Coming
in September
From AK Press
Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Recent
Stories
August
5, 2003
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf
Ekeus
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
29, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
"Journalist Spotted! Journalist
Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns
Thomas
J. Nagy
The Belligerent Dr. Pipes
Kurt Nimmo
Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem
Chris
Floyd
Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes
Robert
Fisk
Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre
Jason Leopold
Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address?
Conn Hallinan
Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Dan
Bacher
Sacramento's War on Free Speech
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
July 26 / 27, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
Hot Stories
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
August
5, 2003
"We
Cook Estimates to Go"
Intelligence
Must Never Just Serve Policy
By
RAY McGOVERN
former CIA analyst
I could scarcely believe my ears listening to
Vice President Dick Cheney on July 24 defending the decision
to go to war in Iraq. In light of what is now known, it was hard
for me at first to tell whether he was applauding or blaming
the intelligence adduced to support that fateful decision.
The centerpiece of Cheney's speech was
a ''mis-overestimate'' -- the National Intelligence Estimate
issued on Oct. 1, 2002. Reciting some of its main judgments,
Cheney charged that it would have been ''irresponsible'' to shy
away from using force to deal with the threat they depicted.
But wait. Has no one told the vice president
that the NIE's conclusions, though described as ''high confidence''
judgments, have been thrown into serious doubt by more than four
months of experience in Iraq? Where is the nuclear weapons program
Iraq was said to be ''reconstituting''? Where are the chemical
and biological weapons Iraq was purported to have?
On the very day Cheney spoke, former
CIA director John Deutch branded the failure to find such weapons
''an intelligence failure of massive proportions.'' How can such
a thing be possible?
The National Intelligence Estimate is
the most authoritative genre of intelligence analysis provided
to the president and his senior advisors. CIA Director George
Tenet signs them in his capacity as director of Central Intelligence
-- that is, head of all the intelligence agencies, which are
involved in its preparation. Having chaired a number of NIEs
during my 27-year career at the CIA, I am familiar with the intense
care and effort that used to go into working one up.
My dismay over how the NIE on weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq could have gotten it so wrong prompted
a hunt for the reasons. Start with the fact that there was no
NIE before the decision for war last summer. Such decisions are
supposed to be based on the conclusions of NIE's, not the other
way around. This time the process was reversed.
It does not speak well for a Director
of Central Intelligence to shy away from serving up the intelligence
community's best estimate anyway (''without fear or favor,''
the way we used to operate). But better no NIE, I suppose, than
one served up to suit the preconceived notions of policymakers.
But the pressure became intense late last summer after the Bush
administration decided to make war.
The marketing rollout for the war was
keynoted by the vice president, who in a shrill speech on Aug.
26 charged, ''Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear
weapons.'' An NIE was then ordered up, essentially to support
the extreme judgments voiced by Cheney, and its various drafts
were used effectively to frighten members of Congress into voting
to authorize war.
Adding insult to injury, the cockamamie
story about Iraq seeking uranium in Niger was accorded three
paragraphs in the estimate, prompting State Department intelligence
analysts to insist on a footnote branding the story "highly
dubious.''
More important, State went on to insist
that the evidence that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons
program was ''inadequate.'' As for when Iraq might have a nuclear
weapon, State explained that it was "unwilling to project
a timeline for completion of activities it does not now see happening.''
So courage, intelligence analysts! It
is possible to stand up to pressure to manipulate and market
intelligence to justify prior decisions by policymakers, and
it's a lot easier to look in the mirror the next morning.
Many of my former colleagues at the CIA
are still holding their noses. One suggested, not wholly in jest,
that the biblical verse at the entrance to CIA headquarters --
''You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free''
-- be sent on rotation to the State Department, to be replaced
by "We cook estimates to go.''
Ray McGovern
chaired NIEs and briefed the President's Daily Brief during his
27-year career at CIA. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity and co-director of the Servant Leadership
School, an inner-city outreach ministry in Washington, DC. He
can be reached at: rmcgovern@slschool.org
Weekend Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf
Ekeus
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
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