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Now
It’s Your Turn
Intelligence
Veterans Challenge Colleagues to Speak Out
by
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
August
23, 2003
MEMORANDUM
FOR: Colleagues in Intelligence
FROM:
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT:
Now It’s Your Turn
Sixty-four
summers ago, when Hitler fabricated Polish provocations in his attempt to
justify Germany’s invasion of Poland, there was not a peep out of senior German
officials. Happily, in today’s Germany the imperative of truth telling no
longer takes a back seat to ingrained docility and knee-jerk deference to the
perceived dictates of “homeland security.” The most telling recent sign of this
comes in today’s edition of Die Zeit, Germany’s highly respected weekly. The
story, by Jochen Bittner holds lessons for us all.
Die
Zeit’s report leaves in tatters the “evidence” cited by Secretary of State
Colin Powell and other administration spokesmen as the strongest proof that Iraq
was using mobile trailers as laboratories to produce material for biological
weapons.
German
Intelligence on Powell’s “Solid” Sources
Bittner
notes that, like their American counterparts, German intelligence officials had
to hold their noses as Powell on February 5 at the UN played fast and loose
with intelligence he insisted came from “solid sources.” Powell’s specific
claims concerning the mobile laboratories, it turns out, depended
heavily—perhaps entirely—on a source of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND),
Germany’s equivalent to the CIA. But the BND, it turns out, considered the
source in no way “solid.” A “senior German security official” told Die Zeit
that, in passing the report to US officials, the Germans made a point of noting
“various problems with the source.” In more diplomatic language, Die Zeit’s
informant indicated that the BND’s “evaluation of the source was not altogether
positive.”
German
officials remain in some confusion regarding the “four different sources” cited
by Powell in presenting his case regarding the “biological laboratories.”
Berlin has not been told who the other three sources are. In this context, a
German intelligence officer mentioned that there is always the danger of false
confirmation, suggesting it is possible that the various reports can be traced
back to the same original source, theirs—that is, the one with which the
Germans had “various problems.”
Even
if there are in fact multiple sources, the Germans wonder what reason there is
to believe that the others are more “solid” than their own. Powell indicated
that some of the sources he cited were Iraqi émigrés. While the BND would not
give Die Zeit an official comment, Bittner notes pointedly that German
intelligence “proceeds on the assumption that émigrés do not always tell the
truth and that the picture they draw can be colored by political motives.”
Plausible?
Despite
all that, in an apparent bid to avoid taking the heat for appearing the
constant naysayer on an issue of such neuralgic import in Washington, German
intelligence officials say that, the dubious sourcing notwithstanding, they
considered the information on the mobile biological laboratories “plausible.”
In
recent weeks, any “plausibility” has all but evaporated. Many biological
warfare specialists in the US and elsewhere were skeptical from the start. Now
Defense Intelligence Agency specialists have joined their counterparts at the
State Department and elsewhere in concluding that the two trailer/laboratories
discovered in Iraq in early May are hydrogen-producing facilities for weather
balloons to calibrate Iraqi artillery, as the Iraqis have said.
Perhaps
it was this DIA report that emboldened the BND official to go public about the
misgivings the BND had about the source.
What
do intelligence analysts do when their professional ethic—to tell the truth
without fear or favor—is prostituted for political expedience? Usually, they
hold their peace, as we’ve already noted was the case in Germany in 1939 before
the invasion of Poland. The good news is that some intelligence officials are
now able to recognize a higher duty—particularly when the issue involves war
and peace. Clearly, some BND officials are fed up with the abuse of
intelligence they have witnessed—and especially the trifling with the
intelligence that they have shared with the US from their own sources. At least
one such official appears to have seen it as a patriotic duty to expose what
appears to be a deliberate distortion.
This
is a hopeful sign. There are indications that British intelligence officials,
too, are beginning to see more distinctly their obligation to speak truth to
power, especially in light of the treatment their government accorded Ministry
of Defense biologist Dr. David Kelly, who became despondent to the point of
suicide.
Even
more commendable was the courageous move by senior Australian intelligence
analyst Andrew Wilkie when it became clear to him that the government he was
serving had decided to take part in launching an unprovoked war based on
“intelligence” information he knew to be specious. Wilkie resigned and promptly
spoke his piece—not only to his fellow citizens but, after the war, at
Parliament in London and Congress in Washington. Andrew Wilkie was not naïve
enough to believe he could stop the war when he resigned in early March. What
was clear to him, however, was that he had a moral duty to expose the
deliberate deception in which his government, in cooperation with the US and
UK, had become engaged. And he knew instinctively that, in so doing, he could
with much clearer conscience look at himself in the mirror each morning.
Do
you not find it ironic that State Department foreign service officers, whom we
intelligence professionals have (quite unfairly) tended to write off as highly
articulate but unthinking apologists for whatever administration happens to be in
power, are the only ones so far to resign on principle over the war on Iraq?
Three of them have—all three with very moving explanations that their
consciences would no longer allow them to promote “intelligence” and policies
tinged with deceit.
What
about you? It is clear that you have been battered, buffeted, besmirched. And
you are painfully aware that you can expect no help at this point from Director
George Tenet. Recall the painful morning when you watched him at the UN sitting
squarely behind Powell, as if to say the Intelligence Community endorses the
deceitful tapestry he wove. No need to remind you that his speech boasted not
only the bogus biological trailers but also assertions of a “sinister nexus”
between Iraq and al-Qaeda, despite the fact that your intense, year-and-a-half
analytical effort had turned up no credible evidence to support that claim. To
make matters worse, Tenet is himself under fire for acquiescing in a key
National Intelligence Estimate on “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq that
included several paragraphs based on a known forgery. That is the same estimate
from which the infamous 16 words were drawn for the president’s
state-of-the-union address on January 28.
And
not only that. In a dramatic departure from customary practice, Tenet has let
the moneychangers into the temple—welcoming the most senior policymakers into
the inner sanctum where all-source analysis is performed at CIA headquarters,
wining and dining Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell,
National Security Assistant Condoleezza Rice, and even former House Speaker
Newt Gingrich (now representing the Pentagon) on their various visits to make
sure you didn’t miss anything! You have every right to expect to be protected
from that kind of indignity. Small wonder that Gingrich, in a recent unguarded
moment on TV, conceded that Tenet “is so grateful to President Bush that he
will do anything for him.” CIA directors have no business being so integral a
“part of the team.”
Powell,
who points proudly to his four day-and-night cram course at the CIA in the days
immediately prior to his February 5 UN speech, seems oblivious to the fact that
personal visitations of that frequency and duration—and for that purpose—are
unprecedented in the history of the CIA. Equally unprecedented are Cheney’s
“multiple visits.” When George H. W. Bush was vice president, not once did he
go out to CIA headquarters for a working visit. We brought our analysis to him.
As you are well aware, once the subjects uppermost in policymakers’ minds are
clear to analysts, the analysis itself must be conducted in an unfettered,
sequestered way—and certainly without the direct involvement of officials with
policy axes to grind. Until now, that is the way it has been done; the analysis
and estimates were brought downtown to the policymakers—not the other way
around.
There
is no more telling example than Vietnam. CIA analysts were prohibited from
reporting accurately on the non-incident in the Tonkin Gulf on August 4, 1964
until the White House had time to use the “furious fire-fight” to win the
Tonkin Gulf resolution from Congress—and eleven more years of war for the rest
of us.
And
we kept quiet.
In
November 1967 as the war gathered steam, CIA management gave President Lyndon
Johnson a very important National Intelligence Estimate known to be fraudulent.
Painstaking research by a CIA analyst, the late Sam Adams, had revealed that
the Vietnamese Communists under arms numbered 500,000. But Gen. William
Westmoreland in Saigon, eager to project an image of progress in the US “war of
attrition,” had imposed a very low artificial ceiling on estimates of enemy
strength.
Analysts
were aghast when management caved in and signed an NIE enshrining
Westmoreland’s count of between 188,000 and 208,000. The Tet offensive just two
months later exploded that myth—at great human cost. And the war dragged on for
seven more years.
Then,
as now, morale among analysts plummeted. A senior CIA official made the mistake
of jocularly asking Adams if he thought the Agency had “gone beyond the bounds
of reasonable dishonesty.” Sam, who had not only a keen sense of integrity but
first-hand experience of what our troops were experiencing in the jungles of
Vietnam, had to be restrained. He would be equally outraged at the casualties
being taken now by US forces fighting another unnecessary war, this time in the
desert. Kipling’s verse applies equally well to jungle or desert:
If
they question why we died, tell them because our fathers lied.
Adams
himself became, in a very real sense, a casualty of Vietnam. He died of a heart
attack at 55, with remorse he was unable to shake. You see, he decided to “go
through channels,” pursuing redress by seeking help from imbedded CIA and the
Defense Department Inspectors General. Thus, he allowed himself to be diddled
for so many years that by the time he went public the war was mostly over—and
the damage done.
Sam
had lived painfully with the thought that, had he gone public when the CIA’s
leaders caved in to the military in 1967, the entire left half of the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial would not have had to be built. There would have been
25-30,000 fewer names for the granite to accommodate.
So
too with Daniel Ellsberg, who made the courageous decision to give the Pentagon
Papers on Vietnam to the New York Times and Washington Post for publication in
1971. Dan has been asked whether he has any regrets. Yes, one big one, he says.
If he had made the papers available in 1964 or 65, this tragically unnecessary
war might have been stopped in its tracks. Why did he not? Dan’s response is
quite telling; he says the thought never occurred to him at the time.
Let
the thought occur to you, now.
But
Isn’t It Too Late?
No.
While it is too late to prevent the misadventure in Iraq, the war is hardly
over, and analogous “evidence” is being assembled against Iran, Syria, and
North Korea. Yes, US forces will have their hands full for a long time in Iraq,
but this hardly rules out further adventures based on “intelligence” as
spurious as that used to argue the case for attacking Iraq.
The
best deterrent is the truth. Telling the truth about the abuse of intelligence
on Iraq could conceivably give pause to those about to do a reprise. It is, in
any case, essential that the American people acquire a more accurate
understanding of the use and abuse of intelligence. Only then can there be any
hope that they can experience enough healing from the trauma of 9/11 to be able
to make informed judgments regarding the policies pursued by this
administration—thus far with the timid acquiescence of their elected
representatives.
History
is littered with the guilty consciences of those who chose to remain silent. It
is time to speak out.
/s/
Gene
Betit, Arlington, VA
Pat
Lang, Alexandria, VA
David
MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray
McGovern, Arlington, VA
Steering
Group
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst
from 1964 to 1990, regularly reported to the vice president and senior
policy-makers on the President's Daily Brief from 1981 to 1985. He now is
co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an inner-city outreach ministry
in Washington, and can be reached at: rmcgovern@slschool.org.
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a coast-to-coast enterprise;
mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA.
Other Articles by Veteran Intelligence
Officers for Sanity
* We Are
Perplexed at the US Refusal to Permit the Return of UN Inspectors to Iraq
* Weapons of Mass
Distraction: Where? Find? Plant?