CIA Agents Letter to US Senate and House
18 July 2005
AN OPEN STATEMENT TO THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE.
The Honorable Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Dr. William Frist, Majority Leader of the Senate
The Honorable Harry Reid, Minority Leader of the Senate
We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources...
[Mendacious crap mercifully snipped]
...Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government’s protection of their covert status.
For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.
Sincerely yours,
_____________________________________
Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA
JOINED BY:
Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA
Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA
Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA
Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA
Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA
I sure wouldn't take that bet.
You know they are.
BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, July 16, 2003 2:22 p.m. EDT
'Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity'
Give Nicholas Kristof credit for being slightly ahead of his time. The New York Times columnist has been beating the drum for more than a month now about purportedly "politicized" intelligence on Iraq, and now the entire percussion section has joined in. And unlike fellow Times columnist and former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, who is a fount of pure partisan rage, Kristof at least seems to have a reasonable, high-minded argument. Here's how he put it in his May 30 column (the link is from the next day's Paris edition of the Times):
[Intelligence professionals] are coming forward because they are fiercely proud of the deepest ethic in the intelligence world--that intelligence should be nonpolitical--and are disgusted at efforts to turn them into propagandists. . . .
The atmosphere within the intelligence community is so poisonous, and the stakes are so high--for the credibility of America's word and the soundness of information on which American foreign policy is based--that an outside examination is essential.
In that column, Kristof introduced the world to a group that styles itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. This outfit made another appearance in yesterday's column:
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spies, issued an open letter to Bush Monday reflecting the view of many in the intelligence community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Cheney's resignation.
So who are these purported voices for "sanity" and against "politicization"? Blogger William Sjostrom did some online sleuthing, and here's what he found:
VIPS does not seem to have a website, but its email is vips@counterpunch.org, and their open letter appears to have been published at CounterPunch (run by Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist), an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler. VIPS also published an open letter in opposition to the war at Common Dreams back in February. The spokesman for VIPS is Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA analyst. McGovern's email is also at CounterPunch. He is giving a briefing today [Tuesday] with Rep. Dennis Kucinich. McGovern has compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, even saying that it could lead to nuclear war. He has charged that if WMDs are found in Iraq, they may well have been planted. He believes Tenet's job is safe because if Tenet were fired, he would reveal that the White House ignored intelligence warnings pre-9/11. McGovern has urged CIA analysts to illegally release classified documents to show what he believes to be true, specifically citing Daniel Ellsberg.
Another member of the VIPS steering committee is William Christison, who among other things believes that the Bush administration is attempting to colonize the Middle East, jointly with Israel. He believes that the war on terror is being used to turn the US into a military dictatorship. He is also a backer of the left-wing UrgentCall, along with people such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Julian Bond, and Jonathan Schell.
None of this proves that VIPS is evil, or even wrong. It does say that Kristof is trying to pass off a fairly left-wing group as a group of non-partisan "professionals."
The question is: Was Kristof merely duped, or is this part of a broader pattern of dishonesty and delusion at the New York Times?
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003753
Sincerely yours,
Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA <----- VIPS
JOINED BY:
Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA <----VIPS
Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA
Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA
Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA
Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA <-----VIPS
Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA
++++
Let's track down Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Ray McGovern, a retired C.I.A. analyst
Larry Johnson, who used to work in the C.I.A. and State Department
Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department,
the last four in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Steering Group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe, NM
William Christison, Santa Fe, NM
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA
VIPS is a coast-to-coast enterprise; mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA. Ray McGovern (rmcgovern@slschool.org) worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years
The VIPS can be reached at: vips@counterpunch.org
Patrick Eddington, a VIPS member and former CIA agent who resigned in 1996 to protest what he describes as the agency's refusal to investigate some of the possible causes of Gulf War veterans' medical problems.
Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, said he saw little chance of CIA analysts going public to contradict the Bush administration.
Eugene Betit, a former defense intelligence analyst who belongs to Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), formed in January to speak out on the use of intelligence to justify the war.
WMD Links
http://zfacts.com/p/471.html
The implications are truly scary...
I would bet everyone on that list is a member of VIPS.