[Peace-discuss] Iran -- Bush, Cheney, Rove et al.

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

I should point out that Ray McGovern is in agreement with people like Dr. David Ray Griffin (whose FOUR 
books on this subject are must-reads) about 9/11.  He believes the Bush-Cheney White House and the 
Pentagon orchestrated the attacks.  Now, I agree with this position; but, I don't lump myself in with Chuck 
Minne who denies climate change---rather seeing 9/11 as an inside job and accepting anthroprogenic 
climate change are two positions that reflect the weight of the available evidence.



----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "Barbara kessel" <barkes at gmail.com>
To:      "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
Cc:      Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Iran -- Bush, Cheney, Rove et al.
Date:    Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:18:06 +0000

> Thanks for posting this crucial and important piece by Ray McGovern. I
> am passing this on to most of the people I know outside this list and
> hope that people on this list are able to find time to read it.
> Barbara
> 
> On 8/23/07, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
> > [Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990 and Robert Gates'
> > branch chief in the early 1970s. McGovern now serves on the Steering
> > Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He is a
> > contributor to Imperial Crusades, edited by Alexander Cockburn and
> > Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: rrmcgovern at aol.com.]
> >
> >         August 22, 2007
> >         Bush's War Drums: Beating Louder on Iran
> >         By RAY McGOVERN, Former CIA Analyst
> >         http://counterpunch.org/mcgovern08222007.html
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Surgical Strikes First?
> >
> > With the propaganda buildup we have seen so far on Iran, what seems most
> > likely, at least initially, is an attack on Revolutionary Guard training
> > facilities inside Iran. That can be done with cruise missiles. With some
> > twenty targets already identified by anti-Iranian groups, there are
> > enough assets already in place to do that job. But the
> > "while-we're-at-it" neo-con logic referred to above may well be applied
> > after, or even in conjunction with, that kind of limited cruise missile
> > attack.
> >
> > Cheerleading in the Domesticated Media
> >
> > Yes, it is happening again.
> >
> > The lead editorial in yesterday's Washington Post regurgitates the
> > allegations that Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is "supplying the
> > weapons that are killing a growing number of American soldiers in Iraq;"
> > that it is "waging war against the United States and trying to kill as
> > many American soldiers as possible." Designating Iran a "specially
> > designated global terrorist" organization, says the Post, "seems to be
> > the least the United States should be doing, giving the soaring number
> > of Iranian-sponsored bomb attacks in Iraq."
> >
> > It's as though Dick Cheney and friends are again writing the Post's
> > editorials. And not only that: arch neo-con James Woolsey told Lou Dobbs
> > on Aug. 14 that the US may have no choice but to bomb Iran in order to
> > halt its nuclear weapons program. As Woolsey puts it, "I'm afraid
> > within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they could
> > have the bomb."
> >
> > Woolsey, self-described "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of the Jewish
> > Institute for National Security Affairs," has long been out in front
> > plumbing for wars, like Iraq, that he and other neo-cons myopically see
> > as being in Israel's, as well as America's, interest. On the evening of
> > 9/11, Woolsey was already raising with Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings the
> > notion that Iraq was a leading candidate for state sponsorship of the
> > attacks. A day later, Woolsey told journalist James Fallows that, no
> > matter who proved responsible for 9/11, the solution had to include
> > removing Saddam Hussein because he was so likely to be involved the next
> > time (sic).
> >
> > The latest media hype is also rubbish. And Woolsey knows it. And so do
> > reporters for the Washington Post, who are aware of, but have been
> > forbidden to tell, a highly interesting story about waiting for a key
> > National Intelligence Estimate-as if for Godot.
> >
> > The NIE That Didn't Bark
> >
> > The latest National Intelligence Estimate regarding if and when Iran is
> > likely to have the bomb has been ready since February. It has been sent
> > back four times-no doubt because its conclusions do not support what
> > Cheney and Woolsey are telling the president and, through the
> > domesticated press, telling the rest of us as well.
> >
> > The conclusion of the most recent published NIE (early 2005) was that
> > Iran probably could not acquire a nuclear weapon until "early to
> > mid-next decade," a formula memorized and restated by Director of
> > National Intelligence Michael McConnell at his confirmation hearing in
> > February. One can safely assume that McConnell had been fully briefed on
> > the first "final draft" of the new estimate, which has now been in limbo
> > for half a year. And I would wager that the conclusions of the new
> > estimate resemble those of the NIE of 2005 far too closely to suit Cheney.
> >
> > It is a scandal that the congressional oversight committees have not
> > been briefed on the conclusions of the new estimate, even though it
> > cannot pass Cheney's smell test. For it is a safe bet it would give the
> > lie to the claims of Cheney, Woolsey, and other cheerleaders for war
> > with Iran and provide powerful ammunition to those arguing for a more
> > sensible approach to Iran.
> >
> > But Attacking Iran Would Be Crazy
> >
> > Despite the administration's war-like record, many Americans may still
> > cling to the belief that attacking Iran won't happen because it would be
> > crazy; that Bush is a lame-duck president who wouldn't dare undertake
> > yet another reckless adventure when the last one went so badly.
> >
> > But rationality and common sense have not exactly been the strong suit
> > of this administration. Bush has placed himself in a neoconservative
> > bubble that operates with its own false sense of reality. Worse still:
> > as psychiatrist Justin Frank pointed out in the July 27 VIPS memo
> > "Dangers of a Cornered Bush," updating his book, Bush on the Couch:"
> >
> >      "We are left with a president who cannot actually govern, because
> > he is incapable of reasoned thought in coping with events outside his
> > control, like those in the Middle East.
> >
> >      "This makes it a monumental challenge -- as urgent as it is
> > difficult -- not only to get him to stop the carnage in the Middle East,
> > but also to prevent him from undertaking a new, perhaps even more
> > disastrous adventure-like going to war with Iran, in order to embellish
> > the image he so proudly created for himself after 9/11 as the commander
> > in chief of 'the first war of the 21st century.'"
> >
> > Scary.
> >
> >         ###
> >
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