Ray McGovern

President George W. Bush used to complain that being president was “hard work,” but he has gotten over that. Now he says it “has been a fabulous experience.” Why fabulous? Well, a good part of it has to do with his past. When Bush screwed up royally – whether in his personal or business affairs … Continue reading “Jail Time for Tenet?”

Matilda is waltzing home from Iraq, and the Australians are lucky but chastened. Lucky for having lost not one soldier in combat of the 2,000 sent to join the "coalition of the willing" attack on Iraq in March 2003. Chastened because Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is now pulling no punches in decrying the subservience … Continue reading “Australia Bolts Iraq Over Bush’s Lies”

Stop! Please. Get beneath the hype over former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Not since John Dean told the truth about President Richard Nixon’s crimes have we had an account by a very close … Continue reading “McClellan’s Warning on Iran”

Dear Admiral Fallon, I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I drafted this letter in the hope it will be brought to your attention. First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, … Continue reading “Dear Admiral Fallon”

Is it because John Yoo, the former Justice Department’s hired hand, is such an easy target? Is it because of the cheeky, in-your-face way in which Yoo argues that the president has the authority to have your eyes poked out and your sons’ testicles crushed, because we are "at war" and he is commander-in-chief? Or … Continue reading “Yoo’s on First?”

Events of the last week offer a metaphorical glimpse at the delusion pervading President George W. Bush’s White House and other enclaves of Iraq supporters in Washington. Bush and the First Lady spent last Monday clowning with the Easter Bunny (White House counsel Fred Fielding having donned the costume). At the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), … Continue reading “Delusional Bush Dances Toward War”

Frontline‘s "Bush’s War" on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players’ trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation. Except for an inside-the-Beltway tidbit here and there – for example, about how the pitiable former Secretary of … Continue reading “Frontline: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late”

After one spends 45 years in Washington, high farce does not normally throw one off balance. I found the past few days, however, an acid test of my equilibrium. I missed the National Prayer Breakfast – for the 45th time in a row. But as I drove to work I listened with rapt attention as … Continue reading “Waterboarding for God, With Decency and Compassion”

Yesterday was a difficult day for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. It was hard to celebrate the fifth anniversary of our first corporate memorandum, a same-day critique of Colin Powell’s Feb. 5, 2002 UN address, when we could not escape the reality that this speech greased the skids for death and destruction in Iraq and … Continue reading “Powell’s UN Fiasco: Fresh and Festering”

When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as “the bowels of the agency.” As a current intelligence analyst responsible for Russian policy toward Southeast Asia and China, I worked very closely with those responsible for analysis of Vietnam and … Continue reading “Gulf of Tonkin Will Be
Tough to Repeat”