Reply #54: LINK: "The Crazies are Back"

[Beam Me Up]

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/17/1543215

Wednesday, September 17th, 2003
“The Crazies Are Back”: Bush Sr.’s CIA Briefer Discusses How Wolfowitz & Allies Falsely Led the U.S. To War

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Former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and David MacMichael accuse President Bush of waging the Iraq war based on a series of lies, discuss the unprecedented pressure that VP Dick Cheney put on the CIA before the invasion and call on CIA analysts and agents to come forward with information that will reveal the lies of the Bush administration.


* Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst.
* David MacMichael, former CIA analyst.

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TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: A number of senators including New York Senator Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Congress Member Harry Waxman and others have called for an investigation into who outed Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, who blew her cover. We called the White House to see if they were conducting an investigation. They said to call the FBI. We called the FBI. They said they’re looking into it but that they would not yet classify it as an investigation. Well today we turn to an interview that I did with two former CIA analysts to talk about just what it means for an analyst or agent to have their cover blown. While we had them in the studio, we talked about many other issues as well to shed some light on the way intelligence or lack of it has been used over the years. We began with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who worked closely with George Bush senior when he was Director of Central Intelligence right through his presidency. And the law was passed under Bush’s watch that made the blowing of a covert operative a felony. We’re going to turn now to that interview.

Let’s go back in time to something former President Bush, this is George Bush senior, said. Langley, Virginia, he is at the Central Intelligence Agency – I’m reading from an Associated Press report:

“Former President Bush, helping the CIA celebrate its 50th birthday, called agency critics “nuts”. He singled out for criticism Philip Agee, a former CIA agent and later critic of the agency. “Remember Philip Agee, who I consider a traitor to our country?'' Bush asked, referring to Agee's efforts to expose CIA operations and identify spies. Bush said some of the criticism of the Directorate of Operations ruined secret U.S. clandestine operations in foreign countries and, in one instance, blew the cover of CIA station chief in Greece, Richard Welch, who was assassinated outside his residence in Greece in the mid-1970s. Bush was careful not to directly link Agee to Welch's death. Agee dropped a defamation suit against former first lady Barbara Bush earlier this year after Mrs. Bush acknowledged that the first edition of her memoir was erroneous in saying that Agee had exposed Welch's identity.'' David MacMichael, explain this.