Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
CIA Analyst
to Iraq Tribunal: Wolfowitz
Pushed Multiple Investigations of “Pure Fiction”
December 1, 2016
I retired
in 2010 after a 27-year career with the CIA and for the first 20 years of my
career, I was a senior political and media analyst with the CIA’s open source
arm. That department monitors and translates speeches by foreign leaders,
newspaper editorials and other foreign news of interest to US policymakers.
Our job was
to analyze the speeches of foreign leaders and the political spin of foreign
media content and help the policymakers we worked with understand the
implications for US policy and interests. It was exciting, challenging and very
interesting work.
In early
2003, just prior to the launching of the US attack on Iraq, I was the senior
analyst in charge of Iraqi media at the Open Source Center. The political
atmosphere around the Beltway had become very charged amid allegations that
Saddam Husayn possessed WMD and there were active efforts afoot to link him to
al-Qa’ida and the events of 9-11. The drumbeat for war was in full swing.
One morning
I received a telephone call from the office of then-Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz asking us to find media reportage of meetings between al-Qaida
representatives and Iraqi officials. There was a strong implication in the way
the tasking was conveyed to me that a meeting between the two sides had, in
fact, taken place - possibly in Prague - and that we needed to find the
evidence.
I gave the
tasking my highest priority. I immediately contacted our overseas bureau in the
Middle East in charge of monitoring and translating Iraqi media. We had the
monitors/translators undertake an exhaustive search of all relevant Iraqi media
reports in our archives that might contain such information. We also leveraged
other resources available to us in Baghdad so that they could check on lesser
known Iraq media sources - we pulled out all the stops.
About 2
weeks later, we received a definitive response - there was no evidence in Iraqi
media of any such relationship between al-Qaida and Saddam Husayn’s regime. I
promptly reported this information to Wolfowitz’s office. I assumed that was
the end of the matter.
However,
about a week later Wolfowitz’s office phoned us again, asking for the same
thing - media evidence of an Iraqi government link with al-Qaida. So I again
marshaled all the resources we had and dedicated some of our overseas staff to
a full-time search. Again the finding was negative.
Again I
reported this back. Unbelievably, a few weeks the request came to us a third time.
It was slowly dawning on me that we were not providing his office with the
answer they wanted. We were being subjected to political pressure. We had
already expended many hours and many US tax dollars on this search - and I
trusted our seasoned media professionals when they said there was no evidence
of these allegations.
So I asked
Wolfowitz’s office where they had heard that a meeting between al-Qa’ida and
Iraqi officials had taken place - in the hopes that this might aid our search.
However, I never received a response to my request.
Of course,
we now know that these allegations were pure fiction, as were the allegations
that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.
By 2006 -
three years into the war on Iraq — the Bush administration officially admitted
it had no evidence of any Iraqi role in the 9-11 attacks. Nevertheless, the US
continues to devastate that country, to this very day.
It is time
to face the truth and hold our leaders to account for the terrible war crimes
committed against the Iraqi people. And it is time for the United States to
withdraw from Iraq and allow the Iraqi people to rebuild their country free of
foreign interference.
That is why
I have shared my experience with The People's Tribunal on the Iraq War – as my
testimony to the lies that led to the mass murder of so many innocent people.
It is my hope that the truth uncovered by the Tribunal will enable a national
reckoning and help us hold our leaders accountable for the past and present war
crimes committed against the nation of Iraq – crimes which could not have been
committed in the absence of the lies that were told to the American people.
Elizabeth
Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the
National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the
U.S. government, where she specialized in Middle Eastern political and media
analysis.
[4]
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/elizabeth-murray
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on CIA Analyst to Iraq Tribunal: Wolfowitz Pushed Multiple Investigations of “Pure Fiction”
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on CIA Analyst to Iraq Tribunal: Wolfowitz Pushed Multiple Investigations of “Pure Fiction”
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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