Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern appeared on Jim Lehrer Newshour with a Bushit artist on June 16th, after testifying before the House Basement Forum on the Downing Street Minutes chaired by Rep. Joseph Conyers. Rippin'!
VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY! :rofl:
The link also has streaming video, audio and transcript of a general DSM story by Ray Suarez.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june05/w... The original "Downing Street memo"
MARGARET WARNER: So what do these memos from 2002 tell us about the timing of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq? To assess that issue, we're joined by two former CIA officials. Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years. He retired 15 years ago, and is now a member of the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He appeared as a witness at today's Democratic forum. And Reuel Gerecht was a CIA Middle East operations officer until the mid-'90s. He's now a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Welcome to you both.
Mr. McGovern, beginning with you, okay, make your case, take the original Downing Street Memo from July 2003. How does that prove, as you critics charge, that President Bush that early, July 2002, had decided to go to war?
RAY McGOVERN: Well, let me first say that I'm not out to make a case. I'm a professional intelligence officer, retired, who has the ethos of just trying to find out where the facts lead me.
FACTS! <snip>
This is documentary. This is a secret minutes of this meeting prepared the same day; it's of a different species of all the other circumstantial evidence we have that the president had long since decided to do war. And so the circumstances, you can forget circumstantial, we have a flaming -- we have a smoking gun here, and we have something equivalent to the Nixon tapes on Watergate.
SMOKING GUN & WATERGATE! GADZOOKS! <snip>
MARGARET WARNER
...Isn't it possible that in fact these may be the head of British intelligence's assessment, but he was wrong?
RAY McGOVERN: No, I don't believe that that's possible at all. Who would know better than the head of the CIA as to whether the intelligence and facts were being fixed to fit the policy?
<snip>.
So the inspection regime was working. The US policy had been set. And it was set earlier than July of 2002. And there's lots of circumstantial evidence for that. But as I say now we have a document, an internal British document, firsthand. The fellow who wrote the minutes was there, it was prepared the same day. He sent to it all the people who there were -- there were 13. And there was no objection, and Tony Blair has vouched for its authenticity. He has not denied that this is an authentic document.
AUTHENTIC DOCUMENT <snip>
MARGARET WARNER:
And one conclusion of the meeting is that Straw will "discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam." What does that say to you about the exercise of going to the UN and all those fronts, was that on the level?
REUEL GERECHT: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think what's going on there is, I mean, the British are trying to develop, they have a much more, what you might say legalistic ambition on the war. I mean they turn and want to have some law officers give them an opinion of whether a war is right and just.
<note by OM: on “much more, what you might say legalistic ambition” Mr. McGovern may be heard snorting with laughter off camera>
REUEL GERECHT: In the United States -- that is the duty and responsibility of the president of the United States and the Congress. We invest in them that responsibility and authority. I mean what's striking about the memos, I have to say, is the extent to which the bureaucracy in Great Britain, particularly the foreign ministry, is actually very hesitant about going to war, and you come away very much appreciating the boldness of Tony Blair, that in fact he agrees with President Bush, we live in a post-9/11 world.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. McGovern, you're dying to get back in, I can tell.
RAY McGOVERN: No, I was just thinking that Reuel is of the school of Richard Perle, who right after the war started was asked about the legality of the war and he said, you know, sometimes you just have to violate international law to do the right thing.
SCHOOL OF PERLE AND OLLIE NORTH:
"SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW TO DO THE RIGHT THING."
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