Ray McGovern 3

De voormalige CIA-functionaris Ray McGovern schrijft: 'Intelligence Officers, Learn From History.

The truth will out. If you fabricate, or acquiesce in the fabrication of, evidence used to "justify" launching a war of choice, you will have to live with that for the rest of your life.
Call me quaint, but having spent 27 years in intelligence on both the analysis and operations ends of the business, I continue to believe that most intelligence officers have a conscience. The problem is they are often too late in acting on it.
Take the former chief of the European Division of CIA's directorate of operations, Tyler Drumheller, for example, who is now spelling out chapter-and-verse the deceitful "intelligence" adduced by "Slam Dunk" George Tenet and his "if-you-say- so" deputy John McLaughlin. Today's Washington Post article by Joby Warrick has Drumheller elaborating on the raging dispute within CIA over the credibility of a defector labeled (appropriately) "Curveball." Curveball is the source of bogus stories about "biological weapons trailers" to which then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave such prominence in his (in)famous speech on February 5, 2003 at the UN: "We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and rails."
Who's Telling the Truth?
I think Drumheller. My reasoning has much to do with motive. Readers can come to their own judgments. Here's some background that might help.
I knew McLaughlin well. When he was a young analyst, I chaired his first National Intelligence Estimate and shared after-hour sandwiches as we crafted articles for the President's Daily Brief. Sadly, he fell in with bad companions and let himself be seduced by Robert Gates, who had his own agenda as he climbed the ranks to be head of CIA analysis and then CIA director.
Full disclosure: Gates worked for me when I was chief of the Soviet foreign policy branch in the early seventies. To this day, I am proud to have put in his efficiency report a warning about the Cassius-like ambition that later succeeded in advancing his career so rapidly.
Were there Soviets under every rock? Gates found two. Were there "moderates" in the Iranian leadership? Gates found as many as you would like. How about the Soviet Union, Gates' area of substantive specialty; would the Communist party every lose control? Never, said Gates, as he pandered to his mentor, William Casey, at whose feet he learned so well. Gates has publicly admitted that he watched Casey on "issue after issue sit in meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he wanted pursued." (He was quoted by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post on March 15, 1995.)
McLaughlin was a perfect choice to head the Soviet analysis division. His lack of expertise in Soviet affairs was seen by Gates as an asset, as was the fact that - unlike Gates - he came across as a "nice guy." Above all, he did what he was told. And his career zoomed, like Gates'.
As Drumheller listened to President George W. Bush's state of the union address on January 28, 2003, he was amazed to hear him describe Curveball's "mobile laboratories" in detail. Drumheller's earlier warnings about Curveball had been ignored. When just a few days later Curveball's "intelligence" turned up featured in an advance copy of Powell's UN speech, Drumheller called McLaughlin's office and was summoned there at once. Sitting across from McLaughlin and an aide in a small conference room, Drumheller told him of a warning from a German intelligence officer (the Germans were debriefing Curveball) that, "He's a fabricator and he's crazy." McLaughin says he has "no recall" of that meeting.' Lees verder:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062506W.shtml