This Salon article blew me away. If ever there was a smoking gun, surely this piece is it and I am amazed that it hasn’t gotten more exposure.
The new Pentagon papers
A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.
Salon has made this 5 page article available on line. Here are a few snippets from the intro:
Our new Washington bureau brings you this report from within the belly of the Bush administration beast — an eyewitness account of how radical ideologues hijacked the American government along the road to war in Iraq.
From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.
I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.
While this commandeering of a narrow segment of both intelligence production and American foreign policy matched closely with the well-published desires of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of us in the Pentagon, conservatives and liberals alike, felt that this agenda, whatever its flaws or merits, had never been openly presented to the American people. Instead, the public story line was a fear-peddling and confusing set of messages, designed to take Congress and the country into a war of executive choice, a war based on false pretenses, and a war one year later Americans do not really understand. That is why I have gone public with my account.
Has anyone here seen this before?
No, I had not seen this before Rosie and thanks for bringing this great catch here. Of course, we all knew this to be true already but it must become public knowledge to all Americans. The light is shining down on these warmongers and I am so enjoying watching them squirm and tell more lies to cover the lies. They are going down. May they all burn in hell.
I don’t understand why more people aren’t speaking out like this lady. It’s like they all go write a book, tell a couple of people and then disappear or go hide. I wonder if they have to sign some kind of gag rule when they leave their jobs.
I was a whistle blower in the past and I know the ‘dangers’ of it, but I still did it and basically dared them to come after me. They didn’t (in my case it was Raytheon for bid rigging and scientology for forcing their ‘religion’ on workers at a software company) And there were several other crimes in workplaces that I took action against, but with this above example it is truly a matter of Life and Death. Mine weren’t close to that (although a scientologist did threaten to kidnap my daughter.)
Where is the moral outrage from the repugs that KNOW what they are doing is so horrendous?
Bravo to you Rosie. What you did is called Integrity, which this administration knows nothing about. I am off to the Rose Bowl for a fun day of football with the kids…Go UCLA!!
Karen Kwiatkowski has been out there talking like this for every so long. She resigned her comission, if I am not mistaken, because she was so dismayed with our government.
She has even been on 60 mins as well. I really wished she could gt more open tv time to say the things she has to say.
Don’t know if BooMan allows this, but you might try posting this again on Monday. I think it will generate more response during the week. Thanks for the link!