the loony bin
"In short, it seems a good bet that Rove, who is no one’s dummy and would not want to have to “spin” an unnecessary war on Iran, lost the battle with Cheney over the merits of a military strike on Iran, and only then decided to spend more time with his family."
This is disturbing -- that perhaps Rove left because it's gotten too corrupt and insane even for him. (It's like the scenes in Oliver where Fagin is alarmed by the criminality and violence of Bill Sykes.)
Tony Snow is also scheduled to live -- he says for "financial reasons", and that he will leave when his money runs out. Money runs out from what? Health care expenses for his cancer? But where could one better be with serious health expenses than in the White House? He could get better insurance somewhere else? How does this add up?
Do chickenhawks come home to roost, or do they start devouring the other chickenhawks? Remember those scenes in the BBC's 'I Claudius' when all the Senators ran away from Caligula when he really thought he was a God (a rather capricious one)? Take Ray's advice and see "Dangers of a Cornered George Bush"!
The warp core is going to breech, Captain, and there's nothing I can do about it -- I kenna change the laws of physics!
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Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 1:19:59 PM
Rove left because it's gotten too corrupt and insane even for him.
An excellent point you make Blue Pilgrim. And as Mr. McGovern stated, attacking Iran would be crazy.
It was around this time last year when a friend and I had the pleasure of listening to both Mr. McGovern and former Weapons Inspector, Scott Ritter speak at an open forum in Warrington, PA. At the time Mr. McGovern and many in the audience including myself, firmly believed that this Bush Cheney cabal would attack Iran before to the November 06 election. Thus far they haven't, but I sincerely believe that in the near future, especially with Iraq in a total shambles, they'll strike Iran. It will indeed be crazy. And again Blue Pilgrim, your point has to make one wonder as to why Rove really left? It wasn't because he was afraid of subpoenas.
Either way, it's now out of our hands. I don't think we have any control over whether or not this craven cowboy and Dr. Evil decide to attack Iran. Not unless Congress can stop them? I don't see that happening.
One can only hope that if and when the order is given to strike, someone with enough testicle fortitude and common sense will refuse to obey the command. Otherwise, Iran would be the next stop on Bush's Axis of Evil Tour, and the entire Middle East will become one huge battlefield. And I'm sure that both China and Russia would'nt just sit back and watch this sensless debacle unfold without joining in the mix?
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. They'd better!
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Munich (0 articles, 44 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 641 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 6:19:49 PM
Ray McGovern, as ever, is again correct. On every front. Including the one that about ordinary people being able to glean intelligence from the news. Many bloggers and article writers all over the internet have claimed again and again, based on their news junkie status that the idiot commander in chief would do it. On a recent comment I wrote on the subject of Bush's brain, Karl Rove, leaving I said I felt that Cheney pushed him out and now has complete control over Bush's brain and that we would now attack Iran. The lamestream media is so totally irrelevant now, clowns performing in fake, "This just in," self-important glitzy newsrooms with huge screens and interviews on non-issues, displaying absolutely no understanding of what is happening in the world. The right wing radio screech artists know more. They just lie about it. But the people who really know and understand what the real issues are AND tell the truth about are on the internet news pages just like this one.
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Sheila Jackson (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 137 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 3:03:25 PM
I'd been kinda hoping they wouldn't dare press this attack. That the realities of expanding the present theatre would prove counterproductive. Iranians would never see this as anything other than a western imperialist attack. I'm started to be more convinced of Bush's 'endoftimes' religiousity.
There should be widespread doubt about any report that issues from our intelligence community as Bush, Cheney, Rove had been fairly successful in politicizing those departments. The fact that the 'NIE report was sent back four times' should be telling. Every report we get these days is that the administration doesn't accept any official report that doesn't have a pro Bush policy spin to its pitch. Case in point: the CIA report that faults George Tenet with the terror attacks of 9/11 even though Tenet told the 9/11 Commission that he told Condoleeza Rice in a meeting in July of 2001 of the danger of an imminent Al Qaeda attack... as did Richard Clark who gave her a detailed report.... both of them completely ignored by Rice. But of course that will never make the history books because its not from a government stationary.
Reports by any component of this administration is to be suspect. Most of the credibility in Washington, or in Langley has dripped away with the influx of Bush's political appointments.
And with it, any chance of sane, rational assessments.
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chariotdrvr14 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 125 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 5:10:47 PM
I don't believe any of these idealogs have 'left'. I do believe they know what is in store if they (their movement, so to speak) lose. They are all guilty of treason. That rats benefit not at all from jumping ship and they are all so guilty, characterizing it as 'jumping' is, I believe, misleading.
No, I think the reasons are more obtuse. But still strategic from the neocon point of view. And I believe they will 'do' Iran but only because the options they may take are becoming more limited. Now or never, don ya know.
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richard (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 650 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 9:30:39 PM
Patrick Clawson is currently the Deputy Director for Research of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and senior editor of Middle East Quarterly.
He is also the one on this broadcast (listen or download): Case for a war against Iran : Debate with George Galloway (and others) on Radio 4's Hecklers show Wednesday 15 August 2007.
Clawson is smart, smooth, and a lunatic. It's scary listening to him. He puts together what sounds at first as if perhaps it made some sort of sense -- but it doesn't when you think about what he says, and it's utterly devoid of morality. It reminded me of listening to Hannibal Lector. (And he thinks Iran is irrational and dangerous?!)
These are the sorts of people who are running this country. :-{
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Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 11:11:26 PM
For if this administration attacks Iran most if not all oil will cease to flow from the Middle East. And with this latest stock market situtation, the United States could see a collapse. It'll be anarchy, with every family and community for themselves. Bush will then declare a state of emergency and implement full scaled Martial Law in the United States.
The insanity must stop! This isn't the America our Founding Fathers fought and died for.
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Munich (0 articles, 44 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 641 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 12:15:11 AM
Besides thinking they wouldn't do anything that crazy, the public also isn't that concerned.
They just assume that like all wars we've fought after World War II, an attack on Iran would have little effect on our shores.
An attack on Iran must be framed as a threat to our economy. Disruption in oil supplies could lead to Depression-level (25%) unemployment.
In other words, if I stand by and let the administration attack Iran, I could lose my job.
One more call to my representative and senators urging them to not to grant authorization to the administration to attack Iran might not help. But it couldn't hurt. I'll do that today (for the umpteenth time).
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Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 7:47:32 AM
Now we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. Iraq the new Viet Nam, the issue Conservatives and Republicans have used to betray democracy and turn America into a Militaristic Plutocracy. According to the RIGHT, all our problems can be traced to the lefts cowardly retreat from Viet Nam. Millions of people died before, during and after the war, but those killed after America left, most concern the RIGHT. They say, “The Left is responsible for our humiliating defeat, and the loss of millions people killed in Cambodia.”
Never mind the millions killed during the war.
Since when has the RIGHT been concerned about the deaths of a few million people? Aggression and militarism always appeal to some people, that’s the way they conduct their own lives. Might makes right and they’ve got the money to prove it. Might does not make Right. The powerful oppressing the weak does not make Right. We all know that, but the Militaristic Plutocracy that rules America has a different point of view, and most of the wealth and power in America. And they use that wealth and power to dictate what we hear and see on TV. They have their tentacles into government, media and religion. That’s called control.
Some Americans are unable to see they are being controlled, some welcome control as long as it suits their personality, but there are others who resent being controlled by people who don’t care if our families starve to death. Both of our political parties have the used the bugaboo of socialism/communism and now terrorism to feed the Military Industrial Complex, owned by our Militaristic Plutocracy. That’s how our stupid and corrupt economic system and government works, everything else is fluff.
Maybe we’ll never be free of somebody’s control, but shouldn’t we at least try to understand that someone IS controlling us, and take just a moment to think for ourselves.
War is sometimes inevitable, but wars of aggression as our reason to be, is insane.
What we should have learned from Viet Nam is to question our leaders whenever they start beating the war drums. They don’t represent the people, and they lie, lie, lie.
Of all the presidential candidates, Dennis Kucinich is the least favored by our Militaristic Plutocracy.
.
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rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 7:57:33 AM
As the means of communication shifts to fewer and fewer hands then it stands to reason that the flow of information is there to serve narrower and narrower interests....i.e., Murdoch, Disney, Sony. The aggressiveness of youth culture unintentionally being hyped to promote a militarist state of mind. More and more tv shows and movies are being underwritten and "advised" by the Pentagon to make you think that war and militarism is the natural state of things or is somehow cool. Eventually military chic will be so integral in youth culture that when they suggest bringing back the draft.... it's possible no one raises a fuss. Their hope anyway.
The Left wasn't wrong about Vietnam nor were the hippies weren't wrong about peace and love but just failed to recognise the resilience of the Right. The far right and christian extremists have been using the tactics they learned from the left to build an enormous conservative base which they could do handily with the massive funding from their ideological sympathicos in the corporate and political elite.
Anyway....it's distressing to see the control they exert the flow of information and in regards to Iraq,
My impression is they don't want to give up sitting on top of the world's largest oil supplies. And the fight for oil (as it's running out) is just warming up. Hence, their absurd clinging to the justifications of not just staying in Iraq but even using the same ridiculous PNAC pre Iraq invasion theory that an attack on Iran would result in us being viewed as 'liberators'. An idea long discredited.
As I sat up last night with the BBC news coverage the Bush's latest speech to a gathering of veterans "that a free Iraq is just within reach" and then went to contradict what his administration had been denying for the last 5 years... was a comparison of Iraq to the Vietnam war. It was a blatant act of Newspeak like ".....Oceana has always been war with Eurasia!". A shifting of the perception of history as if no one had seen them move the chess pieces. And while the mainstream media in the US doesn't appear to be calling them on it I think the post-Blair british are almost laughing at the naked emperor; they used a picture of Bush for this report that gave the impression of a frail, nervous, desperate psychopath... a shifty eyed card cheat.
Btw...it's disheartening to see the powers that be so effectly blackballing Dennis Kucinich and hyping Hillary Clinton. At times it's as if they've already made their minds up who the next president will be. The ABC.com site has been heavily censoring their polls one minute Kucinich getting high ratings and comments and the next minute nothing and even being cropped out of images that he earlier was in.
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chariotdrvr14 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 125 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 10:08:45 AM
