Ex-CIA Officer Blasts Premise for Iraq War
A Central Intelligence Agency veteran is traveling the country on a mission to explain what he calls "prostituted intelligence" crafted at the request of the Bush administration to induce Congress into approving the war in Iraq.
Ray McGovern, 65, who served under seven presidents and retired in 1990 as a CIA senior analyst, spoke to University of Missouri-Columbia students.
"I am here because of dangerous signs that the intelligence process is corrupted," McGovern told a foreign policy class yesterday.
A soft-spoken connoisseur of Russian poetry, McGovern resembles an art professor. People often tell him he doesn’t look like a spy. Yet he prepared daily CIA briefings for the president and oversaw work on the so-called national intelligence estimates.
McGovern describes himself as a conservative but is a harsh critic of the Bush administration.
"These people are dangerous ideologues," McGovern said. He likened the White House top staffers to "the terrible, impractical people" of the Soviet era with a narrow-minded view of the world. "If there is no more four years for them, whoever comes in, it couldn’t possibly be any worse," he said.
Drawing on statements by members of the Bush administration in 2001 and 2002 as well as conversations with intelligence colleagues, McGovern said war in Iraq was predetermined with George W. Bush’s entry to office.
McGovern cited a February 2001 speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Five months later, Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor, also said Iraq’s military capability had not been rebuilt.
So in 2002, when Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction came up as a major threat, "we were shocked," said McGovern, who is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a not-for-profit group of former intelligence workers. "We smelled something very fishy."
Until the administration needed to convince Congress to vote for the war, McGovern said, there was no national intelligence estimate on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The conclusions had already been reached when then-CIA Director George Tenet assigned his staff to do the analysis, he said.
"In my days," if the director told staff members at the CIA to prepare a study with certain conclusions, "we would have laughed and said, ‘You’re kidding,’ " McGovern said. "This is an unforgivable sin in intelligence."
McGovern describes the U.S. justification for war in Iraq with the acronym OIL - oil, Israel and logistics.
America needs more oil, McGovern said, and instead of focusing on alternative energy, the administration chose to invade Iraq, which has the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world.
The Iraq occupation also was meant to make Israel safer, McGovern said, and some members of the Bush administration tend to confuse U.S. strategic interests with those of Israel.
That’s partly why war is bound to continue, he said. If America withdraws its troops, there would be a major terrorist threat to the area.
As for logistics, McGovern cites the administration’s plans to have a long-term presence in the Middle East, specifically, 14 military bases in Iraq.
Despite Bush’s insistence that a draft will not be revived and a recent congressional vote against reinstating a draft, McGovern believes a successful occupation of Iraq is bound to require hundreds of thousands of troops. "My grandson will be 18 the 15th of June, and I fear what he might be subjected to," he said.
Alex Yalen, a 22-year-old journalism senior who heard McGovern’s lecture, described it as "typical socialist garbage" and said he didn’t believe the former CIA analyst is indeed a conservative.
"I didn’t hear anything I didn’t expect to hear," said Yalen, who nevertheless said he is opposed to the war in Iraq and cannot stand Bush. His sore point was the inclusion of Israel in McGovern’s war acronym.
Yalen, who is Jewish, said politicians for decades have been blaming "the nearest minority, specifically Jews."
McGovern said he is not anti-Semitic but the tensions in the Middle East and the role of Israel need an honest discussion. He told the Tribune such a discussion has been ongoing in the Israeli press but remains stymied here.
Another student, who said he serves in the military and declined to give his name, said the class was "a really good lecture" and asked McGovern about becoming a CIA employee.
McGovern faced a number of critical questions yesterday in class. Assistant professor of political science Joseph Hewitt said his students are evenly divided along political lines. They benefited not only from interacting "with a person with intimate knowledge of the intelligence process," Hewitt said, but from hearing "reasonable criticism of the way the Bush administration proceeded to war."
MIGLENA STERNADORI of the Tribune’s staff
Published Saturday, October 16, 2004
Ray McGovern, 65, who served under seven presidents and retired in 1990 as a CIA senior analyst, spoke to University of Missouri-Columbia students.
"I am here because of dangerous signs that the intelligence process is corrupted," McGovern told a foreign policy class yesterday.
A soft-spoken connoisseur of Russian poetry, McGovern resembles an art professor. People often tell him he doesn’t look like a spy. Yet he prepared daily CIA briefings for the president and oversaw work on the so-called national intelligence estimates.
McGovern describes himself as a conservative but is a harsh critic of the Bush administration.
"These people are dangerous ideologues," McGovern said. He likened the White House top staffers to "the terrible, impractical people" of the Soviet era with a narrow-minded view of the world. "If there is no more four years for them, whoever comes in, it couldn’t possibly be any worse," he said.
Drawing on statements by members of the Bush administration in 2001 and 2002 as well as conversations with intelligence colleagues, McGovern said war in Iraq was predetermined with George W. Bush’s entry to office.
McGovern cited a February 2001 speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Five months later, Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor, also said Iraq’s military capability had not been rebuilt.
So in 2002, when Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction came up as a major threat, "we were shocked," said McGovern, who is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a not-for-profit group of former intelligence workers. "We smelled something very fishy."
Until the administration needed to convince Congress to vote for the war, McGovern said, there was no national intelligence estimate on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The conclusions had already been reached when then-CIA Director George Tenet assigned his staff to do the analysis, he said.
"In my days," if the director told staff members at the CIA to prepare a study with certain conclusions, "we would have laughed and said, ‘You’re kidding,’ " McGovern said. "This is an unforgivable sin in intelligence."
McGovern describes the U.S. justification for war in Iraq with the acronym OIL - oil, Israel and logistics.
America needs more oil, McGovern said, and instead of focusing on alternative energy, the administration chose to invade Iraq, which has the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world.
The Iraq occupation also was meant to make Israel safer, McGovern said, and some members of the Bush administration tend to confuse U.S. strategic interests with those of Israel.
That’s partly why war is bound to continue, he said. If America withdraws its troops, there would be a major terrorist threat to the area.
As for logistics, McGovern cites the administration’s plans to have a long-term presence in the Middle East, specifically, 14 military bases in Iraq.
Despite Bush’s insistence that a draft will not be revived and a recent congressional vote against reinstating a draft, McGovern believes a successful occupation of Iraq is bound to require hundreds of thousands of troops. "My grandson will be 18 the 15th of June, and I fear what he might be subjected to," he said.
Alex Yalen, a 22-year-old journalism senior who heard McGovern’s lecture, described it as "typical socialist garbage" and said he didn’t believe the former CIA analyst is indeed a conservative.
"I didn’t hear anything I didn’t expect to hear," said Yalen, who nevertheless said he is opposed to the war in Iraq and cannot stand Bush. His sore point was the inclusion of Israel in McGovern’s war acronym.
Yalen, who is Jewish, said politicians for decades have been blaming "the nearest minority, specifically Jews."
McGovern said he is not anti-Semitic but the tensions in the Middle East and the role of Israel need an honest discussion. He told the Tribune such a discussion has been ongoing in the Israeli press but remains stymied here.
Another student, who said he serves in the military and declined to give his name, said the class was "a really good lecture" and asked McGovern about becoming a CIA employee.
McGovern faced a number of critical questions yesterday in class. Assistant professor of political science Joseph Hewitt said his students are evenly divided along political lines. They benefited not only from interacting "with a person with intimate knowledge of the intelligence process," Hewitt said, but from hearing "reasonable criticism of the way the Bush administration proceeded to war."
MIGLENA STERNADORI of the Tribune’s staff
Published Saturday, October 16, 2004
posted by R7 | 10/16/2004 07:54:00 PM
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