Several former CIA officers – many of whom worked in counterintelligence – have recently come out and lambasted the White House for outing Valerie Wilson as an employee of the CIA. And while it’s undeniable that taking Mrs. Wilson’s identity from the routine gossip of Washington cocktail parties and publicizing it in the pages of America’s newspapers is a despicable act deserving of censure and punishment, it may be well to examine the motives of the CIA officers who are the most vociferous in their outrage at the scandal.
These three former agents signed a letter “begging” Congress not to play politics with the identities of intelligence agents. The letter fairly reeks of hypocrisy and hyperbole. Not only are the agents profiled below playing partisan politics as much as the Bush Administration is in this matter, it’s apparent from what these individuals have said in the past that their agenda goes far beyond “protecting” little Mrs. Wilson’s good name and in fact, goes to the heart of the bureaucratic war going on between the unelected government employees who worked or are working for the CIA and the White House.
MELVIN GOODMAN
On the surface, Mr. Goodman has an impressive resume. He was a senior analyst in Soviet affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he worked for two decades (1966-1986). He later served as a Soviet analyst at the State Department, and he currently is professor of international studies at the National War College and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. He is the author of three books on Soviet and Russian Affairs.
But dig a little deeper and what you find is someone who worked in a section of the CIA - Soviet Affairs – that got it more wrong, more often, with the subsequent effect on policy that was nearly ruinous. When some intelligence reports from that era were declassified in 2001, it was discovered in a 8 year period between 1978 and 1985 the CIA consistently overestimated the nuclear threat the Soviets posed. From 1982 until 1987 CIA estimates regarding Soviet economic strength were also grossly exaggerated. And in the area of Soviet intentions, we were virtually blind thanks to this attitude Mr. Goodman describes in an interview with CNN:
I think, in looking back at the work of the CIA, we’ve seen the exaggeration of the value of clandestine reporting. ... I think the Cold War would have evolved no differently whether we were doing clandestine reporting or not—that there were no overwhelming successes with regard to clandestine reporting. You can’t say that about satellite photography, and you can’t say that about signals intelligence. Satellite photography and signals intelligence really gave us a means of understanding what the Soviets were doing with very scarce resources in the way of military deployment.
Mr. Goodman’s love affair with satellites and signals intel is admirable except for one small detail. Both the Senate Intelligence Report on Pre-War Iraq Intelligence and the 9/11 Commission excoriated the CIA for their lack of human intel. These two intelligence failures – arguably the biggest failures since Pearl Harbor – along with missing the fall of the Soviet Union, would be puzzling except for this statement by Mr. Goodman that reveals a mindset prevelant at the time in the Soviet Affairs section at CIA about being able to glean Soviet capabilities from satellite and signals intel:
This was extremely valuable material to all American negotiators and policymakers who had any interest in arms control whatsoever. ... [I think this] worked to lessen tensions, because it’s given the United States a very good idea, at the highest levels, of what is actually in the Soviet inventory.
This was the basis for the “war” the CIA waged against the Reagan Administration. To be fair, it was a war that raged across the entire national security establishment; arms control or military build up? There was a suspicion among the William Casey faction at the CIA that people like Mr. Goodman were overstating Soviet nuclear capabilities to push the Administration towards arms control. As we now know, Casey shared President Reagan’s belief that the whole rotten edifice would come crashing down if pushed hard enough.
Guess who was right.
Curiously, Goodman also seems to have joined the tin foil hat brigade on 9/11. Appearing at Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s hearing on Friday that featured panelists who posited theories on 9/11 ranging from the Twin Towers coming down as a result of a “controlled demolition” to the Pentagon being blown up deliberately and not partially destroyed by a hijacked aircraft, Goodman was quoted as saying about McKinney that… “I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom.”
LARRY JOHNSON
Claiming to be a “registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000,” Johnson has emerged as Valerie Wilson’s #1 defender. His bio is also impressive; CIA, State Department, teacher, analyst, and businessman.
But it appears Mr. Johnson is living proof that brains doesn’t always equal judgement. Here’s what he wrote in July, 2001:
Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.None of these beliefs are based in fact.
I hope for a world where facts, not fiction, determine our policy. While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.
This was written 60 days before 9/11. Is it any wonder that committee after committee and commission after commission have called our intelligence gathering capabilities dysfunctional?
It’s almost as if our policy makers would be better off without these analysts and pontificators. What’s at work here is institutional blindness brought about by the bureaucrat’s preconcieved notions that when challenged, cause a retreat into a shell of platitudes and conventional wisdom. The fact is that if you hold contrary views to those in ascendancy at the CIA you are punished. People like Johnson represent why the United States government has been surprised so many times in so many parts of the world over the last 50 years.
RAY MCGOVERN
To put it bluntly, Ray McGovern is a moonbat.
A 30 year man at CIA, McGovern has gone off the deep end on the Iraq war. Despite not being in the CIA for nearly 15 years, he has taken the hard left talking points on the reasons for going to war with Iraq and run with them.
In an interview with the Atlanta -Journal, McGovern had this to say about the lead up to the war:
A: We’re trying to spread a little truth around. I’ve just been watching very, very closely how intelligence has been abused in the lead up to the Iraq war and, now, after the war. I fear for what this will mean for a very crucial part of our government. If the president can’t turn to the CIA for straight answers, whether he knows it or not, he’s in bad shape. He has nowhere to turn for a straight answer. He can’t expect [Deputy Defense Secretary Paul] Wolfowitz or [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld to tell him, “Sorry boss, we didn’t think of A or B or C. We thought it would be a cakewalk.” He’s getting slanted advice from the people running the policy toward Iraq.
Sounds like he’s concerned for the President. Guess again:
Q: Do the American people care that they were misled on Iraq? Does Congress? The press?A: There’s still a lot of torpor, but there are two new elements now. No. 1: The men and women who are being killed every day in Iraq. No. 2: The fact that no one—- not even the press—- likes to be lied to. I’m an American, and I never thought the president would lie so often and so demonstrably.
Which is it? Is the President being ill served or is he lying through his teeth?
Mr. McGovern also has this to say about Iraq and al Qaeda:
The other main thing, of course, was the alleged tie between Iraq and al-Qaida. CIA analysts spent a year and a half poring through each and every report and found none to be persuasive or reliable. Then [Secretary of State] Colin Powell made his speech to the United Nations on Feb. 5, where he produced some cockamamie evidence suggesting that al-Qaida types were roaming around Iraq with Saddam Hussein. In the period leading up to the war, the president would say that we have to go after Iraq because of 9/11. That is the way that the president played on the trauma of 9/11 to persuade the American people that we couldn’t take a chance on Saddam Hussein.
Stephen Hayes has done the best work on this subject and gives the lie to McGovern’s ridiculous assertion there was no Saddam-al Qaeda connection.
McGovern also gave an interview to Alexander Cockburn’s moonbat rag Counterpunch in which he talked about the forged document that outlined the Iraq-Niger yellowcake connection:
In retrospect, the train of thought in the White House at the time is clear: How long can we keep the forged documents from the public? A few months? In that case we can use the documents to get Congress to endorse war with Iraq and then wage it and win it before anyone discovers that the “evidence” was bogus.
The problem for Mr. McGovern is that the Butler Review discovered that the forged memo was not the entire basis for the intelligence estimate regarding Iraq and Niger. In fact, that body found that the President of Niger admitted that representatives from Iraq met with Niger government officials to seek access to yellowcake supplies. And of course, Bush never said that Iraq had purchased yellowcake, only that they “sought” the mineral. This was 100% true as confirmed by both the British and Niger governments.
In recent years, McGovern has worked for a radical left Christain group known as the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. Here’s a recent bio:
Ray McGovern’s 27-year career as a CIA analyst spanned administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, which provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in relationship with the marginalized poor. The School is one of ten Jubilee Ministries, not-for-profit organizations inspired by the ecumenical Church of the Saviour and established in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, DC.The department Ray heads at the School deals with the biblical injunction to “speak truth to power,†and this, together with his experience in intelligence analysis, accounts for his various writings and media appearances over the past year. His focus dovetails nicely with the passage carved into the marble entrance to CIA Headquarters: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you freeâ€â€”the ethic mandating that CIA analysts were to “tell it like it is†without fear or favor.
McGovern is also a founder of the radical group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIP) whose Op-Ed’s, articles, and interviews have been featured in every far left magazine imaginable and who demanded in a “Memorandum to the President” that Bush fire VP Cheney.
These are just three of the former intelligence agents who are agitating against the Administration with regards to the Plame leak. These are not non-partisan casual observers; they are people with an agenda. And that agenda includes not just principled opposition to the Iraq war but unprincipled political opposition to the President. They are part of a group of agents both in and out of government who are at war with the Administration for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is the effort by the new DCIA to “clean house.” A good analysis of that effort by Porter Goss can be found here.
It is terribly unfair for the MSM not to give a little background on these agents while lionizing them. But, in this case, it appears that perspective is the last thing the MSM wishes to give to the motives of the opponents who flog the Administration on a daily basis.
UPDATE
Q & O also takes note of the Goodman-McKinney connection as well as his being a signatory of the Plame letter. They also have an interesting unrelated story on what Ted Turner has been up to lately.
UPDATE II
Pat Curley at Brainsters sent me this link to an LA Times article detailing Larry Johnson’s radio address on Saturday.
Oh…did I mention it was the Democrat’s response to the President’s address? Ach! So much for “non-partisan” critique of the Administration’s actions on Nadagate.
10:45 am
Wow! You worked hard on this one. Great research!
11:06 am
High Sheikh of Pork
NIF - It’s brainfood!
12:12 pm
Some Excellent Blogging
I’ll admit that I’ve not been paying much attention to the Rove/Plame affair, but it continues to provide grist for others’ mills. Rick Moran (fka Superhawk) has a superb post up about a letter three former CIA agents have signed asking Congress not…
3:26 pm
Terrific post, Rick. I see it got picked up by the American Thinker!
3:39 pm
Ex-CIA Larry Johnson – “What Terrorism?”
This tidbit about Larry C. Johnson, Ex-CIA, and former deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (1989-1993), on Slate.com’s “Chatterbox”- entry by Timothy Noah:
5:05 pm
More excellent work. Congratulations, Rick.
6:44 pm
Rove Was On The Grassy Knoll, Update V
It appears some of the Grand Poo-Bah Idiots have held a Congressional hearing with all the schizo’s spewing their conspiracy theories:
1:07 am
Larry Johnson’s bio is not impressive…he went to third rate schools and majored in sociology and community development, the only worse major would be communications or teaching. And then he got a govt job. And is a loser still.
8:35 am
Around The Watchers Council
Light posting most of the day, so the timing is right for a round up post. I recently joined the Watchers Council and wanted to learn more about my fellow council members. So I did a little tour of their sites and was humbled to find some incredibly…
8:51 pm
Sometimes, when I post something about one of….
....Larry Johson’s posts, he graces my blog with his eloquent dialog. (...
6:21 am
The Case Against Plame and The CIA
In a previous post I went into great detail about how I believe the Special Prosecutor, which the MSM naively believes is investigating Rove, is actually investigating a much larger, dangerous leaking of classified material. That post cearly identif…
10:55 am
Get your own damn blog if you’re going to write that much. Your comment is a waste of my bandwidth.
11:47 am
I would have deleted it but I’m already in enough trouble with these lefties who don’t think that calling you a nazi is insulting. They whine like 12 year old girls when I delete their insulting, meaningless, off topic comments.
12:27 pm
You are ignorant of the meaning of “Neocon.” You don’t have a clue. You use it for shorthand to describe an set of principles you disagree with.
If you knew what it meant you’d know I’m the farthest thing from a Neocon you can get. I’m not even in the ballpark.
As for the Niger President’s comments, try the Butler Review or the SSCI report. He didn’t sell the yellowcake because it would have been in violation of the sanctions. But that doesn’t obviate the fact that the Iraq “businessmen” didn’t inquire after the mineral.
1:50 pm
The incredulous part of the Iraq/Niger uranium story is that no one now contends that Iraq acquired or even attempted to acquire uranium. The sole reason it’s offered up is to try and explain away one of many “mistakes†that were made in going to war upon false evidence. It’s a defense to improper war by saying:
“At the time, we thought they may have been trying to obtain uranium.â€
The problem is that it doesn’t fly now and it didn’t fly then. The Downing Street memos articulate British concerns regarding the lack of substance to the claims. The CIA completely discounted the uranium acquisition story and informed the Bush White House of such. Even the dog and pony show “Butler Review†doesn’t refute the CIA, they merely state: “The British intelligence was based upon other sources which the Butler Review, like their government, fails in any way to identify to corroborate the bona fides of their otherwise indefensible assertion.
A both comical and revealing fact itemized by the Butler review paraphrases out to:
“75% of Niger’s exports are uranium, what else could Iraq have possibly initiated a state visit about?â€
Page 125, Paragraph 503(b)
http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/report/report.pdf
Apparently, the “Butler Review†and Scotland Yard have different standards. Then again, maybe not, Scotland Yard did just assassinate a Brazilian in cold blood.
The Identifying characteristic of the Neo Con is the inability, intentional or otherwise, to get the facts straight. It could be intelligence related. It could also be obfuscation related. Neo Con’s don’t like the truth. They hide from it like rats in the recesses of sewers.
Our host in the original post of this thread said that the President of Niger, Mr. Ibrahim Bare, revealed that the Iraqi diplomatic mission of 1999 involved the proposed purchase and sale of uranium. The facts are that an Iraqi diplomat visited Niger on February 8, 1999 during a four nation African diplomatic mission and that an invitation was extended to President Bare to visit Iraq between April 20 thru 30, 1999. President Bare must have acted very quickly to reveal to British Intelligence that the true purpose of the trip was to purchase uranium, because he passed away on April 9th of 1999 and the visit never occurred.
Page 124, Paragraph 502
Butler Review
All of which is highly quizzical, because Iraq has the ability to mine it’s own uranium and has mined its own uranium.
You can tell a Neo Con by how foot loose and fancy free they play with the facts in serious situations. It isn’t about right with them. It’s about their way. It’s about their agenda. Zealots are always to be kept a close eye upon. Facts aren’t important to them. I knew it was Bullshit the instant I read it, but then I’ve developed a formidable bullshit detector, compliments of the Bush Administration.
I consider this matter closed. It’s time to wait and see if spin can work in criminal court.
Regards,
Martin
1:54 pm
Congratulations! You get the prize for being the most wrong on both your facts and fantasy.
Wilson’s report never made it to the White House.
The Butler review proved that Iraq “sought” uranium not just from Niger but from the Congo as well.And anyone who thinks that the entire yellowcake story is some kind of hinge that will bring down the Bush Administration is deluded.
3:35 pm
[...] hich was apparently an open secret in DC social circles). The first is Rick Moran’s great work on the MSM CIA ‘experts’ who are out there s [...]
8:31 am
RE: CIA Partisans, Some Profiles
Mr. Rick Moran, (You have no idea how much I chuckle each time I read your last name) I saw a photo of a Neo Con holding up a sign pre Iraq invasion which read: “Support the war Morans”. When I see your name I sense your affinity with him.
To the point, you stated in the above referred to post (The first post in this thread) the following, quote:
“The problem for Mr. McGovern is that the Butler Review discovered that the forged memo was not the entire basis for the intelligence estimate regarding Iraq and Niger. In fact, that body found that the President of Niger admitted that representatives from Iraq met with Niger government officials to seek access to yellowcake supplies. And of course, Bush never said that Iraq had purchased yellowcake, only that they “sought†the mineral. This was 100% true as confirmed by both the British and Niger governments.”
The problem for you of course is that the Butler Review never made any link to the Niger President whatsoever. (Mr. Ibrahim Bare) As a matter of fact Mr. Bare was gunned down in a coup a few scant weeks later. Call your mistake what you will. Distortion, Fabrication, Deception, Lie. This is the type of behavior the Bush Administration has engages in, so its no wonder the GOP groupies have adopted the same deceitful conduct. Birds of a feather.
F.Y.I. Patrick Fitzgerald (U.S. Attorney) has cast a wide net in regard to the uranium lies and who took responsibility for the inaccuracies stated to the American public by the White House. The probe is not merely about who leaked the CIA agents name. Its also about the motive for doing so. I don’t know where it is going for sure, but I have my suspicions. There are a few things I do know. Lies and distortions rarely work in a criminal court and in the best case scenario bloggers have little influence and those that can’t get their facts straight influence fewer still. The best Neo fact distorters can hope for are nods of approval from fellow flightless birds.
Regards,
martin
11:06 am
Martin:
From the SSCI Report (bi-partisan, unanimously approved). This is from Wilsons OWN REPORT!
The Intelligence report indicated that former Niger Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts signed between Niger and any rougue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foriegn Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure he would have been aware of it.Mayaki said, however, in June 1999, (blacked out) businessman, approached him and insisted Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Iraq and Niger. The Intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted “expanding commercial relations” to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The Intelligence report said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq.”
You’re right about one thing – it wasn’t the President of Niger it was the former PM.
What part of that statement from Wilson’s own report don’t you understand? What do you think the Iraqi’s wanted to buy, cows? Chickpeas? Onions? Those three things are the only other items of note that Niger exports.
The next time you call someone a liar, make very sure you have them dead to rights. Otherwise, you’ll appear as you do now; Someone who not only doesn’t know what they’re talking about but someone with egg on their face and every person who reads this laughing at you.
3:36 pm
And if Fitzgerald goes after the reason for the leak, won’t it be interesting what he finds when he gets into current and former CIA officers leaking classified documents?
The idea he’s going to find evidence that the White House cooked the books on intelligence isn’t even wishful thinking; it’s self delusion.
And you’re ignorance about who and what neocons are is breathtaking. If you knew what a “neocon” was you’d know that I’m not even close to being one. Not even in the ballpark.
10:32 pm
[...] so bad is no matter. They could care less about Plame, this is the start of their battle. Right Wing Nuthouse has an excellent biography on these so-called n [...]
7:05 pm
replica watches