But out of the gobbledygook, comes a very clear thing: [unclear] you can’t trust the government; you can’t believe what they say; and you can’t rely on their judgment; and the – the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the President can be wrong.-- H.R. Haldeman to President Nixon, Monday, 14 June 1971, 3:09 p.m. meeting. [re: Pentagon Papers]
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB48/
At the confirmation hearings for Robert Gates as CIA director [1991], Senator Bradley exposed the CIA's manipulation of intelligence data to produce exaggerated estimates of Soviet economic and military strength -- estimates that produced the Reagan-era extravaganza of military spending. However, the Bradley-Gates colloquy did not explore the historical roots of such exaggerations. Simpson fills in the void left by the Senate's lack of historical perspective.
Christopher Simpson traces the post-World War II recruitment by the U.S. of defeated Nazi chief of intelligence for Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Reinhard Gehlen, and the increasing reliance of U.S. intelligence on the Gehlen organization's estimates of Soviet strengths and intentions.
In the critical period from 1945 to 1948, the correct assessments by U.S. military intelligence that the Soviet occupation forces in Eastern Europe were worn out and posed no threat, were supplanted with the Gehlen organization's lie that these same forces were a major military threat posed to invade Germany. The rest is our history, known as the Cold War.
Christopher Simpson,
Blowback - The First Full Account Of America's Recruitment Of Nazis, & Its Disastrous Effect On Domestic & Foreign Policy. New York, New York, U.S.A.: Grove/Atlantic, 1988
http://www.namebase.org/books43.html
A little known episode in American history is the landing of American troops in Russia to fight the Communists. The United States, along with Canada, Great Britain, France, and Japan became entangled in the civil war which followed the Bolshevik revolution. It was World War I and the Soviet government had negotiated a peace treaty with Germany removing them from the war. America and its allies joined with the White Russians, who promised to stay in the war, to fight the Red Army.
...
To Americans, this campaign is a little known minor incident of World War I. But to the Russians, who had great pride in their ultimate victory, this was the "American invasion."
http://www.historywiz.com/invasionrussia.htm
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918-1920)
...the cold war was sustained for almost half a century without Russia invading the west, or even conclusive evidence that it ever intended to. "The archives have been opened," says the cold war historian David Caute, "but they don't bring evidence to bear on this."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html
Twenty years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency had a director, William Casey, and a deputy director for intelligence, Robert Gates, who believed that the Soviet Union was responsible for virtually all acts of international terrorism, including the attempt to kill Pope John Paul II. There was no intelligence evidence to support these charges, but Casey was a fan of Claire Sterling's "The Terror Network" that described a Soviet conspiracy behind global terrorism. Casey actually purchased the book and gave them to several of us in the directorate of intelligence.
Ironically, much of Sterling's information was based on the CIA's own "black propaganda"-- anticommunist allegations it planted in the European press.
At the State Department, then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his director of policy planning, Paul Wolfowitz, who is now deputy secretary of defense, also believed these charges, and the CIA was asked to prepare a National Intelligence Estimate on the Soviets and terrorism. This proved to be the most contentious estimate produced since the Vietnam War, another period of politicized intelligence.
http://progressive.org/media_1137
On May 6, 1976, then Director of Central Intelligence George H.W. Bush created a Team B to assess a 1975 National Intelligence Estimate by his agency on Soviet Strategic Objectives. Because the NIE did not endorse a worst-case scenario of Soviet capabilities, outsiders demanded access to the same classified intelligence used by the CIA in preparing the report so they could come to their own conclusions. The concept of a Team B competitive analysis had been opposed by William Colby, a career professional and Bush's predecessor as CIA director. But Bush, under pressure from President Ford, who was facing a strong challenge from right-wing Republicans in that year's primary, and Rumsfeld's Pentagon, which was trying to undermine support for Kissinger's détente with the Soviet Union, caved in.
The outside experts on Team B were led by Harvard Professor Richard Pipes and included such well-known hawks as Paul Nitze, William Van Cleave, and Paul Wolfowitz. Not surprisingly, Team B concluded that the intelligence specialists had badly underestimated the threat because they relied too heavily on hard data, instead of extrapolating the Soviets' intentions from ideology. According to some Team B members, "the principal threat to our nation, to world peace, and to the cause of human freedom was the Soviet drive for dominance based upon an unparalleled military buildup."
Although the Team B report contained little factual data, it was enthusiastically received by conservative groups such as the Committee on the Present Danger, whose members included Ronald Reagan, and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. But the report turned out to be grossly inaccurate. For example, it said that the Soviets would have 500 intercontinental Backfire bombers capable of striking the United States by 1984. In reality, only 235 were deployed. Team B also claimed that the Soviets were working on an anti-acoustic submarine, though they failed to find any evidence of one. The hawks explained away this lack of evidence by stating that "the submarine may have already been deployed because it appeared to have evaded detection."
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=140711
10 ways to sex up a dossier
...
1. Change the title
Until September 19 the drafts were titled Iraq's Programme for WMD. The published dossier was called Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. The change is significant. "Programme" suggests Saddam Hussein was trying to develop such weapons. The title on the published dossier suggests he already had them.
2. Harden the prime minister's foreword
The strongest language on the contentious 45-minute claim that Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction was used by Tony Blair in the foreword. He said Saddam's military planning allowed for some of his WMD "to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them".
Asked by James Dingemans, the Hutton inquiry counsel, whether that was "noticeably harder" than the draft, Martin Howard, deputy head of defence intelligence, replied: "I think that is fair, yes".
3. Change 'could be' to 'are deployable'
In the executive summary the 45-minute claim was presented in early drafts as Iraq "could deploy" or "could be ready". In the published version this was hardened to "are deployable".
4. Edit out references that reduce the Iraqi threat
The initial draft of the prime minister's foreword, sent from Mr Campbell to John Scarlett, head of the joint intelligence committee, reads: "The case I make is not that Saddam could launch a nuclear attack on London or another part of the UK (he could not). The case I make is that the UN resolutions demanding he stops his WMD programme are being flouted." In the final document, the reference to an attack on London is dropped.
5. Alastair Campbell suggests inserting a phrase to make the dossier "stronger"
Mr Campbell suggested to Mr Scarlett: "It would be stronger if we said that despite sanctions and the policy of containment, he [Saddam] has made real progress." Mr Scarlett agreed and a sentence was added to the text. The dossier reads that intelligence "confirms that despite sanctions and the policy of containment, Saddam has continued to make progress with his illicit weapons programmes".
6. Mr Campbell suggests changing 'could' to 'capable of'
Mr Campbell on September 17 proposed a change to the section on chemical weapons. The draft of the previous day read: "Other dual-use facilities, which could be used to support the process of chemical agents and precursors, have been built and re-equipped." Campbell suggested that "could" was weak and that "capable of being used" was better. That is what went into the final text.
7. Harden the nuclear threat
The September 5 draft said that so long as sanctions continued to hinder imports, Iraq would find it difficult to produce a nuclear weapon. It added: "After the lifting of sanctions, we assess that Iraq would need at least five years to produce a weapon. Progress would be much quicker if Iraq were able to buy fissile material."
Mr Campbell in a memo on September 17 to John Scarlett said the prime minister, "like me, was worried about the way you have expressed the nuclear issue, particularly in paragraph 18. Can we not go back, on timings, to 'radiological device' in months: nuclear bomb in 1-2 years with help: 5 years with no sanctions".
In another memo to Mr Scarlett on September 19, Mr Campbell suggested: "In these circumstances, the JIC assessed in early 2002 that they could produce nuclear weapons in between one and two years."
The final document said: "Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon in between one and two years."
8. Fail to correct media misrepresentation of the 45-minute claim
The dossier implied that the reference to Iraqi forces being able to deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order referred to long-range missiles. Yet Mr Scarlett told the Hutton inquiry that the weapons were in fact battlefield ones, capable of only short range. The impression given by the dossier, widely reported in the press, was never corrected.
When pressed by the inquiry to explain why he had issued no clarification, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, replied that in his experience it was difficult to persuade the media to make such corrections.
9. Intensify the threat to British forces by adding in a reference to Cyprus
Early drafts do not mention that Iraq's missiles are capable of hitting Cyprus. The final text reads that the missiles "could be used with conventional, chemical or biological warheads and, with a range of up to 650km [400 miles], are capable of reaching a number of countries in the region, including Cyprus, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel".
The inclusion of Cyprus is important to help justify the claim that the interests of Britain, which has a base on the island, were under threat.
10. Remove phrases that imply Saddam's intent is defensive rather than offensive
A key change in the dossier was made at the last minute. Jonathan Powell, the prime minister's chief of staff, told Mr Scarlett and Campbell: "I think the statement _ that 'Saddam is prepared to use chemical and biological weapons if he believes his regime is under threat' is a bit of a problem."
He added: "It backs up... the argument that there is no CBW [chemical and biological weapons] threat and we will only create one if we attack him. I think you should redraft the para." Mr Powell sent his email on September 19.
References suggesting that Saddam would only use WMD if attacked were removed.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/kelly/story/0,13747,1050931,00.html
...
Chalabi: Bastard Child of Gehlen?
But the U.S. Government's gullibility, and culpability in these matters, does not end with its danse macabre with National Socialism. From the abortive invasion of Cuba, through Dallas, Watergate, Iran-Contra, to the present imbecility of economic sanctions, Cuban "exiles" have distorted and debilitated American politics for more than four decades. All our knowledge of Cuba is what "exiles" comfortably ensconced in Coral Gables want us to think, just as our appreciation of the USSR was distorted by exiles from the Greater Germany Project. Exiles like General Gehlen.
Does this begin to sound familiar? Why is everything we are supposed to know about "the Greater Middle East" funneled through a foreign power? Do Ahmed Chalabi's alarming pronouncements about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction circa 2003 sound oddly similar to Reinhard Gehlen's ominous estimation of Soviet capabilities circa 1948? Will we soon hear alarming news of Iran's nuclear capabilities from Iranian exile organizations like the Mujahedeen e Kalq?
Gehlen's malignant ghost is laughing.
http://www.counterpunch.org/werther02232005.html
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